you're too drunk to touch me and my
softness is
wasted
without your hands reaching
absently.

the kind of sad that doesn’t fit

anywhere. mine to keep. the world lets so many

ugly

things exist i’ll never learn to

talk,

words come only when i’m the solitary

witness

it’s not your fault, it’s nobody’s fault

our parents could have taught us but the ugly keeps them

quiet

who wants to speak of that?

you say you are

weak

and i think of all the times you were my

steadiness.

i hate these tears because they make you

ache

you are too good for the

ugly.

oh,

i’m not going to be happy

ever

and i’m doomed to be

divorced

because i don’t want to be swaddled in your sugar coated comfort blanket ?

i’m sorry that you believe love is only true if you suppress all of your satisfying, swelling feelings until the day someone wants to reproduce with you

and that you have to cover your most tender, lovely parts in ugly underwear and that on your wedding night both of you will

look the other way



it’s unfortunate that your God only likes you if you give him all your money and hate the right things

and that your life is a dichotomy of

knowing you are superior to everyone who didn’t happen to grow up with your doctrine pinned to their shirt

& knowing that if you don’t color inside of religion’s lines just so

you’ll

never

be

good

enough

for

salvation



and what if that still, small voice is actually doubt

and you spend your entire human existence trying to prove it wrong

by passive-agressively pushing your fear towards others

it’s sad that you’ll make yourself small for a potential outcome

while i’ll grow, grow, grow because i am boundless

you are too, but you don’t know it so you’ll pollute your potential with petty

judgments


yes, there’s a (pretty) ******* ring in my nose and some (meaningful) ******* ink on my skin and your son and i (beautifully) **** each other

i

am

no

less

and

no

more

than

you

are


your high horse has wobbly legs and thanks but

i will determine my own



happiness.

light autumn rain drops
the tiniest
kisses
smear the words being delicately written:

"i
would
do
literally
anything
for
you"

if i were pregnant, i would never wear a shirt so everyone could see
i don't know why i thought of that as i was
talking you to sleep, i thought it and didn't say it and then heard you say, 'i want you always'
so quiet i could hear your eyelashes scraping against my skin
your breath is the forest and i think about when walking and smoking and trying to find new things in the same.
remember the first time we touched each other?
now sometimes i feel guilty for taking up all the happy, especially when you put your lips a half second away from mine and the tiny things mean everything.

the walls are bleeding and my fingers are

melting into your skin.

on the back porch, the sky is voluptuous with rain and i’m crying because everything is electric and so, so beautiful

you give me one of those hugs that makes every bone in my back pop into place and then say,

i’ll never hurt you

it’s amazing how you can let go and feel

safe

standing in the wet street, my feet are muddy and i know the moon is shining on my bare legs even though when i look in the sky there is only

lightening

it's just that
when we are laying in the crumpled sheets
and your belly is folded into my back like the tide folds into the
sand


i keep thinking:

this is the most important art i'll ever make

i want to know what makes people drift so that i can blow kisses at them and go the opposite
direction.

my heart missed the lesson on holding back
so
i swallowed my pride and got
indigestion

i'll tell you in the smallest ways until the right way
comes to me,
i'll leave you notes in obscure places and kiss your feet

you are the butterfly branched from the moth,,,



and you are worth the wait.

i’m afraid of social encounters, of getting close but no closer, of meaning nothing to another person, everything, anything, the wrong thing. i’m afraid of looking around and realizing i don’t really know **** about those i love. i don’t feel okay unless i lay on the floor at least once a day because there are so many things i want to touch but can’t-

like the rim around his iris or the unspoken thoughts that tie us all into invisible knots or the pain it must be to live in a house where your dad once drank coffee and read the paper and pet the cat, but now he’s dead and you still have to walk around pretending he isn’t in every inch of every room.

i have to lay on the floor because it’s tangible, reliable, forcing every bone to stay still, to stop trying to float to some impossible place where i’d be allowed to run my fingers across everything and try every emotion there is on for size

so i could stop ******* guessing.

—————————————————————————————————————-

how does one pain differ from another? why does cancer take everyone good? why didn’t he tell me he had gone blind, that day i went to visit? why didn’t his parents cry? why is 4 years later and he still fills pages of my thoughts when there were so many people closer to him?

all the good in me came from you

i’d be bad if it meant you could live the life you wanted to

——————————————————————————————————————

love=vigilance

—————­—————————————————————————————————

the best poem i ever wrote was slipped into a journal and never read because he was afraid of the words

——————————————————————————————————————-

i can’t get enough of you

my neck hurts from trying to sleep without you

life is easily divided into two categories:
things that don't matter being first

and then there's

you.

red patterned morning light drapes your eyelashes and the thing about love is
it's not falling so much as

floating,flying

faster than my head can make words for. so my cheek is on your chest, and i keep opening my mouth as if it will all come out just right

sometimes things are too big for explaining,
like the way you let me use your toothbrush and how the word guileless reminds me of you and how
i'd be hiding,darkening,drowning if we never
met.

it's okay, though. because when i wake up, your arms are my blanket and
unlike a dream

this is real.

swaddle
me
else
my
arms
will
flail
wildly
for
your
love

'i want you'


i think that means more than one thing

half open eyelids don't lie  


the sun is slanting on your feet and how effortlessly my back curves into your belly scares me because
i'm always falling in love with what is right in front of me

and this might be different.


