closed fingers running across my stomach
we hit heads switching positions
i want to build a house
where every cabinet rests at the end of your reach
it isn't often that we meet genuinely this way  

and yet im imagining so quickly
a yard-
right off the back patio
right off the screen door
aster and golden rod planted purposefully along the path

I too, wonder why aster and goldenrod look beautiful together
what i do know
a bouquet of aster on my counter
a glimpse of goldenrod on the side of the highway
purple and gold are not only royal as a pair....

intentional with her time
she thinks she is the one she's slowing down
but im finding my breathe in her mouth
patience in the moisture between our thighs

i am begging you to look at me!
goodnight ruby joy

God I hate when the cigarette ends

I am never prepared for the feeling to end
When I’m out and wasted and the time slips away and everything slips away. I look up at the hands raised moving slowly and slower as it all drags on. We are moving around in a tiny space, all together but not. All alone but not. I find someone to **** with my eyes every once in a while. Im glad we found each other here. Im flattered and grateful and full. I can’t recall the feeling of need in these moments. I can't recall anything. Im staring at my feet- stomping from the dance floor to the front door. The cigarette doesn’t end here. Nothing ends or begins. I see someone I know. Im so glad you are here! I don’t know why I am glad but I am so so glad. Im watching my feet stomp from the front door back in. It's dark at the bar, its dark on the dance floor, it's dark on the sidewalk. Im raising my hands now. Im so glad to be sharing this moment with you all. I cant imagine why I felt so bad before I came here tonight. What could be so bad in the morning?
What could be so bad? god I hate when the club turns the lights on at 2am. I'm stomping my way to the front door. I stomp my way home and up the steps. My living rooms looks different when its spins like this. I *****… i'm starting to remember why I felt the need to get this drunk. I remember "what could be so bad in the morning".
It's morning now. Im on the porch. God I hate when the cigarette ends. I hate when the time drags on, and I remember.

I prefer the shaded part of the street
the side where we meet- in the heat of the summer in the city
She missed me when she went on the camping trip
Or maybe she just hated the camping trip

I tread close behind when you leave
succumb to the ease in following
Lost like a dog without its owner
rope locked into the chains of my collar

I struggle to admit that i desire anything
or that i'm better when i'm needed back
or that i wish she was with me during bad weather
that I still buy her noodles even though I prefer rice

You could find someone like me buried in the ground
Next to my wife of 50 yrs
arthritic fingers intertwined tightly across my stomach
the dishes that we used
The furniture that never moved

ill always try to let go
but her toothbrush is still in the toothbrush cup
and her swimsuit is still in my sock drawer
and recently i polished her old silverware as a surprise

god i love to pretend like nothings changed

When you wake up in the morning, read a proverb. There are 31 Proverbs, one for each morning. After that, kneel next to your bed and thank the Lord for waking you up. The breath in your lungs belongs to the father, do not forget. Make your way to the kitchen and have breakfast. Say a silent prayer before you eat. Do not make a fuss, for your prayers are private and not to be made a public affair (Dear God, thank you for this day, thank you for everything. Bless this food to the nourishment of my body. In your name I pray, amen.)

