if it were up to me?
   ****. it'd be cigarettes and tea
     and my giant cat by a giant window, and sparse furniture, and wooden floors.
it'd be a certain someone and poems scattered around every paint-splattered surface,
and writing on the walls in sharpie,
and tights and socks and sweaters and walks in the park.
          it'd be mid-morning sunlight and sleeping till noon and no walls separating the rooms.
         it'd be london or new york or maine or ******* canada or something -
something far away and obscure and artistic
where it rains a lot
so that i can dance.

They’re going to tell you you’re wrong
small, small people
with big agendas
they will tell you you are wrong.

Your shoes, your looks,
your hearts, your desires,
your needs, your car,
your houses.
All wrong.

Perhaps they too were told
they were wrong
The reasons, speculative at best
are inconsequential.

They are going to tell you you’re wrong.
They’re selling you something.
Food, clothes, houses, pleasure, salvation.
They want what you have
money, time, spirit, energy, ***.
And their best means
to get their ends
is telling you you’re wrong.

You’re not wrong.
You’re perfect.
You’re right and justified in
your character
your thoughts
your self.

What are they telling you?

In the corridors of the body,
In the halls of the jagged ribcage,
I milk the stars in her eyes
In a field of tissue and organs.
They fall from my memory
Into the hummingbird heartbeat
Which makes my body
Nostalgic warm.

I hated the way childhood tasted
Like sticky kisses from unfamiliar lips,
But I remember you softly,
As though thinking too hard about it
Would shatter the memory.

You’ve nested in my brain
And kept my small hands warm
With your big heart.
You are channeled into me
The way west winds
Whisper their messages in and out
Of metropolitan suicide suites,
Telling us not to jump,
To put the knife down,
Not to pull the trigger and
To get off the chair-
You are a lifesaver
In ways we can’t count on fingers
And toes.

My mood swings like a pendulum
In a long-broken clock
And I gently fray at the edges.
I can feel your hand on my face
And I am comfortable like a cloud.
I give my entire heart to you
Neck and all
And in return, you give me yours
Pale, pretty wrists and all.

Somehow, through the dresses,
The curled hair and the pink nails,
I felt you reaching into me
From some private distance
With eyes, hands and body.