and bowls full
of wilting basil, stewed
until the house was angry
and steamy and sweating
and i was a *****
all alone. i burnt a batch,
and cursed the garden
for its absurd bounty.
what is this? this late-august
harvest of excess. too much
for me to enjoy. but nature,
she has been good this year.
later, i watched a woman push
her cart down the middle
of the road. i could smell
the funk from her moldy jacket
and unwashed hair and the fungus
between her toes. she stared
with her hardened eyes,
like the bitter sun that burned
the tomatoes into exploding clusters
of juice and seeds. her calloused hands
squeezed rotting blankets in her cart,
writhed in some quiet strangulation
of some stranded moment.
i passed by and caught her eye.
we were equals, in blood and in bone,
trapped in some jarring expectation
of destination, in uncertainty
and in hope. she will go back
to her corner to watch the world
drive by, i will go back to my stove
and simmer, waiting for the summer harvest.

you do not need to be quiet.
you do not need to expose your heart
to this brutal world to feed its ugly desire.
you only need to walk into the wilderness of your soul
and breathe, succumb to the silence in your heart;
rebel and provoke, then embrace the soft despair
of your broken body and heal; in the miles
of broken road between your heart and mine, repent;
cry a little and scream, for the valley will echo
in redemption and uplift you into the timberline
and up again to the highest point above the valley floor
until the sun whips its fingers across your face and you stagger,
kneel, then pray in your enlightened state;

you will smile when you come home
to the craggy rocks and dusty rivers
and the tender patches of moss along the boulders;
you will tease the tall grasses and the buttercups
and the sunflowers with your fingers
and push deep through the mud with your toes;
here, silence is forgiving.

so is my front porch for your burnt cigarettes,
remnants of sunday nights and heart to hearts
and moments of desperate uncertainty. every
inhale brings another reason to react, to question
and comment and bicker and fester in all the lost
insecurities that you ponder. when tomorrow comes,
and next week, you will still be smoking the royals
in my car, the turks invading your lungs in some fiery
defiance of reality. i will continue bearing the teas
and the coffees and the insensitivities that crush us
continually, and then build it all up again so i can promise
you that it will all be alright. because in the end,
nothing is the same and nothing is real. while everything
is expanding and disappearing into the distant horizon
of spacial expectations, we are building walls to capture
everything we hope to be, to touch the remaining fragments
of what we strive to never become.

it’s like the fires that have ravaged this breathless land,
refusing to relent, and the parched clouds that fall
against the rolling adobe hills. it’s like the fire
of red and orange ombré spilling into the abiquiu,
a halo of lush greenery rushing toward the water.
like yesterday’s wind, my breathing is shallow and dry,
choking on the depth of your hazy breath that curls
from the corner of your lips. i drove on heat waves
for miles as i watched fires crawl into the mountains,
down into the skeletal rivers that are nothing but stony
memories. the earth is bony, long fingers of dead streams
crushed in the grasp of 115 degrees. this morning, i lay
gasping in your arms, remembering the temptation
of your breath as we sat in the moon’s silent ebb. the fires,
they will burn more until there is nothing left but the naked
and raw land, and then the rains will come again and wash
the ash and the mud away. but with you, i will never call
for a raindance, knowing the only way i will burn is when you
are filling me with fire.

this is inspiration, when you hold
the quiet of your lips against mine
until only the sound of nothingness
fills this space. the echoing of your heart
inside your cavernous body of beauty
filling this world with the sweet serenity
of continuum. along the glossy sides of your
pure skin, illuminated in the sanctuary of moonlight
and stars, i will run my fingers across the expanse
of your back until they come to rest upon your legs.
i will hold you in my soft embrace, reveling in the peace
that you bring me in this tender existing moment
when nothing matters but now.

shut the **** up and stop pretending that anyone cares,
but of course i already knew that already. it’s what you say
when you tease me and yell at me and when you throw a box
of tissues across the room. ********, because i’m as full of it
with my niceties as you are strutting in your oil-stained boots
and old-lady fur coat. you care as much as i do, and yet you laugh
at me for hating times new roman, and yes, i hate it as much as i hate
not thinking for myself. i’d rather have a blank page of unheard thoughts
but you, you don’t even know. i write what i like until the page overflows
while your unbrushed teeth fill with unfiltered words until the dam breaks
and it’s **** you and your *******! so i sit helplessly on the corner of your bed,
listening to you cry before reading your poetry. i awkwardly caress your arm
and squeeze your bitten fingernails. i sit in the silence that i wish would fill
with expectation, but it only fills me with the rawness of what you and i
have become, stripped to some naked vulnerability until everything
you never say leaves me grasping for more.

don’t underestimate my sorrow,
for you do not understand the depths
of this broken body that lies here
in the confinements of not knowing.
i do not want your pity
or your condolences. let me weep in this orchard
where my life has begun to grow, and stagnate.
i feel like this is necessary to lie in the grass
until it wraps its lacy fingers around my neck
and breathes my breath for me. i am volatile
now; i will not bend to your weaknesses.
so please, don’t underestimate what i am
when i walk through those doors to greet you.

today you made me angry and i hate you for that. i hate
that you act like your six-year old brother, who’s cuter than you
and can get away with **** like that. ooh, did i offend thee?
poor dear, perhaps you’d like to stuff your face with some humble pie
instead of that ****-cake that i made two nights ago.
and pur-lease, don’t give me some ******* that i ignore you.
you do the same thing. and don’t act like sorry is just a word.
*******! is love just a word to you, too? ha! let’s scrawl it out
on your forehead and see if you can feel how i feel for just a second.
i’d like to say a lot of things to you right now but they’re far too mean,
or for you at least. i can’t say anything without getting yelled at
anymore. shocking, since i’m stuck beneath your sad little jabs
all the time and i only laugh because it’s water off a duck’s back.
and now you sing down to me like rapunzel and i can’t help
but feel sad, wishing that i hadn’t ignored you in the first place
and that you hadn’t badgered me until i actually decided to be a *****.
so yes, forgive me when you’d like and i will forgive you.
but don’t give me some whatever that means ******* because everything
i do for you is for you and me together. i am not hateful
when i tell you the truth, but perhaps the truth is more than you’d like
to hear right now. or perhaps all the time? i’m sorry. really i am,
and though you may never say you’re sorry to me, i can still hope.