i.
as we get bigger
our handwriting gets
smaller

ii.
stars are bigger than
the sky itself
but their light forces
the past into the present
and forces our wishes
into the past

iii.
there are so many
women out there with
my name but
this increases the likelihood
that you've said it
out loud
and identified me
with sound as i have
you
sound travels slower
than light but we are never
alone

iv.
she showed me your
picture with some words
square tight around it
and two dates in the caption
and said
nothing is ever worth this
until i wanted to reach
into the earth just to
cover your ears

v.
the dementors couldn't
distinguish between crouch
and his mother because
this illness doesn't discriminate
so i don't know why
people do

vi.
you and even
i
are lowercase letters
today
with no punctuation

There is a fine line
between wanting to
be healthy & happy
and wanting to take
up less space.
Wanting to be less.
Matter is neither
created nor destroyed
in the universe—
wanting to take
as little as possible
from the world,
wanting not to leave
a mark.

A fine line between the
BMI of activity & health
and being told that the
gaps in me are the
best parts.
The spaces I don’t fill.
The matter I don’t use.

I draw this line in the
sand, thin—with just the
very tip of a nail—
but the world screams
in protest at me until
my head aches, and it is
more relaxing just to
let the sea
reclaim the small
mark and wash it
back into
the universe.

So as a reminder to
myself I keep
drawing fine lines
on my mind and
on my skin, where
the world and time
can wash away
at it but I’ll still
have the mark
all to myself.

Maybe not the
world, but this
being is mine
and I am
welcome
in it.

Books recommend people to me.
I scan spines of every person and
every book I see,
just waiting to find you.

As an exercise in moving-on
I am looking for you in new
places because the old one
is hidden in a sea of faces
with smiles like they can see
I've made a wrong move and
are about to point out the error
to me to spare me the shame
even if it means they will lose
the game.

I can bear that look in any
face but yours.
So for you I tore
a length of orange ribbon
and tied it around the lid
of a jar and littered the bottom
with scraps of paper,
small scraps for small things,
pieces of poetry you didn’t
think I had that I was scared
was just the you in me, so I’m
sealing them in a jar to be
distorted by the glass
until 2015.

You are a story in thriving rising action.
This year is my character development.
Next year I will open the jar
and let the poem scraps spill
like ink into the sky,
like snowflakes flying light
and weighing down the wings
of birds in flight
and I will see if I can shake
off the snow and let the ink
flow into cohesive phrases.

The goal here is to be worthy
of you
but not for you.
While you rise I’ll rise behind you
and I’ll just follow
where you lead
until I swerve.
I cut the hair you once
ran your fingers through
today.
It looks the same.

So as an exercise in moving-on
I am looking for you in new places
because you are gone.

I need you to be
quiet so you don't
have to think
over the sound
of your voice.

I need you to come
in here, in this room.
It's my mind. I need
you to see what it
looks like when you're
alone with yourself
in it.

I'll wait out here.
You just pay close
attention to this room
and how you'll get in

Did you miss it?
Oh.

There are mirrors
on every wall

Each mirror reflects
into another, and all
reflect these reflections,
and small things
get big and big things
get bigger

Things that aren't even
really there
appear

Sight is just the way
light reflects off things
but suddenly you're seeing
things that aren't anything
at all except
reflections
of
themselves

You are the only
one in the room
and everything is
reflecting different
than it is

You see the things
getting smaller and farther
within each reflection
within every mirror,
but you're just one.

You peer to the side,
trying to see around yourself

but your reflection is
in the way every time
until maybe you aren't even
there, then
or you're just there to
take up the space of
the matter of your atoms
or you're the only
thing that's real
and
nothing
else

Someone calls you
from outside, someone
shouts at you to get
out, we have to go
somewhere or do
something or see
someplace

And you look around at
all the reflections and there
are no doors or windows
and you shout that at the
other side of the mirrored walls
but Someone can't hear
and Someone keeps shouting
to get the hell out
we're going to be late
just go
like Someone doesn't even
see the walls
but you can't see Someone
on the other side of them
so they must be there

If there were a fire right
now, what would you do?
If the fire reflected again
and again, if the heat
bounced back on you from
all sides and the smoke swirled
farther and farther into forever?

