I told you to trace my finger prints.
Hug me like you were about to say goodbye.
I'm trying to decide whether or not you were pretty.
Brushing clouds off of the sky.
Go ahead and tell me that there were days
when you loved me.
Tell me my kisses felt like ripples
on a raindrop.
You built me.
Showed me how lightning made things
pretty right before it burned them.
Stripped the crystal from my eyes
and strung them into a chandelier.
I've reset my heartbeat.
And it's been telling me I need to see you again.
Gotta remember what love is.
Take me back to the last time
that we were laughing
and show me that there is more to this life
than what blood gives us.
Hold my brittle bones.
Would you be my friend?
Remember how I built you that tree house?
Thought we would paint each others
futures on the window panes
and skip rocks across our bloodstreams.
Write me a love letter on my granite spine.
I'll trace my pulse onto your ribcage
and tell God that you need someone special.
Let me poem you a swing set
so you can remember why you
were a child.
Give me a reason to hold another girl's hand.
Do you remember what love is?
My slate has been wiped clean
and I've been trying too hard
to lean on these crutches.
Lived in my rubble.
Cut open the belly of the beast
so its anger could plant seeds in my head.
You scraped my poems off of your eyelids.
Didn't I already say I'm sorry?
Buried fireflies in a mason jar and
told you they were my soul.
Painted bluebirds in the sky and
carved tree branches in my neck.
You built me.
Sewed marionette strings to my veins
and showed me the right way to move.
There's no way we can let our past go.
I seem to have lost my way.
Won't you be my friend?
Show me what I've missed.
Show me the right way to hold this broom
so I can sweep up this glass.
Bury this casket
and move through it.
Give me a plane crash.
Tell me there were times
when you couldn't let go.
Back to that place where we
buried our memories in a hope chest
and prayed that time would make it pretty.
You built me.
Made my pupils into runways
and gouged these canyons into my heart.
I ask that you carry my name with you.
Cradle my marble spine.
Spit at the ashes of our love life,
and mold it into a shape that we'll remember.
Everything seems to be prettier when you look back at it.
Do you know why that is?
Do you know why we fell for each other
like children on a playground?
I've been writing down nothing but wishing wells.
Spinning yarn that has too much color
and coughing up words that sound too perfect.
I'm glad we're friends.
Take this loaded gun from my hand
and replace it with a kite string.
Tell me my voice was like a blanket.
I wish I could make this night more colorful.
Paint songbirds on my chest.
And hope we find our way
home.

When they stripped me of the life in my bones
I looked to the stars,
and plucked the moon from its perch
with my lips.
And the rage in their fists
tried to pry it from my skull.
But they cannot win.
They may look down on us with their
hollow eyes that can do nothing but weep,
and their hungry mouths that spit ash.
But I know what hope is.
And They don't.
No matter how many times I am beaten
I swear that the birds that sing in my chest
will always be louder than them.
Tell me what holy is,
and I will tell you of the love in my veins.
Tell me why you hate so much,
and I will tear it apart with my shame.
I will split the night open with my words.
I will sweep up the ashes with my rage.
They cannot win.
Not when your eyes look through me like that.
And while you sew together my wings,
tell me of the love letters that God left
on your windowsill.
Tell me of the fists that left those scars.
When they finally bring me to the gallows,
make sure that the noose is made
from the strings of guitars.
Carve my spine into the heart of a tree.
Spread my ashes over the lips of the sea.
Tell me what holy is.
And I will take you to that river full of sin.
I will write my poetry in the snow with my bones.
Tell me where Gabriel is.
And I will clean the blood from his crippled wings.
I will be an immovable sky.
The mouth of the river that never ceases to sing.
They'll separate us with razor wire,
but a few cuts won't hold me back.
They'll scream at us with their empty taboos.
But the paintings I've got tattooed on my ribs
aren't black and white like their words.
I'm done hiding my heartbeat.
I want to taste the words that come off my tongue,
to paint with the dirt beneath my nails.
Say my obituary was written like a poem.
So that when God greets me at his gates,
he will tell me that I was alive.
That I wasn't empty like Them.
But I'm tired.
And I've walked one too many miles in my
own shoes.
But it's impossible to stop,
when you've got wings flapping in your chest,
and a heart that burns like a lantern.
Remember me like this.
Spouting words from the darkest corners
of my soul.
Words that stick to you like a lover's kiss.
It's a song.
A manifesto.
An epitaph that will stay burned in your eyes
until you blink away the tears.
I'll keep walking if you just carry me
on your back for a few short steps.
A couple of shallow breaths.
Just let me rest.
So that the next words that come out of
my mouth will be “I love you”.
And you'll see that the bruises on my back
are the notes of music.
Tell me what holy is.
So I can tell you why I keep moving.
So I can spread these wings you've built for me,
with the skin I've shed
and my broken bones.
And I'll teach you how to fly too.
Because life has no rhythm
unless you give it a beat.
Tell me what holy is.
And remember
that we
are not.