How juicy your words taste
sliding down my tongue to my thirsty throat;
tasting of freshly picked apples
squeezed into sunny warm cider-
seeping into my blood stream
and bringing me back to the fall where
the sunset leaves fall across my skin
and your voice sings with the crunch of the leaves.

I float in a sea of your words
thrashing against my skin
but I embrace every single
whispered black letter and
swallow the bitter ink,
so my lungs become too bloated
for me to hover in the foam so that I
sink and I find your cheek to kiss.

Come dance with me between the seaweed,
with sand wedged between our toes
I’ll hook on to your Cs intertwine
with Ls, slip behind Bs and lay in
the Ys when the dance is done--
you would have kissed the lids
of my eyes, slipped into my soul
and transformed me to you
your words are my thoughts and dreams
of autumn leaves and breezy waves.

First she broke her fingers because
she wanted to know pain.
Then she broke her arm because
the first pain wasn’t strong enough.
When she got her heart broken
she said there was no pain.
Then she broke her neck
because no one knew she lied.

it’s coming back again
that same life i fell into
strung and hung on a
thin line of fishnet lies
whispered into my nerves-
the devil is here now

i see it watching me
as i watch myself through
every reflective surface
hazy and pale;
monstrous hills clinging to my bones
i see i see you don’t have to tell me

where are my bones?
do i even have them?
covered by the rolling hills
plump and dense
sinking my soul to sin
maybe maybe i’ll roll;

too weak with greed
a deadly sin am i?
maybe all seven
i’ll let the devil speak to the hills
make them dance off my bones

maybe then if i do well
i’ll see them, the frail,
pale thin bones-
the little devil’s bones.

At times I feel this growing distance between us,
this wind blowing our frail souls apart
as our bodies lay silent beside each other
fingers grazing cheeks and bones
and I don’t know how to save us.

How can I say that I want to tie
the fingertips of our souls together
so tight that no matter how hard we tug
your palm will remain pressed against mine?

You can hold me beneath the city lights
until I’m choking on your breath
but the wind will still blow
and we’ll keep digging our feet deeper
until we can’t recognize where our souls have gone.

During those nights when my heart aches
and beats in those faint echoed thumps
I search for your tiny typed letters
to soothe my swollen soul
deep between those thin sheets and your skin-
echoing.
Your lungs breathe life into the ink on my skin
into songs that bring revolutions in my heart
and revolt against my mind until I’m lost
in the eerie night somewhere between
your fingers and feathers of the pillows.

Sometimes I forget people used…
(still do but hardly do we speak…)
call me Ellie, childish Ellie.

I’ve moved to a new city-alone-
a strange vast city I knew would change me
so much I could not cling to my support to Ellie
I could not hold her hand and hope she
would lead me through the dashing cars.

I decided I would be Elizabeth,
use my real name, my real proper grown name
-am I grown now? I believe so-
that could help me shine in among millions
of anonymous faces.

I wanted to become someone new
I wanted to be a star that hovers over the mass
and brings a shimmer into everyone’s life
I wanted to leave Ellie behind and I did.

When people call for Ellie, Elizabeth continues
she forgets about the childhood she walked from,
about the people that still cling to the little
E   L    L   I    E
because they do not understand
that Ellie and Elizabeth exist in two separate worlds,
one stares up into the dark silver dotted sky
the other dancing among the glowing celestial bodies.
Ellie and Elizabeth two different beings never colliding
but once in a while when Ellie is whispered into life
and the two walk through the universe of faces.