Pinch me
so I'll feel the pain.
Hurt me
'til I go insane.
Maybe then
I won't refrain
and end this
numbness
in my vein.

my first love was literature:

my first skipped heartbeat belonged to lazy afternoons
when i skimmed my hands over the surface of an open book,
all surface tension, skipping stones and soaring -
i could not get enough.

next was my fluttering stomach, from tempest-tossed evenings
when fiction and a flashlight were my friends
where i read of silver mountains and dreamt of golden seas -
(the best books always followed me in dreams.)

and last, my first hitched breath, stolen from moon-still nights
when i drummed my fingers across the printed words
to soak them in like moss does fresh-fallen rain -
and that was when i knew that i had fallen

deeply, irrevocably in love.

maybe he was a pair of mittens

he met you in the cold of the winter
and he fit just right

maybe he was a pair of mittens

when summer rolled over
he just didn't feel right anymore

maybe he is a pair of mittens*
and maybe right now, *you just need a hat