I've been bent and folded
like an old love letter
being read over and over again

release me from this dreaded message
you read the lead stained sheets like a drunk poet
and when you've finished, you made a square of me

you do this with your hands
hands
fingertips
what is in your skin
wrists
your teeth
I'm a cliff's edge
crashing in your sea

you're the last drag of a cigarette I should have never lit
& i'm the lungs, the tar
with all these ashes in my spit

I've inhaled disease
breathing in the thick of you
I choke like a smoker does
& now nothing else will do

My* Monday blues they
start with you.
I am amused I'm not
moved, I
may be reused it is
the day before
Tuesday
I choose blue before
muse I must
stay in my own shoes
I clutch fists it is
no use I trust
come ups from cruel while we
lust what is proof-less
is seemingly useless
I
rust like the useless
like metal, like bruises
so quit acting clueless
I've dropped more than clues and
now I must move for
I cannot keep chewing all of your
lies up for you

I'm not a child
woman I'm
this wanting thing between
two arms
shaped like a body
I've been alive with the breeze for
centuries, darling

my love wasn't being made to make you feel foolish
you can't learn from that
wash your hands now, it's midnight
I'm
out the window
I wonder
what you wanted
and hold the whiskey in my mouth
singing be mine
for the company
cause I don't want to be ashamed to love you

& I'm tired.
Tired of sleeping after sweet dreams /
I'm sitting up now because you know I can't sleep  
who wants to sleep after a beg like that
I'm not built to be listless
I'm built for better, I'm strong
& you're
the 4pm sun in October
you're the reason I whistle in a hundred colors
It's a beautiful torture to miss a hand so much
to wear rings for the memory of fingers and to crave a cheek, not only for it's mouth but because feeling you allows me to breathe easy

what's life
but
p i l e s  of
memory-adding-distraction;
distracting how to
react
when all of these
memories try & attack them ||
now
we are
forgetting forgetting
is easy
like
adding and
halving up
decimal fractions

I could write entire novels
slowly down your body
my lips pretend to be a pencil
and your spine, my only hobby
gripping tightly to your chest
as if your bones are now my desk space
carving letters of my longing
down your arms
my lungs are desperate
for the right to be your air
while my breath endures this chest ache
forgetting what a life outside
is like
your ribs become my breakfast
your body is a mountain
I continually climb
and your neck becomes a bite of hope
that haunts me all the time
your skin is like an ocean
your salt becomes my wine
you build with your two legs
a space for me to live inside
and I study what you're made of
I compare you to the sky
like the moon you glow on top of me
like the stars you blow my mind

Golden eyes
you disguised pain so beautifully
you hid my love notes in your shoes
you thought you loved the girl I used to be
I thought I knew what love was made of
pressed against your car
you smelled just like the ocean
I felt kept inside your arms
I had no knowledge of commitment
I was only seventeen
wanting a body made of heaven
born decades before me
we smoked cigarettes and danced
for hours in the rain
you were as gentle as the wind
I didn't mean to cause you pain
confusion is a cloud that visits
every n o w and t h e n
when I think of nights spent on the phone
and days worshiping your skin
whether or not you think of me
is fine and either way
you were a message wrote in cursive
that I r e p e a t everyday

I see your face
& all the mistakes I made
While we dated
& I hate that ****
I'd like to replace it
With a milkshake & some cake
And say
"Hey. We're okay - that ****'s lame, the cakes great, let me help take the pain away."
& you'd say "okay"
I want to do it right this time
I know criminals tend to commit the same crimes
But you aren't blind
& neither am I
I'm not even here to win this time
And in time
I really hope you feel that

I want to be that thing for you
when water reflects all the scenery above it
I image cypress
to be dimensionless
that's what I want

I like to
sit with it in days
that way
I'm not driven insane

& you're so easy to remember
the way I love you like winter
you're early November

but those are only seasons
and seasons
they pass
& I'm sad but
so grateful
slow memories last

I won't bash or
be hateful
I like what we had

You held
my hand and my head
& I'm okay with that

Last night's courage not to call you
last night and every;
peel off pretty, it's six it's 7,
Is something
is tired, rewind her

