And even now,
I can feel the sticky
sweetness
of last September
run down my fingers.

It trickles dark red and wild,
like the vine-ripened
grapes,
hanging from the white
picket fence,
I see from my window.

It flows down my arms
and abdomen
slowly, slowly, slowly
sinking into every inch
of my skin.

It colors me,
tan shades
from the summer sun,
and white-hot highlights,
from toothy smiles
and squinted eyes.

But summers were never
my season.

They were yours,
warm and shining,
always pushing
for more light,
longer days,
and just a little more time
than originally bargained for.

I can still see that fence,
proud, weathered,
criss-crossing with
vines and
birds’ nests
and the remnants
of a season since past.

And as the
harvest comes to
an end,
and the placid
cool of night
chills my bones,
I’ll learn
to be content
with the time
that’s gone by,
and the autumn
that is yet to come.

When you’re seventeen
and drunk off of
poetry and
peonies
and promises,
you start to give
pieces of yourself away.

It’s easy at first,
parcelling out knees
and elbows, and
all the bits of you
the world has
taken for itself
on playground sidewalks
and crashed bicycles.

But when someone wants
not the spaces
in between your fingers
but the one in between
your legs,
wait.

Not for marriage
or God or
even the perfect person
to come along
because they never will.
And that’s okay.

Wait for yourself to grow
and to love someone
like candle fire,
a slow, bright burn
that makes the
darkness of night
seem less
frightening.

You’ll fall
in love
with people
like broken glass
that gleam under
streetlights
and cut your
hands
as soon as
you touch them.

You’ll sleep
next to lions
and cowards
and drug addicts,
some too scared
to touch you.

And some promise
to never leave
you in morning’s light
without a new scar.

Because they don’t
understand that you are
yours,
and yours
alone.

But remember
no matter
if your secret places
were found
or taken,
your light will
return to you
one day
when you least
expect it.

I stand in familiar soil,
dry with ambition
left untouched,
and promises
left in the sun,
but never planted.

It’s not that I’m happy,
I’m tired.
I’ve always been.
The skin of my hands
cracks
under the weight
of a wheelbarrow
used to move the words
that have shriveled,
gone stale.

But still,
I plant
and I dig,
and I work the land,
planting the seeds
of my future
and narratives
promising myself
that soon
the flowers
will bloom.

I wanted to be a poet,
so I creased myself into
a bright blue envelope,
addressed to the moon,
and asked the Old Man
His thoughts about how vast
mountain ranges are contained only
by the bones of his ribs.

And He sat quiet, opening His crusted,
ancient mouth only to ask
"Do you love him?"

I stared, doe-eyed and small,
as the stars dimmed their chatter.
My cheeks lit up like comet tails,
but He nodded His head,
shutting the half moons of His eyes,
not asking questions, or rhymes,
or reasons.

"Then why do you stare up
at the stars at night
when the brightest one
lies fast asleep in your bed?"