It's a humorous thing
How scent can take you places
Past, present and future
Relive fury
Remember lust
Extract happiness
O sweet aroma
Teach me to conjure these feelings again

O masculine, divine smell
Covering my clothes
Filling the atmosphere with mesmerizing fumes
Intoxicating my mind with sensual aromatics
Drink me up
I will **** you in, I will take you in completely
Take me to far away places, dreams and memories of soft kisses and tender hugs
Of romantic dances and innocent laughter
Remind me of past events once enjoyed
Resurface memories far and near, quiet and loud
Let me live them once more

I wish stars grew in your skin
Next to the oxygen humming in your lungs
To thaw your stagnant blood
So I could watch you orbit your part of the planet
Three hundred miles away,
Because your heart would then permeate faster than life's speed limit,
Scaling all the mountains between us to
Float in my peripherals like
Residual Chernobyl radiation.
Dancing hazily,
Constant reminders of my past
And the jenga monkey ladder to my future.

I never liked being insignificant.
Now please infect me with your cancer
So you can't escape again.

So excuse me while I dump out my Starbucks in the fridge
and paper shred my valued customer card.

Let me hate coffee for you,
Because you're the only person I've been willing to hate coffee for in three years.
Those other boys could never tear me from the coffee shop counter,
I would latch on like a koala to a tree limb,
Thirsting for that satisfying and hypnotizing liquid.

Let me loath coffee for you,
Because I haven't been so excited about loathing coffee in three years.
Its tantalizing aromatics will woo me no more.
The other men in my life have no affect on my love affair with these beans,
Their scents loop around my neck and drag me in,
The craving becomes irrefutable,
My bones creak with each body convulgence
In response to the grinders on the espresso machines.

Please let me get you a drink,
Orange juice? Milk?
Gatorade?
I swear, I'll keep coffee as far away as possible at all times,
Avoiding every Dunkin' Donuts while driving,
Every quaint mom-and-pop coffee shop while walking,
And flight attendants will never dare bring a coffee ***
on their food cart when we fly.

I won't ***** this up with the **** coffee,
Because perhaps it was coffee the last three times that left things in rancid rot,
The filters from yesterday's shift never disposed of.

Let's go anywhere but a coffee shop together,
Let's go everywhere but a coffee shop forever.
And I promise,
I won't even try and sneak a latte around you,
But can I please keep my chai tea?

I've been watching you from the nightstand,
Eyes closed,
But hearing, feeling
Each rat tremor on top of cheap carpet
Covered in cat **** and ***** stains.

You have been sleeping too long,
Eyelids turning to flakes of skin,
Feeding your floorboard friends.
I have seen your fingers curl into messy knots of
Purple thumbprints and veins reaching
For the ceiling and roof.

You left me plugged into the wall,
And I have inched closer to my own death
With each misses phone call and text,
My predisposed convulsions.

I just wanted you to know
Your mother called today
To ask for the new street address,
The landlord says the rent is 8 days late,
But your boyfriend is ill concerned with your state of health,
In fact,
He left the state
And bought a new haircut and identity.

Anticipation is a powerful drug. It heals suffering
Looking forward to something, such a fantastic feeling
Everyone should experience Anticipation in their lifetime
Everyone will experience Anticipation in their lifetime
Anticipation kills fear and births happiness
It creates smiles and destroys frowns
And that moment
When you finally feel the ******, the result of all built up Anticipation
Truly jaw dropping
Eye opening
Great

Anticipation is not for everyone, especially people who let it consume themselves too much
And of those with Anxiety
Some find it easy to confuse the feeling of Anxiety with the feeling of Anticipation
A silly mistake, easily fixed with a simple dosage of Realization

Warning, side effects of Anticipation may include
Butterflies
Nausea
Diarrhea
Wanting to sleep the day away to make the thing you are anticipating come faster
Loss of appetite
Over-excitement

This does not effect everyone with Anticipation, however,
One side effect that does inflict all is the satisfaction
The satisfaction of the event behind all of this Anticipation

In the dark we marked tattoos of
disintegrating constellations
on our rib cages,
our fingernails filled with ink.
We were told they would last
forever on 19 year old skin
when carved on the night where
each fallen brother of Sun kissed
our mid-August goosebumps.

