From your Father,
When I grew up I lived in a small brick house that was cold in the morning no matter how many times your grandfather yelled at the fireplace, the world never let him dream, he had to earn it.
You will never meet him.
You will never be the small reminders and the soft tug on the bottom of my sternum helping me sleep at night, I will give you string and yarn asking you to weave silk and save me from the winter.
Your hands will be overflowing with apologies, the sink will always be filled with water that looks like it is pulsing at an open wound, and the gauze from your mother's gentle throat is never going to stop you from leaking out how sorry you are.
I was not raised to be what you need.
I am not going to love you the right way.
When you are 7 I am going to tell you that the way you carry yourself isn't tall enough, for your 9th birthday I will give you a mustard seed and a pocketknife and will ask you to grow cherry blossom trees throughout our back yard and in all the pastures of the city, and cut each of them down the very next day, and THEN I will tell you how to be a man.
When you are 17 you are going to cry so hard that God mistakes your mouth for the trumpets that were used to tear down Jericho and when your walls come apart I am going to color your heart with footsteps leaving the room.
I will show you how to miss a warm shower, how to pretend so hard your head cracks and your skull looks
like the coldest bowl of tomato soup I ever gave you.
You will not see that this whole time I have been staining your windows to see things in a better light, even if it is not clearer in the afternoon.
This is my blessing.
From your Mother,
I was raised with ***** hands and the only person who I ever looked at in the morning and loved back was the sun.
Your grandfather taught me how to ride a horse, and cover up a bruise, how to scrub blood stains out of my white blouses, and a whiter conscious, and how to grieve.
Oh how he taught me to grieve.
You will never meet him.
When you are 10, I am going to write down all the sins of your father on a piece of paper, slit your throat with it, and tell you that it's just a papercut, I will show you that faith does not move mountains, it simply makes them smaller.
You will stand up, shake the dust off your knees, and learn to clench your fists without worrying who will hear you.
I will try, but I will not love you correctly.
When you are 13 I am going to show you that what you see is not always on your side, you can love someone harder than you can stab them, but people are going to worry about ****** knuckles before they take a second look at a bruised heart, they're going to forget which one is more important.
I am going to tell you to forgive them, and I will never truly mean it.
Maybe I am sorry.
I am going to flirt with death until it blushes so hard that the blood from it's cheeks flows down to it's chest and gives it a heartbeat.
I am going to make you understand that GOD needs you just as much as you need Him, and there is power in prayer, in the way God might not be worth as much when people aren't giving Him their attention.
I am going to help you need less of the world, but a little more from people.
Your words will be full and deep, but never your pockets.
This is my blessing.

1 A rolling stone gathers no dust.

2. Life is a song yet to be written.


3. No one wants what you do not have.


4. A page unturned leaves you restless.


5. Instinct tells you nothing, for you never want what you fail to see.


6. Doubting yourself leaves you inside out of something that was once there but you failed to allow yourself the freedom of it.


7. I stand alone in the forest but not a tree quivers for this me that fails to hear what these my eyes never do see.


8. Alone you never are for you are a part of something greater then you.


9. The sea is always filled with water while this my glass is always half filled.


10. The stars are always there, but then why is it that we all fail to see the midnight sky.


11. You see and feel the beauty of the sun but fail to beable to look at it without darkening your palest eyes.


12. The violin quakes your heart but you never come to feel the strings as they stretch out to greet you.

jo.

i still can't write when i think of you
     my mind becomes clouded with scenes of the rearview
and of your freckles, too
and hidden hazel curls tucked beneath that dusty wollen brim
          
     oh, how i long to be the feather so lucky as to live above it

but sometimes we feel things
that can never be taken back
     not for a refund
     and certainly not for exchange

sometimes our hearts know more than our heads ever could

and your pulse should no longer be on the tip of my tounge
or the wheeze in my lungs
     though i'm starting to think that you'll always be

four years of scribbling nonsense
     and you're still the well that my pen tirelessly drinks from

there are nights where your absence chokes out my breath
and the only way i can finally rest
     is to heavy-handedly pull at the tides of my brew
          the way you'd paw at the hips of my skirt
          silently signaling you'd finally had too much to drink

your lack of grace illuminated
in whiskey-breath
and neon jukebox glow

so off we'd go
     leading the liqour-lust parade
     trailing downpours of drink chips in our wake
and you'd take up my hand
in your forklift phalanges

such a prideful little man-cub
with a puffed out chest and a leather vest
     only softening your edges in the sanctity of my lumpy bed
     when you've got the chance to rest your noisy head atop my naked breast

oh you rusted demi-god
though i do miss the struggle
and the snuggles
and the ***
          i'll be just fine with my growler of stout
          and your leftover whiskey in the freezer
forgetting what i'd learn
during our staggered steps home

i used to cradle her bleach-cracked hands in mine
and decode the stardust resting within her fingerprints
     up until the day that i lost touch with the art of reading braille
     and she stopped slinging tall-tales for me to fetch
and rest the plot-twist at her feet

often in the post-script
i'd find my train of thought highjacked by the sunlight illuminating the rainbow of earth-tones ablaze
in her frizz-ridden curls
as if she'd been washing her hair with the damaged case of beer
she'd gotten for half-price at liqour depot
     she never did quit drinking
          but neither did i

at least we tried

though sometimes
in the middle of the night when nothing was alright
and we'd barely survived another fight
her face would catch my glance
cast aglow by a flood of lava-lamp light
    
     the sea of freckles resting at the crest of her cheeks
     rose lips perma-pursed in half tilt
     her resting heart-rate so high that i could almost see it
          pirouetting within her chest

it was then that i'd love her best
     amidst the ruins of who we were
     just moments before

I opened the blinds.
I took a deep breath.
I reminded myself that I exist.
I let you go.

It was a routine morning.

Love stained my soul
like
charcoal
But somehow you
Made it under my skin
I tried to dig you
Out of my veins
I bled out
But you stayed in

I loved him in pieces of me
Like bits of an empty leaded
Crystal vase
Clumsily glued together
He inched closer
Knowing
I could cut his soul in half
How could he say
That I was beautiful
Did he prefer
Broken things
Was he enticed
By the scattered prisms
Of light reflected back
In his eyes
Maybe he thought
He could dull
My razor-sharp edges
That he could catch
And hold onto me
Unscathed
He sought pleasure
Yet settled for pain
My colors danced
In the chards of mosaic glass
It beckoned him to reach out
Only to tear into his hands
Over and over again
A knowing look remained
As if he had graced me
With acceptance
And the last bit of me
Slipped from his grasp
And shattered
Like a billion shiny stars
Already dead
Before they hit the ground
He deserved more
Than empty
Bloodied hands
Not all things that shine
Are precious
Not all beautiful things
Are meant
To be touched