Quiet
my Soul?

How could I have tamped it down,
muffled it to such a Whisper
for Months on End with you
Rattling my brain,
Disintegrating my thoughtspace.
You drowned out the Fire alarms-
police Sirens-
Tornado Warnings-
with your shouting.

For being the
Loudest thing I ever met
You sure ever said nothing.

This is a love letter:

You are the skin between my teeth.
You are the skin of my teeth,
you’re a skinned knee.
You feel good to me when you shouldn’t,

I miss you when I ache.

This is a fumbled ball
recovered by the same team.
Of course I’m my best me
when I pretend I don’t want you,
I make playlists when I let me do.

I’m too much for you.

I know sometimes you want me too

I’m just,
we could ruin it,
we could flood the wholeworld
dry up like raisins,

become the pebble in each
other's shoe.

And I’ve traveled so far from you,
carved an “L” into the land,
and at each end
I feel heat.

A pilot light still lit
where the two legs meet.

I met your ghost in a dream
and he said “
if you wait to ask the question
the answer will be “too Late.”

I face backwards most my days.

Darkness waters you
in the parts of your mind i can’t see,


but I can smell the flowers.

I am not a waterballoon, bursting at impact.

I am a hot ***, a cauldron

filling,

filling,

full,

overflow.

I spill onto the street,

Weeping for my world.

I shot a nail gun the other day
for the first time.
Maybe I wasn’t doing it wrong after all.
Maybe I just
hit some studs.

Feeling a bit
homesick,
or lovesick,
or I-don’t-know-which-kind-of-sick,
but I’m sad,
I split some peas over the stove.
Poured left-over sweet tea
and cuddled up in a bed I made for me;
Mattress pad on hard wood.

I am thankful for these things -
The acceptance and peace
that accompany the melancholy.
Miracles in dim light.
Carefully,
my eyes adjust to worm’s sight.

Maybe, after all, I didn’t fire duds.
Perhaps when I shot the nail gun
the other day
I hit studs.

Don't bury it
burn
the hatchet
and the money
and the     grass.
All frightening things
seem trivial
once the moment           starts to pass.