Hiding under that mattress
isn't getting you anywhere.
You can dream of foreign countries
but your family won't be rushing to see you
to tell you they love you
and miss you.
Somewhere pressed between **** and
humidity,
your lungs transparent grow moss
and your throat hurts from not screaming.
Soon it's two below
(as it is surely supposed to be)
and your young mind hates it.
Your esophagus has become
entirely a forest
abandoned
for the winter.
The scariest thing is not knowing
if your population will retain
its original numbers.
The trees around you can't hold you
and the cliff you're on
is not going to carry you home.
"You have your own inside you, be it for yourself,"
but that doesn't help.
It was something you loved but the stilts
of support splintered.
Your mattress reeks of ****.
Your lungs of cushion collapse.
Your cliff has crumbled
and your ashes are held in the
eyes of your old pals,
but they become the coastal sand.

This is the first and last time
that the moon and the planets will align
in such a shape.
At least, the last instance until the sun burns up.
You said "Look out your window."
I did. I looked out;
I blamed the window when I couldn't see it.
then I went outside
it was negative nine degrees
and my face was set to freeze
yet the moon remained hidden.
I drove to the end of the winding road
in the orange darkness
Even in the opening of the trees
there was no lunar disclosure,
no planetary apparitions
to soothe the frostbite I inflicted
when I stuck my head out of the sunroof window.
I never found what I sought
I feel robbed, violated
a sense of entitlement
(wrongly felt, I suppose).
Then again there is a guilt
when something is so beautiful
that there is an obligation to share it
but it was then refuted by the premature death
of this moon,
and by an acute tardiness
held tightly in a clenched fist.
Next time I promise not to miss something
so revolutionary
and sensitive to time.
It was fleeting,
we tried to catch and match it
like lining up squares of cloth to cut
"Isn't it funny how everyone is seeing
the same moon?"
Look out your window before it's too late,
drive until you can't feel your hands
or your face or really anything at all
and come back full of life.

17 feb: offbeat

I couldn't stop thinking about
grey tartan and gin
and soft pink skin.
Cigarettes and typewriters,
drops of ink on the paper
leading away from the word
"desperation."

But there it was.
"I'm leaving for the afternoon.
Your choice is to prune
the bushes or to water them."
What was I to do?
I liked them full and so did you.

You were frantic.
As though you'd misplaced something
when really you were just searching
for a fishing net.
"Look at the sunset."
Oh but it's gone, it's over, I'm sorry.

[Friend, friend
do not cower or back down
from this but know
that I am listening for you,
to you, always.]

Left to rot,
built to spill,
one of us was always ill.
I was waiting for you to come home--
I have not touched the bushes yet.

You stare at a black box
You say you like it better this way
Where the disconnect
Cannot affect

Troubled by this regurgitating behavior of  
Reducing our senses to sight
Because we barely listen

The box doesn't stare back
A disease lies hidden underneath
Asking permission to speak

She pulls the wires from her wrists
Audible pops
Like octopus suction cups
come from her brain

Shocks like jellyfish
And static
sizzle sizzle
In her eyes

Her lips on mute
Like she is the device

clear thumbtacks hold the
few blades of grass
collected from the meadows
of the Magnificent Days.
no baby blanket can wrap up
these times;
no perfume from the 80's
mask such greatness.
driving home at 8:56
in february feels like four-thirteen a.m.
while it's raining
(how strange)
we don't feel like talking,
we don't feel like junk food
but scratchy blankets to tuck
in the snow-less mountains
this time of year.
something has to cover them,
because our society doesn't approve
of ******
or happiness, really
for our smoke detectors
are dead and the mirrors are stained
the rugs are frayed
and our poetry *****.
our candles smell like grandmothers
but that future for us isn't so
far away.
we focus on the water that will burst
past the controlled walls
in a few months;
that's so close (too close) to tell
because we are told
we won't end up being what we thought
we'd wanted at sixteen.
our christmas lights are getting dull
and we don't strive to make people jealous
anymore.
we just sulk on the loss
of the Magnificent Days,
bright and kind.

I made love
to an email,
inside my
mind's
sugar shop.
I guess
our blood is
detailed;
I don't feel
until you're
shocked.

You say the things
I moan,
and I wear the things
you swear,
like, "I'd still see you,
even if you were
to disappear."

You kiss me before
I tell you that you're
silver-spoon-
melted-heart,
reassuring me
that you're ****** up,
and to just push
to watch you
fall apart.

We shake
because it's what
we forgive the most.
So, let's bite our tongues
and float north.

On the night you left,
the northern lights outside my window
illuminated the floor of my bedroom with soft red
and green light.
And I pictured you
My love
Driving
Sailing away
And the aurora
Guiding you like a lighthouse
Westward
Through the calm spring air.
I close the curtains
And take a deep breath.