I can lie down, longer
she's got it, going on.
stitches and weekends
never with you on the weekend
isn't cotton
it's-red
isn't your mouth either

living up handstands
living down longing
is really
something
is lonely
in yellow
I don't want, sometimes
I still want you shouldn't you
ever want me
isn't poetry
isn't easy
on
weekdays
and every
on
blisters on
forget it
my lips on
holiday

hold me down to the
stage;
today
I cannot make pretty songs of us
like
how much I weigh
I'm one hundred and thirty three pounds
in love with you
I'm
twenty eight years too old and
twenty eight years away from your legs
I'm
blonde
I'm
a lady
a waiting woman
making food,
away from your mouth
I'm making
mistake after distaste for
this pattern this
extra pace for shapes that
never fit us so
when I get dressed and when I
detest it I'm
trying something new I'm
having
nothing to do with you

counting you down -
you are my
noun
& I'd rather be
honest with you
than to be
loud
let us be
calm
  let me
renounce
I took you home with me
into my house
I am still
in love with you
inside my mouth
& you should still
belong with me
ignoring miles

it's enough feeling
forgotten, (you'd think)
seeing her brush go
everywhere but the paper;
wondering if I missed something /
love makes me a believer in naive
less sleep, questioning everything.
questioning wander it's
no wonder I don't dream it's
games atop bodies
it's no wonder I drink;
I've been screaming for you
every day of the week
choking on salt from the waves
in your sea of bad timing

You're on my mouth
[it's nothing new]
Meal
I chew through
thoughts of you
& before I've swallowed
I'm ready for the next bite

the poetry wasn't about her
it was the birds I;
I found it under her bones
cause
we aren't the same while we sleep
we're
so far away &

lately
4:00AM isn't what time it is
it's
me choking
and when we
talk about the weather it's not
conversation it's
burning and
blood just doesn't run the same
once it's been touched

I won't have you
always busy
not even evening calls
I remember the name of your sister
I've got no pride to exclaim us
I assume you to care less
you're heavier than tomorrow
I submit the same paper
professing how my skin went with you
you move away from me with a sword behind you
what are you so afraid of
believing
you're good
how can you bare to admit it?

Uphill grinning
spinning webbed-breaths under
Spring's spilling through
rows of roses, tied behind
vines that could rip anyone red
are all the
quiet notes about pretty

& what a Sunday for sailing
blossoms through drying hair and
fickle feelings about an old poem
on a blanket, how fitting

but i'm trying;
i still find rhymes under
fir trees and still get
tired from laughing

i still ask why without crying
denying only while smiling.
this is 29 in a wine glass

stretching the afternoon like my
legs in the morning
pouring out yesterday's moaning
& sure as every bird i'll be
a blinking throat
counting her money

but for now i'm just
two hands
taking an orange home
for it's honey

I only felt that way waking up with her
& I've shared my bed plenty
it's nothing I can pin point either
[at this point]
it's like,
a knife is a knife
I guess she's just that type of woman
so stunning, her stubborn beauty
demanding love
& me, one of the ones drowning for it

I've felt as, left-over as
last-night's left-hand & her
reclaiming, uncanny way of
well / of
my oh my, what a
good morning, I'd love to but;
I'd just need my heart back

it's the cartwheeled chaos
slapping against,
counting again to see if it works-
I'm calling my bluff I've had
enough of all the nothing.
you're the little tag on my red
the writing in black
every time it is grey until
there isn't anything left of you but
a hundred poems
the striped gills of my sorrow and
some slang cause
I ain't got it in me anymore

Tiny blocks of sky-bits
Got locked behind my eyelids
I'm blinded
I'm trippin
I watch you live
I give in
But hell - I don't listen
I'm ****** cause of this
I'm not dumb
I've been dumber
Cause you got other loves
Our loves lost like -
Time for slumber
Making moving forward
Feel more like going under
This is the story of my
Life
during this god awful summer
I'm struck
& you
You're like thunder to me
So loud
It's astounding
& you remain unseen

The reality of this is clear -
If I've got nothing to lose
Nothing to choose from
I got nothing to fear
I just want to believe again
& you knock like it's easy
To turn this ****
& let you back in
But you run
Deeper than blood
In this skin
I'm pushing you out through a vein
& we can't even be friends
We can't even be NOTHING
a race that ended weeks ago
& I'm still out here running
It isn't fun anymore
I ought to be done with with it
I wanna slow burn you off of my tongue
With some *** and sit
Quiet
No drums
No lines to spit
It's time to do me
Like where I come from
The sun is lit
And I'll just follow the sky
Like a crow
With tunnel vision

nowadays
wondering is starting to feel more like fear
& if I can't be near you
then I don't want to feel it
it's driving me crazy
and I can't find my brakes
I spend too much time
wasted
my thoughts get blotched in outer space
& just in case you ever wonder
how I feel about your face
i fear i feel a bit too much
and praise the day I get to face it
& anyway
I'd never say it
I can't say anything I want
cause I don't even think you want it
and my want's just aren't enough

