I want it all, all of you
like your the last drop of my favorite drink.
I want to unzip your every secret and fill them with sunlight.
Feel my cheeks burn with the heat of your lips on mine.
Feel your warm breath on my neck and wrap you up in silk sheets.
I want to open you up and fall inside
Ill hold you closer, and we'll pretend that we're eachothers oxygen.

i love to count
the wintry things
two lips

the tundra glides
                past the slates
as, perched on wires, the crows wait
for their white coats
              to build

two covered boots
              walk the ice on the road
as the children and their bikes
stick out

distinctly red, half hidden in snow
the wet ice of the street
            two black tires

a trail of feet
i count five flakes
one cold face
one pink nose and two flushed cheeks
eight car hoods

mounds of snow piled up on each

snow,
            the snow falls
feathering down to the ground
            through the cold
settling down on woolly clothes

my tongue stuck out to catch the snow
landing, thawing, melted down

condensed. five, six, seven, eight,
thousands, millions
          an infinite
blizzard
        of snowy
children
dancing, muddy footprints

orange gloves on numbing digits

hot chocolate inside
snugly

both palms
around
        like a lighter's
flame
in a cold home

and the birds' wings clap
as they fly
from the branches
in the frozen
      barren
fields

my mother always said
"don't fall in love with a poet"
they pretend to love you
but what they really love
is writing about loving you
you are mere words to them
feelings cheapened by a page,
dusty grey typewriters,
and many unfinished drafts
of lovers both old and new,
you are the question mark,
but not the answer,
they are searching for ?
person unidentified: mystery
the page wanderer,
each poem a missing
person poster to cover their
bedroom walls.
they cannot love something
that is in their head
poets are the loneliest of
all people, my mother said.
they write to immortalize
what has long passed.
to live within their words,
but not reality,
lost souls writing suicide notes
and proclaiming it art.

My mother was a writer.
I remember her,
papers spread out upon a bed sheet in the sand,
stacked pebbles protecting her work from the wind
as I made drip-castles at the water's edge
and braided crowns from wild poppies.
I would run to her so she could
rub grape sunscreen into my sandy shoulders
and I asked her once,
“Mama,
is that poetry?”
and she said “No little one,
you are poetry,
this only tries to be.”
and I thanked her,
and ran back to the water
to search for flat stones to skip,
and thought no more of poetry.

Once upon a time I believed in a God that wanted nothing but the best for me

I believed in an extraterrestrial being that wanted to hold me up and say "I have a plan for you, sweet child."

But when I was 16 I almost killed myself by crashing into a tree because I felt so unworthy, so unloved that I couldn't possibly bare one more day

I was let down so many times, lied to infinitely, and finally after 7 months of prayer with no response I said '**** it' and let go of the imaginary man that was supposed to have my back

my second personality,
he loves you
and i hate myself but
he loves you,
he told me the other day
where to find you and
I didn’t want to look
my eyes were burning,
but his throat was too,

I feel bad for him sometimes,
he doesn’t think very clearly
but he knows how to write,
very well actually,
we have similarities,
we’re liars,
our brains are the same,
kind of,
we wear the same clothes
for the most part,
he takes them off
easier though,
he likes to yell
and get angry
at nothing,
he hits things
and i wake up with the scars,
he’s selfish, he doesn’t
believe in karma,
he has no conscience,
he sits outside
and watches his breath solidify
and doesn’t feel the weather,
he likes to bury memories
and then sleeps with shovels,
i shower every day,
he doesn’t,
i can feel him coming,
i have to go,
i’m getting scared.

bodies awash with
sin and self loathing-
we fold into mutual
affections
like water.

pinpricks of light
force holes through
the curtains
and I hold your gaze,
mathematical
and steady.

my thoughts stumble
over broken lips
to bleed out into
the space between us
like a spring pig
at the slaughterhouse

and you smile,
trace my jaw
with your index finger,
but the words just
hang there
with the dust
glittering in the light.

touch me,
i'm real.
forgive me,
i'm ill.

the wind turns my apple tree
into a victim, a lover banging
on a closed door of gnarled wood

a dance makes this ringing evening
singular, the leaves agree to fall
in the dull faith of  moving air,

they tell us about birth and departure,
about leaving together, about  stories
of ending as the sun arcs and protests