let me be a woman
to you.
let me undress
my skin,

i won't dress myself in oils
-there's nothing here i need to make.
let me be clear to you


let me show you my crystal,
my honey
how i drip into my skin

let me be your woman to you
let me dance in your waters,
so you can smell the green in me


so you can see that i am made of
soil,
that i am made of magic

where do your layers go?
and all your stories
and the pieces of you
and the parts you play
and all your memories saved
and all the feelings you've felt
and all the moments that made you.

where do your layers go?
and all the songs you wrote
and all the words you placed on paper
and all the letters you sent over seas
and all the conversations you had
and all the love you felt
and all the places you've been and wished to go.

where do your layers go?
when you've lived for your memories
and you've written them all down
And placed them onto paper
And captured it all on film.

but what about the other things.
The everything else you've ever known.
where do they all go?

how can i read them from your mind
Now where can i read you?
how can i run my fingers through them
Or can they placed in glass for us to see
where they can stay, vivid, and alive
to be seen, to be seen, to be seen.

The joints
Your knees
The maple trees.
The dragonfly
The bowls of soup
The bones and back breaking work
The years and years.
The threads.
The barrels. The bowls. The mugs, the chairs.

            You should take away the light, then.

The moon
The music
The morning.
The paints and years of colour.
And darkness of the highway
The frying and searing
The scorching.
The soft grass—The meadow.
Your hair tucked behind your ear.
The moments we made and only I witnessed.

How do I separate a soul from a body. My lifetime of me. A lifetime of you. Why are you making me.

And I won’t.

I found it tangled in my fingers
like a wet strand of hair. It’s disgusting what you can do to me.

What do I do with it- and why do I chose to keep you.

Why is my only choice to wind you up like you’re twine.
Hoard you like I will be able to use you again for something.

When the time comes.
I’ll make a scarf out of you. Some jewellery. A bracelet.

I’ll wrap and twist and build and build.

Can I make you into a blanket. Can you keep me warm. And safe.

Will I find the end of this thread. What else lies here in my bed. Will there be more of this.

Will it be too much work. Do I have it in me. Can’t I just shelf you for later. I wish I can put the time in. As I have.

But you only have given me this one thread. I’ll have to wait a lifetime for the rest of it. As I have, as I will.

Somehow I’ve decided it’s worth it.

You only like me when I’m sleeping -
Where my body is there but quiet.
Where my words come out of my fingertips and onto the polished skin of your back.
Where I’m just a warm body
Soothing you
Pumping you with a pulse
Stretching your bones;
Your eyelids.
Helping you wax off your dye
Watching as you watch
the bathroom mirror - your reflection brushing its teeth, holding its nose; Piercing its eyes.
I will only take your worry.
One deep breath and
I will let it seep.
And I only scratch the surface, even after this lifetime.
If you can, just let me let me let me.
I’m not done here, come back.
Let me. Let me. Let me.
My words can now hold you. I promise.

I will do anything to grow old with you.

you've lost your soul on me.
your heavy eyes
show no mercy anymore.
where does your evil come from?
seep, seep, seep.

gutted.

this time away from your good heart
has made me
appreciate the warmth of your neck.
here I am with you again,
reminded constantly
that I am always by the sea.

who were you to bend to him like that.

do you remember those days
when you knew where that thirst came from?
Now tell me what moves you.

The divine twilight.
the blue the blue the blue
The soft turn into midnight

You knew it from a lifetime ago -
She comes around sometimes.

you weren't perfect then
But you were so much more than enough
And every time I see the sun i sense you.

you are a lilac dream.
a sunset,
the stars,
everything.

I want to write this out so i remember.



again, i am left to defend.
my guarded words against your flailing knives
i tell you all the time,
this is not how to fight.
we drive the rest of the way in silence.
I wont let you free this time.

_____

my silence upsets you.
you begin your tirade into absolute chaos.
i laugh at your dissolution
i can't help it,
i don't cry anymore.
how many times can i hear
that i am only here to annoy you.
that my kindness doesn't matter
to your solid, unforgiving bones.
i tried to make a home for you
time and time over.
i've cooked to your dreams, and cared for, and cleaned.
but again, i am left with only a dismissal,
a distain i've only felt by you.
i sleep on the couch more than my bed.
i don't want to feel you reach for me at night.