'the world needs more people like you'


i had a dream that i was on a bus to the Great Salt Lake
dark blue, foamy waves enclosing us,

and when we got there nothing  mattered.

i really, really, really have no place in thinking you're a ******

given the bed i sleep in most nights.


but,

since i'm seeking a convenient justification:


you silently abandoned ship

as if i know how to read a ******* map or shapes in the stars



regrets, resentment, apologies

what's the point

not worth it



i've got more love for you than i'll never know what to do with

even when i'm already climbing the next tree and you are god knows where



unconditional was not a lie.

asking all the questions but the hardest one

-           -           -          -          -

when you say you want to cry because you’re sorry, i want to weep because i don’t believe in apologies

-           -           -          -          -

the almost blue sky is suffocatingly beautiful. unfamiliar bed and an all too familiar feeling. limbo limbo limbo under this invisible bar;backbending for the small things, the intangible things. like the dark green around your iris, or the slight, instinctual brush against my cheek.giveandtakegiveandtakegiveandtake,give

-i love you

-i can’t answer that truthfully

-           -           -          -          -

i walk outside in the dark and there you are, blowing dandelions with your back on the grass, a friend who shows up when i don’t realize i need it

-           -           -          -          -

‘you seem like the type of girl who has never had to watch a dream die’

-           -           -          -          -


justification for not sleeping: why the **** break a perfectly handsome insomnia streak? also, music.

-           -           -          -          -

roofs, cigarettes, porches, cigarettes, satisfyingly self destructive habits, Tom Waits, coffee black as the nicotine inside

-           -           -          -          -


or whatever.

i finally grew a voice,
and it scared you away.


romance////

the promise of lips upon mine will be the last ******* thing holding me to this
planet.

my dad says, the McGinnis curse is our undying, romantic hearts.



i said the 3 words

and i think he's right.

your beauty is not
hollow

starlit and soft,
kiss me clear as your half Brazilian eyes
clear as laughter that fills me:
i am your cup
press your lips to my edges and
drink.

liquid turns solid turns gas
the properties are the same,
as is love
changing but not changed.

if heaven is not liberation,
heaven is our cheeks brushing just as they should.

i'm too drunk to tell you i love you

whiskey runs in hot waves, but never makes it to the coldest parts

the contrast sends me
fumbling.

high above these doubtful clouds,
your wet lips could bring me down

the place that feels familiar on the back of my tongue ---

new, like a drop down the window



your voice,your voice,your voice

i can feel your art
it's in the heartbeat of your palm

warm,
alluring

a springtime thunderstorm that might drizzle or might defiantly dump

i'd stand with outstretched tongue
if only for one
                                                                 drop

of your honeydew compositions   ;   sunflower symphonies.


darling,
your diamond skin is

                                                                devastating

as you dream in orchestrated swells.


i can feel your art
when our heartbeats caress

take it off,

dump it on my floor. let the the sound of the thud

fill us both.


excited heart in the dark;

i know your presence is more or less an apology

a sorry for not calling or not thinking or not knowing how to let your love lay just right


eyes closed so that you can have the satisfaction of surprise. as if my body doesn’t leap into exaltation the second you enter my orbit


this bed is miles long as you arrange yourself on top ,

snowflake lips upon neck and the unadulterated words:

Hi pretty.



forgiveness.

expression
is
not
limited
to
a
flap
of
a
wing
or
a
vibration
of
a
vocal
cord

it's everlasting. instantaneous

so large that it's beyond our senses
and so small that understanding is effortless
if we allow

conceive a concept and project it---

only
the
pretentious
present
themselves
as
paintings
of
the
past

place your posture in the present. take it **** it reap it.

you & i get  along because we can eat tirimisu and sip coffee sans words



convinced:

talking is wildly subpar. touch is greater than a vibration of a vocal cord.

but if you must;

scream it to the sea.

beautiful„,

beyond the mind’s flexibility.

even when your razor blade honesty cuts my fingers red and in the softest shade i mention

that you would rather be vague in your emotions than outright.because once,

love was a nap in the sun

until you woke up shivering, with grass imprints on your cheek



i am the girl that came after that.

and with my head turned just enough so that maybe you’ll touch my

face„,

press against the cold bedroom wall and wish to be absorbed



love me from your thymus to your toes

or not at all.

you know that butterfly we saw,

pinned

to the case? the one so vibrantly blue that

even your mother who takes everything literally and got eyeliner tattoos to prove a point

stopped.


it made the others look dusty and pressed,

mere textbook diagrams.


that blue,

reminds me of the way your beauty works

the type that doesn’t make a heart race so much as

purr.


when you walked through my mislabeled door, that night when the moon was curvy as a woman’s hips

i realized that when people say love at first sight

what they really mean is love at first loss of sight


because i couldn’t tell you what color your shirt was or whether i was wearing mascara or not

you leaked for me,

droplets of your oceanic soul.


