In love they wore themselves in a green embrace.
A silken rain fell through the spring upon them.
In the park she fed the swans and he
whittled nervously with his strange hands.
And white was mixed with all their colours
as if they drew it from the flowering trees.

At night his two finger whistle brought her down
the waterfall stairs to his shy smile
which like an eddy, turned her round and round
lazily and slowly so her will
was nowhere—as in dreams things are and aren't.

Walking along avenues in the dark
street lamps sang like sopranos in their heads
with a voilence they never understood
and all their movements when they were together
had no conclusion.

Only leaning into the question had they motion;
after they parted were savage and swift as gulls.
asking and asking the hostile emptiness
they were as sharp as partly sculptured stone
and all who watched, forgetting, were amazed
to see them form and fade before their eyes.

You planted sunflowers in the regions of my body no other has dared to go
because you knew those were my favorite.
I picked the flowers daily, plucking at their petals,
mumbling,
“He loves me …  he loves me not.”
Well,
I am all out of flowers,
And you are all out of seeds.
You visited another garden today.
You told me that you like daisies better,
And you said that garden had daisies.
I watched you water that garden as mine turned to dandelions.
Your new garden has bloomed.
As I was sitting in my garden,
Someone came along and picked a dandelion.
I asked them why and they said,
“Dandelions are flowers too once you get to know them"

i used to get this feeling
that the world was really great
i remember playing hopscotch in
the driveway with the
sun shining
like the most
beautiful
thing
a beacon of
light
from god himself
i remember dancing
in the backyard with
the sprinkler on
water
flying
skirt
jumping
neighbors
smiling
i was
happy
i used to climb that one
tree at the
park
i called it
mine
one day they chopped off the branch i
always
sat on
not mine
i wanted to be a
dancer
ballerina
enchantress
mom said
no
not
good enough
not enough
money
do something
practical
i just wanted to create
magic
and touch the
stars
that was when
the sky got
blacker
and
the world got
bleaker
then i looked
at other girls
long
legs
thin
arms
soft
hair
pretty
face
me.
thicklegsfatarmstangedhairuglyface
better
o­ff
dead.
pale skin spiderwebbed
with red
red words
red lines
pink scars
dead eyes
all of a sudden the
world
wasn’t that great
then came
the pills
the
tears
the bed
dead

there is a beauty

in numbers

that so many

miss

and it

saddens me

so many things

would lose their

value

if numbers were

as irrelevant

as some say they are

like the number 11

side by side on the

front screen

of a teenage girl’s phone

as she stares incessantly

waiting for a call

that will never

come

she’ll be exhausted

come tomorrow

but she wouldn’t dare

miss him

she’ll fall asleep

at school

number two pencil

in hand

sharpened so carefully

by the pencil sharpener

whose blade

is now

missing

or the man

as he avoids staring

at the clock

on the bar wall

very clearly reading

6 am

his children are

getting ready for school

but he’s not there

and neither is his

wife

not really, anyway

her mind is elsewhere

on the man

who smiled at her

at the metro

yesterday

and convinced her

to stay away

from the tracks

after all,

the train to 22nd street

was coming,

and it would be a shame

for her to get

in

its

way

no matter how easy it would have been

even as i sit here

staring at my screen

at exhausted o’ clock

having deleted

words upon words

for the umpteenth

time,

it’s so very obvious

to me

how different

this poem

would

have been

if i had not

I think if there is a god
He must make mistakes
Because there no way
I am meant to be
This lost

And I think I wasted
Too much energy
Pretending I love him
Because when I knelt in the chapel
My mouth spoke
"Amen"
But my mind
Thought nothing

And sometimes I think
That god is a metaphor
For the daydreams
We all have
But never really speak of
Because this world is a prison
And we're already in hell

None of this is to say
Of course
That if you died
I would not go back
To my lifeless "amen"

Because I need to believe
That you are watching over me
And not a lifeless corpse
Cold in the ground

I know I'm a coward.

I still feel a warmth
from time to time
where your soft sweet lips
pressed gently on neck

and you told me yesterday
you were giving up
and your eyes shone brightly
a twinkle of excitement
like giving up wasn't stopping
it was moving forward

and sometimes I wonder
if I held you tightly
you'd forget about the pain
of those sad nights
the flashlight blaring down
and the darkness
of your secret thoughts

but for now I'm stuck
with the memories of your kiss
and the ghost of your silhouette
in the cold sleepy stairwell

'Sweet dreams!' they said
'Yes, you can sleep,
Darling, rest your little head.
The world's a scary, scary place
That's sometimes filled with dread.'
Sweet dreams I dreamt
With pretty homes
And people seem so happy
The smiles bright
And no more tears
Had it really looked so sadly?
But when I woke
I woke to find
The people all too shabby
Such little smiles, all the tears
It never looked so sadly.
'Sweet dreams!' they sang
'Oh, you'll be fine,
The sounds will ring out loud
And in those dreams that you can hear
The voices will be proud.'
Sweet dreams I dreamt
Of voices clear
And angels singing high
They sat above the treetops
On white clouds in the sky.
But when I woke
I woke to find
The voices all too scary
The singing gone, the chorus lost
And sounds no longer merry.
'Sweet dreams!' They showed
'No need to fear!
The pictures, how they move!
Look at all the gorgeous light,
It's coming from the moon.'
Sweet dreams I dreamt
Of shining clouds
And stars above my head
The angels sleep, they doze and gaze
And sleep on angel beds.
But when I woke
I woke to find
The moon no longer there
All the angels couldn't sleep
And people didn't care.
Sweet dreams I dreamt
I heard and saw
The people all so clear
Turns out some dreams are really not
What they should be here.