Dear Sledgehammer Heart,

You are tough as nails,
        and you are also soft as silk.

You are wildflowers
         blossoming in the spring,
         and again in the summer.

You bloom more for yourself,
                                                     than for anyone else.

You are both student and teacher
           with fistfuls of love,
    clenched for those that hurt.

You taught me
         the importance of a good porch:
The Foundation Must Be Solid.
                              A Home can be built anywhere,
as long as the Foundation is Solid.

You taught me to announce myself,
and to be proud of the songs that come out.
                                       (Even when the sounds are sharp,
                     they must be set free somehow, right?)
      
And you taught me
         how to handle a heart
as delicate as mine
     pretends not to be,
                      with soft hands and gentle love

Stones smoothed into little pebbles
at the bottom of a river.

     I can only hope I have learned
               to hold your heart
with the skill and grace of bird wings
And to lift you
                           higher
                                        as you do me.
It is the only way I can think to return
the lightness
                       you gift by existing.

Please remember,
                                My Sledgehammer Man,
             you must simply exist
and the universe is lighter
                 for it.

I want to tell you
I tear at the sound of your name.
Like the paper jammed in my printer at work,
Sometimes I am a wrinkled mess without you.

I want to tell you
Distance tastes like acid in my throat.
It burns holes in my esophagus nightly.

I want to tell you
I wanted to make a home for myself
In the palms of your hands.
You could cup them
And you could bring them to your lips:
I would let you drink me, if you wanted to.

I want to tell you
This heart is heavy like iron,
But also fragile like glass.
It is fractured and full of chips
Like the one that formed the last time we kissed:
You told me you loved me, then.
It was the first and last time,
And I said it back sounding something like a desperate plea
Knowing it would not stop you from leaving
(But somehow you still lingered.)

I want to tell you all of these things,
But the words get stuck in my mouth.
They are afraid of coming out,
So instead I tell you
"I've missed you"
And I hope some part of you understands the rest.

Dear New York,
          I think of you often.

Dear New York,
          In a parallel universe,
                  I am holding you tightly,
but in this one
       I am only grasping
                                        at empty air.

Dear New York,
          Do you read
the love letters I write you
          in my sleep?
                                     Do you sleep at all?

Dear New York,
          I hope you enjoyed your coffee today,
and that it was not bitter,
                                            if it tasted like me.

Dear New York,
          I hope it tasted like me.

You are lightning bolt.
               (electric shock to my skin)

You taste like
                   hot
          floridian
                         summer
Sound like
                  thunder storm
                                falling
                   ­                        on dry asphalt

And I want to tell you
you felt like homecoming
                       (even though you were always leaving,
                                                    and i was never staying)

I saw the flowers in your mouth
          and I wanted to taste them
                     wanted to take them for my own
  but I wasn't ready
                       to be
                  selfish
            with you
                       yet.

Perhaps we'll meet
again in a city
                                       much larger
                                          than ours
And I'll fall in love with your flowers
                                              again
*(and­ perhaps this time,
                                I'll let them grow)

I am not made of metal.
It does not take
             immeasurable strength
                                           to put       cracks       in me
I bend
                  and I
break
                                 and I
do so quite easily.

I am not ashamed of this.

                                              I will no
                                               longer
                                                allow
                                               myself
                                                to be
                                          the iron bars
                              You think guard my heart.

I will flow like river,
And sway like branches of trees.
                   I will dance,
and you will see
               I am not this unflinching thing
you have created me to be.