She spoke
with half-smoked cigarettes
and lilting cursive scribbled over last night’s letter’s return address,
her bags packed with only a backless dress.
Nails dripping black and red
blood and paint indistinguishable
in the darkness of the winding alleyways
zigzagging her heart.
She was truly, unendingly lost
in the mazes of her mind
as she traveled backwards with a string
lazily trailing after broken stilettos.
Yesterday’s rain still dripping from empty window sills
and illuminated by lanterns lit with fireflies
found solace in her silent tears
for they were companions,
cut from the same paper-thin cloth.
Maybe a goddess had worn it once,
but those days were long gone
when she lit it aflame with a cigarette
fresh from her lips.
Desire was never a question —
this she had learned from the fire
overtaking her overflowing mind —
and yet it was soundlessly spoken
on empty bottles
not yet broken and swept up by the sea.
Only the blind man could see her now
just as the deaf girl heard her cries
and thus she remained unanswered.
This, however, she did not mind
for being lost was no longer not a choice.

It was a shotgun wedding
and the bullet hit 'em both.

“What is a poem?”
My English teacher asks,
then barely pauses before answering his own question.
Lists of rules and reasons
spill from his mouth,
so many that he’s cut off by the bell.

I refrain from raising my hand
and telling him that anything can be a poem
if you want it to be.

The painting on the wall,
the fleeting peace that comes
from looking at the moon,
the little boy whose hands are already rough
and calloused with use.

Nothing makes a poem
but our minds and thoughts and wishes
for “poem” is just a word
but what it gives us is ours to decide.

Maybe even this is a poem,
though my English teacher would disagree.

That sweet pang in my heart
when I think of you.

The world rains down on this lonesome desert plane
and we watch and wait and go insane.

As I watch
your soft limbs bow before me
giving me permission to climb your sturdy trunk
up to your leaves.

I peek through the branches,
the world broken up into crisscrossed windows
each one a glimpse into someone's world.

I'm reminded of my younger days,
climbing higher and higher
until the sky brushed my fingers
in a soft command.

I would be a sky pirate, searching
for something or somewhere or someone
until momma came outside with lemonade and PB&J
and all my problems were solved
with a single kiss to my forehead.

Now, though, I simply watch from above
content in spending a few moments alone,
just me and you and the sky.

Wind picks up, your delicate branches waving in the breeze
letting swaths of gold float to the ground
in curtains that coat the cracks in the pavement
and hide the imperfections with golden rain.

And in that moment, there is nowhere else I'd rather be.

I search for my reflection
but it is here no longer.