Brittle fingers stretch
limb from limb, etch
piercing minuets against
the roaring numb;
deliver sharp secrets
through our desperate eaves.
Our frayed woes drawn fore
& aft across plucked
heartstrings taut with resin.
Each harbored note
drips bitter with ancient
nuance; a hollow crescendo
that sinks instead of climbs.
This refrain is
soured
in half-steps.
Midnight groans and shifts
its searing song a-lurch.
Cicadas chorus a thunderous
applause & we exhale.

Following fog from foreign lands--
sleep still etched,
dreams yet sketched to form.
Muffled clouds of shuffling sounds
submerged in deep & cottoned ears.
Grasping at whispered edges,
interrupted slivers dissipate & scatter.
Perforating an entombed quiet,
almost-noises punctuate the night
with cold finality.
Memories put on hold resurface,
conquering attention.
Dread sets in:
you are lost all over again.

When you came,
I fell.
Not like before,
not like I had a choice.
Spread across my face:
that foolish smile
you seem to know so well,
and a hint of something else.
That foolish smile
would never save me.
You knew how this might happen.
You spread your arms
and waited for me to choose.
And there was something else.
I fell into it;
in that moment
it came to me:
there was never any
saving me
at all.

The melting sky waned
a mixed pallor of shy and silent
as the day settled in for night.

The softening light
reminded me of you;
the moon,
fractured,
fell into my lap.

A gasping craw gnawed agape,
the quickest glint of desperate:
the pit of my stomach sewed shut
into itself.

The echoing silence moved
from open
to empty.

When my guilt paralyzes me,
when my shame makes me cower
under the piercing lights of discovery,
my shoulders melt.
Bone becomes fluid, leaks into cavities,
pools around my organs in puddles:
puddles that fill crevices, then freeze.
Molecules grow closer, fit to form,
cementing my fears together
like negative space on a statue.
My guilt and shame were read to me
like bedtime stories every night at nine.
My quilt was littered with secret hurts
to cover with shrugs and a stoic face.
I wasn't just taught to take the blame
and accept responsibility for that which I can't control:
I was taught how to bury it in the backyard,
how to papier-mache a mask
over my reddening cheeks,
to soak up my salty woes
and further solidify the facade.
As the years passed and practice made perfect,
my entire body became encapsulated in fear and pride.
Independence burned bright in my self-descriptions,
but all I truly had to offer was an island,
desolation built upon an inevitability.
I was taught to hold secrets like water,
a never-ending flood of pieces of myself.
My reflection once told me to stop:
there was so much debris, I was manic static
over a vital broadcast.
That hunger took hold,
ripped the pain right out of my lungs
like warm breath on a chilly morning.
But self-awareness dissipated just as quickly.
Acclimation; Stockholm syndrome.
I came to covet the shell,
unbreakable like the vice over your heart.
I was taught not to burden;
I was taught not to trust.

When my body turns to dust,
I want the earth to know it.

My knees will filter sunlight,
sparkling shards of broken glass
to feed the turned, fallen leaves.

From my hands will rise a steam,
lost from ghosts of wilted dahlias
and pulling beads from snail shells.

Softening footsteps in numbing silence,
my scalp will take root in boulders:
a lichen stretched anew.

The crunch of my nails will lilt,
a filling sound which bleeds the heart.

My heart, itself, a rotten composition
(spoiled as tender and cloying fruits)
will slip through Her fingers,
drench Her purpose in richness,
and swallow my searing in depth.

My skin, taken first as appetizer,
breeds microcosms of tiny dancers
and will never forget that feeling.

Collapsed and empty, one lung and the other
will cease to feed themselves,
twisting from entrepreneur to altruist.

Other sundry organs, bones, hair and ligaments:
a donation of retribution,
payment for what was stolen,
recompense for an unforgivable abuse.
It is all I have, and it will be everything.

My heels bite the pavement,
the cadence of Monday through Friday;
My shoulders are stressed
In spite of ergonomics.
The strangers who pass me,
eyes glossed with similar fatigue,
beat a shuffling rhythm:
the melody hypnotizes.

That's why I don't notice.
Walking just the same,
a pace not unlike the teller
or the lawyer in front of me.
They speak of a repast,
old haunts, new places,
television and sports.
Another measure, no sign of caesura.

When I find myself unsure,
uncertain of the cool ground beneath,
of the muffled grumblings
and the scrapes on my knees,
it feels like a dream.
“I'll wake up soon, I'm at home.
I've fallen asleep to the T.V.,
a wacky dream bred from the same.”
The breath on my neck is so hot.

Once my head straightens up,
the world once again standing still before me,
the weight against my body multiplies.
The floating sensation of sleep,
The feeling of a shell within a shell,
It dissipates and my insides are knots,
molten lava, churning against its crust
and my skin screams in tune.

The grunting and the pawing,
brusque lips are sinking ships.
There's not enough sandpaper
in the world to compare.
Those heels are dust,
their teeth broken and rotted;
Percussion takes a rest.

I am trapped inside my clothes.
Twisted like a snake around my body,
I want only to be free of them--
in any other situation but.
“Here let me help you with that.”
The words slither, covered in mold.
My every wish in that single moment
Answered, a betrayal; trite axioms abound.

Suddenly the weight lifts, is suspended,
a chance accorded to a plain old girl.
But my limbs are heavy, fear looms,
Justifications swarm my panicked mind.
“Don't be stupid. Give them what they want;
They'll leave you alone. Go to another place.
Return with some piece of mind:
no matter how fractured your body, you heal.”