It's not up to code, is it. Building
Services would never allow it.
But you're in it.

There is a physical barrier you can't see
between me and what you need me to be.

You didn't design this mind.
You didn't even put yourself in it.
But Someone's **** frustrated with
you anyway.

And you begin to think that maybe
there are doors and windows
that you just can't see
because of all the reflections

but either way, they're no
use to you.

That which we call a rose
by any other name
and so on
and so on

I don't know my name
What I know is what people
call me sometimes
A discord, the wrong
chords,
the blaring lights of a
fire alarm if the fire were
me pulling on a long-sleeved
sweater and putting
up my hair and
molding myself into
their day

What I knew was the euphony
when you said a particular
order of sounds,
vowels and notes
that you picked out special
like the warmest combination
of colors
all threaded into yarn
all woven into patches
all sewn into a quilt
that you draped over our heads
Your eyes glinting in the dim
glow of soft sound

That which we call a rose
in any other way
is something else,
but that which you say
with the same cadence
over and over again
and so on
is what will stay

Absentminded speech.
You had taken the scissors from the basket
in the darkroom, they were just
still in your hands, the ones
not covered in rust.

It was absentminded, that part
is important. Just absentminded,
like the way you'd play
with her hair or pretend not
to care,
like the way you'd talk with
your hands even when the
darkness spoke louder. The way
you'd nudge me, a "don't move"
elbow, to let me know you'd
dropped your film and I shouldn't
step for fear of stepping on it
like the shadows did.

I absentmindedly twirled a pen,
and you absentmindedly looked
down again and again,
scissors open, scissors closed,
running your fingers over
the little ***** between the blades
as I ran my fingers
over a little ink drawing I'd made.

You absentmindedly followed
my eyes with your own, and then
threw absentminded to the smoke,
up and out the window and gone,
and the smooth blade up and down
your arm.
It wasn't sharp. It couldn't even
cut the film. That's how you'd
dropped it in the first place.

Still watching my eyes, my dawning worry.
Oh, you. Ignorance reduced me
to child and pity before your
knowing eyes, but what do.
You know me, I know you.

A deliberate story now (absentminded
can't be filtered out of the smoke anymore),
of a girl you used to know.
Something to do with little screws
in every pocket of every
long-sleeved shirt she owned.
They had to be from something cheaper,
you mused. Mindedly.
Scissors don't come in bulk.
Little screws. Not razors, not knives.
Little screws.
You thought out loud, but it wasn't
thought. It was speech. It was
words you already knew.
Where'd they all come from?
You asked questions to give me
the answers.

I reached out for those ****
bright green plastic scissors
that wouldn't cut a piece
of film in a darkroom, because
fear gives light great powers.
You smiled at the anxiety in my
eyes. You chose then to stumble
upon the answer. (It wasn't scissors.)
To relieve me, you meant.You
meant to share without telling,
to lighten my head and dissipate
the ignorance like your
absentminded smoke.
You knew a girl...

But when you put knowledge
in this mind it gets picked up
and circled around and around,
centripetal acceleration, exponentially
flying, so fast, so high, what do I
do with it there. I build it up.
It tears me down.

I scanned your wrists for months.
I watched you pull your wallet out
of your pocket, checking the floor for
little screws.

You knew, ******. You knew
your wrists would stay smooth
as a scissor blade, smooth as
darkness. You gave me the story
deliberately, but you gave me the
answer absentmindedly.

You didn't mean to.
You gave me the worry,
you gave me the thought.

You didn't tell me where to find
a ******* screwdriver.

my hands are still
soft from rolling dough
in sugar,
still smell faintly
of cinnamon and nutmeg

cardamom and clove
spiral upward in
the smoke from black
tea, a warmth
inside to mingle
with the smoke of
fire

I have nutmeg hands
and chai-campfire lungs

I am warm-scented
steam in an empty
orange sweater

I am the poem