A leftover prayer
under your knuckles
under blinking
that day it rained a little
you squeeze me below &
I spent the entire night in love
with you
I wouldn't call it daring
after the foam builds,
little skeletons drifting out to
spell your name & I
asked for coffee
to keep safe my lips
to

shut me up

I tried to trace our shadows
left and right from the wrists
but l'm pacing
back and forth I'm
waiting
waving you in.
rearranging my mornings
adjusting my sighs on you
so they sit right on my feet
so I can say love and take it
we
belittle forgiveness
you made the sea find its way through
my throat
you took sentence after sentence from my hair
& burned a beautiful mouth
turn my hands to rust
my body to weeds
and anyway
fate is for the birds
it's seems
when the bats start biting

amounts of you, honey
come flooding in hundreds
an abundance of flutter
that plummet my stomach
I could suffer in wonder;
pick up & run from it
or find my lost grip
from the crumbling I numb in

my dear
please
tell me what you'd do
if you were me
&
I were you ?
now
take your head out of the
ground &
put both feet inside my shoes;
it is defeat and even ruin
this thing most often,
you've been doing
to the organs that I need
still you're my
favorite bleeding being;
yet you'd never take the time
to understand
some of my why's
& all the reasons I can't find
reiterate inside my mind
that your heart's no longer mine
and in the morning maybe I
can find that somehow
I'll be fine

& I hope
that
somehow starts tonight

I'm wondering if
I loosen my fist
if the weight of my
persistence
could end with a kiss
it's a gift that I wish for
on a list that i've written
a name that i've scribbled
and penned down and sipped on
for the millionth minute
for the millionth time
& every time that you smile
i trip ten steps behind
but I run to catch up
& I pick up my jaw
I'm in awe of you darling
no, and that isn't all
I want all of you darling
but I don't want to fall
so I drop to my knees
and I crawl
and I crawl
and I crawl

relief
I've searched this earth for
found in my palm
poured from
but not yours
under my own tree
the grass was green
the grass is green here too ma
but these leaves
fall fall like flings
and they don't love me
what do I need
no more
what do I mean
I mean I'm tasting this backwards
my mouth is full
cruel, muffled scream
& me
what a preferred way to breathe

what do you know
about who I am
when you're deep inside my body
or holding my hand
and what do you know
about what I'm feeling
when you're staring at my eyes
do you know how much I love you
i'm finding it very hard to hide
if you could hear my thoughts
or ******* passion
you'd know that you're fastened to my ribs
can you tell by my reaction?
i'm not asking for an answer
i'm not asking for a breath
I'm begging silently on paper
that you trust what's in your chest

I look back on conversations
Full of excitement
I look back at these moments
That ruled and enlightened
This looking back makes me sad
& It's all that I have now
I'm frightened and mad
That this sad has my throat
Pressed down to the mat
Laid flat on the ground
& forced to look forward
I'm twisting my neck  
Cause I haven't learned how
To let go of you yet

I've spent my morning on adjectives,
trying kindly to describe her. I couldn't make them fit. I'd lost the joy in remembering us & saw under my eyes what difference the kitchen floor made. Quite sad a way to look at something so beautiful. One heartbreak away from holiness, I'm afraid I've forgotten how to long for something. I found metaphors under the rocks I'd grown too large to hide under and sometimes it's just worth digging in dirt to find the proper use of my indignance. My not-so-subtle search for dignity. & after all the cigarettes and kicking, I made my coffee and a vow to myself. That I would leave my bones where they were from now on. That I was a woman, full of blood and empathy and feeling sorry for myself was useless. That I hadn't fallen in love after all. I'd leglessly tripped face first  & from now on, I was going to watch where I stepped.

tell me how not to want you
(i need you to say it)
teacher; teacher
(woman) I'm writing you down

this woman is not mine
"she's not mine" - I've cried this a billion times

she is mine though
she's my morning; my mind before coffee
my night, bedtime, my dreams
she haunts me
she is light
she's alright with it, because i won't say it
she's okay with it & I'll never say it

stone ribs turned to glass
my heart had wings before this
now it wants to lay down
somewhere beside you where time doesn't move
& we're the only ones moving
I want to move inside of you
slowly
the way music does or good news
i want you to miss my hands
& I want to sip from yours

I want to kiss you everywhere water pushes when you swim, or bathe

& someday
                      someday I'll catch your bottom lip
     between my teeth & keep you there

*now teach me how to keep you

exhausted by the nights & dawn
that break me over you

I've tried a thousand times and still
there's nothing I can do

I've skipped the songs
& cursed your arms
I burn inside my sleep;
to wake now wearing scars
from break-neck-love
made urgently

the truth in me
I'll never speak
of love that wouldn't keep;
my bones they lay
upon the stage
get played with bows of grief

the cellist stripped my ribs
a trick to twist in perfect fifths
& I admit, a love like this
a pain I cannot quit

