you make
                 my
   hands           shake
             like my
              aunt's
   hands           shake
like they haven't forgotten
                            the weight
of the last cigarette they held
even after her precious lungs
                       had forgotten
how to breathe.

Madness of misunderstandings
clarity in crystal moonlight,
            the way a cloud invades a perfect sky,
                           but only adds depth
                           to the act of perception;
not altogether altering,
                  but offering
another point of view.
Instead of being blinded
              by my own insignificant insights,
I am bathed in the sunlight
              that peeks through the windows
              of other people's worlds
and through words
              I can only attempt to make sense of what it means,
until the ultimate realization
that it means nothing,
but instead of terror
this brings me comfort.
                   *I have become the sun.

I can only remember your eyes
            looked like moons
bathing me in
                        bluish clarity
peeking below trees;
They brushed your face
like eyelashes.

I wish Mother
                        Nature
had given me a more
                                     Celestial
body, that I could show my love
in grander gestures.

Disappearing woman,
I imagine the breeze is your lips
                 unfreezing glass-water
Bringing canvassed flower -field
                 alive with just a touch.

Disappearing woman,
I looked for you on mountaintops
and beneath
            rust colored leaves
                                       that
                                        fall.

I kissed your eyelids awake
              willed them open
                           to see the warm brown
               coffee mugs behind.
I want to drink from you and
                                                   keep drinking,
             and inhale every ring of smoke
                         that rises from your lips
because the universe inside you
is beautiful,
             crystalline
             with biased clarity.
I wish you would be
                               part of me,
                                            cannibal galaxy

My throat                             is an open hatch
     for you to jump down, take a look
                around my insides,
                            see what's behind
pink skin,
                            past ribcage into
          soft tissues of lung
                  and heart
and see the animal burrowed in my gut:

How I feed him some days,
                       because his presence brings me
  comfort.

How other days I starve him,
                       because I want to be
            free.

you were the tallest tree, the oldest and the wisest, in a forest of fever dreams. i climbed to the top of your branches and when you swayed in the wind i could feel you breathe beneath me and longed for your stability until i lost my footing on your slippery words.

and i am reminded of this every time i drive too fast with the windows down, like the air is being ripped from my lungs and i’m gasping but it never feels quite as good as i remembered.

when i hit the ground i wasn’t running anymore. my bones shattered into shards of glass but they finally reflected the light and among them flowers grew with stems like your kisses, stems like your strengths, stems like us sprouting out of forevers.

i thought we would last forever, as one often does in the beginning of everything.

in the beginning there was nothing, and then it became everything. it became the stars that we are now, specks of dust floating aimlessly.

a window never closes, you just forget to look. there is always opportunity to grow.

if i could ever climb that tree again i would make a home for myself in the top of its branches because the view from up there was beautiful. even in storms, you weathered well.

i find echoes of your existence
in ragged coffeehaus and empty wine bottles
and i swear i can almost taste your sweat
when i drive home
             down university to southgate.

it's easier to pretend during the daylight hours
but at two in the morning
                                             when the stars kiss my eyes
i swear it's you
                          and no matter how many times
                          i wash my blanket
i hear you call my name
                                          from the folds of its fabric.

like the ocean waves,
the water never quite the same;
               i've changed
               i've changed
               i've changed

In a house,
               empty
of everything but
                               flowers
                               light through the windows,
I would relax into you
in all that                       green
every evening,
                        head dizzy from
                                     all that extra
                                                  breathing.
I would uncurl
                    your spine
Stretch you
As tall as
Mountains
                         Read every leaf of your tree line
                                   every word of your would be
                                                                                       pages
in all that                  green
                   empty
of everything but
                               flowers.

you looked in the mirror
and saw someone else's eyes
hiding behind your own.

you felt shattered
when you saw him last
but you were stronger

like you'd been tempered
with distance and distraction
false answers in the stars

and you were the tree all along
branches just hearts strings
connecting you to sky
and you still weathered well.

Nostalgia is a man I have memories with,
                                    but no knowledge of.
He is a tree rooted in mystery
with leaves that shade
         the hungry mouth of a river
         malnourished--
pale skin stretched over tendon.
Release
palm upturned in offering
always offering
even with nothing to give.
Nostalgia
                 never learned hatred,
                                                       but bitterness
cold winter biting at smoking hands
bony fingers raw and red and reaching
                                                        ­             out out out
for empty air

your shoulders are mountains
and the valley in between
                          (where clavicle meets)
a heart beats underneath:

A coursing river of veins
with chemical pollution
sings its way through your landscape
but on it's banks grow flowers.

1.
Look in the mirror and practice
saying I love you until the words come out
sounding like the song birds you heard
while washing your body in a river
that looked like glass before being shattered by
waterfall.

2.
The muscles in your cheeks will hurt sometimes
when you smile too much,
but remember that ache when you are feeling lost.
Even happiness is hard.
Keep telling yourself it is worth it.

3.
Scars and bruises cover your body
like a map to remind you
which falls hurt the most,
and that you stood up again.

4.
Grow flowers in your bones
so that you aways have a gift to give.
Sometimes, that gift is yourself.

Remember the last time you kissed him.
                           His hands unmovable mountains
                                  when they were first malleable
                                              and laced with stardust
Remember his eyes were the color of stone
So when you pick up pebbles at the beach
You know which ones to hold.

I look for traces of me
in the smoke stacks bursting
from your mouth,
                              in the bottom of empty wine bottles
                              and the vapors rising between sips.
I look for reflections of me
in the crystal
from around your neck,
                              in your blue-green eyes
                              and empty spider webs.
Some small chemical amount of me
must be left on you, somewhere
                              although your skin cells have shed
                              since we last met.
Your muscles must remember me
like whispers in your hair
hands touching in the dark
unfolding me from tree
when I thought I was queen.

