I am in love
I'm in love with the green Vermont mountains
how the ridge dances with the horizon
nature's scoliosis spine
autumn leaks in
and fades the trees to embers
a fire dying into

the onus of breathing
the duty of eating
tasks of a desk job
the burden called living

humans clicking their tongues
and making mouth sounds
speaking rhythms and tunes
that mean nothing to me

I bury my eyes,
swallow my voice
just stop existing
"be a good boy"

let me fall asleep
wake up 6 feet underground
i'll be smiling
with no feet above me

Liz,
    I saw you on Christmas
    at church in a black dress and pearls
    we made light conversation
    as we fill filed out with the postlude
    
    31 days later, an ambulance picked you up from your friends house
    there were no lights, there were no sirens
    the obituary told me it was an accidental ****** overdose
    you were 21
    I wish i had seen the bruises on your arm that christmas
    before I walked into the snowy night

Liz,
      your funeral was held at the same church where I saw you last
      where we spent all these years
      as the postlude drew to a close
      we studied the back of wooden pews
      we asked ourself the  same question
      "Would I have been able to help?"
      we beg the walls for answers
      but they offer no reply

Liz,
     If I saw the bruises, would I have known?
     If I had known, would I have the courage to say anything?
     What would I have said?
  
    I could've given you a scared-straight talk
    with warnings and statistic
    shown you before and after pictures
    ripped from a health textbook
    but spitting facts into the face of an addict
    is like lecturing someone of the dangers of riptides
    when they're six miles from shore
    rambling about 3rd degree burns
    to someone trapped in a burning house
    but how do I keep forgiving from becoming ignoring?
    how do I stop helping from bordering on ratting out?
    I want to to get help but I don't want you to resent me
                God, what I would give
                for you to hate me right now

Liz,
      my mother discussed your passing
      with friends with red wine lips
            "Oh, Liz? Yeah- my son said she was a ****** kid"
      a ****** kid, not the pastor's daughter
     or the mission trip veteran,
     not the day care teacher, or the prankster,
     not the angel in the 2006 Christmas play
    
     Where is the line between good and bad?
     how many track marks does it take to turn a girl into a statistic?
     how far in must one drive the needle to be reduced
     to the trope of a ****** kid
     how many melted milligrams does it take to wash away the good qualities
     and leave behind a skeleton of a girl we once knew

Liz,
     they say you're gone, you're in a better place
     but God i know you're still here
     I see you in the flowers, skirting the steps of the church
     I hear you between the harmonies
     of all the hymns
     I can feel your presence
     breathing out from the cracks in the stone walls
     I see you in coffee shops
     and in restaurants and on the streets
     mocking me to do a double take
     before I remember
     and you know we have forgiven you
     as we have wailed it at the stained glass
     I really hope you have learned to forgive us

Liz,
     I saw you christmas eve
     black dress and pearls
     you died 31 laters
     you were 21
     I wish I had seen the bruises on your arm
    I wish I could've helped

Time is truly an illusion.
these minute, these hours
don’t actually matter
if we choose to ignore them.

When you first kissed me
time didn’t stop
it just swirled and twisted
morning went back to sleep
the Earth’s rotation faltered
and the glass face of a pocket watch
shattered

we laughed at the world
and their silly clocks
we screamed we are tenseless
from the all the mountain tops we climbed
as we burned every last american spirit
and listened to the absence of time
I whispered
Baby we are the now and the now is what all we need
we didn't care about our future or our past
they were occurring all at the same time
we lived in the waist of an hourglass

when we laid in bed
I forgot that time ever moved linearly.
I forgot that outside of our little world,
clocks were ticking,
days were passing,
and snow was melting.
we were encased in a moment
we lived in every lapse of time.
where clock hands stay fast to their post



I didn’t expect things to last forever
because forever is a unit of time
but i've seen the sun set and rise 62 times
since i saw you
      with your watch wound
and ready to go forward

I’m told that everyone needs a lover
someone who saves you from yourself
without your other half, you are incomplete

I’m told that everyone needs a lover
though love for people is overrated
pouring love into something human is terrifying
hands that hit and legs that run
eyes that command me to offer love that was meant for myself

when i could feel his love washing away
i remember seeing pieces of myself melt along with it
pockets of my coat still smelled like him
all my songs were intertwined with his voice


