baby, i've been trying hard not to get in trouble.

but you don't understand when you don't have wanderlust that sews itself into your very bones. you don't love like i do, wild and free. you don't want to ride the edge. you want your 9-5 office job, the picket fence, a perfect wife and children. i'm not saying i don't love you but i can't love restrained and i can't love you perfect. i know i promised forever-- but haven't i told you my middle name was "i make promises i can't keep?". i guess that never came up.

i can't keep living vicariously through lonely jazz singers and voracious cult leaders. call me stupid, but i want to have that drink, i wanna smoke. i'm sorry i had you under the pretense that i was a good little girl. i'm not. i wanna dance until the soles in my shoes are bare and worn. i wanna go running in thunderstorms and play russian roulette with my untamable heart and go wherever i yearn. i look at birds with envy because i am a flightless soul. darling, you're a seed and sooner or later you're gonna want the roots that i can't give you. i need to breathe. that's all i want. my obsession with freedom might destroy me, but god, is there ever a better way to die?

i tell all the lovers i've ever had to let me lay me down on the open road, leave more than skid marks on highways and more than a twist in my bed sheets. i love minds just as much as i love bodies. my past affairs were like wind rushing past but i don't know if i've ever really slowed down because i am ******* reckless. i have no regrets.

i wanna let loose on city streets, shout in the rain, sin on parkway benches and get lost in a tangle of whatever the hell I want to drown in. so please, even though you don't understand half of this feral wild creature i am-- let me live like i'm crazy.

when my mother told me to watch out for things that go bump in the night i thought she was talking about monsters and priests, but lately, i've been thinking it's me.

with love,
a little wild thing

i can't put in words quite how elated this makes me. i'm embracing the feelings you give me. some of these feelings i have yet to name but they are more a part of me now then my ghosts. there is so many lights in me. there is so much shadow too. but it all is jumbled now, tossed and turned; a welcome turbulence.

i don't know whether to laugh or cry or kiss your face. maybe even do all three. there is not enough of me for you to touch because all of me doesn't encompass this intangible cast of craziness that expands beyond my body. i am finally breathing. i'm not free yet but god i'm close. freedom tastes like time spent with you and you linger all around me.

i can't barely express this, truly. i have the urge to shout from car windows and city tops. i want to run and tumble. i want to lay with you in spring grass and get lost in fields and woods. i want to do so many things, things out of my reach, out of my body.

god, these words will not be enough. but i still try.

slamming doors still sound
like fired shots
and
loud voices still sound like
grenades--
warfare is something that never quite leaves the mind
it's a trigger pulled rifle or a trigger that pulls me
back into the past
where I am afraid and alone
and where I am held against my will.
shouting rages have a way about them that
feels like broken shards of glass piercing my ear drums or my mentality
and if hands are not anything less than gentle,
I grow cautious and cowardly.
I never quite outgrew the habit of ducking my head
when I hear hateful words and could never quite fathom the idea that the sting of sharp curses could be used jokingly and not with ill intent.
while most people live to fight, I live
to forget my battle wounds...
because it's easier to admit
that I can heal
than it is to admit the bullets to my fragile heart were fatal--
blood isn't the only thing that's bleeding out of me.

2 a.m.
I'm blurry
and lusting for bodies and love.

I AM SCREAMING INSIDE AND I SWEAR IT'S ALL I CAN DO. HOW DO I SAY I LOVE YOU? HOW DO I TELL YOU I WOULD CAPTURE THE MOON AND BRING IT BACK TO YOUR BEDROOM JUST TO SEE IT REFLECT YOUR LIGHT? HOW MANY WAYS CAN I SAY THAT YOU BREATHE LIFE INTO ME?

I AM AN EMPTY HUSK WAITING TO BE FILLED BY THE MOTIONS IN YOUR LIPS AND THE WAY YOU SAY MY NAME IN SOFT TONES. I AM NOTHING BUT A VESSEL FOR CREATIVITY WHICH YOU POUR YOUR SOUL INTO. YOU'RE JUST AS MUCH AS ART AS YOU ARE AN ARTIST AND I CAN ONLY TRY TO MATCH SOMETHING NEAR PERFECT.

HOW CAN I EXPRESS HOW MUCH THIS MEANS TO ME? HOW DO I PAINT THE STARS TO MATCH YOUR BRILLIANCE?  HOW DO I DRAW THE AFFECTION BETWEEN A BLANKET OF NIGHT AND YOUR SKIN? HOW DO I SKETCH THE SUN WHEN I'M BLINDED BY YOU?

IS THERE ANY WAY TO SHOW YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU?

miracles are a religious experience, Jesus turned wine
into water--maybe I can get intoxicated
enough to not notice the difference.

I don't know
why
I keep writing about you when
all the words from your mouth
forsake my existence
with an empty
"hi" or a shallow "how are you?".