and with the last straw
my back
collapses, rips open
my chest
devours
my throat
my words
my lungs
my breath
leaving

my heart

exposed to the cold of

my alone

if I am going to be
lonely
I’d rather be
lonely

alone

the more the words

f

a

l

l

from my lips
the more the shame

f

a

l

l

s

from my body

i will endure every

breath

of heart

break

for a moment of your love

and as his face fades from my mind
I can read these scribbles and find
sinewy arms around me
long legs folded into mine
but the cars



whooshing



                                 by



                                                       outside



do not sound the same

every photograph traps a fragment of your soul

how
many
more
must
i
take
to
lose
the
part
of
me
that
is
you

I turned off my feelings

but

I lost my words

swift

                             messenger of the gods do not

slow

                              yourself because they cannot

keep up

a
million
what
ifs
and
all
i
can
do
is
write
love
letters
to
no
one

the S glissades between my teeth

the L throbs on my tongue

the O swallows you whole



a lovely word but not nearly as lovely as the



smooth
silk lines of your
skin



the word undulates on my lips
but my tongue belongs to your body

Arch
your back
pull the strength from your core
through the angles of your arms
and out your delicately pressed fingertips
feel the earth’s energy beneath your toes baby girl
inhale it

Aim
somewhere
the idyllic meadow
the eerie woods
the mystical swamp
anywhere baby girl
the world is yours

Let go

Follow
your arrow
but should you feel lost
remind yourself you shot
not from your feet
nor from your head baby girl
but from your heart

you have the power to turn

feelings
into
words
but

that is why the

feelings
must
crush
you

I
can’t
get
you
out
of
my
words

I yearn to
unfold your mind
sense your moods
inhale your essence
but how can I
when

I cannot get my fill of
tasting
you and of
tracing
my
fingers
along
every
inch
of
your
skin

I fear not
the astral projection
but
that I might
wander too far
from
my body
from
my mind
and
that I might
choose not to return

A million moods
a million words
a million pieces

I am sure
the finished work
is stunning

But I seek
the beauty
of the chaos

I would say I’ve lost
faith in humanity but
                                                      we are not human.

Take your heart
Unravel it
Uncoil the heartbeat
Into staccato imprints
Record your song

Take your dream
Feel it
Pull the colors
Through your fingertips
Paint your picture

Take your mind
Study it
Rope the chaos
Into a river of words
Write your story

Once upon a time
There is a horse
Curious and free-spirited
The other animals love her
And she loves them
Yet she keeps her distance to protect herself

In the same once upon a time but far away from the horse
There is a goat
Soft but determined
The other animals love him
And he loves them
So he embraces them as their leader

In the same once upon a time in the same place
The horse meets the goat and they dance
As you can imagine
It is a spectacle for a horse to dance with a goat
So it is for the horse and the goat in the once upon a time
The vortex of their opposing energies spins them around one another
Unable to pull away

Until the goat’s once upon a time in another place calls him home
He ends their dance
But not their pull to one another
Unable to look away
Fascinated by the other’s body
The other’s movement
The other’s spirit
The horse watches the goat
And the goat watches the horse
Both waiting for a chance to dance again

you will never
touch him
the yearning in your breast
the tingle of your flesh
he will never
glide his hands along your silhouette

you will never
kiss him
the desire burning in your core
the ache of your body to press against another
he will never
inhale you as his lips devour yours

you will never
let go of him
the heaviness in your chest
the invisible breath along your neck
he will forever
float beyond your grasp to haunt you

the beauty of the
word heaviness - it sounds as
heavy as it feels

A moment
Beyond the people
Beyond the manufactured noise
Beyond the cement and plastic landscape

Armed with pepper spray for the bears
And a knife for the boys
Just in case
I run my hands over the world

heartbreak is a cute term
don’t you think?
when really it is
knotted stomach
caving chest
gasping lungs
they call it
heartbreak
but your entire
body
collapses
into itself with
unrequited longing

I turn my feelings into words not
to give them to you but
to give them to the universe
praying she can lighten the weight of my heart

They say you will treat me how
I let you

I let you
melt me
when I kissed you and
you swore the lights flickered like magic
I let you
warm me
when I told you I ate lunch in the middle school bathroom alone and
you murmured you would join me
I let you
ignite me
when you asked me to slow-dance
in the park pavilion
in the living room
in the stars of the red rock wilderness

But when I promised you were special
I let you
say nothing

We come here to burn
baby to burn and then to
rise from the ashes

I should ask her
if
she cares that I am cold
or
if
she begrudges the youth of my bare legs

I should ask him
if
he desires me for Christmas
or
if
he misdiagnoses his bitterness as lust

But
I hide behind the curtain of my hair until I return to my dog
and
together we escape the men who hate women
and
the women who hate women

Years I circle the sun but
the moment I collide with you I combust



I

burn

and

baby

I

fall



I        dance        across        the        night
                                           glowing for all

I will
spin
for you.  You will be unable to
rip
your eyes from me as I
twirl
across your horizon.