I’m told that everyone needs a lover
I need not to have my heart dragged across the country
when a lover leaves with no goodbye kiss
i sat in silence for a week

I’m told that everyone needs a lover
they may know the constellation of my moles
but they will never feel
the spark I feel when a storm rolls through
these tenuous connections were never meant
to hold me upright
like marionette strings

I am my very first lover
I'm a hurricane of a girl but that doesn't make me a disaster
I'm not chasing anyone, I am running to feel my feet slap the pavement
I scale buildings, roll through gaps in fences
I am kissed by barbed wire,
for the sake of a better view
I **** in oxygen and bellow out carbon dioxide
claiming immortality until proven otherwise


these skinned knees and bruised elbows
do not show a beaten girl
freedom gave me some hickies
and i don't feel like hiding them from anyone

they see me as broken glass
for someone to fix
but I was never meant to be a vase
they see me as a hazard because i cut their soft hands
but i know that i am a ******* mosaic

Commit arson on your lungs
with some stolen cigarettes
destroy the last good thing
your parents ever gave you

11:10
is when my eye catches the yellowing clock
twelve black block numbers
hands stretch towards the top
gears tick nervously
awaiting next set of 60 seconds
11:11
a pinball ricochets through my neurons
searching for a wish
I try to focus on the droning lecture
but for the next 60
- uh, 40 seconds
my mind churns through the things I desire
everything falls out of my cerebellum
my mind is only screaming one word
but i cannot form any sentence structure
in which I can place it
the red hand approaches the 12
I close my eyes
and submit my one word prayer
11:12
Him
Him
Him.
…

Your father’s belt hugs tightly to your arm. You twirl the syringe between your fingers, a little container with a world inside. You take a deep breath, and ****** the needle into the blossoming  purple flower on your arm. You wince at the pain, but the ***** feels like a kiss. Your finger slips the plunger into the syringe, and you feel the cool liquid glide into your bloodstream. With the syringe still in your grasp, the pillows catch you in their embrace as your body crashes in a heap. Weakness floods your body; washing into your legs, hips, torso, arms, and finally your hands, as your fingers unfold from around the syringe. It rolls off your hand and onto the ground. You do not hear a clatter. Limply, you throw yourself onto your back and stare at the white ceiling; it shifts as your eyes lose focus. Silence consumes your ears. A smile slides onto your face; your problems melt away. The bed disappears from under you. You’re floating; you’re flying; you’re invincible. You laugh. You laugh until tears run down your face. Your crazed barks echo in your small room. Untouchable freedom projects from every pore. Nothing matters right now, except this euphoria running through your veins. You’re flying head first through space; speeding past cartoon planets. Good god, you’re flying, you’re flying. You’re dying. You’re flying
The room starts to flood back into focus. You desperately claw at your freedom as it slips away from you. You try to dispel the oncoming reality, but it’s inevitable. Reality punches you in the jaw. Your head screams with static and your arm aches. Worries creep back into the crevices of your mind: parents, school, friends, grades, college. It overwhelms you; panic fills your bloodstream. Your spine arches sharply as you scream from the pit of your stomach. This is real. This is real. You are no longer flying, or in paradise, or happy. You curl up in a ball and begin to cry.  You are nothing more than a lost child, alone and scared

I pull the heavy mug of green tea
to my flaking lips
the thick steam settles in my nose
and warms my winter-whipped face
but fog my half moon glasses
I wipe away the condensation
and fold myself onto the chair
clutching to my chest
my cracked-spine book
with soft pages and greying ink  
I embrace it like a lover -
far enough away to drink in the meaning
but close enough so I soak up
every last word
light shines through my window
I allow my eyes to drift closed and feel the spring sun
softly kiss hello on my cheeks
after a weeks of cloud cover
I sink deeper into a faded red armchair
dozing off to gentle sleep
a ghost of a smile hanging off my lips

