I want to believe in a higher power,
but I feel such a connection to the Earth.
grass caresses my shoulder blades
pollen coats my finger tips

I keep my fumbled words in a pocket book with old receipts,
frayed on the edges
and yellowed with age
they stick around hoping that one day I can do them justice.

Love letters coat the walls of my lungs
I cough them up with bits of phlegm
and spit them on the sidewalk

I press too ******* pencils
break my fingers at the knuckles
but these fumbled words demand to be written

So I grind my teeth
and paint my taste buds
with half forgotten memories.

You told me I was your
terra firma
because you could always
count on me to be there
when even you
didn't want to be there

I relished the fact that you
would consider me your
anything
let alone something
that sounded so strong and
beautiful

Your extraplanetary misadventures
in love and lust and
all things fleeting
left your wobbly legs aching for
solid ground

But you should know
I'm here to hold you up
not for you to
walk all over

I, foolish lover
you, down-low *******
no loving for cowardice

I found dusk in you,
welcomed it willingly.
Almost forgot dawn.

I remember late nights
    Perched up against white stucco wall
       Listening to the radiator talk in tongues
And the crickets sing a symphony

I remember that burn in my throat
     Like creatures with claws climbing down from the bottle
       While you stared back at the room
Watching her dream of childhood memories

I remember I wasn’t her
    And I didn’t have that same transparent skin
      And I couldn’t see what she had dreamt
      


But I could dream, too

Do you remember when we
danced beneath street lights
that bowed
in the presence
of our youth,
to that hum
from power lines
that can only be heard
early in the morning
or late at night?

Lately,
much like the power lines,
I hum
but only
when no one
is listening.

I keep these feelings
like water in cupped hands;
desperate to convey them
but they slip,
drop by drop,
through my fingers
and never completely
make it to you.

She called from the hospital payphone.
The little genius girl who wanted to be a marine biologist
Now wanting to die?

I stood by the reciever,
My legs snapping like elastics to the ground
In an awkward embrace with the wall.
That was the last time I cried.
We were thirteen, then.
That was four years ago.

My best friend who I could have helped,
She is breathing right now
but I am not with her.
The death of my childhood.