-you haven't apologized yet.
_____

this morning came the sorry.
an apology through text.
i would call that an empty one,
attempting to brush under
what you've done.
another rule is for me to forgive you,
another rule is to not talk to you at work.
but i don't,
and i don't.

today you can sit with my silence,
until you're home and i am ready.
to listen to your plea to forgive you
for the fifteen years you've put me through.

but that will never come
and i will just float through this world i've made for myself
in a gauzy dress
with my paintbrush and a palette,
and all my hours to myself.
but that will never come.
_______

i'll find myself again, in a distant year,
in another November's sun.
without child and without love
muttering "what have i done".

knowing this entire time,
you would do this to me.

where would you sit if you were here?
would you tangle your hands
in fabrics and in bread?
would you roast a bird
on christmas?
                     

  -would you make your son
and daughters speak?


your fierce mind and tender heart melded this child of yours and i need you as my guide.

please tell me of this person i've cared for.
please tell me where he fits into my bones.
can he ever nestle easily into my skin?
no, i've tried everything
how can i help to ease into this
when all i need is to push him
into these decent steps of
humankind.
of woman, of man, of child, and child, and child.
i come to you, my distant mother to tell you
your son is not well sometimes.

i miss you and i don't know you, and i miss you.
and your daughters miss you
and they have daughters now.
their world stopped when you left, and i feel like i've been trying to pick up his pieces
but they fall through my palms,
like fingers gripping sand.
he's dropped so many along the way, but i'm trying.


now i feel more mother than woman.

i can't be the only one
to see the night flower blooming.
i tell you, and i doubt

you have ever tasted
the electric
      blend of mouth and neck
i cannot be the only one.

i open a window to let all the light in-
maybe that might move you
to feel the morning
with me.
i'm sorry, is this light too sharp
for you?
      because i need a longer light than that.


Oh, my heavy heart.
look how this does nothing for you.


then when the rain comes
i savour at the river,
at the street below.
there’s a stickiness here.
does the river move upstream tonight?
(was it doing that yesterday?)


          I get used to this silence from you
         but there's a change here
         this doesn't feel like May


i am forced to take in your shadows.
now all that's left there for me to sift through -
woven into my limbs, my eyes, my mouth.

where you've put this limit on yourself.           
where i know nothing more than to
absorb it.

i've come to learn
you can’t force away the dread in your eyes,
as you can’t take away these apathetic months
left here to shuffle through and define.

(it would all just be to try,
it wouldn’t be to feel).


      and thats not enough for me.




i've slowly uncurled my fingers
from your twine-y hair
and all of your questions.
Haven’t you noticed how?

this is my home
and
i want you to leave now.
i want you
to pack away your things,
take your flag and your cup and your dread.
i want you to leave your thoughts of me at the door.


those belong to me
and you are not welcome.
i need to take in this view alone


I’m alone in Delphi
I’m alone in Delphi
with the woman I’ve been forced to be.








(I’ll see you for the last time when the sun sets along the bends of your old home. The mounds of dirt and marble will crumble before I will ever come back. And I feel that would be nothing more than everything I need).

another day by the river
thats just me and the water
i pretend that its only me
i pretend its only me.

i fight like the present
coming back to my salvation
i dream that it is over
that its me and the water
its just me and the water.

but i cant, i cant fight you
your body's always there.
between my river and the outcome
your body's always there.

i dream that the water
will free me to existence
where its me and the river
and you're somewhere only drifting.
i know i've done enough
i know you've left me bleeding
i dream of the water
of the river, of my bleeding.

i see you on my water
i see me only bleeding.
and a bird flying over
and the rest i'll give the river.

where can i lay my old hands
these days
35 seems so close.

i haven't had a child
i feel like an orphan.
my music doesn't suit me
i'm too young to feel this old
i never moved to new york
i never started my band
i never painted for hours
with oils,
and gouache.
i never loved you,
i never held you like a lover,
i held my own body too closely.
i watched my hours
too swiftly
you are not enough for me

oh here i leave you everything;
my gentle comfort and the way i used to love you

ill leave you with my questions
my "can i's",
i'll take back my keys
and the decade of my woman
You made things so hard

okay, okay I’ve had enough
2003 was so long ago
And it’s all I remember.
How much more can I take of this time

i find i don’t cry often

and when I do

my ancestors cry with me.

i weep with so many memories



like i’ve finally learned all the reasons why

i want to write to all my lovers;



my old ones who molded me
my old ones who held my body
as if it were an emerald.


there was something you all saw in me that i’m looking for now.
there was something so grand about me then,
so intense and open,
where i’d blossom at everything.
when i was a true woman
and i knew everything about me.

i wanted to share myself with all of you.



from you I learned how to move.
I learned security in ***
I learned of not begging for forgiveness,
but only of being.


from you I learned not to rush.
i’d slow down with you
we’d listen to music and
sit together on my balcony with a cigarette.