I am washed by the water
I am washed by the praying
I am washed by the white man touching my shoulders in front of the congregation
I am washed by the ******* hymnal
I am washed by being the black poster child; the ****** project. (In gods name)
I am washed by the screaming in tongue
I am washed by the colors navy blue, grey, and black. (never red) For these are the colors of a ******
I am washed by submission to my father, my brothers, my leaders, any man really
I am washed by the hidden ****** box; hidden blood stained sheets; used pads wrapped in toilet paper and then an old toilet paper roll, and then a napkin and then a tissue box and then and then and then
I am washed by the slaps; good girls don’t talk back
Good girls don’t hit back
Good girls don’t fight back
Good girls don’t make eye contact
Good girls say yes sir
I am washed by the whispers of how boys and girls are supposed to play
I am washed by squeezing my eyes shut and praying (dear god ill never ever ever, if he stops putting his hands there)
I am washed by the laughter
I am washed by trying to “chill out” per his command when he’s done shoving his hot-fry covered fingers inside me
I am washed by trying to figure out what part of his forceful ******* felt good. Because he said it was supposed to and men are usually right.
I am washed by the nightmares of god casting my limp body to hell.
I am washed by screaming and begging and swearing Ill never look at another woman again.
I am washed by the fear
I am washed by the puffy white sleeves
I am washed by hiding my *******
I washed by binding my *******
I am washed by praying for my ******* to go away
I am washed by hunching my back so my ******* don’t show
I am washed by white Jesus hanging in my kitchen.
In my bathroom
In my hallway
Above my bed
Around my neck
I am washed by the phone call with my high school boyfriend after he dumped me
(please don't leave. I don’t think I'll ever find another boy I can marry.)
I am washed by the dead eyed kissing; staring into the woods behind his house while his hands searched my body for a crevice to explore.
I am washed by the self loathe
I am washed by death to self, for he is the way, the truth, and the light
I am washed by the darkness at the end of all my tunnels
Because my tunnels were clueless and empty and sinful
I am washed by the new found distance from everything I know
I am washed by the layer of dust on my now untouched collection of King James and NSVs.
I am washed by the calmness of independence and self acceptance
I am washed by her hand in the small of my back and the kiss of her cheek and her neck and her chest
I am washed by the preciousness  
I am washed by the mistakes and the hurt and the growth
I am washed by continuing and searching and yearning
I am washed by the blessings and earnings of a life that does not include any energies I do not want.
I am washed by my own power and my own god
I am washed
I was always washed
I was never unclean

Even when the rain falls
Even when the flood starts rising
Even when the storm comes
I am washed by the water

Feeling emptier than a dormant volcano. Watching the other mountains spit fire from their mouth's and their soul's. I'm crawling the earth as everyone is walking and learning to dance, and it isn't that I haven't heard that I could do it too; i've just never believed the mouths that said it.
While the trees sway and the humans nod at one another in unity and assurance, I'm a vacant city sleeping in empty dining halls and making families out of the rubble that lie at my feet, dreaming of the day something (anything) moves in.
Drones and explosives and graffiti. There's no one to blame. I'm alone as alone can be. I thought it could be a beautiful sadness (art), but it's just awful. Painful and dreary and lonely. The only eyes that see are mine and it's only monsters. I want someone here with me, you see, but I can't fathom hurting anyone but me.

One day you're feeling translucent. light. The only thing weighing you down is the weight of the wind. Full but empty. Content.
And one day you rise and somehow your sleep felt like the sleep of the past. You wake up felling like you're somewhere else with the smell of someone else's hair and the air feels like the air of a space you haven't thought of in months. And it comes back. Regret. Guilt. The weight. When you open you're eyes, you're still where you were left. Somewhere alone. It never matters though.

There's an odd silence that comes with aloneness. It's purely specific to aloneness. I think once you get used to this silence, the loneliness goes away. Then it's just you and the dog again, and it's okay to be alone.

Before this silence becomes familiar, it just feels like the space of a place that was once filled. And while the filling loved you, the emptiness never will.

its so important to stay in touch with reality. its so important to stay in touch with what you're made up of. it's okay if you lose touch for a little while.
everything falls away at some point. you don't always have to rebuild something new. sometimes you just put pieces back together.
you put pieces back together and the key is to stay a little buzzed when it gets to be too much. when you're just right there on the edge of a burning bridge. you'll be so thankful for it later.

-BridgeS-

eventually you'll find yourself without weights tied to the edges of your mouth sewed shut and you'll want to call your mom or someone that meant something to you before things started crumbling. anything is crumble worthy but the bridges. you can run as far north as you want but always leave a path behind you to run back.

