I can't sleep
when the stars aren't out
so instead
of lying awake
300 nights of the year I
put glow-stars on my ceiling
thinking it would help

But these are
poor replicas of real stars,
dishonest reproductions
of the wild and infinite
cosmos.
I sleep better now but it
is the sleep of a liar:
I awake often and know
that above me
is spread a false sky.

in a car
in a parking lot
wrapped in a grey day
I too am wrapped,
curled against seat
under blanket,
as comfortably
as in the cloud that
holds the sky in its palm
outside somewhere
there are voices:
high with laughter
drunk on company
a car thrums past,
musical heartbeat pulsing

I could be plugged
in too; I could be
out there with them
but I am a cloud
in a sunset yellow sky,
a wave
on the rolling sea,
a red star hiding
beneath the skin
of the cosmos
my eyelids blur out
the world and become
the canvas for a new one

here I nap -
and I want to carve it
in stone,
let it tumble mountains,
HERE I AM,
the idiot child of reason
and fate,
drenched
in hazy past
as futures crystallize
before me
my body confined,
my mind transcends

I see all,
know all, be all:
I awake
and find myself
nothing, just
wrapped.

say I love you while you can,
and while you mean it,
and in as many ways
as you know how: there is
altogether too much time
when your heart is not beating
in tune with hers,
you may as well admit it when it is

and do not be
ashamed, my friend,
if she proclaims
your eyes are starlight
your lips are moonbeams
and she does not look like any sun
you've ever seen

perhaps just turn away,
let roses rise in your cheeks
and whisper a soft thanks
because you know her heart
beat so loud for you
it poured out through her mouth

and wait for the moment
when you can say the same,
or if you cannot: do not
lie and say she is
your world and stars and sun
when she is none.

there was a time when I was not
what I am now.
to say that your death warmed me
is an understatement. to say that
the fire which turned you to ash
lit my soul
is a clean metaphor
for the gruesome truth:
I am no phoenix

but people say I look like you.
people who loved you better
who knew you better
say I am becoming like you.
I don't want to be you.

I loved you
like a planet loves her moon,
and now you are more distant
and more close to me
than ever before:
you are both
here and not here,
and if you can hear me
I'm sorry, but

your life is gone already,
and I don't want to carry
its weighty remembrance.
I am not the result
of your ashes.
it has been two years:
I will not stay rooted
in the past, no matter
how much it changed me.

For all your versatility, though you change more constantly than I do,
There's a heartbeat, smooth and steady, running through you.
You take my compass and spin it round.
Now South is up and North is down.
Winds from nowhere lead me on. I cannot turn my sails away.
My heart is rooted to your earth, my feet will go no other way.
So forward into you go I, and never to return,
Though always I loved to wander, it is now for you I yearn,
And bear upon my shoulders the heavy yoke of destiny
Which my forefathers did not accept so readily
But turned from love and light and hope
To deep and dark and turn and stroke.
Now in the heavy earth they lie,
Observe and laugh at all that has gone by.
Six feet under does not bury their love for the sea,
Six feet under cannot bury me.

she invaded the space behind my lungs
and slowly, by degrees, pushed me out
of my own life. she took over
my heartbeats, my hair, my voice.
I wanted you and now she does.
I laughed in the sun and now she does.

people ask us if we're sisters
and I can't say yes
and I can't say no.
we are linked, two peas in a pod
she built from dust and desire,
but she is not me. I am not her.

my hands and my eyes are not hers.
my thoughts are not hers.
but I am hers, I belong to her,
without her asking or my giving
she pulls me under and I don't
even beg for mercy: I want to be drowned
in her stupid tidal wave.
perhaps then we will find
the line between us: that I am dying
and she is living; that she is standing
on my heart, pushing the blood
into my throat.

I stared at city lights tonight and I wanted to die.
The distance laughed at my eyesight
Like I didn’t deserve it.
I’m sad, and it’s not beautiful.
It’s messy. It’s tangled wires in my heart.
It’s crossed communications in my brain:
When someone smiles and I want
To cry and scream and rip out their throat.

More and more, people make me shut off.
They flip the switches that have held light
To the dark corners of my heart.
Children make me want to cry:
What are they going to grow up to be?
When I was seven I didn’t think
I’d be this **** sad.
What wars will they fight, with their friends
With their family, with the world, with themselves?

When you are depressed, or anxious, or bipolar,
Or have another one of
That host of mental disorders:
You cannot control it.
Just like you can’t make your blood
Flow back into an open wound,
The feeling doesn’t fade
With positive thoughts.

I wanted to die tonight, like I have
Wanted to die before,
And it was not beautiful, and it was not
Something I wanted to be feeling,
And it wasn’t under my control.
I was just really **** sad.