This is growing up.

Don't be too harsh on yourself
when you get so ******
you can't see anything
but fireworks behind your eyes.
You are young,
                           and the stars burn just as bright
                           as they did last night.
The Earth moves,
                           just like you
Never in the same space as it was before
Never in the same mind as you were before.

This is not
                  sanity.
It is just learning to cope
                 with your demons.
Your monsters are your friends
and the pounds of flesh you have relinquished
have a way of growing back.
*Each is a battle you won when you weren't looking.

I worship your very bones
                  the wisdom in your teeth
    structure, refined
A fraction of the universe
in your own design
                       Reflection
like still water
         and the way
               it meditates
in quiet lotus

I want to clarify that
when I said I wish I could
share every thought with you,
I didn't mean that
I am not ashamed
of the tiny terrors
and transgressions
that trespass my thoughts,
but that I am finally willing
to be responsible for them.

I can remember
                   placing
my hand on your barrel chest.

A prayer to a God
that, maybe, I've never known
for the ability to be
                          soft.

I wish i could fold myself
into the sounds
                           that your tongue makes
and exist in the
        fabric of your skin,
                   all silk and porcelain.

Instead, I am the ringing in your ears.

That gorgeous old elephant
         came to drink
                   at the water
                                    hole.
She sat and she drank
       deep
           of the galaxies
                              in my mind.

I pray through myself.

I'm finally coming to terms
       with the creator.
to send those echoes
              through the universe;
It's too much.

An organic being
      that's been recycled
             over billions of years
Where did He come from?
I choose to not know.

I stand in the middle
                                    God has never frowned upon it.

I'm feeling all
                        spring&flowers;
today.
Let the water rinse clean
           all my veins.

I'm feeling kisses
                              in the wind
today,
and your fingers in my hair.

it's the little things
             that end up
     tying you down.

don't accumulate too many
           little nothings
          cause in the end
they're what will make you
                drown.

I've got bluebirds
                               nesting
                     in my ribcage
I'm afraid I won't let them
                                             out.
But I know they should be free
to come and go as they please
               (because how else will anything love you?)

Don't be discouraged
                when you feel
Too Big
                at home in your own body.

Be Big
and be aware
                       the stars light the universe
                       the same way you look at them:

In love and in wonder of the night sky.

i want to kiss you
like honey bees to flowers
summer sun to faces
                                               in the name of hope
like a soft breeze
like the pulse of bird wings

I like to stand in the rain
and feel it's hands and feet against my face

And I like the feeling of mud between my toes.

It's like a personal baptism;
A rebirth more holy because
                           it came from Earth, to Earth.

And I like to hear your voice.

It calms me when I feel restless.
A quiet understanding between two people
like leaves swaying in the wind.

I imagine it is your fingers in my hair.

It breaks my heart
                                that you're still hurting
                                and that I'm still hurting
                and those crystalline blue and greens
      have retreated into the fog, again.

Stop relying on those straight lines;
They won't guide you home at night.

A moment of clarity shrouded in dusty
                                                           white--
                    It is not light,
          but a suffocating device
come to strangle you
               *(but that's exactly what you'd like.)

I was watching the constellations
                                                     fall
high above the atmosphere
         your telling words were
                      disappearing into

I wish I could have snatched them out of the air
and kept them safe with me.

She speaks to me in the secret language of lovers, singularly specific to our own bread of magic. The kind of magic that keeps loneliness at bay when one is alone. I understand that home is not a place, but an idea that I can carry with me when I begin to feel lost and when I long for a change of action (and reaction,) it is her words I understand most: that soothing knowledge of wisdom (for I only know it exists; I have never experienced it myself.)

My soul is lighter for it.

you left a bruise on my lips
the first time we met.
                              A crash-and-burn type of
                                         introduction.

you left a bruise on my soul
the first time you left
                               before I realized I was leaving
                                                     too

those bruises all
            have yellowed
            and healed.
Sometimes
                   I still feel
your chaos clawing at my bones

That I have the privilege
to know a true goddess
Who walks among us,
and carries our stones too,
Is the sweetest honey
made with gentle care
by the buzzing universe

Sometimes, I simply feel
compelled to share.

Transparent
                                              crystalline
                                              glass body
                                              hollow prism
let light in
               and let
                            fracture

My bones are not sculpted with paint brushes or clay
and even though my body is printed with words
I wear them more like bruises, than badges.

I am hollow as I breathe.
A well oiled machine doesn't rattle like I do.
I do not exhale butterflies;
I am not delicate like this
and I am not patient either,
because I'd rather shave my own head
than wait for my hair to grow.

I am held up by my boot straps
(even though I don't wear boot straps,
more like ill fitting clothes
draped over my bones like caution tape)

I feel more like a woman
when I look like a little boy.

Sometimes, I tell myself I am a little boy
who knows how a woman breathes
under the weight of her chest.

I am my God, my Goddess, the only one
willing to hold me up under the weight
of my chest.
For this, I am still blessed.

A sudden southern accent
    A slight northern breeze
        A soft western glance
            A silent eastern call
                              *Cardinal.

Because no matter where I go
my Queen watches over me
                    reminding me of ego
                    as she hangs off her throne
                    for half the year
                    trying not to fall back
                    to Earth

(I was hungry.)*

It didn't go down so easy;
               burned like memories of whiskey
    on Southern nights
                           under the stars.

          Now,
it warms my belly
and I take it with me
                                    wherever I go.

I was part of it,
                         now it is part of me.

god, did i want to be home
         in the home I thought I found
in your crystalline eyes
clouded only by wisdom

                alcohol ******* and ***

where i always sought
                                        comfort
          ­     in your chaos