But there's a light on overhead.
The unmasked man stares lustfully at my lips.
His uncharted groping is fervent, fearless--
his desire to be soon bestowed upon him.
Consequences do not glaze his feverish eyes,
and worry lies dormant, sets off no warnings.
The cage was set, the trap precisely executed
and there's no spoon to help me out of here.

If I could, I would unbutton
every cell in my body;
spread them out,
indexed and cataloged
for an easier read.

All of my secrets,
my dreams and quirks,
and the chemicals behind each action
laid in array for you
to decipher as you would.

When you had finished,
I would button each one
back into position;
one beneath the other,
snapped back together.

Then my secrets would be yours.

this quaking land
a fear within its faults
humbled man
chagrin anew
all wan memory halts

the woods will sigh
exhale the dust of yawn
forget to write
reply in turn
littering upon the lawn

a cabbage head
with grimace strained
upon
your doorstep
wilts

I can imagine
its eyes explained
redeemed
on summer
stilts

Les chiens qui aboient au-dessous de ma fênetre
Me rappelle d'un autre jour
Où je suis heureuse et contente--
Où je suis captivée par l'amour.

Dans mes rêves et pensées,
Ils font une promenade;
Ils me disent, «Tu n'es pas
Tout ce qui ton façade

Laisserait les gens, qui nagent
Dans les larmes chaudes
Avec les bras flechis
Et les yeux emeraudes,

Savoir,» et puis ils partent
Pour abandonner ses raisons
De vivre, d'aimer, d'être
Et ces mots dans une combinaison.

Je crie, «Attends!» toujours,
Et toujours, ils continuent,
Et je continue à les regarder
Alors que ses ombres diminuent.

Les nuages volent au-dessus
Des choses vivantes, fières,
Et j'espère quelque jour pouvoir
Trouver mes rêves comme ces craintes découvertes.

I am going to be a strict machine;
Amongst screws and bolts will be the blood of me.
With some twists and turns that carry through,
I will take control of all you knew.

For a head I will have a bowling ball,
A fixture so round, smooth, opaque, and small;
Holes to carry me, sleek surface to move,
A variable mass with headstrong dreams to prove.

My eyes will hold all to be seen around
That counts for more than even sky or ground,
Than sun or rain, than death or life:
Than pleasure and pain balanced with strife.

I'll elect to locate naught for an ear
To replace with silence the sounds of fear.
Instead I shall have a decorative lace
For all the good  it would do in its place.

Holding my innards will be a strong steel,
A robust cage built to withstand repeal.
It won't buckle nor bruise, fracture nor fall;
Its strength shall prove aspiration for all.

My foundation, the base on which I stand
Shall be something springy for when I land.
Smoothly mobile and long in stride,
They alone will be the source of my pride.

Discarded and buried, left to rot
Are all the scars and wounds you wrought.
Pieces spoiled,  marred beyond reason
I surrender to yield life in another season.

I want to tear open my insides,
let you read my intestines like tea leaves,
see the tumbling of my thoughts
& the hidden, quiet promises
my heart hums as it is set on fire.

I want to photograph that moment
when the flames lick my flesh,
igniting memories, passion, desire
& eating, too, evidence of past pulses;
rhythms erased in the fire of my desperation.

I want to show you a heart, newly formed,
bright red, wet, and yours forever.

Curve of clouded sky:
a pregnant future pressed against its limits.
Puffed cheeks full of destined secrets,
a compromise of molecules
sculpting form from pressure and restraint.
This gasp withheld:
drawn in anticipation
and silenced behind pursed lips
(a desperate consumption of hard-won pleasures).
Innocuous expulsion,
tempering fair-weather:
The quiet before the war.

I don't just want to be made;
I want to be remade by you.
I want to be unrecognizable
with a peculiar smile,
explosive, unexpected:
a candid spark of that secret pleasure.
I want to be all nerves,
desperate, shivering, raw
in the melted snow, exposed
and thawed, rubber warm
and oddly pleasing.
I want sliding eyes, electric;
I want words unspoken
felt like a steady, patient pulse.
I want the candles on the
grocery store shelves to leave
me briefly possessed by memory:
a kiss on the cheek like a habit in a hurry,
an instant frozen in time.
I want to stop breathing
so you have to remind me:
I want my heart, in syncopation,
to skip its beats and leap for yours.

Your toes, a careless addition
to your bare feet, mystify me:
that they can be so nonchalant
and graceless in such miraculous proximity.
All of it is perplexing;
all of it burns like the courage of a vigilante;
And I want to be devoured.

How does time fold itself,
accordion-style,
into the back pocket of a southern Baptist pew?
How do two moments
end up back-to-back
when miles & years spread them thin?

Maybe I am asking the wrong questions.

What does my heart mean to you?
Raw, staining the palm of your hand;
how much will it get you at barter?
When you trade our stories,
who will prove the hero?
When that saint is buried,
the past dug up, and
when your breath comes ragged
like wind-shred clouds in the still-cold sun,
is it possible time will match up for the briefest of moments?
What does our memory look like,
crystallized in regret?
Would you recognize it?
Because I would fall for you again.

Cast from hand
to unrelenting surge, impassioned:
Violent, broiling, lost.
Up from east,
air from sand,
lungs burning from salt-stung skin.
My pieces found
& lost again,
thrown at Triton's feet.