I pretend your smell
Walks the same blocks that I do
Home. Kindled under street lamp.
Or sleeps in my passenger seat,
Underneath fingernails and
Seeping through my palm.

I also pretend to know what your smell is.
When I remember how I don't know
I pretend I'll find out tomorrow,
Reaching for the smallest wisps
Traveling down jet stream and Lake Effect crispness.

Leaves in trees sing sweet and sharp breeze,
Iced dew on trilliums with spring freeze.
Hushed omens of rooted deer femurs,
Rushed growth of leeks and small rivers.
Hiss of cricket and cracked, damaged
Branches that creek above in suspension,
Poised avalanches.
Moisture wicked off budding ferns down
Stems like ballpoint, quill pen turns.
Blankets of moss overtop cedar gently padded
Our toes between sock and polyester.
The smack of coyote howl hacked
Like woodpecker thwack through antlers and
Tree trunks tracked by my own ears,
And I twist each string of melody into my
Cataloged years, so I never forget the swift lifting
Spell of days when red robin throats first swelled.

The number of stitches in my thigh,
punctures in my wrists,
the number of times you tried to **** me.

The number of paces I creased the carpet
with contemplating
how to escape you.

The number of hours you told me in bed
I'd be sorry after I left you,
naked and stabbing with your voice.

The number of  times I told my friends
your anger was disgusting, scary. The number
of times they told me don't worry.

The number of times you banged on my door,
****** knuckled, how many times I begged
for death, how many nights you barely left me
breathing.

This is the 492nd love letter I've written you this year,
the 492nd that will never be mailed.

Do you remember when love was spread
like salt on half-assed, ill seasoned chicken soup?
Those letters stopped at #341.
Now these prose are written to not one loved by,
but one in receival of pointless and misguided love.

#136 was the letter of our nights of dreaming,
in cloudless harmony,
how our minds braided from miles apart.

#302 was of the day we became closer,
now only a 2-minute car ride apart,
no longer were our spines purging so rubber-band-like.
We were closer.
Our love swelled to string our hearts tighter.

And maybe that's why #341 happened.
No longer a necessity to work for love,
for teenage passion,
only a ritual of Monday night homework after Drama,
and denial of Do you want to tonight?
Shooed by a My parents...

Should #327 have been about our love being too easy to come by?
Because I couldn't provide what you didn't even chance at.

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?

There is but one point where everything stands still,
And we can only create it, not find it in the natural world.

I find this fascinating


In a world of industrialization,
Timely schedules,
And 7 billion people,
Nothing ever stops.
Though I try to sit as still as silence,
I **** my breathing momentarily,
I resist the need to blink,
This does nothing.
My heart still beats,
My veins still pump,
And the hormones triggered by my brain will still be released.

The rocks will still shake at the molecular level.
Underneath the ice, the lake is still moving.
And the air, though no wind may be felt, persists higher up still.

Yet there is a joy that comes from watching everything around you,
As you freeze time,
And they continue on.
The river speeds on faster than was noticed before.
The people move quicker along the sidewalk.
The cars accelerate until the stop sign approaches, yet even then their engines still growl with a readiness to pounce.

But I sit here and wonder why more do not stop like me.
Is it cowardice that keeps them in constant motion?
I think it more to be blamed on an unwillingness to care.
Ignorance - there's a reason it's bliss.

Maybe if they did stop, they would start caring more about the river that runs underneath them perpetually.
Creating sanctuaries for infinite numbers of species.
Loving each one equally.
Harmonizing with the trees and flowers.
Caring for the muck and dirt with no where else to go, nothing else to be.

And perhaps caring is scary,
But peoples' lack of care, I find angering.

I enrage over how more people don't care,
And how if we all stopped just one moment each day,
Things would be much different.

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

Chicago,

Your energy rumbles up my knees and out my esophagus.
I speak your language with each vibration,
And while others find it annoyance purely,
I treat it tenderly and loop it through each tooth,
Threading the words you teach me.
While your speech turns to sentences I come to understand your purpose, why we are here
On this gravity defying sidewalk.

I feel your kinesthetics with every breath I take,
Whooping back out cigarette tar and gasoline vapor.
The river, long and un-obstructive, flows down to the base
Of the brain stem which you funnel your strength and wisdom through.
The geese tickling your nerve endings in the water
Never realized this liquid is no longer their home,
It was taken hostage a century before.

This city,
With its echoing winds and cloud scraping apartments
Understands me.
A symbiotic sphere.
It sees the future while others greedily pull the veil over their faces,
But He is unwilling to accept the imaginary.
Someday the stars will no longer glisten,
While every building, innocent and newly ******,
Loses the fluttering heartbeat it once composed.
The windows will project no faces,
Only empty chairs and tables
Collecting dust and milky residue of the putridity its children once carried in lungs.

