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

I,
   the dried flowers on our porch.
You,
        the growing cactus.
I am beautiful,
                         but stagnant.
You grow,
                                     Sharp.

And sometimes,
the wind blows
                    and my petals dance.
And sometimes,
you say
              the most lovely things

But I Can't Touch You.

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.

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

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

full bodied and rich
a glass of red wine and a cigarette
short dress, sticky skin
lips the color of sin
your voice, a storm cloud
heavy with loud promise
dark and deep
contrast to summer greens
*rain down

she used her halo
                as wings;
strung it up on
                Chemical
                                Looph­oles
that make her feel close to
                         God
and on the subject of
                          being God,
We discover.

.                                       you used to shake so bad

I remember it.
I still shake sometimes.

                              *we all do

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.

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.

maybe sometimes you try
            when maybe you shouldn't.
                       and maybe sometimes you care
                                when maybe you ******* shouldn't.

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.

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

.         i want my hands
to be the hands of Palm Trees.

            Rough
                          and
Weathered;
                                       Tall,
                                    but ugly.

When I was young,
           I watched you fall
taking whole pieces of the Earth that loved you too.
                                                the wind had blown
                        so hard that summer.
In your absence,
I felt heartbreak
for the first time.
                        I felt the ground slip
               from beneath me
And I understood
                                                      ­      the tops of your branches
                                                        ­    were never meant to feel
                                                            ­       such solid things
But the next summer,
the wind was still
       and a small sapling
                                  grew in your place.

You taught me how to weather the storms
and to be thankful for every leaf
that provides shade for what is underneath,
                                    and you taught me winter:
                                    how to survive the darkest months
                                    and that I will bloom again in the spring.

I eat books of poetry for dinner,
and you are on the couch next to me.
I know we are here, but what do we call this?
I think the word is home, but it
sometimes feels like a serrated knife.
sometimes, it feels like we’re holding hands
in our sleep. There is a book of words like home
in my hands: it is full of empty driveways and watering cans,
and dancing under the moon,
I eat the words, but starve on the feast.
I would have broken you like granite; placed you
like a kitchen counter. You were never meant to be the cutting board.
You are the knife. I do not play with these domestic things.
Come sit at the table next to me, darling.

There are bluebirds flying all around
Inside my head
And I am reminded that tomorrow,
I may not hold your hand again
and I may never feel your teeth sink
Into my skin, again
                                      and wasn't that
                                   supposed to be
                              a good thing?
I'm left cleaning up the scraps,
the mess we leave behind
Like it's my responsibility
to carry your heartbreak, too.
                                         wasn't it
                                   supposed to be good
                              when I was with you?
I read somewhere
                       This is where you fire your musket,
              and this is where you fall and die
but I've fired my musket-heart
and I haven't fallen and I'm still dying
for you to look me in the eye
Like you still mean it;
Like there isn't some line in the sand
you have drawn arbitrarily
to measure what has been inside my heart
When you never cared to ask.
Love, those bluebirds are making it hard to see
through all their Pulsing wings,
But in their eclipse,
I'm finding a ring of light.

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

The absurdity
is in the conclusion,
                                   but it's also
                                          the cliff
                  from which I jumped
From Chaos,
                      To Chaos.
                                             All that is left
                              is a futile attempt to understand
                                       the silly habit of living:
    *A constant battle between
Order          and          Disorder

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 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

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 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 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.

I think
           there are flowers growing
                                    out of your
                       mouth.
You taste like weeds:
         Wet and
   muddy.
                                      Our roots
                                         or legs
                  tangled
in the dark              once
and I thought I remembered safety
in the vines
           But now they have
                                            all
                                                 been
                            stripped
away.

Now,
          I am like this empty house.
I am all cuts
         all bruises
         all dirt
And it hurt          when you left me
                     but I
            am still standing
The
      foundation
                       is
                          cracked
              but still strong

You left a bruise on my lip where your teeth gnashed and you growled and you stared into my soul tasting me into being. I think you were infatuated with me and wanted to ingest me. You wanted to take me inside of you and let your biology break me down into the empirical parts of my whole but I didn’t know if that was possible, and I didn't know if you would understand.

You left a bruise on my lip where we touched for the very first time and it aches, but not from pain. It aches for when you will kiss me again, when our mouths collide in an explosion of wonder and wanting to know another person: something tangible, a sense of an idea in your mind, turned into a clamor of color and sound and taste and touch and I think I know you from some place different. Maybe I knew you when we were stars, before our particles were rearranged and we turned to ash and skin and dinosaurs and the world.

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.

Pipsissewa
                and I
      met today.
It started with a story
told by T:
      how she and him met;
and then I looked down
and there she was,
         in all her glory.

