There were always so many lizards and cat statues made out of china. But at some point what started to matter more were the boys on the pubescent school bus yelling obscenities and stealing ****** kisses from girls stuffing their bra and being too cool to wear Limited Too. It became difficult to imagine the lizard cage behind the duplex, a chain-linked refrigerator box, when there was a school dance to be embarrassed at while forming dance circles, soda can in hand. Then standing on the corner waiting for my dad to take me home before any of the late night talk shows aired.

Flash-forward: A blow-up air mattress in the middle of the living room at five in the morning and we were high.

We’re growing up from: the VW that smelled of crayons,
skipping class to go to the library downtown,
the greasy spoon diner,
the Goodwill,
fall outs, anxiety, lorazepam, writing ****** poetry,
getting popsicles from whole foods and eating them in the park during winter.

The sun’s lavender light peaked through the closed blinds while the satisfaction of making out with a boy who likes boys felt as good as the realization that girls don’t always have to like boys either.

There’s a chance I could still catch a lizard.
And yea it’s cliché, but **** happens and things change.

Teaching me the correct way to make
a paper airplane. He took me to his bindery.
The machine beats bustled and roared and shook
the unruffled metal walls that made me feel
like I was sleeping in the middle of a dragon’s
den, its snoring breaths protecting me
from fathers who didn't know how to be fathers.

I just finished losing all my teeth,
the new ones growing in at different speeds,
my front two like frozen stalactites from different
ice ages. My hair was banana yellow blonde and I liked
to compare myself to a younger Britney Spears.

A potential avalanche of paper next to the metal walls,
vexed by one deep exhale and the pieces
would go up and around like dandelion parts.
My father, forever bound to binding the parts together.
He brought me a single sheet and began twisting and folding.

I always hated him for his genes, for having a Russian
heritage that made me annoyed at the klutzy appendages we shared.
Is it funny that I lie and say I'm Welsh?
It's not funny that I can remember every detail of his over-sized,
meaty hands, how he kept that silly ring on his finger,
the graying knuckle hairs peeking out:
free me!

Not to say I think about him every time I make a paper airplane,
but not to say I don't.

I smoked my first and last cigarette on your porch after consuming six nameless beers (that made me too drunk.) I thought: this is how I die. I thought: I’m not going to die. And I remembered that

I created this memory before it happened. You sang notes in your soprano my alto was jealous of. There was no grass, but cement and I had wished that you told me you

lived in the ****** part of town. A man came up and asked for our butts. I giggled, take the rest. There was a mason jar of damp butts and he stole them from you a week earlier. I

wanted to finish the eighteen pack but my body was so full and there was only one night to sleep on your mattress on the floor with quilted murmurs. Can I remember the ghost and the German Internet boys? I woke up still drunk and you drove me to Jacksonville.

The **** blooms weren’t even that pretty
and the nicest thing on the ground was dead.
Gas trucks and red cars turned up the earth;
we should get out of here.

It was orange zest in the middle of doughy flour,
a risk that not many chefs take.
It was leaves from autumn, twisted
and forgotten under shoes of  hikers.
It was the sunset sand art that dropped, soundly
to the ground, left for brooms and vacuums.

Outlined like the eyes of an Indian princess,
the wings left its powder matter, a footprint,
by the shoreline and asphalt.
But the Earth didn’t care;
and the **** blooms, the chefs, the hikers, the brooms,
they didn’t care. What a treacherous thing,
to take a risk when you think people care.

You and your Greek hair
slanting on the table and
smiling:

Trolius and Cressida in the morning.
Could you imagine? With coffee mugs
and grape leaves in their hair? Cressida
with a loaf of bread, standing over an
aroused Troilus, "Stop pressuring me,
Sweet Honey-Greek!" While the crowd
laughed and clapped,
this is all a misunderstanding.

Stop pressuring me, sweet Honey-Greek.
Christmas tree lights weaved in and out of your eyes
and I was reminded that I once
gave up on you.

Your mind turned up as sprigs throughout the summer.
Sprigs of Honey-Greek and sprigs of you:
on land, under my window,
behind the basketball court.
And I thought I chopped them all up.

Cressida built a blanket fort
and Trolius thought it was a
reason to sprout.

There were sprigs of Honey-Greek underwater;
and then I gave up. How can you think with all that stuff on top of you?
You can’t even breathe. You’re not even breathing.

Dabbed in green and purple watercolor feelings
of the Tallahassee summer we’re living in.
Speckled with moods and lighting,
missing the components of cheap desire
brought on by a mixed tape and
deep red wine that I’ve never actually tasted.
Why write you a love letter when I can love myself?
Or when I can write about the uncertainty of love?
Why write a love letter that you’ll read,
but not understand?

I was thinking of opening the door,
I thought if I were trapped in the bathroom
of a twenty-something girl that I would
like to be let out.

There were gray and black clothes draped
on things, layered on the floor.
Cups and cups and plates and a trash can
in the corner under a poster of guitar chords.
It was just full of paper and scraps and bills.

I don't want to offend her.
Welcome to my home,
and she would gleam and shrug.
If she could speak it would
be something like, Oh its nice

So this ghost,
I tried to open the door and it was so cold.
I touched the **** and I was
in the mountains. You had pulled over
at the scenic overlook. I was wearing flannel
and converse. I couldn't imagine the snow,
there was so much and you laughed at me.
What, its just so beautiful.
I had never seen trees so bare and a view
so white, gray. I held the whiteness
in my hands, it was so cold and
you laughed again.

I wanted to let the ghost in,
welcome to my home,
but it was so cold and I couldn't hold it.

I heard her sign, I could almost see her
placing her chin on her palm,
right leg over left.