The weight of our bodies
cut into the grass.
We came back the next evening to
watch these human Grand Canyons
sink deeper to Earth's liquid center
underneath flashlight flickers of an
approaching thunderstorm,
each bolt echoing on the hearts
of Lake Michigan fish.
The trees fell inside our craters
as we walked backward to my car,
fearing for our lives, but
immobile from each reaching meteor.

Perseus fell through Earth's granite throat,
parabolic melting of night sky.
Collapsed Big Dipper and Ursa Major
illuminated our chests
over shadow of dying white pine.

There are dark times upon me,
While I stand here a victim of your unforgivable actions.
I feel the repentance of our love as a knife through my stomach, as it sinks deeper beyond the dermis- feel its blade turn horizontally whenever you return into my thoughts
I become nauseated by your presence,
Not of disgust-
Rather from the suppression of tears, fighting back weakness knocking at my chest cavity.

I'm angry,
I can't help but weep
I remember the times we danced, and we laughed,
And the aching feeling of confusion overwhelms my sanity.
I break when I see your unmistakable smile, your intelligent glasses I remember you despising but me adoring.
I swoon as you don your best clothing, for I remember you trying so hard to look your best
For me.

You threw me out like Wednesday morning garbage. I wonder if you weep as I do...
                  
                                           That's a lie,

I know you never would.
You have more important things to fill your head with-
***,
Beer,
Oh ya, and education.

Thanks for putting me second, you ******.

I totally understand after a year and a half that you would treat me the same as a disposable diaper.

I get it...

Kiss me slow
Kiss me soft
Kiss me long

Make it last
Make it count
Make it strong

I want to feel you
I want to know the reality of kissing you
Engrave it in my soul
Save me from the pain of forgetting your lips

Kiss my cheek
Stomach
Hand
Shoulder
Neck
Kiss me

Kiss me in the moonlight
Kiss me goodnight
Kiss me on my tiptoes
Kiss me goodbye
Kiss me good morning
Kiss me by the sunset
Kiss my clothes off
Kiss me naked
Kiss me

I need your kisses
Always

I want your kisses
Always

I love your kisses
Always

Kiss me carefully, kiss me carelessly

Kiss your love into me

If life were a wes Anderson movie
My wallpaper would be faded 70's vintage.
I would live a hard life and love an impossible woman
Who would shower me with misguided affection.

If life were a wes Anderson movie
I would have the knowledge to complete
Completely useless tasks
That would somehow be useful in any given situation,
Like chiseling a canoe out of a solid oak tree
Or weaving a hexagonal basket.
My eyes would constantly be filtered
With a color so vibrant my skin would glow chartreuse yellow.

If life were a Wes Anderson movie
My happiness would exalt and spread to those around me.
My stories would fill pictures and paintings,
My walls covered in obscure posters and murals
that no one really knows the purpose of.

If life were a Wes Anderson movie
Bill Murray would be my father,
Best friend,
And lover.

If life were a Wes Anderson movie
Nobody would understand my purpose
But everyone would love my presence just the same.

If life were a Wes Anderson movie
I would be king and crown those around me my subjects.
My crown would be encrusted with the Latin phrase,
sic transit gloria.
I would be king and grace my subjects with timeless tales of ages past,
of tear soaked laughter.

If life were a Wes Anderson movie
I would be king.

I want to free fall into the Mariana Trench.
I want to watch the world become darker and darker till light is not in the dictionary.
Forms of life will become less distinguishable with every meter.
Motel rooms and apartments litter the crevice's walls-"low" income housing-
Soup kitchens begin to occur less frequently-
Replacing them are drug houses and grimy gas stations with metal bars for windows.
Every creature notices my existence.
They dart their eyes just too much,
And I know they suspect that I came here to sleep. To be at peace with myself again.
To watch them, to hear them, to wander them.
In my mind, seconds melt like ice cream cones in July.
Minutes cut through the silence unnoticeably.
Time slips underneath me as the rug is pulled out from my feet and over my eyes,
And it covers my mind.
I remember nothing of past events,
They told me to leave all behind.


As the day grows darker into nothing but here and now,
My skin turns blue. I am the ocean in this divide of magnetic silence.
I am the fish who struggle to find meaning for themselves.
I am time which does not exist here.
I am the water whose stagnancy sinks me deeper into earth and beings of past eons.
My hair becomes the nutrients, the seaweed and algae that provide for the citizens of this primitive paradise.
My eyes are now seashells which house these forgotten creatures.
My arms stretch out towards surface and harden into coral shoots, but my mind is rooted into sea floor basalt and sand.
I will never leave.


