It was an arbitrary day
at the arboretum
the ferns were all wondering why
a rash of rogue rhododendrons
were roughing up the azaleas
while mighty magnolias stood meekly by

A patch of tiny cyclamen giggled girlishly
while witch hazels waved green wands
and the willows wrung their hands
and wept and wept
'cause they knew what was really going on

Feet are the best place to look in a crowd
because,
even if they aren’t painted,
toenails offer a reflective surface
that reassures our presence,
no matter the floor we walk on.
I look down so often
that I forget I have that identical shell
on my fingers too.
They shine the sun in your eyes
when I blindly fix my hair behind my ear.
I know it disgusts you,
but I bite away,
in fact,
I chew that casing away
from my forgiving palms
and tuck them safely in my nail beds
where I drip bedtime stories from my gums
like a blanket fort of crimson comfort.
My stories get so crusted
on the nights when
you’re not here
that scar tissue
becomes less than something I blow my nose with.
I long for you
to tell me your stories
and let them faint into my wrists
so then I can carry your pulse
through my veins and feel alive again.
Let your heartbeat
guide my wandering hands
down your ventricles
and let me be the reason you stir at night.
Let me shake your bones
until the birds trapped in your rib cage
start singing again.
Let me be the cool tongue that
laps your broken heart back together.
Let me be something more than debris
hanging loosely from flesh,
but less than a bomb nestled
between the hollowness in your skull.
I hope you look down
and feel the weight of my lips from last night’s goodbye
pressed against your forehead
and realize
no matter how lost you get
in a swarm of shoes,
you’ll always have my bare feet
next to yours.

take me back a month ago;
I'll pretend I don't have to go back home.
I'll pretend I don't have a return ticket
as long as I get to stay a bit,
just a bit...longer
because, there, people were nicer!
I stood a little taller!
The air was cleaner
because you weren't in the radar

I basked in the glory or a lion with a fish tail.
I walked down pavements that always looked freshly painted.
I passed people who didn't look like me
nor looked at me.
There was absolutely nothing there
that could have reminded me of thee but...
me.

I chose to see you in the boat on top of a building
because you said we'd sail through the clouds
to catch each others dreams together.
I chose to see you in train stations
where I thought we'd say goodbye
rather than part with a short reply.

oh, take me back to that city
where I can be reminded of you
without you.

Touch the sky with me
and we can fly, fly, fly
away from these places,
wrong faces, all the traces
of the spaces we created
between our lonely hearts
and forgotten minds;
the parts of us that shouldn't exist
crying in their cavernous
pinholes, echoing
and rupturing in feeling
through the waves of something
more, something undeniable
and true. The pinprick
in which my emotions
are contained
is gargling with a blood
that pours black yet,
as it trickles through
me, I can feel it restoring beauty
to the yellowed valleys of my skin.

Never the one with a safety net,
having to move quickly, silently,
and calculated.
In a house pulling me into
depression,
further than I could pull myself,
I refused.
Never to be trapped into
ammonia soaked walls and
defeated thinking of years
past,
a "golden child,"
I moved on.
How it hurt to hear those words,
from someone that has
never been hungry,
never realized that the hunger
never fades and that I
never had a choice.
It was get up,
get out, stay moving,
or die
forever.