And I wish you would know that
I know how you feel.
How I know what you've been through.
And how I've been through it
Too.
Because then we might talk,
Shattering unscratched glass with the first sentence,
"What did you get for Number Seven?"
You would say, "Negative eleven, just factor..."
Maybe one day you'd text me and
Ask what the homework was
Because our teacher didn't tell you
From when you were sick.
And eventually, after tons of small talk,
After "How's the weather?"
Got old,
I could finally tell you
That I know.
I'd tell you that
I'm here, not the fake kind of here,
Which sounds like,
"I-know-and-I'm-here-and-you-can-talk-to-me-goodbye-forever­."
Not like that.
But the kind of here
That asks what ****** about your day,
And sends you links to cat videos,
And the kind of here
That texts you at two in the morning
And asks if you're alright
And doesn't take yes for an answer.

We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?

He put hummingbirds in his bride’s hair
With fine vines he tied them there
To fan her skin in hot summer air
With cactus flowers to provide nectar

She wore soft beaded deer skin clothes
And slept beneath the finest buffalo robes
A warm fire she built to keep out the cold
His beautiful wife would stoke his coals

On a cold winter night she bore him a son
Both woman and child never saw the sun
His people cried and beat their drums
Singing songs of sorrow and loss of the young

Across the snowy plains now fast he rides
His strongest pony never breaking stride
He travels to the place where the gods’ reside
To join them on their journey to the other side

r  15 Nov 2013

Choking, i spat out a piece of my lung,
Into the white porcelain sink,
Then after brief pause, I lit up another one.
And used the black tar as ink.

Inspiration has left me lying in the gutter
This forced write is all I have to console me
The reverberating hum running through my fingertips seems numb.
Not one insight, not one iota of a wordly crumb.
This desire to write nothing is a dark stain I'm bleaching
Poetically ironic that my own desolation has conspired
To unwrite me from my pages
Even the gutter has a view of this ****** ****.