if they call them "heartstrings"
then

someone must have untied your end from mine
someone must have cut your end from mine
someone must have picked and picked until
the string frayed and split
someone must have unknotted every knot we tied to hold us together.

if they call them "heartstrings"
then

i need to be restrung
so my heart isn't hanging around
broken
for everyone to see.

I tell everyone that
you broke my heart.

But if I press my fingers hard
against my chest,
a little to the left of the bone in the center
that’s curved to fit the shape of the right side of your temple,
I can feel the steady
thump, thump, thump
of it,
still alive,
still in one piece,
still beating. I think
my heart is stronger than my body
most days,
when I can’t force myself out of bed
because my pillow still smells
like your shampoo and
my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.

When my knees give out
because I find your
“Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning”
textbook right where I told you it would be,
my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.

When I stand in front of the fridge,
motionless,
staring at the notes you’ve written
in the margins of the takeout menus,
my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.

When I lay down on the floor and
stare at the Casio keyboard under the couch
where you left it,
my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.

When my fingers,
still melded to the shape
of your hand,
can’t grasp the doorknob
or my next drink
or the telephone to call you,
my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.

I tell everyone that
you broke my heart
but I think
the only thing you left whole
was my heart.

The rest of me is thrown around the room
in broken bits and pieces,
memories littered like body parts
across the hall
and the floor of a room I once called ‘ours,’
but my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.

My heart still beats
like eerie jungle drums in the dark,
like a clock and I have a hangover,
like a leaky faucet and a copper basin:
thump, tick, drip.

My heart still beats.

(You didn’t break all of me yet.)

there was a dancing bear, balancing on a ball while the ringmaster cracked a whip and called to the crowd;
Tigerlily ran through the forest, cawing at the birds as she passed, while Captain Hook stalked behind her, using his two hands to wind a clock until it spun on it's own;
a boy met a girl and a girl met a girl and a boy met a boy and they all lived happily ever after;
the world came to a slow crawl, freezing the smiles and the joy and the happy tears on our faces;
Alice grew old in Wonderland and played bridge with the Red Queen;
a baby laughed for the first time over and over and fairies were born again and again;
love paid the bills;

this is what i did today: dreamed.

they say that anyone can make it here;
you just need some will and some way and
all of it can be all you ever dreamed.

they don't tell you that the waitress -
the one who fills your coffee mug to the brim
and smiles at your meager two-dollar tip -
can play Beethoven's 9th better than Ludwig himself;
or that the homeless man on the corner
wrapped in yesterday's newspapers
begging for the change you don't have
just wanted to be a star once upon a time.

they don't tell you about the failures,
the missed chances,
the "better-luck-next-time-kid".

they tell you about that one-in-a-million,
that lucky strike.

they say that anyone can make it here
but they don't mean you.

i was twenty,
home from school one weekend
for hugs and home-cooked food

down the dark staircase leading to the kitchen
for water
i saw the light under the laundry room door
so i went
across the tile floor
bare feet still pink from the shower
over loose dirt from my father's construction site
i pressed myself against the door as tight as a i dared

she was in front of the dryer,
pulling clothes out by the handful -
my dad's work shirt, her weekend sweats, socks,
the basic training shirt my brother gave me when he left

i watched her
hold it in her hands
pull it against her chest
curl around its warmth
the way she curled around my brother
that afternoon
she
inhaled slowly
unfolded
turned the shirt inside out
one sleeve over the other
then
placed it in my pile

so i went
back across the kitchen floor
no cool glass of water in my sweating palms
but a burning wetness pooling in my eyes

i put it on in the morning
still warm
as if she took it to bed
held it all night long
the way she held him when he was born
small
pale
sickly
wide-eyed

she spends the morning with her hands
on my shoulders
******* the cotton fabric
as if it's fading with every passing moment

she calls me by his name
i don't question the long hug goodbye

but i start saving laundry to bring home for her

it starts as the first day of our first year ends:
the sun's fading rays reach out
to touch each snowflake
       (like lazy sundays
      baby come back to bed)
before it hits the ground,
or the dog's nose,
or the very tip of tongue and fingers,
pulsing magnets for the tiny flakes,
drawing them in.

she stands on the cracked bottom step of our sinking porch,
arms and mouth open,
stockpiling snowflakes
she'll want to save in a jar on our windowsill
       (like catching fireflies
      there's one there)
though they'll melt as soon as she seals the lid.

