cold tea falls behind my teeth.

I always liked dead flowers better anyway--they're easier to draw.
at least they're done decaying. easier to relate to.
"sometimes too grand a compliment hurts worse than a slap to the face",
their pretty painted petals only ever waiting to die.

wherever they grew originally, I'm sure they thought they would live forever.
they thought they were free, but they were only beautiful, trapped in a greenhouse, blossoming, dreaming.
they were pink and thought they were immortal.

now they sit in a vase, next to my bed, slowly shedding petals.
the charade is over and they know it was no field they were growing in.

brown, like everything and everyone else now, we were beautiful and thought we were free.
but these days, flowers are grown for glass vases.

I write poems, not people,

And in them we all move so gracefully.

I diagnose myself freely with the
fluidity of tongue that can only serve to
mask motives.

no love is sloppy

Besides, it is heartbreak that is the most poetic, and I, after all,
write poems.
(poetry dictates artistry, ensures emotions, grants form, prevents freedom)

Even myself I work over into prose,
selecting words carefully,
double meanings,
hiding secrets within stanzas and passing them off as purposeful.

I am no riddle.

I am a poem like the rest of you,
terrified to be messy and avoiding interpretation.

I howl for you, against myself.
I howl for you because I hunt.

primal instinct
unstoppable
echoes
moons

I howl for you
it escapes
Loud
before my mind understands the function

I
LEAK
this urge out of myself
and the black air steals it

My throat carries this betrayal
into everywhere
into you

I don't know what it means but this hallelujah is hateful

I howl
I howl for you
baby
my baby

Should I squelch it?

Chasing wine with cigarettes--I can hold your face but I could never hold you.

My love, you are far too heavy;
Dense with things I never should have told you.
At the time, a sweet release for me
But I did not know I would have to pick them back up inside of you.

One day I will look at myself and wonder where I thought it would lead to, this trail of my pieces I leave scattered
In cluttered woods of stronger arms
In oceans of deep longing
In a moan that makes its way out into the impenetrable and inviting blackness and plants itself in the ground we've already pressed on,
The next point by which you'll try and follow me.

I would love to kiss you,
But I'm convinced you will sink,
And I'm either too weak to save you
Or too scared to try harder and
I'd hate to find out which.

Sometimes I think I could have loved you.
Quietly, in my way,
like a guarded mist that surrounded you.

You must have been blind,
at least in that temporary way,
playfully,
to have known my deluded cloud-ness,
to desire that weather,
to even let my
encumbered enchanting
E-R-I-N
out into what swallowed us.

I am what you fear I am
and my fog has left my love impalpable,
even to myself.

I am what I fear I am
nothingness
pure speculation--
If my heart beats, it is only to shut its own doors.

As a child, many great green vines of wild honeysuckle overwhelmed our wooden fences. Beautifully misplaced and sweet-smelling I drank their nectar out of appreciation for these small gods.

Every summer we would slash and tear them apart for the fear that soon they would overwhelm our boundaries.
How bare our home seemed without them.

But my whole life
has been practice
at protecting my fences,
and I have come to love them so fiercely
that now
no seeds
are thrown
there at all.

You should know I still adore wild honeysuckle,

and that darling,
sometimes,
I think I could have loved you.