                   An eel approaches me.

He welcomes me with a warm embrace too far up my body.
Not an under-the-arms hug,
A beating, lively hug around the neck.
It takes my breath away,
And so I cannot help but gasp with excitement,

And I find my peace.

He walks me to the door
Like a gentleman should
Meanwhile, I think of things to say, filling the air with lighthearted and meaningless conversation

"Can you call me later when you get home?"

"Thanks for inviting me, it was fun!"

"Have fun skiing."

It was all said, it was all acknowledged

The only word that mattered to me was his one

"Wait..."

Thoughtfulness in his eyes, he moves closer to me...

Forgetfulness is a sin
I do not remember if my eyes closed,
If my foot popped like in movies,
Nor can I remember how long it lasted

I do remember the three words that slipped from my lips

"I love you"

The same three slipped his

Who decides the sun is yellow
The sky is blue
Green is envy, red is passion

Who's to say my cat is not a lioness, ferocious and proud, but who's to say a lioness is dangerous?

I determine my own reality

Where white is the color of evil, and black is not worn after Labor Day
The Eiffel Tower is my bathtub,
And my bathtub?
The Taj Mahal

I can touch my toes to the moon, swish my fingers in the infinite storm of Jupiter

The River Styx is my backyard, and I live in the center of the sun's hottest point, where no temperature is recorded other than 0 degrees Fahrenheit



How do we name the animals?
Language of origin please, root word, Greek, Latin, Romance languages,
Puke

Why can't my fish be called a shmeeeffflaarnaa?
It's much more interesting than 'neon tetra'
And as for the dog, I'd much rather have three daphnaria's running around my house



You should come live with me,
it's much more fun here

So you came down to me:
     at my feet, not the wax
     leaves of the wild blueberry but your fiery self, a whole
     pasture of fire
Louise Glück*

There was flutter of worked cotton hem
between fingers. Ring of cicada click in birch tree leaves,
muffled by swish of grass in breeze, matching

the wisp of sandhill crane feather on fern.
Skin sliding over fragrant sweat.
Sweet waterfall of hair in your hands, fluid in the heat.

Echoing flap of fat trout tail bounced inside the valley,
Scales skimming lake water. Our knees shook
above the foot-bridged creek.

Low groans of swaying trees, aching
in their old bones. Guttural tones.
Your palm shivered on my heart in the haunted noise.

Beneath all our sounds, the under-ripe
blueberries thudded to the ground.
Our love pounded best when they were still green.

A fire breathing dragon lived inside the nook of a tree,
Small enough to fit in a man's watch pocket,
Big enough to singe the bark around his door.
We peaked around the nearest trunk,
His smoke billowed around our adolescent ankles,
From his penny-sizes nostrils protruding from the plane of his oak.
We figured he ate the ivy snaking through his neighborhood,
But noticed no pin-sized tooth marks in surrounding leaves.

We then became bored with our own imagination.
We realized this black mark was only mold,
And we aged ten years.

I imagine you cradled inside
the wing of your rocket ship, vacuum
sealed, sheltered from the noise of solar wind.
Remembering our goodbye at the launch-pad
Creases the aging skin around your eyes.

Tears, weightless and buoyant,
Collide with the sputtering, decrepit
valves and cogs
tracking your orbit
through Saturn’s dust.

You bottle them in mason jars, capture each one on fading
fingertips like paper white snowflakes,
Sealing them inside with aluminum twist caps.
You fill each one and let them clutter the windows
like drunken periscopes.

If I could shine a flashlight through these memory
telescopes, black and white 1920s movies would reel
cracked turtle shells on the highway,
Four rabbits, their intestines spoiling on mowed grass,
Synonyms for “stupid” piercing into heart with arrowhead.

    You curl tighter into the spacecraft,
    Breathing uncontrollably, painfully.
    Canines cut into tongue to suppress sobs.
    Folding over naval, knees to forehead,
             The gravity of surrounding, misplaced moons
             pulls you to collision with an asteroid.

Everyday I'm trying so hard to like my favorite things for reasons having nothing to do with you.


Today when I decided to drive on the meandering border of Walloon Lake,
Wildwood Harbor rd,
     The canopied trees
     flashing shadows of squirrels peaking through paws
reminded me of every motorcycle ride I accompanied you on.

