i. i've spent all of this time running,
and suddenly you're right in front of
me and it feels as though i've rushed
straight into a brick wall of compassion
and selflessness and it makes me feel
twice as selfish because i do not need
you right now

ii. i've always worn war paint instead
of blush and i never wear a helmet
because i'm too headstrong and my
heart has been clad with an iron lock
and it's so cliche but i swallowed the key —
not because i was afraid of letting people
in but because i was afraid to need
somebody

iii. i get nightmares every tuesday about
the time you rested your hand on my cheek
and stared at me and every sunday i am
reminded of how it felt to be trapped between
you and your mangled cotton bed sheets
and mondays are the worst because i can
only think of the saturday that i told you
i hated you and i can still smell the sadness
in your eyes

iv. it's been three hundred and thirteen days
but i deleted your number and forgot your
middle name and i moved away because you
still remembered that white roses were my
favorite and i know you think that this was easy
for me but i was only trying to make you
understand something that you could never
wrap your head around

v. this is my civil war
(you cannot save me from
myself)

well not really… though I told
every grinning green Catholic soul
at my school I did that and more

I did smell the wine on her breath
and watch her trip into the trailer  
her gown hitting the floor  
before she closed the door  
her body as white as the fake snow  
spitting onto the set, and
as cold perhaps

I was sixteen and she was fifty one  
this was my one and only, her last,  
flick, not fling, though I would have
cut off an arm for it to have been so  
not the arm she touched  
in our one immortal scene together…  
her electric hand,  
all the blond hairs on my forearm standing at attention  
me wondering if the camera caught
their helpless vertical veer  

it mattered not, most of the scene
landed not on the screen, but
the cutting room floor, my two lines slashed to one  
my 48 seconds with her shaved to 22

I did not cry when I heard she died,
twenty months later, but my lie seemed soiled  
once she was in the ground
I confessed to Father Ryan  
he was silent when
I asked what to tell  
the fools who believed  
the dying star lay with me  
simply because she said,  
“Call me Vivien, not Ms Leigh”

you're pretty during the day, but
you're beautiful at night when the
only light in the room is coming from
the dreams that are spilling quickly
out of your mouth and your hands are
shaking because they have never held mine
but i want to fill yours with phrases like
'i drink my coffee black' and
'tuesdays are my favorite days'
so you can get to know me without my
tongue quivering and creating broken
sentences that you wouldn't understand
and your skin is soft and your hair smells
like peppermint and i want a love with
you that's more picturesque than your cupid's bow is
and i want to kiss you so hard that
you won't forget it because
i know i won't forget
you

My thoughts return to burning frozen logs in the darkness by myself. It brings me a lot of pleasure to burn frozen wood, to see the cold water bubble out of the tightly dead fibers. Purity in destruction. Rebirth in combustion.

It reminds me of something I'd like everyone to know: I've seen the most haunted looking tree give golden leaves in fall. I like to think that even though it lead a dead, scared life, time has spun its rare sugars into ichor all the same.

That is why we must bleed. It defines us, makes us gnarled and twisted and ugly. But when the wheel rolls all the way, it pulls out the golden flax that we were spinning all along.

The murderers who loved the most, the thieves who stole in furious tears unbeknownst to themselves, they too bear golden leaves. I hope you see that too.

World's a big place. Not enough words to build a paper mâché of it. Live it for yourself. Most of all, love.

Goodnight.

Is gold
All you poets slay me
Please take my hand in chaotic marriage
I am happier to love than I was before

Thanks, fellow Doritos babies
And anyone who came before
Also thanks to those that are youngest
Who I wish had more courage to write more

cure yourself by finding another boy, one who wants to hold
your fingers as you lose yourself in flaxen
starlights.
cure yourself by singing until your throat chafes
like sandpaper.
cure yourself by telling yourself that you are the moon,
and the moon is you, and she is laughing with you,
shining for you, waiting for you to glimmer.
cure yourself by finding the right people, the ones who
grasp you with splintered paws and souls
searching for whatever tastes like bubblegum.
darling, you won’t be cured right away,
take it day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute,
don’t forget to watch the sun
rise, to smell the coffee with shaky fingers.
cure yourself by watching the cream dance with the
shadows.
bruises are only
temporary.