we touched in the ephemeral before we hugged on the ***** kitchen floor.



electric amor,

make me the flower you flutter through fields to drink from

and i promise you’ll never be empty.

breezy
lustful
whole,

the soft of your earlobe against my cheek.

how can the future exist when

now
your wild sage smell is laced over me like a winter chill and your lips,

your lips are so

                                               dangerously



near.

but i might be confusing love for

that brief moment when i wake up before everyone and feel the hum of sleep and the afternoon light hits his cheekbones in such a poetic way that it’s almost silly seeing as how

we crashed on a crusty futon after a night of inebriation, smoke breaks and psychedelic rock.

the thing is:

you put your warm mouth to my ear, thoughtlessly, and said

T’amo.

i’m taking that and pinning in to my

shirt.

one man’s trash might just be a woman’s

treasure.

my teacher tells me

the sage is not attached.          so i cut off all my hair and quit my job and buy records despite my lacking bank account.

i don't know **** about wisdom but i know how to make myself

weightlessly
indulgently

                         happy.

Mormons are boring
with their magic underwear
that covers too much.

remember that time you tried to sit me down and tell me all the reasons why my heart was broken?

and i said, You can’t break that which isn’t yours, darling.

i am in a room full of babies who won’t look directly at me,

only at my chest or my shoes or anywhere they can send judgmental daggers because of their conceptions about our history which they shouldn’t give one **** about but people

Feed

off of dramatics.eat them up and **** them out.

oh, i’m sorry, am i making you uncomfortable by staring you straight in the eye? i am not afraid to confront the coffin of words between us but you would rather

Hide.

behind those long lashes and longer lies.

yeah, i know, i feel it too. we’re a walking graveyard of romance that should have been. i scared you because you could have taken me home to your mom. because i have my **** together and don’t play games. because we met under a full moon and a shot of whiskey and it seemed to easy to be true

easy is overrated.

my knees were once floppy for your love. now they are

Locked. rigid. resonating. why do you keep letting fear win all your rounds?

i will never be able to look the other way.

my mom says, ‘don’t live for other people’ as she drinks a breakfast beer and her orange snowboard pants glow freakily under our kitchen light

this is the woman who raised me to believe that there is nothing i can’t do

her own ballerina dreams suspended as i came along

a small town, high school baby

scandal.

she never lowered her gaze.

i’m smart because of her

and stubborn. i’m not insecure and i don’t apologize

because of her.

she looks so perfect, i don’t even reach for a camera.

mindless
careless

                        *****.


helpless when it rains and he says, i'm alone at this coffee shop
i'll make you tea

powerless
to his book collection, singer voice, fingers

wordless
when he reaches the end of his
                                        
                                          investigation
                                          so called destination

invent and deny and deny and invent just to have an                  escape route.

endless

so you look out at the ****** city and see the bright lights of waking up and you want to think it's ugly
ugly as this situation
ugly as your conviction


it's beautiful as ****

regardless.




i love someone else.

you
smell
like:
somewhere
in
between
Sahara desert
and
raspberries

soft body,
you
cradled
my hands
as if
they
were
infants. precious babies from the stars.

we could get lost in the beauty of this if you want,

or we could kiss cross legged on the hardwood floor even though my parents are in the room next door and the sound your lips make on my neck is a dead give away.

love is not for hiding

although if you were listening you could hear
the
ardent,
synchronized
breath
the brief collapse of two humans into each other,
a
pile
of
heartbeats
and
explorations;

this is different. this is different because i am choosing so and because it is un rushed and  because you are

lingering.

1) climb a mountain
2) let the cold wind procure hidden tears,
it's true what they say about running from your monsters you know
3) stretch your arms and scream and be not afraid of any part of the beating of your heart
4) when clarity reaches your head, fill the entire valley below with your radiating

love

old school rap,
you always tried to tell me and i couldn't listen until you were gone.

sunny open window naked romping music
moving forward from your empty body music

pale skin but not as pale as yours
was.

when i met this new
person
, he said

                                          it's time for new songs
                                          something to mark this page with

but i just keep rereading your obituary

it's like this:

you breathe on my neck and say i'm beautiful; a painting

and i pronounce to anyone that asks that i'm single
as if i have something to prove

convince myself i am superior
i am wiser
i am independent

only to arrive unannounced in his sheets and seize him for mine, filling the vastness in my chest with his naive skin

snowy sunlight on your sleeping cheeks,
i left a note on your chest that said

i'm going, and i don't know where.

cedar wood oil and the word BOUNDLESS inked for good.

shouldn't i be
hostile?

attack isn't my style,  darling. grace and ferocity.

besides, i know i'll just end up
leaking
for you:

unfolding into uncontrollable desire to
be
the
closest
thing
to you,


take whatever you tantalize me with
hungrily

take off whatever you touch
destructively

in love with

this

de ja vu.

good
luck
running
from
yourself,
                       this city is so small

his vulnerability is a bed i never once slept in

things you say don't belong to me.

they
puncture
once,
just long enough to
feel
familiar
before
the
universe
carries
them
away.