I'm straddling the fence
but at least i have some choices
see
if i fall on either side
i'll still be making noise
wondering
which side might destroy me
this side has some grass
i think i'll start exploring
I start losing my grasp
I think I've started thinking
a little bit too much
I hop over the left side
and land face first in mud

strung out on
drunk stung-drumming under this skin
isn't mine when you touch it
fight the belting, beg again
memorized muscle and music
trying and failing
melting and falling
repeat the crawling song;
confused teeth, knees
leaving feet, forgetful hand-smothered-feelings \ religious breathing, heart-beat bleeding, gentle breeze please lift my ribs with your pleases after my name leaves your gut after my nails peel you off, an ode to pretending, for stopping;
a better use of force
a better Wednesday waiting
sistering indifference and swelling on sheets never made for pigments preferring the latter again, and I
I haven't felt this way since my leaves fell
since the water settled under my belt
before & after lonely
refer me to laughter when I cannot breathe  & cry about how it'll never work

can't pacify the mind through a mouth made for biting
cannot hide lies like it's night, darling the sun's always rising
I guess you could lie here if you'd like, with a throat so inviting
diving through oceans of blight, living off breaths from your prizing
I'd like to rewind time to nights, i'm surrounded by silence
It is in quiet I find, all of my time fighting guidance
it is in hiding that light finds the right to shine brightest
we're given only one life, why's no one rising and shining ?
I'd like to forget it sometimes
ignoring all signs of my plight
i'd like to just feel things sometimes, without having to write it
I'd like to feel you at night
now I need something to type with
I just want to feel you tonight
I am forced only to *write it

Something told me to hold still when I met you, that it would only sting a little / like maybe the sea wasn't wet or something

daffodil midnights, upside down on the bottle, listening to my lips spill dread over your pretty hands, how my knees remind me that I can't reach them

I'm over feet
over toes / oh no here I go
overload I'm -
in-over my head I'm,
against my own limbs, sometimes

but it was only the wall
it's just a couch
a few shots, your jeans, my kingdom
2 airplanes, a couple of hours
my head in your hands
my heart on the floor
broken secrets, happy birthday
happy birthday
I love you, I loved you
I can't stop playing that goodbye

i drank all
this
whiskey
to
forget about you;

there isn't a
sip
that does not
burn or
give me goosebumps

just like you

& now i'm so,
completely
*******

& as those dead petals
settled on my windowsill
I stood still
unmoved I knew
the inevitable to be true
to lose
was the only thing left to do
with *you

is it still poetry if I beg ?
a n d
am I desperate for mixing
divine with insteads ?

baby. I still have two legs ;
i could run to you

I can still make you laugh
I am in love with you

if what's done is done
I won't punish you
should you ever come back
girl I'd run to you

Hating the time difference as usual
Usually just
Un using things
Not really thinking about importance and
Disproving what's changed
It's strange
It's deranged
Intangible
or is
Nothing the same
still I'm grateful
Anything with your name is
Delicious it's
Served at my table
It burns holes in my grace like
We're so unattainable
But I'm so
righteously grateful
for every single word being tasted
like maple
Like syrup
I wanna pour you up
and out
sweet substance
Cut you up with my fork
you disturb meals like
you've been in my mouth
With
Forgets and what torments
everything from lint to fabric
I might wear you but
you, you're still absent
and I'm inadequate
I'm chasing dreams of your necklines
I'd like to relate the responsibility of trying to describe your face
But that's impossible
You're so gorgeous it's like forcing everyone to burn holes inside of trouble
It's like trying to relate these things publicly
try and explain what's important
When all i want is to try to say you're important to me

But you won't hear it
You're too young so you
Do what you want and I
Just lay down
Bite my tongue & I
Retry to say words that might strike you
Instead
Pretend my mouth might
Bite into your neck
That you might let me
Kiss all of the skin
stretching from your head to your knee caps
Make you relapse from my lap
to your shoulders
We are holy
I am yours, girl
You no longer need that discloser
& if you'd decide to be mine
I'll have you wake up adored
and I'll hold every single word.
and no matter what goes on in this world
I just want to rock yours  
and anyway
hey;
We might be worlds away
but i'm not use to being stopped