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'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.

The lake is glass, the trees are still
And I, on the opposite side, will row this boat
My vessel of fear
Until the lonely shore becomes near
To get closer to thee

My oar is dripping
With the liquid gold of eons before me
And of the ladies past who made the same trek.
As I make it to shore,
Like never before I feel a stillness beneath me
And the steps I take to lessen the distance still become harder and
Harder,
Yet carry on I must, to progress my life much farther

The door creaks
And the windows squeak
As I enter through the way
Into the house of ages past and darkness never known
Where I will find you on my own,
An ending of beginning
A close at the opening of a door

When a man found a rotting piano
In the woods of Germany,
Each unplayed note traveled through his red blood veins
up to his brain painting colors of wound and gas mask.
He could hear the music of war within each taste of sheltered forest air.
In his nails, shadows of bleed
and drops of motor oil,
the residue of sea salt from the hulls of ships.

The man
Thought of all the Jewish and non Jewish fingers
That never touched each key.
He played all the combinations of chords never played
On the tree trunk next to him.
The man felt his right fingers cramp,
Riger-mortic,
And saw his fallen brother behind the largest tree holding his palm the same way.
He thought of all the stiffened hands sitting in holes dug by living hands,
Hands begging for one more sip of water soup,
Hands begging for freedom,
Hands begging for death.

The man forgot his salt crusted boots.
The man couldn't forget how his gas mask could have saved two more hands to play the unplayed piano.

She put her ears up in a
perky
quirky manner,
and smiled with a full tongue out at the purple clouds cast against the salmon sun.

Finally, we had found something in common.

We sweat and gasped together, but we felt beautiful together.
And I scratched the exact spot on each side of your face simultaneously
which cripples you momentarily as you fall over in excitement just to hear me say one consonant.

And for the two seconds we gazed, the leash in my hand became more than vinyl weave.
It was a connection we didn't understand, something money doesn't own, and something God never created.

We were us.


But peaceful bliss dies as quickly as the squirrel she smells,
had the leash not been wrapped around my blood-thirsty, suffocating forearm.
So back down the stairs we walk (run) as her smile tightens and mine fades like the pigment of my arm's skin.

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

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

Dad’s ocean is washing away
The frame of our house.
I am on the second floor,
Riding the waters of Mother’s tears.
I plug my ears with my fingers
And hold my breath;
I still feel the ebb and flow of his rage.
The hypothermic water winds
Around my toes like nooses.

My body is a life vest
Floating on top of a row boat bed.
Its boards are rotten and creaking
Under my adult weight.
Our house is a fish tank. Everyone is staring
through our windows with bulbous eyes as
Rivers flow from our pains of glass.

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 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.

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.

In good time the leaves will turn with fall.
The hearts of boney legged men will tone,
And I'll still be waiting,
Breath baited,
As I watch from a distance our connection
Drip toxicity and dissolve the fragile string that held us
In a perfect repulsive state with brilliant resonance,
Suspended at an equilibrium that allowed these trees to paint their seeded leaves.

It will ring whether they want it to or not.

There's the day they will force it,
There's the day they will stop.

Yet She rings on still stronger,
Whether they want it to or not.

Until the day I am able to sleep next to you, my hand held in yours softly
Underneath billowy sheets, hidden beneath baby-soft blankets like school children
Your chest, slowly rising and lowering with each breath you
Inhale
Exhale, serves as my head rest, with your hand sweetly, yet safely atop my cheek bone

The steady metronome that resides under your rib cage resonates across the surface area of my skin and rattles the bones of my inner ear

The heat we create draws precipitation out of my pores

I stencil hearts, swirls, circles on your forearm with my freshly painted fingernails as you drift into the realm of dreams
I follow along shortly, all the while sharing my most sincere love for you, which kindles warmth under the comforters

I linger as long as humanly possible, for who would rather dream, than live their dreams
Where sight, sounds and smells create paintings on canvases, capturing memories


Until This day, one can only visualize

I think you should have made me say sorry
Before I had to come to the realization myself.
All the backs rubbed, padded fingers
Bruised in futile comfort
Came from you doing, living you, yourself,
Your normal of
**** it, **** happens.

No, I'm not angry at myself, because
You plant these seeds yourself and let them
Diffuse into your acidic tasting soil,
Dirtied by all of the forgotten questions
And
Dismembered, overcarressed words.
Stuffing filled ******* you shoveled
Over your shoulder,
Back onto the pile.

There's value you tirelessly overlook
In ending a fight,
Finishing a thought,
Having emotions,
Being a human.