from you I learned to not be so conncected
i learned intensity and friendship
and that detaching
is healthy
    sometimes.


from you I learned to be with someone different.
i left you wild for me
you liked me too much.
im sorry.


from you I learned to follow my instincts
to devour and to consume
to dance and kiss
we were so similar


from you, again, i learned about a stable heart. you were so determined. you were so close to being the one.



thank you thank you thank you for guiding me.

let me touch all of you
slowly
until you’re mine.
until i can touch your back like i used to,
and your hair
and your ears
and your jaw
and your lips
slowly I’ll get to know you again.

how you move;
alone,
and with me.

i called to you from across the river
through the fog while you were catching
salmon.

i have always called to you

but you were a ghost;
A constant memory
That molded me.

You were always a good one
but it was hard for me to find
And I searched in the creeks and the valleys
And the mountains and the pines
And under the moon
And under your palms
And into your heart and through your eyes


and when by the river I found you.

my voice broke and echoed
over the mounds,
over the rush of the river
And on through the whistle of the tall grass,

And always

              you stayed just a ghost to me. Ive worked so hard to find you. Come back to me.

i paint the kitchen just so i can see it again.


i wonder if the lemons on her branches still grow.
and what happened to the dust from the rooms below,
they used to be so empty.


they only held
the beds and dressers
and i can't help
but wonder if those were even real,
and what did they once hold of the
sisters and daughters,
and a son.


i know the bed frame was hollow
and you'd hide jewels in there,
of all the stories i've been told.



i know how the kitchen wore herself
how pretty she sat against the white
stuccoed wall.
how the window framed itself so that the kitchen shone,
through the branches of the lemon tree, at dusk.
black shutters, an eggshell blue enamel sink, a terrace with cast iron railings,
the terrazzo floors.



in our summers there we'd lay out a mattress and sleep outside with the mosquitos
in the mornings, we’d rise just in time to watch the sun creep over the church on the horizon.


its the saddest magic i've ever known.

time; can you hold slowly for me,
i find that i can't unravel myself
these days.


all i can think of is my old home by the river,
on the stone-lined hill
by the church


(i've spent three years here with you,
from that first breath and then dive right in to you.
but i was not ready, and it never felt the same)

and i only crave a time when i savoured everything.
a slow time
alone
in my old apartment.
with her wood floors
and high ceilings
and a window that opened like a guillotine
onto the balcony
with my white cast iron furniture
where the rain would collect
and the sun would hit me in the morning,
and i'd wake to it.
and september would be my favourite month,
because of the leaves, not because of your birthday.
and coffee would be my ritual
and i didn't have tv
and i had my records
and places for things
and my plants would sit by my window
and i'd draw there
and sing
and cook
i wouldn't order food, i'd walk to the grocers
i'd work out in my living room
watch movies on my terribly old tv, on a dvd player
i'd watch tv shows on repeat
and i loved it


and i was alone.
and i loved it.

your beast emerged so fluidly
your rage
your rage was green
until i would bend for you
until you turned me so hollow.

slowly you carved at me with
an olive spoon
a smooth edge over my smooth body
how could you
slowly etch me out like that

your incapable beast devoured only my flesh


oh my god. i emerged from my own freedom

oh how i adored you.



was it your back once?
how your muscles  met your bones
how your forearms moved
was it your hands? how much they held of me.

your fingers used to be so strong
now all i see is skin
the thinness of you



i'm sorry i disappointed you
i can tell you never planned for my love.
you never devoured me
you looked past me to meet my face
kissing me only with your lips
(when i was missing your body and your breath)

you know of blood as thick as honey,
that turns to crystal as it dries
tame me with tender, melt me
with kindness
let me feel that i'm more than

you are made up of moon;

you swell with pride when the waves
expose where the softest stones lie

we walked into a wall of stale air conditioning
and lingering cigar smoke.
the only colour came from a
potted hibiscus flower planted in the foyer.
standing impatiently on sunken, stained white marble floors.
we greeted a teller.
a banker, a suit


we didn't care why we were there,

we just knew what the heat meant
and that there was an ocean outside.

i built you;
i melted your butter,
wore your hair for you,
turned your eyes forward
so you might see the goodness too

i held you
when you thought your
world was leaving.

and when you needed me,
i built you.


but now you make what i made
for you.
i showed you how to sow your dreams
how to hide them under your jacket
until you were ready.
i held you for so long
until i felt myself collapsing.




i remember my favourite day well:
i wasn't with you.
and while you were praising those below you
i was floating on the water

just like you, i held the hands of the sad ones.


guided them through tired mazes and masses
to
find their magic.


what's the good in being blissful when you're oblivious




these men. these men
hold so much more than you
(how can i raise a man
to see magic?)

it will take another lifetime out of me.



you are made of slate and not a kinder rock
you don't settle, and blend, and bend with me.

you make this so hard

to unravel myself from these winter burrows
i might need to warm my chest with my own sun.
they call on night sometimes,
how well do you know it.

