Regret turns me
into a wilting paper flower
Good for nothing
but to write down what I love there
for another

Hello and welcome
to Too Trusting Anonymous!
(My name is Elice)

You've got a sense of gravity
that drew me into orbit.
My mind is spinning, spinning
so fast I can't ignore it.
I put my trust in you
like nothing else before
and suffer for it.


I gave too many chances
now we've made up a routine.
Why should we stay together
if you're somewhere in between?
I'd rather hear you say goodbye
than say things that you don't mean,
I mean, you're free to go, just know
when you're gone, my hands are clean.


You make a pretty promise
but oh, your words are weightless.
You get my hopes so high,
but when you kiss me, it's so tasteless.
You swear to guard my heart
and then you turn around and break it,
I can't take it.


I know when I am hurting,
you start to feel apologetic.
Once you know our history,
I don't seem quite so prophetic.
Such a constant state of disarray
surrounding us and yet it's
like a second nature:
Fall in love, forget my name.
Forget it.


You make a pretty promise
but oh, your words are weightless.
You get my hopes so high,
but when you kiss me, it's so tasteless.
You swear to guard my heart
and then you turn around and break it,
I can't take it.

lucid disorient, waking at dusk—
you can leave if you must,
but don't rush it.
my polished exterior, hiding a husk,
looks like silk to the touch,
so don't touch it.

lazing away
through both halves of the day,
I'd've lain in your aura
accordant.
but off you must go
so I won't let you know
that each moment,
your absence is torment.

i understand an evil urge,
you can talk to me

i understand a binge and purge
of all of kinds of things

i'll do my best to soften words
hard to believe

i promise if you want that
you can talk to me

I don't know what to do with it:
the way everything's making me sick.
I want some semblance of control
and not its dark-matter twin.

It all makes me sick,
to my heart and my stomach.
I can't seem to quit
and I can't overcome it.
So self-inflicted,
(or maybe it wasn't?)
The thought makes me sick
so I'll think nothing of it.

I asked myself Who are you when you get caught in the rain and I thought of myself (and only myself) and the time I was running to work when it started to rain and I dashed from tree, to magnolia tree, until I was able to pop in the convenience store.
And I remembered just exactly how many people stared, and the look on their (sheltered) faces, making it that much harder to be that person caught in the rain.

Here I am walking exactly as fast as this raincloud
and my eyes are puffy but my belly is full
and I have forty dollars more
than I'm used to.
I have forty-two dollars.
Plenty!
And at least I can see,
because I am looking.
It's just a mailman.
And some of those big scarlet bundles on big tall green bushes.
And maybe I've smoked my last cigarette?
I have some more so it's OK if I didn't, but maybe I did.
I am walking my feet in the ground, just as fast as this raincloud.
I am walking my feet to destruction and my mind to distraction
as fast as this raincloud goes, home, and the long way.
And maybe I shouldn't speed up or slow down.
I took my first deep breath next to a trash can.
It's not going to **** me.
The first sight I saw was only a mailman
but I'm making my way to the park
where it's green by the fountain
and all I can be sure is I'm counting the leaves when I get there.

I can feel,
acutely,
the chasm in my chest.
Perhaps
it was Lewis
who thought and said it best.

My words are stifled echoes,
my mangled hands are tied,
and the heavy doors of Hell
are locked from the inside.

the world's silliest man is treating me to *** & breakfast.

giggles galore & in the early afternoon, he will be gone again.

you wouldn't ask the world's silliest man to take anything too seriously.

he does what he does well, and so, too, do i —

we get down to funny business, and it's nice.

it's nice, letting him be good & sweet & secret, in my eyes at breakfast.

he isn’t serious. you can only trust a silly man with silly things.

I know you think I know the truth.
all truth, or so you thought.
I think you think I am the truth.
or was (but I am not.)
And I know you think I know that,
but I left it all unsaid.
The truth is I'm holding a bird in my hand,
but the bird in my hand — it is dead.

pop visions,
ever-present
pop visions
cloud my dreams and nightmares,
follow us into the bathroom mirrors
where we powder our noses,
vibrant and tired.

energy, channeled
from the TV channels,
transmitting waves of hate
below perception.
Speak in subtle undertones,
control all of the animals.

pervasive, invasive
pop visions
warp my form and leave me
listing
for something so
familiar and foreign.
my best friend and most
threatening enemy.
And though I denounce it,
what would I be without it?

it seems there's no escape.
things have always been this way.

even in rejection,
all too fitting a reflection—
all consuming,
all consumed by
pop visions.

Of your flowery features,
I am student and teacher.
I am learning to love you
like deep-breathing ether.

You pick me a peony
and cite similarities—
colors and frills,
and pretty, apparently.
You tell me,
regarding
its duo
of shades,
what tempted your fingers
and called out my name:

The lighter of petals,
the curl
of your lip.
The dark, all your freckles
and dots.
I have fallen
in love
with your features
just like those
of flowers—
Please forget
me not.

Well, no.

There are ghosts in your old haunt.
You push the door as if you'll find her,
but the silent apparitions
never treat you any kinder.
Their sole purpose anymore
is for a good scare to remind you:
What good is it to lock a door
you don't pull closed behind you?