     Holding tight to your chiseled stomach,
     hands cupping your belly button through your sweatshirt pockets,
you would maneuver your mobile machinery through every dip and dive,
garnishing curves with streamline, flawless breaking and acceleration.
       I would lean into your spine,
  imagining the path of your lower back as the map of our road ahead,
each bump and curvature a flawless representation of reality,
  the living moment.

Something sensual existed about the way you and I forged a relationship on pavement,
  riding the asphalt the same way your bending fingers rode my thighs.
     And every time I choose to drive our road with my less than aerodynamic Marquis,
each stomach flip from the unsuspected slopes
   transports me to lazy mornings-
         Naked and alone in any way imaginable.
    Purity and solitude,
truth, the end of it.

So I turned onto M-75
              trying to forget every reason that I love Wildwood Harbor for you,
                            and only remember the reasons I love it for me,
                                           but couldn't find any worthy of space.
                                           You made everything so memorable.

You twinkle, and I admire the youthful colors, the whimsical smile you bring to my cheeks
You shine, and I reminisce on times of old, times of hot cocoa and Christmas music by Chicago
You glow, and I weep

**** you, O Christmas Tree

**** you for keeping these memories alive and lush, so vivid to the naked eye
I break when I think of pajama nights with lusted love making under covers of protection,
Silently loving underneath my parents' open ears
And the mornings with cuddling
And the nights with Elf and How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Why does my Christmas tree bring white hot tears rolling down my face?
Its beauty could make any malnourished child sing, yet it just withers me as I remember our first dance
          Yes, it was by the tree on that Saturday afternoon.
As I cry, I still cannot forget you, because you used to be there to catch these drops before they fell on my lap

After six months, you still haunt my every thought, in every waking moment I exist.
I am scared for myself-scared I will never go a Christmas again without the horror of our past-
          What will never be again,
And what was merely a Christmas wish impossible to grant


Is this how God intends to torture my broken soul?

When my ear first orbited your throat
to listen for a roaming balloon of nestled flesh
I heard trailer home hollowness
in copper vein pipes.
You draped a scarf over your superglued
neck, telling me it was normal to fistfight
death at 35.
On Dad’s desk, your weight breathed feebly
inside a sandwich bag. At night
its nuclear green cast Orions across our ceiling.
I never knew what real stars looked like,
while you had completely forgotten.

Years later,
in the dark of our 17-acre home,
you handed me your thyroid in its bag
swimming in opalescent fluid
and you looked at Polaris for the first time,
as that same glow painted the Big Dipper
on neighboring snowbanks.
I dropped the bag on the dry rot porch.
We heard your cancer flatten to a deflated bicycle tire,
sweating from death,
watched through squinted eyes as its glow turned
from hazardous neon to cinder.
It dried in the moonlight,
a forgotten, frostbitten raisin,
and our eyes readjusted to the perpetuating darkness.

I saw it then like a long constellation
line connecting star to forehead.
It had been a lie before,
but the North Star is truly the brightest
in the sky. We looked through its surface
underneath the star’s skin to its heart space,
and we realized that Polaris can only be seen
when thin plastic holds inside
damaged shadows of family
dinners bathed in deionized salt,
where I ponderously stared at the ****
in your esophagus, drawn with knife
like ruby crayon into office paper.

It's hard to dwell on the idea that, in fact, it is over
After so long, the thought of us being separate beings once more was laughable
When I laughed, you laughed
When you cried, I cried
We thought for each other, we fought for each other
We were each other

And as I am forced to give back your things, it feels terminal, the fate of our relationship
Before, I felt as if this was just temporary
Our love was just under construction
But now I see that this is not so
Demolition crews have now moved in
To destroy all hope of repair
To eliminate all evidence of past events
To annihilate all memories

I faintly digress
How I repress so often
Your absolute best,
And then forget to forgive
The sins that you constantly live
And with which you give
Such a menacing
Motive of ripping and furtive lies you
Display with a massive
Protest where you tried to recess
The love that you originally expressed

I throw my gubbins out
in my net, casting for a
dinner to feed you
by spoon.

My words are gubbins.
Irritating impulse of
fingers and joints
bending around your waist.

Our speech is gubbins -
puked through esophagus
bile and awkward conversation.
A belch of early caught perch.

We make love like gubbins.
You flop wrongly, I flip coarsely.
Our toes knot and break.
We kiss backwards.

I cry gubbins
on your sweaty shirt.
Your gubbin caught dinner
still smudged on your cheek.