(how much longer can you go
without seeing your homeland?)
your memories are fading too quickly for you


that was your life once!


to stay here now means forever.
you've wrapped me up in dark blankets
ravelled me, cupped me into your body
but you are my enemy
your warmth is not a kind gesture


i know that so well!


i'm beginning to miss my ocean.
i've sent my pride to the sea so long ago
and now she's there floating in the water,
waiting for me.


you will never be the saint you see.
(i know that so well)
my ancient mothers can even feel
their ancient recipes crumbling, waiting for my consumption. so i need to do more with my hands.


ancient mother, teach me how to mend.

how to tend to a heart tenderly, how to love.
i want to love
i want to feel
i want to move
i want to breathe
i want to sigh
i want to spin
i want to drive
i want to cry and mend and love and move and breathe

holy mother-
do you see her through the window like i do?

please, can you feed her eyes and her mouth for me before she forgets
how to

Last night I dreamt you grabbed me by my stomach
and held me there
my back was pressed so hard against you that I melted

And we walked like that together


that night I watched you from the window
and I waved
you waved your fire flag back
at me


And now every time you kiss me I crave you more.

It's seems like I've held you for 100 years

I've bred your fear
And multiplied you in the ways that you couldn’t.


It seems like I've left you
Your sweet, sad eyes always held more than just your innocence.
I've molded you
As a crutch would,
Determined you to speak
but you wouldn't.
i thought i could guide you through my motions
But you were never fully there
Your rhythm was flat
you could never speak out of your imaginary line


You've never had my electric everything and I can’t stay so humble

anymore

Again!

you've slipped
into my eyes
slowly, like the comfort
of a soft house
like the ripple of a slow river
Like the warmth of a lovers back
Again!

I felt your eyes on me
For the first time
I noticed how deep they are.
I swear I felt you linger

Longer, as
You called on me
To close your rooms
And i felt myself smiling
Again! I felt you smiling


(I wish I was always more to you than this)

resilience is built in yellow
golden stars against organza.
my resilience was bred in me
blood tinged gold by stars.  


(you've left my heart too many times
for me to trust you)


and like the cold of january i fought you.
i faced your burdensome eyes
and walked along frozen streets against you
just to feel
the resilience you offered me.
through fight,
nails and knuckles and your cold days
i fought
until I knew this was
how I would leave

you were built to part the ocean

with your golden skin
you stopped walls from crumbling
and there, under this ancient bridge
you understood me.

i was drawn slowly through your tides
but i wanted to fold into your ocean,
and you came back to me:

on a shimmer moon
as a black hopeful rose,
in dreams.

you were the softer one.
and i only wanted to
melt into your ocean.

you came back to me in my dreams

and with your smile
like the sea and the canal
      my whole body opened

how i spent these years without you
i will never know.

your kindness lowered
my shoulders
and i could finally breathe in freedom.
i could drench myself in your eyes,
soak and unfurl.
my whole heart is here now.  

i dried flowers from my chest
until i bloomed violets
and emerged a meadow.

i crossed through your arches
where you held me
with your eyes,

suspended,
to float.

i climbed iron stairs
i hung thyme in doors
and cast shadows into your living room.

i hung branches from my wrists
because i wanted you to see me.
i told them:

“i see everything

all the time”.

they didn't believe me but
i know you see it
all too.

i slowed down my music
so they could hear it
but you heard it all so loud.

i wiped off my lips
and ate bitter
leaves of anise
just so i could feel a pulse on my tongue.

i hung branches from my arms
so i could feel the soil on me


i felt new again when you brought me there;


its like i went upstream
   like i fell through walls
   like i became a woman



i could only see my eyes
in yours,
and i don't think i can breathe again


(you’re back and everything that i lost
and was brought home again).