I’m a propagation of
my oldselves, born anew.

Every broke & breaking Me,
  rooted loose or deeply
in the ground, neatly plowed:

a new timeline.
—I’m Prolific!
I spill, over, over;

mended heart,
A tempered shoulder,

Each node of mine,
Stuck
in the ground; water
luck and a blessing

You'll find ashes in the keys
from when I burned to stop the bleed,
and you can choose to think of me
but I know you won't.
When you go to say you're sorry,
I hope you don't.

We love ourselves so much
we program children.
The while, each day
we watch as we
become our mother,
mother's mother,
mother's mother's mother,

I had dreams that stuck with me
     They stuck with me.


I had a dream you love me
Lady, love me.
      Love me!
     love me,

H-h?hold and
You can touch me

Kiss me (lightly,
(Lovely (lovely)

Softly
        ugh

she’s all Complete and i
Could never get enough

(!) please
Put yourself above me

Lush and comely,
Lady lovely

I know it's the last thing
that you want to hear
but he made me feel
like you make me feel.

It's not that I'm trying
to hurt you, I fear
though, that he made me feel
like you make me feel.

I need to know
what I'm feeling is real
so, "Get out of here,
do not bring yourself near me."

(I'd rather stay quiet
and cry myself out
if I'd otherwise cry out
while no one could hear me.)

-

it’s all quiet but you snoring upstairs.
the harmonized hum of the kitchen,
a bird down the block.

A musical masterpiece,
synchronized symphony;

It’s like you all practiced for hours.


I can’t help but notice
the peace you bring with you;
as in, its shear force.

It blows back the curtains,
leaving nothing in its wake.

Can you believe it?
Nothing.

No fear; no questions, doubt.
I have so long dreamed of this;
a gentle, subtle bliss.
This quiet nothingness.


With the exception of you snoring.
some hums in the kitchen,
a bird down the block.

oh, it’s starting
oh it’s starting.
Oh it’s starting
Oh it’s starting!
Oh, it’s over
Oh it’s over
oh it’s over
oh it’s over

Grief is a tough customer.
very demanding,
never satisfied.

A debt collector,
with letters in caps.
How do I tell them you’re dead?

I saw you blue.
felt you cold,
smelt what replaced your blood.
Now you’re reduced to rubble.

Kiss your urn,
warm in my hands.
See you when I blink

What comfort in knowing,
wherever you're going,
the path is left
up to your willing.
What safety in saying
the life you are paying
is spent upon
only your bidding.
Your sense of control
seems so admirably droll
though, in hindsight,
it did the misleading.
Because life has one cost,
earned at death, then it's lost.
Rejoice: life is only
your meaning.

•
•
•
this morning, walk to work with you.
Better than ***.


I think that we've figured it out.
If we want it forever, then now we know how
.

I imagine you'd kiss me,
take my hand, read my note;
smile for the words that I,
weeping, once wrote.
Unsure what to do,
I know one thing I can:
No one can stop me when
"I have a plan."

I   measure    the     weeks

in        the   number       of      Tuesdays

I use   to water   the  Beautiful  orchid

from    the   Most  Beautiful,  Graceful

of   women.   I bet there is something

to    be    said         about      the    very

particular     care           of    such      a

Beautiful, Graceful   flower.   Not  her

it   seems,   as   she's   taken   so freely

to   me.      A   reminder  and  a gift,  a

                                          Beautiful  gi­ft.



Three.          Technically

I forgot once.

and that Wednesday (4)

is  a bright orange tally

on  the  chalkboard  in

my mind.

        Everything is fine.




Three   or   four   weeks

and it's almost Tuesday.

it’s all static if I can’t hear you.
all the same volume, meaningless

I am looking all over to grasp you,
— tell the others I found you

my only-ever prayer
to you, I love
forever.
(amen)

to wonder is simple and human and fine;
but it is to relinquish control that’s divine.

we certainly got  to know
somethings about each other
but to know really  nothing
,maybe that's the thing
we have  in common,
and i think that's fine.
.
.
.

why do i wait til it’s bad
to do something nice for it

all I have to offer are these ugly, ragged breaths.

They had your funeral,
there was no eulogy.

I want something to feel.
so bad.
I'm having
pizza guy fantasies.
Looking through the peep hole,
my hand on a crisp 20

I use your urn
I use the heart shaped velvet box I keep your urn in
to prop my phone up during therapy.
A choice I may choose to examine.

I keep it in my “workspace”,
a workspace I neglect
until it is time for therapy.
telehealth with Sherri Steele,
a professional


It’s a place so hard for me to be,
to think, to straighten up.
Sealed letters, dried flowers, undeveloped film.

then I walk away when it’s over.


There’s a secret
I do not disclose


to Sherri
or myself


In lucid moments I can see
the shade you colored my life when you left.
Out of focus, still on my mind

a crushed, pale blue.

Everything in my life is great
and I can’t touch it.
A hundred million miles away from you,
from gratitude -
my mind can’t reconcile.

I don’t learn.
I don’t think.
I dissociate.

My astral body
has anxiety.

There is no such thing as mindfulness

If I'm quick enough to smile
before you do
at me,

you straighten,
then relaxedly
soften
to touch.

I love you so much.