I wake up to your bucket of
gubbins from dinner next to the bed.
I bring it to my boat
to catch our next meal.

I dreamed of you
In a dream of mine, I saw you
In golden tassels and platinum crystals
In lustrous diamonds
In radiant tinsel
In a dream, I did
Dream of you

A thought sets off tears
A smile creates sobs
An "are you okay" breaks you
And nothing cures the sorrow you feel
No person
No object
Nothing, leaving you with sadness
Sadness that shrinks you into a fetal position
It feeds, infinitely hungry
A stomach never fully satisfied
And you wallow in this pity that can't be ridden of

The damage is left behind
Not an angel's handyman could patch the hole left behind

Guilt
Anger
Pain and
Fear
This is when everything fails
This is where everything fails

Falling into hell and farther down than known to man
Because of a trip that could have been prevented
But was provoked by someone other than you

That, is where everything fails

We are a subway.
We ride encroaching on our own spaces.
We bundle and fold each other
into outer significant dimensions.
Our arms harden to tree trunks
while our blood begs to flow freely under the elevated pressure,
grounding our Earthly existence.
This track beats on without destination,
regardless of bumps and bulges in the pathways,
our starting point forgotten light years before.

We try sharpening the images melting under this velocity,
and our eyes flicker back and forth attempting to follow these quickening pictures.
But we ride on,
crushed by the pressures of the Earth,
decaying the love we housed in storage,
now rationed up our stabilizing arms,
holding us averagely comfortable in this close proximity.

And I would give you wings
If I felt that you couldn't overcome these things
When you fall down I’ll pick you up
Yes I know that you have hurt, you’ve hurt enough
But you must get up, you must go on
For me, for me you’ve got to be strong*


Where are you,
Bird's tools of survival
Angel's way of transportation
Plane's means of flight

Of course, when needed the most you fail to appear.
And you promised
You promised to give me them,
Why would you lie?

It seems a folly
To think that there ever is a chance of healing
But why would I want wings anyways?
To carry me away from the pain? Only momentarily would it help.

I don't want to heal,
Completely anyways,
Don't want to fly away on my wings,
Because to heal would be to forget everything good about you...

Would be to forget everything good about *us

I feel unsafe
In a building with closed doors, you are always there
There's no need to run, hide
There's no place to go
You always find a way to seep through my skin, infect my thoughts

Too long have you chiseled at my soul
Brainwashed my mind
Siphoned my happiness out through my pores

Now that you're gone, things are better
But I feel as if you took something
Ah yes, you took the memories
Stripped them of me, destroyed them with your toxic waste
I can't retrieve them
Ever

When she comes out too early, is she hoping for attention?
She does not get it, nobody ever says "the moonrise is so beautiful this evening"
She is overpowered by her rival everyday. Every evening, every morning.

Sometimes she puts on makeup, an orange hue
An attention getter, these are the only nights we talk about her, create gossip of her rare beauty

There is a side we do not know, she holds mysteries the world may never discover
And her secrets, dark and alluring
Yet she attracts no visitors, the era of investigation dead and gone

Will she ever feel the love that her dear mother receives?

Does she cry when she is gone?

Would we even notice her absence?
She can't even look away from her ignorance, always facing her demising audience
If only people would pay more attention. Someday she may just disappear to gain revenge

And then what?

We stare at each other while in an
Under-rehearsed waltz around the coffee table
Keeping us an armwidth apart.
Stiff as oak, we resist the breeze from the window,
Tensing with the smallest tremors in our roots.

Touching our fingers will let the dominos fall-
Your jeans taking off my socks ripping off your shirt pulling
On my bra straps- I walk toward the couch,
You, the window.

I start to wonder how your hair looks hung to dry, sweaty,
Over an ached and trembling brow
When you hang your hat on the chair.

You tell me the evening weather is pleasant
While my thoughts are in our hands, clenching,
Longing for skin and breath in grasp.
My eyes light a wildfire on your neck.

Every step is flint stone and steel wool.
Can I take off your coat
Welds the air between us stiff, baking
And begging to be dowsed.
The floor ripples under your extended palm.

