I fly up river
So that I may
Cry
For you,

You, the seventh sun of Venus -
Impossible -
The prism rain dropping from nighttime,
An enlightened energy.

Why oh why
Must I cry for
You
Sweet love, togetherness is not for us;
We are apart,
Not a part.

I'm so dizzy
With your name
And my name
Bouncing around my skull
Like free butterflies let loose on
Everything -
It's your fault.  
Of course.

Still I cry -
We could have our love song,
Which is the beat of snow,
Ice blue stone
Cold hearts leak.
Oh dear
You'd say
Love, don't fret
I'd say
And you'd laugh your robin laugh.

But instead I
Wait,
Slow like the walls around me,
My head sinking beneath blanket waves
Just so I can
Cry.
**** this.
I hear my own song.
It's my
Heart.

They say
If you find
Yourself
S
    i
      n
           k
             i
                n
                   g
You should
Breathe
And watch
As pearls of air
Ascend skyward,
Because they're meant
To carry you
Back from the deep,
Which takes you
By your head
And pulls you
Upsidedown
Until midnight water
Slides into your
Slack jaw -
The shimmering pearls,
They string up your
Heart and tug you
By the chest until
You burn, and still
The stars pull you
Home.

I can't remember
If I loved you -
You, the woman
Who held me
Inside herself,
Watering me with her blood
So that I could grow
Until you were too small for me.  

There is an injustice
When you can leave
As though I am nothing,
While I am left to remember
That I couldn't exist
Without you.  

The thought leaves me bending,
Under my resentment -
Not just for you -
For all mothers, all fathers.  
For everyone.  

And that means myself,
And I fear that soon I may crack,
My rage bubbling up,
Ready to burn,
But before I begin to destroy
Water will leak out,
And I will curl in on myself,
Hardening like stone
Until that is all I am.  

I remember bits and pieces
Of you motherhood
And my childhood.  
They aren't bad.  

Sitting in the harsh morning light
You sleep, and I watch a film
About a girl who wants home,
Even if it's grey,
And in my hands rested a bowl of letter soup.  
I swear I saw the word "Mommy" in the broth.  

Running in the low light
Of a southern evening
My bare feet are tickled by blades
Of coarse grass, damp from the summer heat,
And I laugh
Because I hold wriggling stars
And I know you are there
But I cannot remember if your face held a smile.  

I did not know how to sleep
Without having nightmares
So I wandered
In the shadows left by candlelight
Until I found you
At the door, the scent of
Shellfish and beer clinging to your uniform;
Your hand, in between rough and soft,
Grasped my own
And led me to the couch
Where I would watch a flickering box
While you slept.  

These fragments
Glint like shards of glass
Embedded in my head
Refracting light
So that my skull is full of
Shadow.  

They aren't bad,
So why did you give them up?

You refused to make the break
Clean,
Choosing not to leave,
                  not to stay -
You had us
Jagged.  

I saw you,
But less and less
Until it became never
And you became nothing
More than a photograph
Exposed to sunlight
Before it had a chance to develop.  

I'm scared,
Because now I cannot remember
What your voice sounds like,
Or what your face looks like,
And you have taken the word mother
And you have made it something I cannot say
Without my heart ignoring my head,
Beating away in my chest with the knowledge that
I am unwanted
By a woman I cannot even remember.  

At night,
When the smell of the moonlight
Wafts in through my window
I still cannot sleep -
I suppose you were meant to teach me -
And I ask myself,
In the dark, because sometimes
It is better when you cannot see the words,
Have you forgotten me too?

I can’t sleep.
My brain, it won’t shut off.
Circles and lines
Thread together to create
Color, light -
Light, streaming like dust through my open window
In the purple air.
How foolish I am
To think dreams live with the stars.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

Most people think that sadness grows
Like a patch of dandelions floating away
Or a shadow with the setting sun.
They’re wrong,
Of course,
Because they do not understand.  
It is not their fault
But that does not make them any less
Ignorant.  
Sadness just is.  
Settling quietly, and, when you finally notice
It’s all encompassing.  
It is the sky, the sea.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

I am an asymptote.  
Stretching out a hand to humanity
Almost, I can feel their acceptance
Brush by my eager fingertips
But the fallacy of hope is dangerous
And I am left untouched.
A magnet that can’t help
But repel itself.
And my fingers are ungloved
And turn blue in this cold place
As I am left to stand alone
Waiting.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  





I look into a mirror made of sand
My face crumbling away with my breath –
The bits of grain become a desert,
A sea of beige
I am left to be lost in.
I do not know what I look like
Past my skin.  
This not knowing, it should scare me, but
Somewhere, in a place I do not like,
I relish the confusion.  
How sad you must think me
For enjoying
Not knowing
Who I am.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

Fear is something I pretend
I have never felt
With my line smiles and hollow talk –
Black, caustic acid dripping from my teeth
As I judge.
Who sits in my court?
I don’t know –
Everyone perhaps,
Or the people that remind me of myself.  

