I have always been the teacher,
never the taught.
I understood how to silence
slammed cabinets and
cries of infidelity
with my hands
before they were big enough
to cover your ears.
I burned all
of my books
so that you never had to learn.

You are shore
and I am sea.
Our constant
divergence,
can’t you
see?

What would the world look like
if thoughts poured
through fingertips,
imprinting secrets on
window panes
dinner tables
library books
her arms
your back

I wonder.

Please listen to me
because I am too and I understand.
Your tears are waves that
washed you out with ache;
the ocean doesn’t know
what it has done.
Honey. Dear.  Sweet.
Put it away. Place it gently in the box
that God has given to every little girl
before she realizes her purpose
where she may keep her darkness quiet.
Darling, do not hesitate;
do not be afraid.

It locks without a key

Today,
I place my head in my hands.
I feel the weight of
crushing black
held back by
delicate dams,
the flicking
of thoughts
against my palms,
the ebb and flow
of heat on my wrists.

I am alive.

I have emotions
that are like newspapers that
read themselves.

I go for days at a time
trapped in the want ads.

I feel as if I am an ad
for the sale of a haunted house:
18 rooms
$37,000
I’m yours
ghosts and all.
- Richard Brautigan

At the wake of this tragedy,
you can’t tell the difference.
Cancer? Infection? Sadness? Bullets?
Ask the mother; she knows.

In the wake of this tragedy,
you can taste the difference.
Our people die this way.
Your people die that way.

The Berlin Wall may be
black and white,
but tears
are as clear as day.

The god of present tense
pushed the river along,
past the naked trees
and the quiet leaves
and the washed out trail
while
his sister sun
poured streams of
warm bright over it all.
"winter isn’t death,"
she said.
"winter is waiting."