I will
wind
you up and
pull
you into my core and we will
gyrate
for a moment before I
rip
you apart and
destroy
everything around me.

you unwrapped me
you wrapped your arms around me
and i was tied

you said i kissed your lips
i am never
so bold
and i never
stopped thinking about you

champagne and confessions
i let you in
untie me expose my skin
and my soul

i let you touch me
admitted
i needed
and gave myself
for just a moment
my whole

too soon
i folded back into
myself and returned to
the present

They say
it takes
seven years
for a
body
to replenish all of
its cells

Only
six years
six months
and
twenty-eight days
left
until
no trace of you
lingers
on my skin

No tickle
from your lips
on my neck
no stickiness
from your fingers
on mine
no bruises
from your hands
on my arms

There is
hope
for this
broken
body

They say
it takes
seven years
of
bad luck
to recover from
a shattered reflection

There is
hope
for this
broken
soul

We claim women we deem beautiful
We steal pebbles from the Earth herself
We pluck roses from their homes
And display their deaths in ours
Beauty without possession is still
Beauty
But our covetous hands crave more

relax
take a
deep breath
feel it
in your chest
fill the chambers
around your
heart
step outside
let it go
all of it then
count the stars
remember the
Sun
is just
one
of billions
You
Beautiful
Intricate
Spectacular
are
one
of billions
take another
deep breath
let it go
all of it

They say the heat melts you
Not her
To suggest anything to do with a liquid
Would be to lie
No
She evaporates you
Slowly takes from you and
Distributes to the universe.

She never means to destroy
But how can she understand
You lack her conviction
Her ability to withstand fire
To dance in it
Should she stop burning so brilliantly
Because you cannot endure
Her warmth?

She burns
She does not mean to be
But she is alone.

You have no tears
Volcanos pockmark your skin
Scars left behind the turmoil that was your soul
Every once in a while
The universe still throws something your way
An asteroid
Anguish
Your skin craters
But your core unmoves

The volcanos no more erupt their fury
The veins no more bleed
Can something wrung dry still freeze?

Sometimes I cry out
Searing pain where my other lung used to be
Heart is the cliche but she still beats
Breathing on the other hand has become laborious
Longing muscles and unrequited joints
Are all that remain of what was
They say to use a mirror
To imagine you still there
To lessen the pain
I do

In every reflective surface.

She tucks away in his garage
Tarp-covered beneath a film of dust
Coveting herself, her past
Her gleam diminishes before the envious eyes of

No one.

This poet's a know it all
But you know it's not all
It's cracked up to be

Hopeless romantic
Or hopelessly pedantic
The syntactics
not important at all
She

Selects each word with precision
With its connotation
And her vision
Soldering it to her others
Delicately

Awaiting an audience
In a world who no longer reads
They nestle in their subtlety

Trading eyelash bats for diamond rings
Seems to be the
Trend
Her love depends

Love is no longer eternal
But correl-
-lating in yearly length to karats
Negatively I think

Give me a souvenir shop mood ring
Maybe in the shape of a sea turtle
Press it onto my finger
And promise me your heart

Every night he comes
Tiptoes across the cold floor
Tentatively slides his hand beneath your pillow
Slowly extracts the precious

And leaves a dollar in its absence.

Currency is no longer our currency

We bargain in likes
Auction off our attention to the highest bidder

Marriage certificates for sale by owner
No she will not trade religion for money
No way in hell

But as she beams in the spotlight
We lose her faith in her shadow

This is your love letter
You fold it to divide it equally between whomever you deem a recipient
Love doesn’t divide, it multiplies
But also

You can
only fold
a piece
of paper
in half
seven
times

Sometimes I just want him to love me to the extent I can love him

But no one’s paper remains as uncreased as mine

You discard your bra before you undo him
You spit out your name with your ****** fluids and clumsily pull your feelings back on after
You go home to your messy apartment and climb into bed with your conviction that this is what you want

I found a note in my phone titled “Poetic Epiphany.”  

It was blank.

I rhyme all the time
But am I wasting my mind
When all I want is to make
Poetry that makes
People understand
In a world where everyone
Seeks an audience and no one
Understands.

A long lost lover
Man returns to nature
In the summertime

His head upon her lap
He forgives the harsh winter
Shares a beer and an ideal between them

All that glitters is not gold
She twinkles
What is truly precious?