We are elaborate animals made of wood
earth, flowing like water into the veins
of the sky.

The sun being a fist of lava, and the night
being an enticing molar—we are
a succession of tides, being swallowed
by successions of day; and how beautifully
we wilt in the presence of joy.

The moon may be nothing
but a luminous
stone

and to eat the poetry of it
is how one chokes
on love

but the romance of morning
is that if by midnight
you are alive, that is joy.

sometimes I wish I could read your thoughts,
but maybe that would be worse. because if I could reach into
your mind, I'd only search for the things I want to hear and end
up more hurt at what I didn't find.

it's been too many long months and longer nights and I
am tired of writing about you while making love to bottles
trying to forget the taste of your tears
the last time we kissed.

but I wouldn't dare compare your salt-stained cheeks to an
ocean because you are worth so much more
than overused metaphors.

I am tired, of trying to find rhymes to replace the words
you left in my mind.

and apparently writer's block only takes its breaks
while I've locked myself in the shower
because while these words finally come spilling from my brain
I am trying to scrub off what parts of you remain.

but. do I even want to? because every single time I see your smile
I am reminded that we lived, at least
for a while.

I am not sad anymore (maybe some nights I am)
maybe I'm okay with this, okay with having pieces of you
burned into my skin
because even though the fire we shared died,
the one you lit inside of me never did.

Last night
I drove past a fawn
she was laying on the road and lifting her head up slowly
Stunned  by an oncoming car and unable to carry her
self.

A day later
I drove at dusk
the blood red shadows framed the low clouds
a large buck with a crown of time on his head
bowed beneath a tree, searching for something
lost.

The days gather
like revolving doors
till I am exhausted and unable to raise my head
Going too quick to comprehend all my packed
belongings.

I unpack my plants and books
and look up the mountain
searching for something
in the shadows of morning,
lost.

I don't get you
It's been said.
(By you.)
Your music poem heroic myth combos;
I don't got 'em in me according to you so ****

Pride is what I've got as far as:
Loving you, possessing you, longing you forever and ever and always
Faithing this: I get you and no one else can ever more, just me.

Me wrong: ha!
But apparently maybe
So call me
Or don't cause we sleep together;
no call needed bby

Speak instead so
I can scratch your dreams;
I'mma ******* Count of Monte Cristo type here,
All useless revenge
Offensive retreats I pretend are defense;
therefore, QED legitimate.

A chess player bluff but no
I'm not actually that fancy
I don't fence cause my wrist is ******
don’t play chess because it will not be just any another opponent, it will be my Papa, teaching me the best ways to beat him, in the end.
don’t conjugate Latin anymore,
(she died, the woman who whispered there is a way out of radical christianity and heterosexuality but more importantly taught Latin precisely, inspiring.)
I cheated on the last test anyway so **** that fake fact.

So I just been hoarding meanness
up down,
Left and right, inside out

(In other words: ******)

Sorrow isn't a thing we people make up but we sure spend a lot of time manufacturing it for each other it seems like, and I don't want to be good at doing this.

It doesn't make me tough
Or better
Or mas yours
Or honest or what I'm afraid you think I am:

A wilted desert thing
Secreting thorns first
Exploding them out in every direction
Unpredictably
Unblooming into a prickled seeding creature
nonetheless virile vibrant,
Hungering but not starved

Like home this summer,
The summer you wouldn't believe
If I told you how green it all was down I-25;
(ours and also you and Maria's but we count more than you and she cause she doesn't glow anymore who knows why I wish she would because she is the best poetry you have let out so far just opinion here.)

But so.
Unbelievable.
Like a desert dreamt itself into meadows and unknown greens that you know better words for than I do.

You missed this.

You hate missing things
Pretend they were never there.

You just want to turn longing into creation,
So you're the best at survival
And transforming and I don't want to just wilt out on you, I want to become a cactus that can be anywhere and all where
But I won’t pretend it wasn’t real because I was there and Santa Fe broke my heart and you can  forget all you want but that is fact and nothing changes it even though I can bear it, bore it all summer, and then broke a bunch of your bundles of trust this fall and now you can have reasons for what I've done wrong and I wont argue against the facts.