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

I feel the ground beneath my feet
As I walk to my future,
A dark tunnel,
Lighting my way with matches –
I don’t know if I’ll reach the end or run out first.  
The ground, it is cold, and shifts
Until I am falling without the pinpricks of fire
To highlight my blind spots,
The matches scattered in the midnight air.  


I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

I breathe in loneliness
Until my lungs ache
With stolen air.
Until my arms,
Laced with blue rivers,
Are touched by Moses.
Until my iron heart beats,
Rusting away.
Loneliness is like skin,
Layering my bones, my muscles –  
A coat for thin membranes that knit together
A stomach, a womb, a liver.  
Everyone needs skin
So that they do not fall apart
Their soft parts leaking onto the granulated floor
Until they become nothing more than water.
I have mine.

I shut my eyes
I do not dream.

You are fire,
Wild, without shape,
And volatile,
Always on the edge of engulfing
Both the delicate apple blossom
cradled in the tree’s strong boughs,
Or the butterfly’s wings,
Which are nothing more than painted dust,
And rotting bones,
Calling flocks of flies to forgotten flesh,
Or weeds
Spreading their tainted seed
To drain an already empty world
Until all are nothing but ash
Waiting to cool.  

Yet, had Prometheus not stolen you
And given you to man
Then where would we be?
Shivering in the dark,
Pale and blind like cavefish
Staring at our neighbor’s,
With our pin needle eyes?
At the specters of man’s potential
Serving as our reflections?
Living off of roots covered in soil
And meat still bleeding onto the stone ground?
There are better ways to live.  

We breathe fire,
It is only sometimes that we burn.  

You are not invincible,
Not like you would lead us to believe
With your searing touch
And hot tongue.      
Take away your air
Smother you with sand, with earth
Drown you with water
And you are reduced to nothing but smoke.  
A fire must be tended,
For when left alone,
If it does not destroy,
It will fade away.  



I used to think of myself
As the cold –
Not the snow,
For there is beauty there
And I didn’t believe myself beautiful –
No I thought of myself as ice
For ice can burn,
But it does not give back.
Then I met you,
You and your flaming heart
Running at a temperature hot enough
To thaw even the coldest
Patch of frost.  

When I look at you
This is what I see
But my words, when they are spoken
Are incoherent, meaningless
And I am left angry
For you will never know,
No one will ever know,
That past all the blood and flesh
You are fire.

What tastes salty?
Obviously potato chips.
Obviously a Californa girls hips.
Your lips after your tears
What tastes sweet?
Obviously the candy shop
Obviously an affair with a cop.
Your kisses in the morning
What tastes refreshing?
Obviously a cup of water.
Obviously a spring from the Alps.
Your skin in the shower.
Move me like the music and the rhythm.
Mold me like the sculptor and the ceramics.
My mistakes I have always shown on the surface,
But yours you have hidden deep beneath the sea.
These little black submarines,
They show in the shallows.
From encased in the hands of the small bird
that sits on your brain stem all day;
a little hope comes of me.
Or at least I muse it would.
I dream of you the whole night through,
and when winter comes I still dream of you.
And when age comes I still dream of you.
And when death comes to you, I still dream of you.
And in death I will come to meet the true you.
Don't take that the wrong way,
no one is behind me to back me up on this,
but you always say I don't know you,
believe me I really try too.
If you ever flew,
I would go with you
and the little birds would carry me through.

It's your sweet boyish laugh filled with all the glee of the universe
It's your devilish stare revealing the thoughts I want to observe.
It's the way you make me feel, so silly and jolly, my face split in two with delight
It's the comfort and warmth of your body I long for so badly alone in bed at night
It's the serenity of the atmoshpere around us that makes me miss the dreamy world we exist in together.
It's how you allow me to drop the weight from my shoulders and freely float, flying further.

This is what keeps me from walking away.
This is what makes me weak.
Chokes my soul to know you are making another feel this way.
Why do I let you do this to me?

You tell me I don't deserve this pain; that you made a big mistake.
You tell me you regret all that you did.
You tell me it just wasn't the right time or place.
You tell me sorry for the words you never said.
You tell me everything will be okay
And you tell me you miss me everyday.

This is what keeps me from moving on.
This is what makes me weak.
And so I tell myself to be strong.
Why do I let you do this to me?

You have your faults and I have mine.
I am sure as time continues I'll be just fine.