Since our lives were complicated
By outside reason
Our house has been loud with voices
We pulled the bits out of our mouths
And now we will never put them back
And our house has never been quiet
And our house has never been neat
A scream has always followed a scream
Like the roll of waves and the sea is never still
But for the first time in years
I sit alone on the swept floor
Of a silent room
And the cold winter wind rushes through our house
Through windows flung open to let in more breathable air
But it makes me think only of my warm spot halfway up the stairs
That I was too afraid to go to when I heard the cold coming
Now a scream echoes without a scream
And my heat is lost to a room
With nothing to hold it

I had slowly grown so tired
Of your macro photography
And the way you used it
To take pictures of my small crises
And put your face so close to mine I could count your freckles
Your pictures of insects and petals
That no more saw depth
Than the little puddles you splashed me into
When you smelled smoke on my hair the last time
And you have so quickly passed me over
For someone more photographable at close distances
You threw out my favorite exposure
Because of the brown at the edges of the leaves
And I never once suggested
That the sun underneath your lens was what did it
I kept my mouth shut
And let you move your warmth away
When you thought I'd finally fallen asleep
And lamented to myself
That you'd never been one to enjoy
Developing the film

I was a flower once
An open corona of petals
But I cannot remember why or how
Or if I was happy

I was beautiful once
But there are no photographs to remind me
You probably remember
Better than I do anyway

I was in a novel once
But it seems like such a dream
That only colors and feelings
Have any vividness left to them

I was small once
So small that you
Would play with my hair
The way I do yours now

You loved me once
But it's hard to imagine
What that felt like
The story's not worth telling
Because I've forgotten all the details

Sign of a night
With streamers of sky
Undulates moving
More than alive

Fingers of cloud height
Follows a line
The sting and the shining
It moves us like time

Ink will be sight
Rolls back your eyes
Through indian summer
The hum of your mind

I am one of those people who collects bruises like old bottlecaps.
I count them from time to time, but I can never remember where
I got them.

Waiting for bread to toast, I slapped a knife against my thigh,
marveling in the way it rang like a tuning fork.  When the toast
popped up, I looked at my leg and saw there was a huge red welt
just starting to bruise.

They only hurt once I've discovered them.

You poked the knife-bruise and asked, "Who beat you up?" but didn't
wait long enough for me to summon the laughter to say that I'd done
it to myself.  You moved on to the next one, dragging your finger like
you were following some yellow brick road, playing Candyland and
winning.

A Pleiades's above my ankle, a crescent shape below my knee.

There was one small circle in the middle of my toe that you wondered
about, and neither of us could imagine how I'd done it, so you just
laughed at me and tickled my feet like some old husband.

Soon you get bored with the bruises and you move on to the tic-tac-
toe grids on my knees from the pool tiles.  You write your name in my
arm with your fingernail because of the way even light scratches
immediately become red and raised.  I made up a word for it and
you believe me like it was some sort of real medical condition.

Somehow my face hovers in between a real smile and an aching grimace,
so when you look up at me, you put my face in your hands and repeat
my name.

I must be your favorite curiosity.

The glow of a city night comes in through my window
And keeps awake my always-empty stomach and heart
Night skies look sick with green
And don't take well to light pollution
Sleep doesn't come easy to someone so restless
Though I need the fullness of oblivion now more than ever
There is no right way to lay a restless head on a pillow
To twist a hollow body under sheets
That it will lie still in comfort
Because emptiness folds painfully in on itself
And I untwist, I unfold
To accept defeat
Propped on elbows,
On a yellow legal pad in the yellow light
I hold the sign of a night spent slowly:
All forms of unhappiness are, on the inside, loneliness

I.
I'll rechristen you, probably something that
I'll later regret, even later forget.
I'd like to tape record everything you
say, to think about the symbolism
later.  You know, if you talk for long
enough, you'll rhyme sometimes.
And I don't think that's anything
to be ashamed of, because good
accidents happen all the time.

II.
I always waste the happy accident,
afraid someone will try to tell me that I
did it on purpose.  I think it was an
accident when you held my hand, but
I'm not sure if I could call it happy.  You
always smell sort of smoky, and so do
your hands, and it gives you a sort of
accidental air, like you were falling
lightly through life, letting moments fall
and break, splitting open like flowers.

III.
I want to twist my hands over the rest of
your body to find the place where you
keep little hateful things that you pretend
you don't have.  Press down ******* the
spot with fingers and maybe it'll hiss out
like sickly steam from a kettle.  I'll cup
them in my hands and you'll refuse to taste
them, acting like you never knew they
were there.  You pretend you're incapable
of a lot of things, but you know the tastes
too well.