She smells the way my mothers hair smelled when I was a child; back when playing in my mother's hair brought me peace. She smells like the play house I made out of pine needles and hay bails. She feels like rain falling onto the deck my father fished from every evening. She sounds like his foot steps coming up behind me. When she holds my waist, her arms feel like the chains of the swing-set he built between the two pine trees in my back yard (firm and incapable of letting me fall). She tastes like blackberry and muscadine wine and jam and pie. She feels like sticky skin after hours of picking them from the woods behind the old shed. She reminds me of the beginning of fall and blooming lemons trees. She even smells like citrus. She's everything that's ever made me whole. She's what brings me peace. She reminds me what home is supposed to be. She's given me back everything I've loved and lost. She's everything to me and this is why.

peaceful. head in her lap with her fingers in my hair, laying in the backseat of an uber, listening to her talk about the sunshine back home in comparison to seattle's overcast.

peaceful. curled up in an unfamiliar bed that feels oddly nostalgic as soon as she crawls in.

peaceful.

do not get hard
do not let life harden
the beauty of a broken soul is much more lovable than that of a ****** heart

do not get hard
do not let life harden
these trials and trespasses are the water to your seed, don't you see?

go and grow. let your roots turn from ash to soil to stem to life to comfort.
stay soft.

And may everyone you touch run their fingers over your scars with disbelief.
Show them how your painful life is not pitiful, but beautiful.

beautiful.

My tears used to keep her up at night, but I'm afraid now she can't sleep without them.

I'd like to lie down and feel the brush of her smooth leg against mine- or even stand next to her in a grocery store. Quite honestly, I don't need anything but her attention, and maybe the change of scent in the air when she breezes past me on the way to the wine cabinet.

*The muffled popping sound of the cork sliding from the neck of the bottle, the clink of the glass on the counter, the waterfall of bubbly red ricocheting off of the walls. Her face of concentration morphing into a smirk and  her flirty eyes peak at me through her bangs as she offers me the glass. Half of her hair tucked behind her ear while the other half is falling out, gliding across the back of her neck and over her face.

Your skin, translucent
Your shoulders are sharp
My little hands pulled out chunks of hair
when I tried to braid the frail pieces of breaking, brown strands
I hid them under your pillow to avoid your tears of frustration
Just another reason to say, “I’m so ugly, so gross, so ugly”

Black holes hollowing your cheeks
Red rose colored water lines
Blue green seaweed swimming through the skin over your cheeks
The deep darkness of the ocean swallowing your mind

Filling up your stomach with water
to make the scale read heavier for the doctors
Vomiting it up before the presence of hydration in your veins
could make you live an extra day

Your jeans went from a size double zero
to a baggy children’s size
Dinners out turned into a messy plate of cut up food
None of which was eaten

Ana gouged out your eyes and replaced them with ticking clocks
And walked your bony feet to the scale four times a day
What is left of your skin is painted in red and deep purple splotches
Breaking nails and yellow brittle teeth

Only Ana can speak the language you comprehend
But not even she could tell you, “you’re beautiful”
You only hear muffled underwater words of disgust
Swimming hazily in a sea of pretty girls made of bones
Breathing Hydrocodone to numb the hunger pains
Eating Xanax to bring them closer to death.

sitting in the dark, chewing on my cheeks. My ankle bracelets don’t come off and they're still wet from the tub
she used to braid my curls before bed

driving on the interstate with my back windows rolled down. The front ones wont budge
she would hold my phone with the maps up, “get off on the next exit”


Id come home to fiery curls every night; i still do. Except they're mine and they smell like smoke instead of coconut shampoo

It's cold here
Trying to find warmth in this dense wet air.
Feels like uh
icicles
little tiny *** icicles that cling to the branches in my lungs
like leaves on tree branches

Don't get to close and don't forget that love is loss. The beauty in a sunfower only lasts as long as summer. The two months of sunshine are never worth the destruction of the hurricanes.

I planted seeds in you and you planted them in me.
I watered and watered and watered
I think I may have drowned them.
I was never a good gardener.

My mother had a garden for winter, spring, fall, and summer.
I didn't like to get my hands *****
I washed the breakfast dishes on Saturdays and finger painted the printer paper on the back porch.
She tended and weeded and poured love into every leaf.
While I picked blades of grass and made stick families on the porch steps.
I was never a gardener.
But I did watch.
I knew how to water. I knew how to ****.
I knew how to analyze what needs tenderness and what needs grit.
I knew how to water water water
I knew how to drown.