The world outside today seemed to be too much for me
the walls keep closing in, i can’t find the room to breathe
i’m left there alone
hollow eyes and aching bones
i’ve laid dormant from dawn
to dusk but now i see the sun
night is gone, another day done
as i lay locked on the bedroom floor
my shoulder blades press into my thin rug
protruding vertebrae finding wood below
the rain smell hanging from poisoned oaks
gray skies hover
endless cloud cover
all pinning me down
these days all I can do is suffer

but the birds outside my window
in a chorus they say
you don’t have to fear today
But the birds outside my window
they sing me awake
it’s okay, it’s okay it’s okay

the sun, the trees the summer breeze
they nudge me saying please
it’s been three days since you’ve eaten, Louise
you’re nothing but fuzzy brain weak knees
get up, just get some coffee
but I remain paralyzed
glass eyes towards skys learning
pattern of ceiling fan turning
whirring and churning
all the heavy humidity away
but my skin will not evaporate
no matter how much i will it to dissipate
i hate to have my body stay
while my mind starts to disintegrate


but the birds outside my window
in a chorus they say
you don’t have to fear today
But the birds outside my window
they sing me awake
it’s okay, it’s okay it’s okay

light leaks in from the swayingcurtain
the storm is passed, weatherman’s certain
and though the sun cuts the grey asunder
in my mind there still lies thunder
my cobwebbed lungs refuse to work
as the heavy thoughts continue to lurk
but breaking through murky background
i hear sparrows start a symphony sound
and with their rounds and rounds of chords  
their song did rise more and more
and my eyes came into focus  
loosing that notion of hopeless
i started to feel almost human
only songbirds’ tunes to pull me in
closer and closer to some reality
through blinding light i start to see
the pinewood  outside begins to dry
my rusty heart decides to try
I reach my head out the window
with eyes shut, panes clutched
i drink the sun’s glow
with all i have,  my ribs force a heave
and i find that,  finally I can breathe

but the birds outside my window
in a chorus they say
you don’t have to fear today
But the birds outside my window
they sing me awake
it’s okay, it’s okay it’s okay

cigarette ash burns into my skin
an exposé of the number of times
i've ****** something up
    one for some beer
    one for some ***
    one for trying to take the only life i've got
    one for sneaking out
    one for the bag i packed
    another for all the traits that I lack
my lungs are already a graveyard
i must heave to welcome oxygen
but i don't think i care anymore
dust has made its home in my airways
and the embers on skin is my destructive healing
bit by bit, burn by burn
I write an apology letter across my flesh
but i fear i do not have enough surface area
maybe one day, my skin will be nothing
but a sheet of burns and blisters
and those around me won't be able
     to stand the sight of me

A house may not be a home
In my living room sofa i feel uneasy
like everything is covered in wet paint
anything i touch i will ruin
so I pull myself in, taking up as little space as my body will allow
sweaty palms grasping to one another
i feel like a clumsy middle school boyfriend
the first time over to a girl's house

A house may not be a home
My family eats together at the dinner table
they ask me scripted questions,
for which i have canned answers
How was school-Fine
homework tonight-yes
any plans this week-no
My mother talks at my father
rehearsing the married couple skit
I have no further lines
I take to my cue to exit

My bedroom acts as a haven,
a place where i allow myself to take up space
without fear of getting in another persons way
but i can still hear my name
woven in my parents' argument
I can't hear what they're saying
though their strained voices reach me
tucked away upstairs, right next to the attic
which holds broken toys and things we don't want to look at anymore


A house may not be a home
my mother accused me of being hopped up on script drugs
questioned why I was "acting so bubbly"
I stopped and tried to remember
the last time these walls heard my laugh
my mother overheard me talking
about how i had a liking for a girl
I remember the purse her wine stained lips
and how she didn't look at her daughter

when a house is not a home
some try to place their home into others
like an indie pop ballad
some summer anthem paired with stolen beers
but we forget
humans have hands that hit
and feet that run
gnashing teeth
all encased in soft summer skin
we forget
these tenuous connections were never meant
to hold you upright
like marionette strings
you need not to have your heart dragged across the country
when a lover leaves with no goodbye kiss


I am my own mother, my own lover
I will hollow out my ribcage
in these bones i will create a haven
i will use the sticks and stones to build a nest
i will be my home
a place where I can finally live