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

clay surrounded you
until your bones were terra cotta.

your body dressed
only in windows, and trees brushed the ocean from outside.
you were raised by sunsets
And away from the fire
So you have a coolness to your
body.
And the city was your soul.


inside, like your city, you are made
of clay.
your bones are like rust, but only
coloured that way;
you still have movement to your body.

you don't walk you sway, a dance down the road of madrid.

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.

we counted our mother's shoes
on the day that she left.

her silver rings hung on chains,
thin and silver too.

this was our home,
where she took off her
broken hands and
turned her glass
heart to dust.
she only floated when she left
so the wind and the sea could
carry her
her red wine and red body felt
heavy then.
a thick coat of honey on her tongue


what have you made of her, my
mother.
where did you keep her heart when you were
done with it.
what did you cover her eyes with?
you didn’t untie your tombs
from her when you threw
her into the ocean
why did she drown for you?


she mistook your hardness for understanding.
she mistook your attachment for trust
and you, so blind, led (let) her.

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.

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

let me barely know you

let me know only your surface
and your hard words.
let me know your bones
and the skin of your hands.
i see what you see
in the ocean.
i know of your parent's home,
how they made you.
layer, after layer, after layer, of good
let me barely know you
i feel you're just too large for me.
you're bigger than my ocean
you're a blue i can't name.
i feel like i miss you,
and i see you every day

one day i held hands with you
and then one day i didn't.

just like that i forgot
the way you smell


how you fold your clothes

how you go to sleep at night

i forgot your routine
how you shift

i've lost your sight.
just like that i lost your voice
i used to live with you

inside you
beside you
entwined, wrapped
our mother soothed us
with her songs
her tongue on our eye
she held us both
so we didn't need to
hold ourselves


we lived off of memories
moulded new ones, fostered the
old
bookcases kept full of books we wanted to re-read but never did.

we watched her stir pots
and build bread
food was our religion,
the ritual of our childhood.

and just like that
i left you.
you left me

we became bonded by distance
i've been searching for a way back home to you.

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

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 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

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.

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

undo it for me.

undo me
from you.

slowly.
so you don't notice

slowly so i can heal.


undo you from me.
untie our limbs

separate the truth
from our hearts
finally.

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

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 can't breathe when you smile. my
tongue escapes me. i can't breathe
when you smile. you take away my

mouth.

i   can't   breathe
when   you
smile  



now you've stolen my eyes
and i can only smile back
-a fool.


i feel new to me when i look
at you.

and i can only look at you
slowly.(through quiet eyes
to take
in your fullness)



-slowly, how i fell in love again
with your hands

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.