She cooked and cleaned and hid her face when Arthur screamed. She made dinner with the tomatoes she grew and salads with the cucumbers. She loved him with every ounce and never stopped. (she never stopped gardening)

I was never a good gardener. I never learned when to stop. My mother didn't teach me that part.

I'm less drunk now; so let me talk about biting your shoulder and kissing down your spine. Calling you baby is better than diving naked off the ******* into the crashing waves that summer at Navarre. The ends of my hair can perceive the sensation that fills my throat and shoots down to the tips of my toes. Finger tips tingling, inching up the empty space next to me as if continuing could make your body appear and I'd no longer have to close my eyes and wish your hands inside my palms and my eyelashes blinking your unruly curls. You live inside my mind and I live for the day that you're riding next to me in the car with one hand on my thigh and the other fighting for the controls of the radio; complaining that you'd die if I played another Tegan and Sara song from 1999. I swear all you have to do is breathe and I'd climb over the wall of china. Breathe out a word that even sounds like baby and I'm putty in your hands. Please mold me into something beautiful and strong; something I can look at in the mirror. I didn't mean to give you all this power, I never meant to do anything; but I don't think you meant to have me falling like this either. We all make mistakes baby. What I mean is, it's okay. Just kiss me baby.

When I was 6, I never doubted that everything would turn out okay. Bad things happened to bad people and that was the only logic my brain could fathom.
When I turned 7, my mother mistakenly punished me for something my brother did.
I guess it started there.

There are some places that can't be touched and there are some places that can't be kissed and there are some places that need to be kissed and some of those places haven't been discovered. I'm a handbook. *** is like drivers ed. Am I crying, or shaking from pleasure? *****. Sometimes hands are there that aren't really. Sometimes fare fine linen fingers feel like brown bony paws that don't listen to "let go".
**** me. Even when my eyes get glossy and you're wondering if I'm still there. I'm there. Grab me. *** isn't always this way.

Sometimes I'm in charge, but it isn't freaky. Don't call me a freak, call me lovely. I can **** **** ****, but don't whisper that it's *****; it isn't "*****". Sweating and running make-up. Heavy breathing. Wheres my body, wheres my mind? Don't call it nasty. It's not "nasty". Grabbing, groping, grinding; it isn't lewd. Don't call me a ****.
Touch me and remind me that I'm pleasing. Touch me and remind me that there's only me. Touch me and enjoy it. Enjoy me.
I want the lights on. I want the lights off. I want you you you.

*** isn't always this way; sometimes I'm in charge.

She breathes her words more than she says them. They come out in a sigh or yawn or a whisper. And stars fall off of her tongue in galaxy formation, spinning and dancing and worshiping their sun. I blush when I see her shoulders and I blush when I see her smile and I blush when I hear her breathe anything into my ear

We're whispering now because it's late. The sleepier her voice, the quieter it gets. Is it safe now to say all the words that wait at the pit of my stomach to lunge at my throat when you sleepily whisper "goodnight liz". All the words that don't yet make sense and even some without much reason. Fluttering with the wings of my nervous butterfly's, jumbling every good thing I've ever thought to say.
Does she even want to hear?
Would it scare her away?
Am I just anxiety stricken with a low self esteem?
But does she maybe wish to say them as well? (Hm)
I can feel the hair raising all over my body. My mouth drying. My heart beating.
And ****, I've got nothing. Nothing but the sound of her fan squeaking and the hum hum hum she makes before she drifts off.

Feel free to rip open the threads of my heart as if it where a woven band, as long as you regret the foul sound of undoing something beautiful, the sound of ripping, the sound of heartbreak.

Feel free to tear me to peices with your words and even your fingers as they pull my hair to the ground out of anger, but only if you fall with me and your tears when you see that i'm such a beautiful soul when thrown to the floor.