the ocean would warm us. we watched her waves
embrace the shore where sea urchins lay.
she was deep red coral, and salt-dried,
hiding ***** in her divots.
her rocks underfoot were green and
mossy. long and neon strands of algae.
the restaurants along the streets
were full of golden people,
dusty with sand and dried salt.
calamari and flour frying.
the early evening sunsets,
like glass on water. the blend to night
goes unnoticed. motorcycles
amplified at night.
we were young then
when we took our grandmother
by the hand, crossed the street
to the ice cream stand.
she didn't speak our language
and some words we missed in hers.
you'll never know a shock of hearing her speak out of her own tongue.
for years we were lost from each other. i wish i had known all along
that she had learned to speak to us.
i wish i did the same

i used to mark your bread for you.
from red flour, a rhythm
of tuck in and roll.
i'd never been built like that
before
i formed bread like you taught me
but i formed myself first
now it's only found through
a lavender mist as
each day passes quietly
that i remember chalk on my hands.
dust from boards and dust from bread
maybe my cure is bread itself
to form it again and give it a name
like mine.

who took away your softness
and made you feel
the harshness of the ocean?

who took your tide away?

your lips tasted of salt once.
but the blue dye of your
ocean has begun to fade.

you were then,
so plump and mighty.
but today you lie flat
in the shallowest of
water.

tangled in the algae,
gathered by
your fingers.

who would you have been
with a rage of good and doing?

hungry heart
sore eyes
your hands
are like turpentine
you've wiped away the
years i've made,
the work of my mother
you'll make a home
in another,
you feed
to devour
what's missing from
your heart.
your scabs heal too
fast for you to know
what   you
did wrong in the first
place

you taste like a garden
bright, like basil
so your scent stains
my fingers,
and when I pluck you
you infuse my palms.
you remind me of summers
100 years ago
and still you smell like you always have
you've sat by my sink
and by my grandmother's window.
grown countless times
from clay pots filled richly.
i've muddled you,
pulsed you
blended, baked
you've filled my home
my skin,
but i can't find myself in you.
how, when you've been here with me for
Years and years and years

I should know myself by now
You've been with me all the while.

which layer would you take away
to mold yourself now
to stop your shoulders from rounding
to stop yourself from losing
your heart.

which year would you burn,
who would you have slept with,
tied legs and arms with
in linens

which piece would you move. who
would you have loved harder
if you had the heart
and weren't bound this way

the last time i felt you
snow covered the mountains
and i was lost somewhere between
home and a river.

i almost ran from you.
across the sea and to a dreary
london.
i found the sunlight there.
even mid-december would have felt more
like home than there with you.
the day i felt you leave me,
you let me.


no river of yours can take me home.
you will never carve your path in mine
i am stronger than even your ocean

you're made of mist and you don't know it

it's so easy how i fold to you,
like silk melting over me.
you smell like your mouth and
feel like an ocean.


i can't begin to feel you
you hold my neck and call me a
goddess
you cup my ears and tell me
you've begged for me
i don't believe you. i don't know you yet

you kissed me and i didn't kiss you back

-untitled

one thing i noticed was the
luggage on the second floor. no
one else lived there with her. no
one else climbed those stairs. she
was surrounded with the quiet of
her home. untouched rooms. the
dampness felt even then in the dry
heat. in one room on top of an armoir
was a quiet, muted-blue suitcase. empty
or not, it's contents moved me (when was the
last time it was used). i knew vaguely of her family
but i couldn't tell you when the last time she saw them was.
how her routine melted into theirs. i don't even remember the drive
to her home, but i remember the heat and the time we sat huddled in the car with all of our luggage. we had never seen a place like this before. i had to reorientate myself into her home. dry hay lay on the ground floor of her main room. her kitchen was damp and dark. everything was green outside. her farm surrounded her. her chickens welcomed us from inside her kitchen, huddled under unused stairs. we fed her goats by hand. the baby one with a bottle. the cats we didn't touch. she fed us ripe tomatoes and olive oil and bread. we drank lemonade. she broke open a watermelon. my mother was so young then, but she spoke with so much clarity and kindness. her two daughters, herself, and this woman she had never met, but felt the world of.

what i learned from you:


how to burn your family
how to pierce hearts with hot needles
how to dull the emerald
glass in the magic
ones  


i learned how to toss hope
into the ocean
and watch as tides
billow over fearful eyes.


i learned how to sever,
to cut clean lines from a muddled heart,
how to scrape open old wounds,
bring dirt into
old homes


i learned how to pick
at white blossoms,
**** out their sweetness


how to turn blindly to hate
as if it was easier. and

in the end i learned how to hate.
a strong chest
filled with it
fixated with it
bones that would leak of it.


but i didn't hate those
who built homes strongly.
who looked into eyes like yours
and saw freedom.


in the end
i hated  your heart,
your fear
your blindness.
in the end i hated your
dismissals  
your cruelty.

in the end what i learned from you was
how to hate
you

i'll eat your cherries
that stain my teeth
when you offer them
as forgiveness

when that soul you knew
becomes just a face again
that's when you know
you've forgotten