her hands will be December-morning-cold
when she presses them into the spaces
between my top and bottoms,
against the skin of my hips,
made for her hands alone,
but her breath will be July-afternoon-hot
against my chin
when she leans in to kiss me,
a snowflake and her words caught between our lips
      (it's snowing)

your body is warm around mine

like

sunday night in an ugly christmas
sweater after a few beers

saturdays in flannel
pants and cups of hot chocolate

wednesday afternoon in my brother's
sweatshirt with a bowl of soup

tuesday morning in fuzzy
socks and three cups of coffee

like your hand in mine as we cross the street
like your legs around mine as we curl up on the couch

like drinking tea from the same mug
our fingers laced through the handle

warm

i hope they don't push in the kitchen chairs.

i built this house
from a one-bedroom apartment
to a home,
with the touch of a good woman
floors packed down with
the heavy stomping of two boys
learning floor hockey.
i lived here.

i hope they don't make the bed.
i never have and i never will
has always been my -
i never will.

i dug a hole for the pool,
filled it with sunburns
noodles, tubes, splashing,
summer nights after the sun went down
shoes and clothes by the back door.
i lived here.

i hope they don't put away my TV Guides or
tidy up my recliner pocket.

i filled the cracks in this driveway
with band-aids to cover skinned knees
paint flecks from the garage
that started red but
turned white with age.
i lived here.

i hope they don't put my favorite mug back on the shelf
where i have trouble reaching it.
where i had...

i hope they don't clean,
vacuum,
sweep,
scrub,
sterilize,
paint it fresh
to make it seem
new again.

i collected this dust and those scuff marks around the corner of the stairs and the dent in the wall we hid behind our wedding photo.

i hung these memories.
i tore down the wall in the bathroom
and the one between me and my boy.
i lived here.
i built this house.

i lived here.

i lived.

they start at my toes,
wings barely spread as they migrate to the north -
winter sent them south but now the sun calls them back.
they flutter and flap up along the ridge of my ankle,
to the side of my calf. their feathers tickle the back of my knee,
their wing span stretching to my thigh,
dipping down along my hip as they soar past my waistline,
following the swirl of my navel, the mountain curves of my ribs
and the valleys between them. they glide up my breastbone
and double back along my collar, perching on my shoulder
to greet the sun's first rays.

then they descend,
black ink blurs down the pale stretch of my arm,
nesting in the crook of my elbow, while some -
younger and darker and daring and unafraid of the sky -
soar further on to my palms and off the tips of my fingers,
wings spread wide for the first time.

wonder away but don't wander away.
dream of far off lands and fairytale endings
but do it here, in myourthis bed.
pretend you're living somewhere else
where no one eats stale cereal for breakfast and
you never have to work late
but do it here, in myourthis apartment.
imagine breaking free, nothing -
bills, responsibilities -
and no one -
your mother, your boss -
holding you back
but do it here, by myourthis side.
picture another life,
another city's bright lights,
another dog's cold nose nudging you awake,
wonder away,
but do it here,
with me.

they'll lock us in to quiet us
close the door,
turn the key,
and swallow it.
the walls will be soundproof but
our hearts will be deathproof and
our voices will shatter the glass in the small windows
that let our light out.
when these walls come down around us,
they'll hear me screaming for miles in every direction:
i love you echoing in time with the sound
our our heartbeats
and no locked door can stop that.

i hope you were burned
just like me.

freezing rain is not frozen rain.
that is to say,
my breaking heart is not a broken heart.
my breaking heart is not yet solid
is not yet solid ice.
the air around the muscles is not thick
is not too hard to cut through
is not suffocating.
the soft edge is just beginning to glaze over;
the thin air is just beginning to grow heavy.
that is to say,
you might be going,
but you are not yet gone.

you remind me
of the first time i saw a flower

how i

p
       l
   u
                  c
   k
                      e
                    d

each petal
whispering

she loves me
she loves me not

until i had nothing left
but a stem
and a memory

of something beautiful i
destroyed.

When you think my pen has run out of ink,
Or the tip of my pencil has worn down to dull,
Or my notebook is full of ramblings and starts,
And I’ve lost all your pretty words and promises
In between the hours of time that separate us,
Remember that I still promise you the opposite;

That when my pen dies, I’ll refill it, and
When my pencil dulls, I’ll sharpen it and
If my notebooks grow full, I’ll buy us a new one
For all the stories we’ll write in our heads.