You skimmed my words and
smiled, almost
and you thanked me
as if I'd ever write for you.
I write for the ******* the phone every night
when she’s supposed to be sleeping,
so she knows she was never in love.
I write for the girl who lost sleep for
lovers who could not love,
so she remembers to love herself first
next time.
I write for the girl who thought
she knew it all,
so that she learns just how much she
doesn't know.
I write for the girl who’s learning that she can write,
the girl pouring her soul onto paper
in scribbles and corny metaphors.
I write for the girl who
wrote for the wrong people
so she can learn to write for herself.

He walks barefoot on rose petals and
mint leaves
his silent footsteps leave no
footprints
I'm scraping gravel and
begging
to be the ground he walks on.
Patience flourishes between his
lips
and hurls me sprawling awestruck into
love
and tearful adoration
for all the beautiful cracks in his skin
that ****** sunlight and smatter
glittering rays in
prisms across the ceiling
and thread all the raging gaps in my heart.
Of course he is artwork,
blessed by reason and
the mercy of the human experience,
highlighted
by his generosity and the way
his kindness ushers the blood though
my veins.
If not for his beaming soul, I’m sure
my ship would sit shattered selfish
at the bottom of the
livid ocean. And
if, after all his noble graces,
I can offer him nothing else, I
will
at the very least
fix his mirrors.

languidly glows in your cheeks,
just north of
the lip you split trying
to tell me you loved me without
saying you loved me.
Saturday morning
breaks burgundy behind
your head, silhouetting
every piece of heathered forgiveness
we earned without merit.
It rises and splatters
in my chest like laughter and it
shines from your eyes to
the edge of your jaw.
Saturday morning
solidifies sunrise in memory,
with its hallowed rays streaming
haloed from your long lashes. It’s
interlaced with the scent
of you,
suddenly flooding my shuddering lungs.
Saturday morning
swirls early in whispers like dew
steaming
toward balmy April ether.
It supersedes time as it
unwinds the hands on the clock,
flexing post-Friday and
stretching pre-Sunday.
Saturday morning is everything
delicate and divine
that is ever-coursing from
my soul to yours:
I love each Saturday morning
because I first loved you.

His voice rolls steady across my
skin, mimicking
the hair that curls so shyly
at the base of his neck.
It flips my stomach
and screams sight into my eyes,
and it takes everything in me
not to cry like I've never seen in color
before.
He tells me he doesn't dance, except
I can see it in the way he moves, when he
laughs or smiles or says my name; I know he
does
so I promise myself I'll
dance with him someday.
And with his hands pressed to my heart,
he gently erases the
grey skies from my old
paintings, rewriting
the ends of all my poems
and brushes his signature
on every one I’ve yet to write.
He
softly shines on my tired garden,
turning it greener than his
eyes as he
breathes my next breath
into my lungs. And I slowly realize
for all the years I knew him and did not love him,
I was seeds, in soil, shadowed, and
to love him is to see the sun.

Red midnight glares above my head
heating coals in my belly,
pushing tears from the corners of my
eyes.
Education, success, modernity
boil me - I scream to sleep cold.
Just outside the window rests
a faint outline,
the shape of my future.
A train shudders to a tired stop,
miles away
the driver
daydreams of going backwards
or getting off
I dream of today, now yesterday,
as I enter, sleepless, tomorrow: today.

The space between
my stomach and happy is
red ugly hot.
I feel my heart beating there,
thumping and stabbing
that is why I press my lips together
at the dinner table
and don't touch my food.

I am empty song silence,
written without words
heavy drifting from the earth
pleasurable deterioration.
Crumble with me,
run quick on milky tabletops
sweep easy like the dust
between rug and solemn shine
fit where no one is
meant to be.
Flattened, minus one dimension
ground to fine lines and
humbled there:
rest is nothing when
time is not.
I long for nothing
when nothing is me
nothing nothing nothing
lines and zeroes
nothing.

It’s because I’m dehydrated, isn’t it?
That’s why my knuckles bruise fast dark blue
why I jump without looking
and love angry men.
It’s why my eyes blaze crimson
and I don’t cry,
why food scrapes my throat and
why I don’t have a job.
My body must crave water,
my soul must crave success and rightness -
because they must.
But I never wanted safety,
I want to be dizzy and sick and spinning,
I want to be bone shattered and love lost.
In the end it doesn’t matter to them
what I want -
“Drink more water, dear,
put some stone in that glass heart of yours.”

Blindly first he walked,
trampled saints with righteous soles.
Blinder still he fell, kissed dust
writhed beneath the gaze of God.
Weaker still, buckled his knees
like pride and war and dark and faint;
chaos spans his vision now.
His horse was night and wrong and run.
He had no eyes for outstretched hands.
Where is your righteousness now?
It steams with mine,
it is mist and overdue goodbye
it evaporates with myth and law.
Drought waits for monsoon,
famine waits for feast,
he waits for light.
Now it floods,
bread breaks,
scales fall from his eyes.
Now is sight and scab and scar.

Darkness grins on the horizon
it looms and drags and coughs
I shudder and shutter my windows,
I board and splinter and nail and bruise and seal
and lock.
It's not quiet inside,
it storms in here too
it's acid rain,
it's sandstorm and blizzard
I'm igloo,
I'm fire,
I'm puddle
you echo and echo and echo
Won't you leave?
Why didn't you stay?
you echo and echo and echo
I scream and spill and slam and still -
in sudden silence
darkness seeps through
the gaps in the walls, then my pores
it's here, it's me
I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine
you're gone and
so am I.

My legs swinging at the counter
your soul sizzling in the skillet
my cheek pressed to cold granite –
is time running still?
Funny how the night turns
my palms to melted wax
they're stuck on your skin; I
dissolve.
We drift intertwined,
smoke into the detector
and
I'm sinking through the floor,
if you care.
If you don't
I'm gone,
and I was never here,
I never shuddered from your warmth
or cried into your pillow.
You could look for me but you
don't, do you?
You sit redly in the cold,
waiting for Love to love you.
I would be remiss if not to inform you
she is not I
we are not even acquaintances,
her heart and mine.
I am where you aren't searching
she is seated next to you,
waiting for you to give her
what you never gave me.

You're dangling again, darling;
existentialism isn't your color
flush bright and laugh skywards
finish your homework and fall in love.
You rise with blithe baroquism,
I can see it in the faint
shadows beneath your eyes
as you rush windward into past.

It's alright to love the program, honey,
but if you're over-cautious
you might turn too perfect.
Just don't while I'm alive, please,
for I love the curls in your words
and the feathers in your walk.

Be me when you don't want to,
and be you when you forget what it's like.
Just remember me around the edges,
paint me in the corner below your signature
and remember my kisses goodnight.

Eloise, I showed you my soul
you blinked and your mouth did not move
I wanted you to smile, Eloise,
I wanted you to shed a tear
despite your efforts to keep it in
I wanted you trembling in my arms
I wanted your salty cheek against mine
What did I lack, Eloise?
You hung the moon and
left me to burn on the sun.
You pinched my heart between your teeth
and kissed another's lips.
When lightning struck my empty veins,
your laugh was thunderously clear,
your smile like a lonely star,
burning as my universe dissipated into black.
Ruin me again, Eloise,
I’ll stand and melt in your acid rain,
your scathing apathy will puddle me
as it flows from your soul into mine.
Numb me, if you would, Eloise,
so I can be like you:
so my mouth does not move
and tears no more escape my eye.