They say all you need
to make a place holy is a
sacrifice and a prayer,
so here we are in the field.

I've brought you grass.
I've brought you sun and earth.
I've laid my very soul here.

I may have stumbled through
the rosary, but I think we have
a chance.

We're in the middle of it.
We're right in the middle of it,
the field, on our backs while
the sun sends our skin tingling.

The dragonflies, the faraway birds,
the little specks of dusty dirt floating
in the light.

I don't know if any of it is real, but
just let me have this. Let me have just
one moment of reverence, of peace.

This is how a soft spot materializes.
This is how we find our way at the
end. I looked over at you and saw
the eyelashes tickling your cheek.

I saw hands smoothing over the grass
and angels pouring across the milk-
blue sky. I said,

I want to be buried here. You said,
Let's be alive first.

*I still call you *darling in my head. It took me a long time to learn that covenants and siren songs aren't much different at all.

"Look into the camera,"
and bring your eyes nowhere else,
not behind to where the lady stands,
holding an eight-year-old's hand.

"Place your forefinger on the sensor,"
and don't dare move it closer
to your wet eyes, for the man
with the ten-year-old might see
you shudder.

The arrow always points forward,
so take your steps fast and sure.
Ignore the shouts, shove away the feels,
smile and wave your way to
DEPARTURE.

You were taken from me before we were born
and so I floated and grew alone in a room for two dreaming of moons and sunlight

What are you if you are a twin,
but never had the chance to be one?

I'm half of a whole made up of two people
but now I am  all of what is left,
with a ghost
hidden in my peripherals  

Sometimes I feel I am the moon,
the moon and lunar tides
which means you must've been the sun and shores
to tie me to the earth

Because when I am alone, you are the phantom beside me reminding me of warmth,
and you are the unexplained loss I feel
standing in the sun

I carry the clothes on my body–
a plain t-shirt and sweater leggings–
attempting to stay warm and keep cool.
I carry my backpack,
my heavy, heavy backpack,
to carry the things I can’t carry in my arms…
my books, pencils, papers, and keys.
In my arms I sometimes carry more books,
sometimes a cup of chai, and sometimes, nothing. Sometimes
I wish I carried a little bit more time;
then I could carry the things I’ve left behind.

I carry all the parts of me simultaneously, and I am full now.
I carry my eyes, for without them, my path would be blurred,
and I would be ignorant.
I carry my ears to hear music and dissonance and
I carry a heart to feel the soundwaves and make sense of them.
I carry my nose to hold the sweetness of a flower in my lungs,
and skin to caress their soft petals,
without plucking them.
When I carry nothing, I sleep,
and in my dreams, I carry the clouds and the stars beyond them.
From there I may see the things I have yet to carry.

I carry my own weight across the populated Earth.
I carry my own gravity and the light of the sun.
I carry the stars from my dreams, and from them,
I create constellations in broad daylight.
I carry my heart.
I carry the soundwaves of voices like
space nymphs, singing songs I want to remember.
I carry the sight of people coming closer and drifting further from me,
escaping and re-entering my orbit,
an arm-length or a light-year away.
I carry their images and sometimes,
I reach for their silhouettes and I try to feel their thoughts.

I carry my heart and it is full.
My heart is filled with emotion,
and my emotions are the Earth’s turbulent winds
across a golden, sun-kissed field and
the sound of a waterfall crashing into
a pool of water at the bottom of the valley, and
equally the eye of the storm in which
the world is a spinning oblivion,
but here, it is quiet.
My heart is the recollection of times past
in a yellowed, well-worn tome awaiting a reader and
the diary of someone whose story begs to be forgotten.
My heart beats for someone to understand its journey,
but it longs to understand what it beats for.
I carry the silence and the music alike;
I carry the Earth and all its wonders.

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
******
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.