she started crying over the phone
again and it was
as if I was trying to come up for air
and she pushed me back
under

I say it to myself at night like a mantra

I am not my mother I am not my mother

she loves me but then she left me
over and over again
she loves me but then she said she didn't want me
told me to leave told me she didn't want
to see me anymore and that is what I learned
love is.

you are not good enough (she said) (but not
in so many words)
(and maybe she didn't mean it but) it is all I ever heard.
you are selfish (she said) and
who pulled you out of desert sand, mom, who
talked to you and did your laundry and who
held you when you cried and which one of us
told their child about their dreams of suicide and
why was I the selfish one and why do I believe you?

I forgive you, I think. I wrote a list of 50 reasons
to forgive you and I do but sometimes
my heart breaks a little under weight of your words.

you had no more to give, I think, you
did the best
you could.
the day we threw my father's ashes in the ocean, you
walked away
towards another empty grave.

he sank.
I swam.

you
were buried
alive.

we journeyed through
our own personal
waste land
of rocks without water
of shadows light silence
and dried up oceans.

we walked
not holding hands
we were
empty
as the sky blue sky.

it would not rain today.

we drowned a week before today
believed love was
a life raft but
we learned that silence turns to storm
and storm can overcome us.

I tried to draw a map
with strands of your hair,
your eyes, like beaches,
I thought they'd get us
out
of here.
they teach us growing up that love
is the wind and it is big and
ours was, wasn't it, but

never
big
enough
for this.

desert sand swallowed us
your eyes like beaches disappeared
when did you stop being
magic
you used to be
jupiter
when did you fade into
the galaxy
as no more than a dying light.


stars eventually turn
to dust
like us
they die away with the dreams
we give them
they die away with our names.


I am afraid of losing you still
as if you aren't gone
already
I said I would show you love.


we are walking to the chapel
through a land we cannot rescue.

I will show you
a waste land
tarot cards
sailors
I will show you
a typist
still
longing
for love
I will show you
what has
become
of our hearts
I will show you
fear
in a handful
of
dust.

Walk with me, my love
Under the skyline of the lights
In this city we will claim to be our own.

Walk with me, my dear
And let the rain drops fall
Into our uncaring arms

Walk with me, my love
As we waltz into the innocence
And take every bit of it with you

Walk with me for a while
Before you waltz back into the rain
Without me.