Please lie and say that Im the only thing your heart and soul and mind ever needed. I'm captivating whilst filling the holes that your father punched in your walls and your face and your mother. Lie and lie and lie, it's okay. As long as your heart sinks to your feet when I walk away and leave you alone with the other girls that were also, all you ever needed.

Eat from my vines and pick my flowers and use and abuse me; we're only human.
But I dare you to walk away from my body, mangled from your hands, unscarred and remorseless. I'll rise stronger than before I'd fallen and I promise your scars won't be the kind that fade.

Your mere voice has my fingers itching for a strand of your hair
The size of your thighs or arms or heart, nothing can make you less desirable
Can you hear the anxiety in my voice while trying to explain?
It's like a raindrop reminding the rainbow of its importance
"You've got talent and purpose, and beauty" it says. "Beauty on top of beauty, but more importantly, you've made me smile and you're the sunlight after a storm, even when I'm the raindrops."

I am the storm.
I forget that, that is ok. It's ok to be the rain somedays.
Rainbows are never more beautiful, than after a long dreary night of raindrops.

Positively living in the happiest state of mind is exhausting. Don't forget to eat and brush your teeth and get out of bed. Dance in the morning and rise with the sun and fall asleep as soon as you get sleepy. Eat fruits and vegetables and walk your dog. Don't forget anything because happiness stems from perfection. Don't forget to be perfect and make sure everyone knows that you are. No one can help you, happiness comes from within. Love yourself and befriend the mirror. Don't let your mind think on it's own accord. You aren't allowed to feel the things that make you cry.

I don't know how pain turned into beauty
Or how loving someone half dead on  their bathroom floor is real

Maybe we were just trying to remember what it felt like to be whole.
So we made broken out to be the new fad. If everyone has scars on their arms and legs and  hearts, then maybe it's okay.

I live in a straight jacket of people
just like me
And we breathe the same air
and writhe against the same walls
keeping us locked and unmoving and scared.

all looking for the definition of life
and medication to numb the symptoms
because the pain is to great to fix

But what happened to our eyes?
and good god, the relief in reassurance
no one sees the person writhing against the
wall that they are
No one sees the person suffocating in the same air
that they are

There is so much weakness in feeling alone
and we're only dying because we're blind

Because we're all writhing against the same walls
just open your eyes and maybe your hands

"Love like your father"
So I'll love as strong as his wrists
And as sweet as his wink
And as long as his hair

I'll love as tender as his smile
And as melodious as his laugh
And as diligent as his discipline

I'll love as smart as his opinions
And as loud as his whistle
But still as imperfect as his bent fingers

I'll love as open as his front door
And as giving as his hands
And as keen as his judgement

I'll love like he loved LSU
And fried chicken
I'll love like he loved his tractor
And watching birds

I'll love how he loved my mother  
And Jesus
I'll love like he loved the ones he didn't like
And those who didn't deserve it

I'll love because my father loved
He taught me to love by loving me

"Love like your father"
And so I'll love like my father does

there's a hollow tree
where my heart should be
growing and growing and growing

the bigger the plant
the bigger the pain
the bigger the hole to fill

and eventually, without much notice
inside my soul
grows a rabbit hole
much like in Alice's tails

the bigger the plant
the bigger the pain
the bigger the hole to fill

"I've got to go inside, its smoldering out here"

and you looked at me as if it were an obvious invitation to come
almost looking confused as to why I would even hesitate

we walked inside and went to the back room.
there were a circle of people there; the kind I would expect you to fall into naturally
on account of your beauty and wit.

but you walked past them and sat in a corner, with enough room for me to sit between you and the wall.
with less hesitation now, I sat

your legs were laying out straight facing me and your back against the wall
my legs were laying out straight facing you, and I was leaning on my elbows

you initiated conversation because you're eloquent on the spot
I listened mostly because i'm not

I noticed a while through how well we were together. just talking to one another.

eventually, it got quiet and you pushed your back from the wall to lie flat on the floor
I put my elbows down and did the same.
as you scooted closer, our hips touched

"aren't you glad we're connected now"
i smiled

*I've got no clue what you meant by that
But I know that I was ecstatic to lie there with my hip touching yours