I remember the way you used to hold me, as we were both cuddled on my couch, watching re-runs of my favorite show. I would laugh too hard at a joke and you would just smile and wonder how you ended up there.

I remember the way my head felt laid in your lap, the way I hummed in appreciation as you wound your fingers in my hair, my mind slowly drifting in and out of consciousness. The sound of your breath created an equilibrium I only reached when with you.

I remember how upset I was when you woke me up to say goodbye.

I would exonerate myself, telling my mind that the scars across my heart were not his fault, he had no idea.

I remember your texts at 2 in the morning, explaining in full detail the purpose of your midnight snack mission, our arguments about which fast food joint held the best strawberry milkshake seem so distant.

I remember us, but now it just seems like just you, and just I.

Good morning's and good night's aren't blended together anymore, I wonder if the world will ever smell like you again.

I still relish in those moments, wondering if one of these days, you will call me in the middle of the night and tell me you're outside my front door, waiting for me to open it. That it's about to rain and you're afraid of getting wet because you need to be held and you can't stomach the thought of me catching a cold whilst engulfing you

(due to the icy drops falling from your hair and into my eyes. Silly you, those are called tears, and they've already made their home.)

But that's not who we are anymore, because you no longer send me texts telling me why you're driving around the city in the middle of the night, and we don't spend hours in each others arms anymore.

You've discovered the one thing I've managed to keep hidden. And as you hold it between your fingers like some sort of work of art, you begin to study the chips and bruises, wondering how I could let such destructive damage be done. But you cannot see that it is you who has caused it to bleed. Now your nails are digging too deep and your grasp is too firm. And as it pumps out what is left of the love I have for you, dripping off of your fingertips and burning a hole through the ground beneath us, I know it is over.

You aren't fighting for me anymore,
you never really were.

But can you love me in the deep? In the dark? In the thick of it?
Can you love me when I drink from the wrong bottle and slip through the crack in the floorboard?
Can you love me when I’m bigger than you, when my presence blazes like the sun does, when it hurts to look directly at me?
Can you love me then too?
Can you love me under the starry sky, shaved and smooth, my skin like liquid moonlight?
Can you love me when I am howling and furry, standing on my haunches, my lower lip stained with the blood of my last ****?
When I call down the lightning, when the sidewalks are singed by the soles of my feet, can you still love me then?
What happens when I freeze the land, and cause the dirt to harden over all the pomegranate seeds we’ve planted?
Will you trust that Spring will return?
Will you still believe me when I tell you I will become a raging river, and spill myself upon your dreams and call them to the surface of your life?
Can you trust me, even though you cannot tame me?
Can you love me, even though I am all that you fear and admire?
Will you fear my shifting shape?
Does it frighten you, when my eyes flash like your camera does?
Do you fear they will capture your soul?
Are you afraid to step into me?
The meat-eating plants and flowers armed with poisonous darts are not in my jungle to stop you from coming. Not you.
So do not worry. They belong to me, and I have invited you here.
Stay to the path revealed in the moonlight and arrive safely to the hut of Baba Yaga: the wild old wise one… she will not lead you astray if you are pure of heart.
You cannot be with the wild one if you fear the rumbling of the ground, the roar of a cascading river, the startling clap of thunder in the sky.
If you want to be safe, go back to your tiny room — the night sky is not for you.
If you want to be torn apart, come in. Be broken open and devoured. Be set ablaze in my fire.
I will not leave you as you have come: well dressed, in finely-threaded sweaters that keep out the cold.
I will leave you naked and biting. Leave you clawing at the sheets. Leave you surrounded by owls and hawks and flowers that only bloom when no one is watching.
So, come to me, and be healed in the unbearable lightness and darkness of all that you are.
There is nothing in you that can scare me. Nothing in you I will not use to make you great.
A wild woman is not a girlfriend. She is a relationship with nature. She is the source of all your primal desires, and she is the wild whipping wind that uproots the poisonous corn stalks on your neatly tilled farm.
She will plant pear trees in the wake of your disaster.
She will see to it that you shall rise again.
She is the lover who restores you to your own wild nature.

because he is a successful man
because he wears a suit and tie
everybody, let's rally around
we should listen to that guy
-
-
-
because he lives in a cardboard box
because he just wants to die
everybody, let's look away
we should ignore that guy

you are one good thing,
in much that is bleak
but your made up of,
many good things,
like your laugh,
a special treat

i say this because,
it hardly comes around
i wish i could invite it to dinner,
and take it out to town

because when your goofy grin,
appears right out of thin air,
i think just for a second,
i might be good enough,
to dare

to love you,
and care for,
every good thing that you are,
and tell you how much i wish,
i could compete,

because all my good things,
have been previously scared

A little poem stirs me awake
in the morning, before the alarm goes off.
It follows me around as I brush my teeth -
dashing left and then right, pecking
continuously at my unkempt scalp

In the afternoon it is the shadow
that sweeps the dusty street behind me,
imitating my short heavy steps
pretending to be on its own journey

I nudge it gently away as I enter the office
but it is the words floating from my boss' mouth,
the hot tea warming my assistant's cup
the glass windows as they swing back and forth,
and the tiny drops of water that magically
turn to air as soon as the cleaner's mop leaves the floor

In the evening when I sit to read a book
it ghosts ahead of my eyes,
stooping after every few words
to put the next into a plastic bin,
transforming the page
into a crossword puzzle

Until finally I throw up my arms
shuffle to the overpopulated table
and begin to unravel the message
sent from the neural galaxy
that was awake when the rest of me died