But I am not incapable or lazy or insane or crazy. I do not need men to tell me I'm bad with money when the only times I am is when I am wrapped into their lives. I do not need to be mistrusted when I know what I know and have done what I have done and do not try to reconcile the two.

Reconciliation? Personal analysis? **** that. All I had to know is that here we wouldn't birth fights about who did what wrong, and that I, I am not alone in this world.

P.S. Why am I the one left to keep us safe if you don't trust me enough to believe me when I say your child could be mine one day and I, I would not keep silent watches, build walls with peepholes. Keep believing it, though. Cause I'm the only one in on the secret who hasn't feared for a child's life around you yet. and I'd bet you any amount that every single other person has had that moment of terror. So figure out who it is you want on your side, kid.
( Don't leave yourself alone in this world. )

I have lost my voice as of late,
feeling like prospero living in the island of my mind.
Here's an attempt to describe how I pass my time.*

there are moments when the ache overcomes the present
the scratching demon inside, selfish for something I can’t pronounce
and I find myself swallowing my tears over black coffee, hoping you don’t see.

I look into your hazel eyes and see the frustration with age.
you tell me, ‘I hate being old’
and I quietly tell you to embrace your wisdom
‘you’re only old once, nana’
you laugh and I find my place inside your sweet warble
as we look around for the keys that you just put in your purse.

the small girl within me reaches out and holds your shoulder lightly
guiding you in and out of the slow traffic swimming in southern humidity.
everything has slowed down in the past few months
the decaying town I grew up in is full of molasses minded folk,
and I only wish it was slower as you forget why we are here.
We walk into the the cool air and I tell you we needed to leave the house.
you’ve been folding the dishes and scrubbing the laundry while my grandfather yells about the TV and his inability to find his mind when they put another persons heart inside his chest.
we decide to leave behind the scene of you sobbing in the sink
and drink some black coffee.

You and I have sat so many times
wrapped in fits of laughter
defying the pain of the world.
I try to make simple jokes as an excuse to lose ourselves,
but my new silence has grown with the summer honeysuckle
and I have lost the desire to forget.
We sit side by side, watching the black water slide inside the creek.
You begin telling me how you finally feel relaxed.
I kiss your cheek and tell you I love you.
We smile, no longer needing to grasp for breathless laughter.
The ache becomes a part of every moment
and I breathe in the golden sadness of mortality,
knowing that I am learning the art of dying
in southern heat of the town I was born.

Sometimes your heart needs to be broken
So you can see what's underneath,
To the flicker and flame of your soul
That you've always been destined to meet.

Sometimes your spirit shines brighter
Through the glimmering light of your tears,
And when you arrive at the end of it all
Love will outshine the darkest of years

we've all been hit one too many times with information we couldn't process

and then three to eight days later you're sitting in class
or another insignificant coffee shop trying to calculate how many ways
you could die by fourpm when your clockwork mess of neuron pathways
finally catches up and then-

your hands are shaking and you can't tell if it's the day old coffee
or the information that has finally stuck long enough
for you to realize it for what it is
and the words that brought everything down around you
are rattling in your rotten skull making it pound
and you can't ignore it anymore (it's not the coffee)

bad news has a way of tearing down
every cleverly placed brick and marble wall
until your core is exposed and everything
you thought you knew so well means **** all
and there is never someone standing by, red alert, when it finally hits
so you're on your own kid

because not even mom realizes that your movements are stiff and your eyes are red
and not even mom realizes that you haven't slept in four days
and you've started wearing long sleeves again


the coffee is cold and you're placing bets
("my brother is missing")
on how many days it will take for your hands to shake

I loved the way you
held me,
started that lovely
trickle
           down
                     effect
with your delicious mouth.
Some said you were precocious,
but I told them you went down
deeper than that,
were so very precious
& extremely dreamy.