when you wrap your arms
around me

they feel like prison bars

I am confined, tight, to your
body

and there is no way to
break out

there is a heaviness in my chest
as you pull me closer

I am screaming, running around
the bottom of my cage like a

frantic, frightened bird

(must I learn to sing?)

smoking under midnight skies
I build my kingdom out of stars
(in my head)
drinking moonshine until I'm as blind
as if the stars themselves had
blazed into my eyes

all I want is to finish this cigarette
and blow the smoke into the sky,
as the sky blows the solid shape
of my body into stardust

You may stitch my lips together

rip the voice box from my throat

stick white hot pins in my heart

and plant bitter roots in my feet

but you will never silence me

now that I’ve found my voice

tentative, at first, but it grew like a vine

to twist around your spine

I will scream from the rooftops

the injustices you laid on me

create hope with a needle and thread

I am blackened, blue and bruised

but these words carry a thousand knives

to find you

How beautiful the bloom
that blossoms again

wild roses that the winter cannot take

sunflowers refusing to sink into the soil

we look at them, and long

to be

another tulip tempted by the light

but we are weeds

creeping between concrete cracks

waiting to be destroyed
so that beauty

can prevail again

In the smoke of your cigarette

I saw everything that could ever be

and everything that never would

and it took my breath away

bright lights and city streets
where we mapped out our love

I was always too timid to tell you

that I found the streets *****
and the neon lights nauseating

but still, we survived

(somehow)

and now we live
in a quiet little village

far away from the
pushing and shoving

the stench of hot food stands
on a street corner

we have two dogs,
and walk them across the fields

and I have always been too timid
to tell you

that I have found
my heart,
my home,
my life

in your arms

I once tried to love you,
but I have played this game
before, and know well enough
when I’ve lost

walking away would be kinder,
but I’m a glutton for punishment
and getting my heart broken
every day

when I roll over in the morning
and stare into your eyes, and
know you are staring straight
through me

but at least I spent the night
with the moon and stars, and fed
my soul a little, before returning to
this hollow love