after the storm
an efflorescence
still drips the air
still the rain so near
only, just here
earth of fire, quelled  
where a storm seeps in
copper veined, iron blood
burning blue this place
of redolent warmth
unseen

[i'm sorry. i'm not very good at love letters. i've confessed my love to more angels than real people, but please hear me out on this.]
to the girl i ran into yesterday, with love from the girl who ran into you yesterday
i'm pretty sure i'm in love with you.
you left a handprint on my heart (a literal one;
your fingers curved over my collarbone like you were afraid you would break me)
i have cigarette butts for nerve endings
and i'm pretty sure that you must be a lit match
because i haven't felt this alive in seventeen years
please tell me you feel the same way.
i just want to feel your heart beat against mine, and i know we've only just met, i know you will probably never come to this bookstore again,
but if you say no i will pretend that this is a letter to the galaxy
(my favorite constellation is the one stretching across your shoulders;
a thousand and one stars disguised as freckles
play connect the dots with ligaments and fissures)
i will pretend that you are not the sun in my solar system
and okay, maybe i'm being overdramatic but have you ever looked into someone's eyes
and wanted to memorize every fleck of gold you see
i wrote down the things i want to know about you, a wishlist ten miles long
with nothing but your name on it
i wonder how you'd react if i held your hand in public
the sea swelling up to meet us there are wires from my heart to yours
and i know there is approximately an 86.3% chance you will never see this love letter but i wished on a star for something real
and then i ran into you
(i'm sorry again. i hope you enjoy to **** a mockingbird. it's one of my favorites.)
i hope your hair is still a preposterous shade of blue because it makes your eyes look like constellations
do you want to form a galaxy with me?
to the girl i ran into yesterday, who wore bright pink flip flops and had a tattoo of a star on her left anklebone,
i think i'm in love with you
please reply at your earliest convenience.

I wish you’d let the sky shine bright for you.
It’s so blue outside, the good kind.
Move the curtains to the side, sneak a glimpse,
Sip the air
slowly
and whistle it out.
Step carefully so you can hear the porch steps creak
and feel the wood under your bare feet without
worrying about the splinters. There aren’t any.
Just come outside.

The fields will part when the time is right,
and the sky will illuminate the guiding side.
And when you find that the earth can hold your weight,
that the world won’t collapse when you confess your fate,
you’ll see how the clouds shield you just the right way
from the hard rays of the sun, but you can still see the glow.
And it may time some time, your feet may burn and sore,
Blister even, maybe, but time heals all wounds, I swear,
Even the worst of heartaches.
Even my heart is breathing again, slowly.
It is

pumping.
Just consider that if glass shards can be glued back together, mirrors hung
back on the wall for Snow White to get ready in, and the
veins in my wrist sealed back up with love and rain,
there is another day for you to see.
I am not porcelain. I am weak,
But every time I am broken to the ground,
I rise like the willow tree.
There’s a reason she’s my favorite—
For she haunts her pleasures and cries all day,
But seeps her sorrows into the ground till her spirit
Rises back up through her veins.
The rings of the tree reflect not just her age, but her strife.
This woman has been broken. She’s crumbled yet rised.

She never dies, only cries.
The willow tree will always survive.

and when you stepped into my room to say goodnight and asked if I was okay I want to scream give me a hug and I can't sleep because the nightmares are ptsd flashbacks and I'm scared I'm getting bad again and I don't know whattodohowtothinkwhattofeel and I'm scared and lonely and no I am not okay no I am not okay because I'm not sure that being alive is something that wants me and I am so scared of letting everyone down and I just want to be good enough and I want a boy to hold me and to tell me that its okay and I wany to stop feeling ugly because ******* I'm pretty right right right please don't accept my ******* I'm alright answer because  too scared that I'll scare you if I tell you the truth but I need to because I want you to listen and then to want me I just want someone to want me why is that so ******* hard

I want to write about things, not just emotion.
I have trouble writing about god or the sky or my family but loneliness and love and obsession come to me easily.
And i may not be able to describe how the people looked and how the crowd cheered at the drag show last night but I can tell how my heart felt like it was going to brat with pride and how I smiled because I felt god in the place and I felt her smiling on us.
And I can't close my eyes and speak descriptions of what my sister looked like when she cried but I can remember how my chest contracted and I wanted to scream and shake her until she understood that there is a balance and she needs to learn that she deserves anger not just those around her.
I don't know how to put into prose what the soldiers in the civil war looked like but I know that when I closed my eyes and saw them in the fields and it was like the sun is shining where it used to be dark.
I can't write an ****** poem describing ******* someone. I can only say that sometimes your heart feels like it will burst from love or break from loneliness. And sometimes it does both.
I don't know what was said but I remember the emotions.
I remember the metaphors.
I remember the feelings.

If you would be my own
I would be your escape
and if you should ever need me,
you'll find me in the space
between your shoulder blades
your wings
at your command, waiting for unfurl.