i. the curly, green-haired
leo with the cry-baby tattoo
on her left calf; fish net stockings and
loud guitar playing and
menthol cigarettes. driving through
the park at 9 pm, ***** shots,
the white house with the a-frame roof,
hugs that made your heart feel as warm
as she did

crying as i left my room again to be
intertwined with a girl who did not love me, but i wanted to;
months pass, lonely car rides with
one-sided conversations and
seven years gone,
quiet disconnection
that made you feel as cold
as i did

ii. brown eyes, brown skin,
round glasses and chicago streetlights.
holding each other close on the subway
lakehouse parties in the beginning of spring and
pisces season and tarot readings and
soft kisses on the train.
holding hands at the aquarium,
sweet poetry and calm and
a sense of oneness that made you feel
important

hurt for the third time
a panic, a loss
i held their heart in my hands and
let it fall
harsh
unimportant
i still carry the guilt on my fingertips

iii. short hair. freckled cheeks, i
fell in love with the way the skin
crinkled around her eyes when she smiled.
an apartment, a home built
around our lips touching
wrapped in blankets on the couch,
dense smoke and her hand on my leg while she
drove. chinese food and
waking up against her chest and
laughing so hard
my ribs hurt

crashing. her anger withering away my
heartstrings; pain and
crying alone in the bathtub
moving away
drunk tears on the interstate
punching my thighs
in place of the way her
words made
me hurt

He stood motionless at the cliffs edge and stared out over the landscape and the  ever elusive horizon, with his heart punching hard against his ribs and his breath calm and deep and steady.  The air carried a warm gentle breeze and the sky held birds of black wings that sang of the sun and the stars and the moon .  He was so still that he could have been an illustration on the page of a book in a story where time had been frozen and maybe he was.  Maybe he was a moment stolen from eternity and sculpted into the shape of a boy holding two feathers longer than he was tall and maybe it wasn't until eternity stole that moment back that he turned and smiled as wide as the moon pretending to be a cat.  Then he turned his head forward and slowly raised his arms until they were parallel with the ground and leaned forward until he fell over the edge.
He fell without fear.  His mouth did not scream or make any sound, it only sat quietly on his face framing the teeth of his smile.  He tucked in his legs and curled into a ball and spun and tumbled in the air.  With the earth rapidly approaching, he stretched his legs back out and began to run and leap and fly through and up and into the sky.  
He was a dream in the shape of a boy pretending to be a bird spreading out its wings and learning how to fly

You may not have pulled the trigger
but your fingerprints were on every bullet
that left the barrel of the gun
so when looking at the dead heart
pinned and bleeding on the wall
know you did your part to stop its beating
and that innocence is something you can't reclaim
with the white lies painted on the teeth
framed within your crooked smile
and now I see your beauty
was nothing more than smoke and mirrors
off the reflection of the gun

--and the grand canyon is
getting smaller behind you
while your heart is getting
bigger, ready to burst,
craving a return to the journey:
when red dust reflected on
your sunglasses instead of
your side mirrors, the rearview,
when the car mileage hadn't hit
halfway. something
about the southwest settles
under your skin like an itch.
it's almost like-- it feels like--
you're finally finding out that
this must be what it is to be
homesick.

the girl was beautiful even then
a blur of charcoal and sea foam
subtle curves with soft, yearning
eyes
her adoration was reflected in the
hooded
eyes of the
painter who laid her skeleton out
to dry.

he spoke to her often, his only friend,
filling her with ideas of sea shell pink
lips, and a rose red heart to match
his own
his idle fingers held the brush, dipped
in rose and sea shell dust,
but he did not fill in
the cream canvas skeleton.

the artist was a gargoyle in stretched
flesh, garishly painted in obscene brights
lime green, neon orange, fire engine red
but with the wipe of the artist cloth
the colors fell away and she would see
the monotone palette that the paint kept
hidden away.

with trembling hands, she took the oil
pastel from the gargoyle's hands, and
slowly, timidly, colored in her own
heart, filled in her own eyes, and colored
in her void until she became a tiger blossom
lily of her own accord.

see you’ve been the sun for so long that i was finally getting rid of this chill in my bones but now i’m in the arctic and i never learned how to stay warm on my own and i’m scared and alone and i don’t know where i’m going all i know is that i want to get back home to where i can bask under your light on sandy beaches and we can look at the constellations once you set and i can tell you their stories, the myths, tucking these notes between your knuckles like these are the only words that will ever exist. i’m trying to remember that you’re more than a metaphor but it’s hard when i’ve spent so much time sitting in my own mind that i’m not sure if i’m anything but pretty words and old scars. you– you have always been everything that could only be encompassed by something else, like something billions of times bigger than either of us could ever be, that’s why you’re the sun in everything. it just sounds like ‘soulmate’ to me.

there are dreams
there are memories
and their difference
lays somewhere in between