I don't believe that I was forward
but you pointed straight ahead
and I didn't insinuate our ***
but you gave me head in my bedroom
your legs, those legs
should not leave my blankets
your hair smelled like fall does
& your chest made me anxious
you laid there like a goddess
I should have hand fed you grapes
you stole my night and my morning
I should have asked you to stay
but it's okay
now it's daytime and i'm keeping myself busy
you left your smell on my fingers
& it's making me dizzy
I smiled as you left
& when you walked out the door
I saw your car leave the yard
& your ******* on my floor

my gasps they
actively react to you
academically,
accidentally I think
facing the tall-bed-duet
dragging your
thigh towards
my cheek
was beautiful up
side down & it
took me
she,
took me
we're,
falling asleep

I'm tossed up between
Belief & leaving
Cause nothing's the same
& I don't feel shame when
I'm daydreaming
& you believe
In something else
In something I don't need to
deal with
I believe in what's best for myself
No longer arresting my feelings
So it's time that I reel in
My slack
& go back
To a time when I was confident
Cause this time's got me
Trapped
Locked inside a sarcophagus
I won't waste anymore words
I'll just climb to the top again
While you play swords
With this girl
Who adores
like a whirlwind

twenty something

It's funny how years and years go by
in a place
where pain once burrowed
so intently
at that time
when it had nothing else to do
but torture my limbs
and make heavy my knees
i remember hating my feet
for weeks I didn't speak
defeat
that swelled my eyes
I was a baby
and you were mine
and I chased you
like a dog
I was always a dog
I followed you to the end of your smile
and kissed it so many times
more than I'd ever kissed anyone
still to this day
I praise you
much differently than then
of course
we are both women now
we still share the same friends
but you're never around when I'm with them
I get this, it's different
and I don't even mean to think about it
I just remember growing
and you were always around
and I always chased you
I think I still chase you
and I know i'm still growing
I've just always needed to say thank you for that

that afternoon mouth
summer fruit and
what else can I pull through these lungs
a cheek-full of
five full breaths, impossible to clear
another Saturday smiling
I get it
there's girls as
pretty as
you everywhere

I sing, you sleep
across my knees
my little queen
you're almost three
the sweetest thing I've ever seen
you don't know what you mean to me
we read, preparing you to dream
you hold my hand
& tell me things
I'm teaching you
but you teach me
I've learned more from you than anything
five more minutes in my lap
you laughed after the fish-kiss smacks
& your smile drifts you off to sleep
leaving this room is the hardest thing

i have been led to believe , in my experience with being in-love,
that love is based on the knowledge gained and profound simplicity of feeling entirely connected and enamored with another person; that this feeling takes time after a period of time in which the party in question would eat together, go on hikes, dancing, movies, borrow a shirt, go to church, beach etc. whatever / estimating anywhere from one week to 5 months ... & sometimes even longer than that. (I KNOW) - those of you who believe in love at first sight ... well you're another breed... anyway... love at first sight ... like i was saying ...
I went to the store tonight.
I bought toilet paper and beer.
I stood in a very long line.
I watched a woman put back a box of ice-cream and felt proud of her; even though she didn't look happy for doing it -
she just didn't want to stand in that line and would probably get ice cream elsewhere!
On my walk back from that grocery store (about half a block from the store)
I looked up from lifting the beer
because it wasn't comfortable to hold it how i was holding it ....  
and I saw
someone walking to their car
This girl
The girl
this girl
and she smiled at me
she wore a beanie
and she was thin
and her hair was brown i think
I only saw her for 5 or 6 seconds
which at the time felt like a long time
but my short term memory isn't great sometimes
and her face is starting to fade  now
but i still see it
i see her neck
and I see her smile
it embarrassed me a little
it's funny when you grin at someone
I grin at people on the street all the time
it's quick
it's fixed
but a smile ... it has levels
this one
went from a friendly grin
to a shy
growing smile
with eyes
and shoulders
and heart
and stomach
and I didn't know about that difference
(until tonight)
but it filled me up
and i felt drunk on it
and i felt everything
and i felt all of it
in 5 seconds
and it's bugging me now
because i can't shake it
and i don't know why
i've never felt like this
not
one
bit
and i went home
and i told my best friend
and she told me to write about it
so here I am
and it's been a few hours now
and my friend is alseep
and I think she's asleep
and I should be asleep
and I think i'm over it now
or just over thinking
and over thinking
but i'm still thinking about it
and i haven't really climbed
so i'm not over anything
so i'll keep smiling instead
because it made me smile
and that felt good
and i just want to sit with that
and she gave me that
and that's all it has to be
so I believe in love at first sight
it's the best

lately
I've stayed inside;
being reminded that
even the grass is
loud sometimes
& I'm
desperate for silence

something to stop my
grinding teeth when
I can't scream the answer

while
everyone's dying to feel
better &
I just want to feel less
but
Gravity gets the best of us &
I'm doing everything I can
to
deny the pressure