It's your well deserved turn now,
You can do it,
   Just inhale
     Languages
     ****** expressions
     Subtitles
     Paraphrases
     Gestures
     Pantomimes
   With fluidity as each atomic being sifts through continuing passages

And go.
   Exhale,
           No, you're doing it wrong.
   Breath.   Out.
    What you feel,
Release,
      Allow me passage inside,

I've only wanted to help all this time.


         I guess we'll just start here.

The building ate itself inside,
Flattened to a lake of brick,
Like a table
Disappearing from underneath shadowed cloth
As the magician snapped his fingers.

I sidewalk-chalked the Devil incarnate
while my childhood innocence slept soundly.

It was at midnight
underneath the sterile galaxies and omnipresent suns,
behind the home of our opalescent father,
who only existed in just the right light,
just the right situation.

As I drew faster, my tears froze, fell,
and encased my sinful artwork in ripple lined glass,
a window into a lifetime skinned clean of happiness.

I stare at my bedroom wall
Laughing with crinkled eyes.

My walls are blue
Like the sweatshirt you wore.

My pillow is blue
Like your blue sweatshirt arms.

It's wrapped around me
Like your arms were for seconds.

For seconds
I imagined you never letting go.

When I imagine you
I laugh from how easy it is to imagine you.

I laugh because you
Find a way into my smile easier each day.

I smile easier each day
Because you make me laugh.

Laughing with crinkled eyes,
I stare at my bedroom wall.

Come Gaze with me
At the stars that shine so bright
At the galaxies and nebulas
Hold my hand as we view the heavens
As we find ourselves among space

You peek into my eyes, and look at the picture of the sky that twinkles in my pupils, the reflection of pure beauty

I see a shooting star
It is so beautiful, so fragile, in a fraction of a second it is gone
I try to point it out to you, but still you stare into my eyes
You tell me nothing is more beautiful than them, there is no point in looking away, it would only bring sadness upon you

I kiss your lips, your cheek, your jaw bone, drag my lips across the contours of your neck

The sky erupts with beauty
It is both white and color filled at the same time
It is neither night or day as our tongues explore the inside of each others cheeks

No words could come within miles of describing this moment


Come gaze with me
At the stars that shine so bright
We will embrace and watch the sky explode in shooting stars
I will hold your hand as we view the heavens
And beyond

I wish to be remembered as wise beyond my age
I wish to transfer a legacy of laughter and happiness
I wish to keep within my friends the originality I held in myself

That originality,
In a 5'1" woman it towers over McKinleys and Everests alike
It kept me from conformance
It shielded me from mainstream virtues

If nothing else, keep alive my ability to stand out
Through my laughter
Through my love
But keep in mind these things within yourself
For what be the point of my existence if I could not progress the world into a better state

As I dive into an abyss
And leave my kin
My soul missing its housing
And my fingers lose their feeling
My mind loses meaning
But my body never leaving

Just remember that as I lay dying
I wish only for my song to carry
As it resonates in liquid minds of children

As I lay dying
Carry on my verse
And recite the prose of my wisdom
For the sponges

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.

Within our 400 mile distance
There's a point where our distinct
Gravities will overlap,
Where our eyelids will refuse to
close until they can face each other
In rest.

All my laughs, every goodnight
And goodbye only increase
Your mass.
I feel your weight tug
On my brain stem stronger
Each day. You loop
My string around your finger
Once at night, once in morning.

Each twist draws me closer
To your jaw,
Wrapped in your arms
Under sheets of snow.

How can I still breathe?
How do I still walk?

I go home

Grab Mom's knife

Slit

Crying, I hide the remains of my mangled wrist

Days go by like nobody cares
Nobody talks
Nobody loves

My Mom is home

An audience

As I grab the knife, she screams
All breathing stops
I lay on the floor

My Mom picks up the phone

The blood is draining
My life is fading

As moments go by

The radio plays

"All You Need is Love"

Have you ever watched a face before you drip into itself? Imploding in slow motion,
Melting inside into darkness?
And watch each drop of liquid flesh melt the day away.
And the waxy ooze pools in staggering stalagmites, gathering till no longer can the mountain continue to heighten.
They seem to be tears,
But how can they be such things with no emotion inside?


Aren't we all just dolls?
Suspended until the candle gets too close?
Placed here to fill a space, fill a hole and make it "whole"?

Someday I want to know if I'm made of plastic, or if I'm real.
But for now, I know the answer.

When you look at me
I kiss you with my eyes,
Lashes hitting each **** in your heart
Which I taste in my mouth,
Rusted iron clots.

When you look at me
My knees buckle
Under the smell of your warmth
Behind each tooth,
In the snug of your baseball cap.

When you look at me
My fingers resist to trace
The lines of your face, down
To shoulder blades and tendons
In your arms.

When I look at you
I sweat in anticipation
Of someday, maybe, understanding
Everything blooming about you
Under the beds of your nails.

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.