*Perennial evergreen,
              I am glad to know you.

He is a lit cigarette.

He
     keeps you in
water
          beer and
                   good conversation.
His kisses
                   are like bonfire
                   on summer nights.
                                All passion
drunken laughter, a night full of stars.

He is a lit cigarette.
Harmful
               to your lungs,
               to your heart.
He will be gone
                            be gone
       before the summer breeze
has finished
                     kissing your cheeks.

He is a lit cigarette.
And he will burn out
                      before you're ready
But ******
                                He
tastes
          so
   ­           good
And you crave him.

.        Child of the stars
                Chaos, incarnate,
      hold your heart still.
          Your
             Tiny
              Perfect
          Human
   Existence;
        My king of a mountain of Ash.
                                                            ­         You
are the song you couldn't write
      and it's frustrating
                                         because you
are still standing.
        Still Breathing.
                             Wild
                       Hurricane
                  Heart,
I didn't know that stars
                       Could break
         before I met you.

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.

i wish

                                i could say
                            those incredibly
                   Romantic              phrases:
                         That ******* Face.
                            I see it everywhere.

but it's missing.

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.

(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.

particles
aligning
              galaxies
              colliding­
                             the universe
                             is trying to
                             figure itself
                             out
                                  but
here we are
               now and not
               to revel would
               be a mistake

My world is spinning,
                               again,
    the way it used to
on an axis
           so tightly wound
    during the
                 day I can't see straight
    but at night
I see some clarity
                                and maybe I've got it
reversed
           misguided as my heart has been;
  my intentions
            have tried to be
                                      pure
                   ­ but maybe
       tonight
            I wanted to be
in sin

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 feel
         a new
                    click
                            in my wrist
       the ache
                     from bruises
                                            long healed
bumping into things
trying to figure it out
                                     i always
                 figure it out
i will always
                  figure it out
the universe has sculpted my bones
stardust and ashes
half empty glasses

i know it may not be
             for a much greater purpose
i am simply
             the product
                     of everything
             that came
before me
and the weight of that
                                      is heavy
and the weight of that
                                      is
                   ­                       freeing

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.

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.

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.

I remember
                    one night we got so drunk
         on our porch under blankets
     I systematically
covered
     in cigarette
                   ash.
              dusted off
and started again
                                                      I swear
that night, under twinkle lights
                               I always think cast such a warm
                    glow,
          and drip golden,

I swear,
               that night,
Our Passion
                      bubbled like the carbonation in our bellies
And I stopped myself
                                      from saying I Love You.

I remember
                     on Christmas,
we laid on the couch
                                     all day
and didn't see or speak
                               to anyone else.
Watched movie
                        after movie
                                  after movie
Until we both sunk    
into each other
so deep    
                                 half asleep with commitment
              to laziness
      Until I couldn't tell
where my body
                   ended and yours
           began
It was the best Christmas I've ever had.

And I remember
           how you looked
       the night you told me
                              it was over
My breath
                                            caught
and cracked
                             like
                                       ice
Stuck
           between esophagus
                                                 and lung
like our bathroom pipes.

You must have said
                                                  "ex-lover"
hal­f a dozen times or more.

I remember
                     thinking how inappropriate
it was that as I was listening to you
             And all I wanted was
to kiss the anger
             from your lips

I'm not sure why I ever stopped myself
             from loving you until
the very last second,
But I think you're right.
       I thought I couldn't deserve you
and instead of fighting,
                      I put my hands up,
threw down
           a white flag.
In the end, I didn't deserve you
Your quiet power,
                                  Your Moon-child Grace.
If nothing else,
                           this time,
I will learn
      from my mistakes.

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.

Everything was so green
                and I wondered
what you would think of
          the tiny hands and feet
       of the falls,
          the lanky limbs
                 of trees
                     so much like your own
I peeked into a moment between lovers
               (real lovers)
and I wondered
                            if you and I were ever
                                                     like that
I wondered if we had the capacity not
                           to hurt
And then I wondered
                     if there really was such a thing
                                               as hurt,
or if it was just growing pains--
     the ache of making space
for another human being
     beneath my ribcage.
                                            (are you a human being?
                             and what defines being human?)
I suppose I would rather
       make space
          until I break
        than never
    make space
at all.

I'm thinking about Flowers
        I forgot to feed
and rocks
      I wear
but don't always believe in.

                               I always wanted
                                             to be
                                                      grounded­;
              wanted roots to
                        sprout
           twist
                       and
                                  grow
                deep.
­
But I am not dirt, nor root, nor flower.
I am the empty watering can.

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.