I hear the roar of your truck engine as you wait patiently atop my driveway

I slide on my sandals hurriedly, slip out the door
Dressed in a loose, ripply top with my favorite shorts
Bouncy hair and glowing skin
Edible fragrances dripping off my figure, into your nostrils, in which drag themselves to the lobes of your brain, the taste buds of your tongue

And you
With your golden rod complexion, form-fitting black t-shirt, exposing the contours of your sculpted chest, loose Bermuda shorts
Complementary ball cap and aviators
The faint hypnotic smell of sweat and my favorite cologne that compliments your natural aroma perfectly

A playlist of songs reminiscent of old memories
Singing
Dancing
Laughing
Crying
Beats on my eardrums
"Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin' world go round!"
Our vocal chords stretch like rubber bands as we scream to these memories in motion

The beach is reserved for our use, or so we pretend
Together, we are alone on this small strip of land
I run to the sand, allowing my toes the comfort of such a familiar feeling
White hot, burning, tingling, relief within seconds as the warmth conducts and disperses across my skin

I unbutton my shorts and pull my top over my head, run to the waters edge in hopes of pleasure, alleviation from the gnawing humidity, liquefying my bones  
I submerge my head, fogging my mind, allowing complete relaxation to fill my entire being

I find you beside me as I surface for Oxygen
Beads of lake water cover you cheeks like melted snowflakes
You stand there, naked next to me, your clothes at shore

Your hands search my back, find the fasteners of my bra
1
2
3 un-clipped by your hungry fingers, which now travel to my hips
Tugging at the thin, lacy fabric covering my
innocence

Now, in your palm

And with your other palm you beckon me back to the sand as you say, with tender breathlessness,
"You're beautiful"
In which I believe you as I lie upon a sandy towel
As you carefully lower yourself upon me
As our fingers interlace
And our lips, thirsting for lust, bind together

We are one

We are love

I love how I feel at peace with myself around you
The feeling of freedom, where I can dance my worst, sing my flattest, and act my craziest in the presence of you is cherished by me
I will always be myself when I am near you, in hopes that you will find comfort in being yourself near me

I watched a single spruce sprout out of crack in asphalt
Sunday morning, church time,
From my skeletal apartment
high above the street lamps,
While my eyes dried and crusted with dust.
My fingers charred to leather, tightly bound
on to the iron balcony.

But the stubble-like blemish of the road's surface
Was ****** back inside concrete
From which it grew,
A magic trick,
Like a rabbit reentering its black hole tophat,
Just as the earth was flushed
down the esophagus of Satan,
Swirling in a tornado of molten lava,
Lucifer's saliva.

I want to
Smell
Touch
Hear
See
Taste
What love is
My slate has been washed clean, a picture not clear anymore
The lines are smeared
The image is faint

I recall it going something like
"Indefinite feeling"
But what has happened to this definition that was once held true
Because this word, indefinite is definitely false

Where is this thing called love
Is it inside me? This I am not sure of anymore
Once it was so obvious what love was
Once it was quite clear that love was forever
Once
Once

Things are different now
Because nothing is indefinite anymore
Not like when we were children, playing games and laughing sweetly
When recess lasted eternity, and nap time lasted much too long (eternity)

Recess is over
Or maybe recess never existed, it was merely a mirage
Maybe love never existed, it was merely a mirage
Maybe
Maybe

So please God, tell me what love is
Help me justify, understand love
Give me love, give me nothing less than your best love
Please
Please

The couch cushions buckle,
They want our shoulders to touch just enough
To remind me of sweet smiles and our unconventional love.
And for a moment I believe that inanimate padding, beckoning for soft skin to linger just a moment too far gone.
And for our mouths to come just too close, with only inches in-between innocence and ******.
For I know he is my brother,
The one who wipes my tears,
And who supports my head on shoulders of infinite granite.
I love him enough to call him,
But not enough to call him my own.
But the cushions see no difference as the black hole springboard ***** the edges down and we move on the track toward each other.

There will always be days I need you like oxygen,
And without you breathing is pained.
Jealousy will always burn inside like hot stomach acid,
Eating the ribs, threatening my heart.

I wish to quell the jealousy, but never the need.

I am 14.6 billion years old. I am energy traveling at the speed of light,
I am a single proton with one orbiting electron, perfectly balanced
With quarks and bosons and higgs inside
And pieces of matter yet to be understood by man.
I am every star, every atom of Hydrogen fused to Helium.
I am a massive object of molten rock, cooling and fusing.
I am trilobite knee and dinosaur tooth,
Wooly mammoth hair fiber.
I am Permian Extinction, I am Ice Age, I am all surviving species.
I am most distant brothers of man, I am first language and first songs.
I am Bubonic Plague and Death
And life out of new molecules from old.
I am the Industrial Revolution,
I am Depression and Holocaust and oppression.
I am titanium and assembly line.
I am Perseid meteor shower and Halley ’s Comet.
I am every black hole,
Inside, another whole universe of me.

I am seconds young, and I have much to learn of
The multitudes of the universe, myself.

I've been thinking about our hug you left me with yesterday,
The one that convulsed my shoulder muscles and made my ribs cry just a little,
But a good cry, like the happy tears after holding a new puppy.
You said in that way,
As you have made a habit of
With sarcasm and sincerity,
"You'll always be my sweetheart",
And then you said that you won't call me your sweetheart in public.
That makes me so angry,
And you think I'm joking,
But I'm not.
Because I can't stop thinking about how those hugs and "sweethearts" are dwindling,
How each time you leave for a winter in the southern states
I cringe at the thought that I may never greet you for Easter next year.
And every time we find you asleep,
Open mouthed on the couch
We only panic for a second as to whether you will wake up this time.

You stand like a family monument,
So unique in composition,
With your structured titanium back and chiseled limestone arms that threw me playfully and carried me as your cowgirl,
And transformed our red, wooden house to sophisticated tan siding when I was too young to remember,
With your skin so dark from perma-tan I thought you were black when I was 6,
With your infinite woodworking skills and artistic envisions with architecture
That crafted dollhouses and swing sets for me at 8,
With your callused hands beyond remission and your ever bruising fingernails that paddled us down the Ausable at 13,
With your steel toed boots sewn into your feet that allowed me to dance on them till I was 15,
With your artificial heart valve and five open heart surgeries.
Once I thought it was instrumental, magical, the watch nestled under your ribs.
But now every time I get that gut squeezing hug as a goodbye I can hear that valve faintly tick,
And I pretend it's not your clock,
Trembling with each diastolic and Systolic murmur,
Gears cracking and eroding inside your kindled muscles,
Struggling to keep up with its more natural brothers inside that engulfing muscle,
That which reminds your family of
Your selfless and infinitely giving persona.
But it only reminds me that your days of rock polishing
And dentured smiles are ending rapidly.

These blue walls have been everything
Soon to be nothing

My possessions stay whole in my life
My persona is (mostly) intact
I still have the love of my cat
The feel of my soft blanket
The comfort of my books
And I can't comprehend why this doesn't give me strength

These grounds
O, the beautiful trees, planted by hands of the family
The flowers, the precious flowers
The graves of my protectors
Mikey
Jeffy
Chipper
The time capsule, planted for my enjoyment upon the day of graduation must now be prematurely returned to society

And it
Hurts
To hear my loved ones tell me this is petty, this is minute

Let me remind you of the gentle breeze on your cheek as you read a novel on the hammock
The crick that runs through our woods, the deer and morels that reside
The blackberry bushes on our hill, the view of the sunset few experience but us
Every night
The immaculate view of the heavens from our front porch
The sound of cicadas in mid June
The aroma of pine trees
The vibrations of frogs congregating in our swamp
The swamp itself, two to be exact

Have you even seen the second swamp?
I have
In fact, I've witnessed our slice of heaven repeatedly, I appreciate it
I love it
I live it

This is my ohm
This is my sanctuary
This is my religion

And like a conversion, this will be difficult
New rituals
New systems
New life
It's hard to respect the fact that this is necessary
In a way, it just feels
Frankly, unnecessary

As I lie in bed and think of all that I am about to
Lose
These blue walls feel constricting under the green roof, inside our barn shaped home
They feel sad for you, because

You will never understand the beauty within these 17 acres

In a fourth grader's bed there are rats eating at her mattress stuffing,
Stealing for her own young.
They nip at her toes while she finishes her math homework.
She always is hungry
Because at night the vermon crawl down windpipe to steal mother's cooking.
Mother is forced to throw away the mattress like a forgotten sock,
But fourth grader still wakes up sick from churning bile
In an empty stomach,
Because Mother was just fired from gas station #12.
Fourth grader has forgotten the feeling of warm toes, comfortable back, and being undesirably full.

I call for my mother above the rounded crescent hilltops
but she never answers,
only my Biology professor who brought me to this place
so distantly
close to my own heartland.
And my love affair
continues to blossom over every rotten log
with its residing salamanders and larvae.

My hopes is that the Beavers will teach me to saw through trees with such precision and I can then become one of the greats.