You remind me
of little colorful scraps of paper
pasted onto the wall
and called a work of art.

In between the desks
there are whispers,
whispers that seem too loud for my ears.
Abstract secrets and ideas shared
between friends and strangers
within one foot of emptiness
that we call personal space.
The space that has us worrying
about the amount of breath mints in our backpack
and if our breakfast could be stuck in our teeth.
The space that is irrelevant
when surrounded by the people you love.
The space between the desks
that is uncomfortably necessary.

Do you think God ever had a moment
just a second
that the weight of the world
was just too heavy?

He once told me
To be like falling snow
Forever different.

He forgot to mention
Snowflakes melt.

I first noticed my abnormal heartbeat
in Duluth, Minnesota.
Standing across the canal from you
separated by water
and the waves waves waves.
I still swear to this day
that it was your breath I heard
mingling with the hush of water.
The next time I notice my heart
we’re at the hospital.
You tell me to uncross my ankles
and hold out my wrist
your thumb brushing over the more delicate part of its skin
and your stethoscope cold on my throat.
It’s only a
one-two-three
four
before you’re pulling away
my pulse going with you.
I don’t care if I have to live with arrhythmia
live with the pills and the appointments
and the lack of a steady thump thump thump
in my chest.
Just the ghost of the feel
of your thumb on my pulse point
on my wrist
on my neck
curving behind my ear
and my hand on your heart
with your thump thump thump,
will keep my blood flowing.
I’m a girl with a broken heart
and I’m in love with a cardiologist.

A man and a woman stand in a yard
their fingertips touching slightly.
She sits between them
criss-cross-applesauce
hands in her lap
voice off
like she was taught in school.
Mom and dad have a secret.
She thinks there is a surprise waiting for her in the house.
Katherine
Katherine Anne
Katherine Anne Seymour
Katie
There is something abnormal about you
cell deep
malignant and capable of killing.
If we could take it out of you
and put it somewhere else
like a star or the highest branch
of the tallest tree
somewhere so
unreachable that we could ignore its pain
we would.
But Katie
Katherine Anne
Kitty Cat
we can't.

"What do you think heaven looks like?"
"Clouds. Sunshine. Angels."
"But really? You don't think heaven has
desks and post offices and plastic
grocery bags?"
"Probably not."
"Oh."

The last time we met it was raining
and the stampede of raindrops on the roof
must have made it hard for you to hear.
I had wanted to tell you about my mother
how I wasn’t yet five feet tall
when she was six feet under.
Lover, listen.
Incurable illnesses cannot recognize
the plumpness of an over ripe nectarine
from the plumpness of a woman’s breast.
And the last time we met I don’t think you heard me say
that my name is Amelia
because you kept moaning Sarah.
Now, lover.
I understand the impossibility of moving on
but I’ve run out of excuses to make.
There’s no Lauren or Patrice
just me in these sheets.
Lover, please.
Pick me.

Sometimes I lie
When people ask me those questions
Like “who inspires you the most”
Or “what is the most influential thing to have happened in your life”
Sometimes I talk about
Women in science
Or growing up adopted
Or being a struggling reader when I was in third grade
I never talk about my mom
I never talk about feeling like I had missing pieces
Not just in my heart but in my mind
Like someone pulled out the naughty things
The bad things
Leaving me with only leftovers.  
When people ask me for my best story
Sometimes I talk about how
I faked a peanut allergy
And how a boy stabbed me with an epipen when I ate a peanut butter malt in front of him
Thinking he was saving my life.
I usually avoid the part
About me wishing that those drugs were lethal
That an epipen could end it all.
I find small talk to be so hard
Because there aren’t enough good bits inside me
To make it through a conversation.
If you see me
Can you just do that thing
Where we make eye contact and nod slightly
Smiling sometimes and not stopping.
I don’t have anything
Truthful left to say.

Sometimes I just sit
and think about flowers.
The differences between
petals and leaves
and how to best clean
dirt from under my
fingernails.
Sometimes I just sit
and think about flowers.

I was born of foreign blood
a fact that I cannot grow out of
and you cannot control;
But I am native to your heart.
You taught me that
I have always been yours,
that there was never any question,
and when my grass green eyes
reflect in your deep ocean blue,
I know that you are mine as well.

I dreamt of a boy and his motorcycle
And how he stole me away from you in the back of his dad's pickup truck
On a recycled mattress.
I remember waking up and wondering if I should tell you
That I felt more alive in my dreams than I did in your arms
I see that boy with the tattoos up his arms and the smile gracing his face and I wonder who I am cheating more: you or myself
But each morning I wake up I remember why I am in love with you
And every night I fall asleep I wonder what it would be like to be in love with him

I am not drowning in fear or happiness,
rather sitting in a lukewarm bath
of tremendous want
that you drew for me.

My mom forgot to tell me
that it would hurt when you set my heart on fire.
She forgot to tell me that love is just as much pain as it is fun
and that sometimes the fire doesn't go out when the other person dies,
sometimes the fire burns you alive.
You forgot to tell me that death was an option
and that sometimes destiny ******* hates you,
or maybe its me who hates Destiny
for drinking and then deciding to drive.
One thing I learned from you is that cold showers don't stop love
they just freeze the desire to live out of you.
I don't know anymore if my heart is on fire
or if I stepped into that crematorium with you
but I am alone right now
and it makes me mad.

I may not be a poet
but when he undresses me with his eyes
even Oscar Wilde would be at a loss for words.

I watched a body burn yesterday,
with eyes closed shut
and brown hair parted so perfectly
that it couldn’t possibly have been you.
But it was wearing your shoes
the faded blue Converse
that I tried to throw away when you weren’t looking.
Your mom must have salvaged them.

I’ve been looking for you
in the places I thought would remember you.
I have found
that you don’t exist anywhere:
not in the urn
resting in your mother’s living room
not in the shower
where I try to freeze the love out of me.
You have left me smoldering.

Your mom told me they burned you
with a pack of cigarettes
in your jacket pocket.
The faint smell of burning tobacco
would follow you to death.

I think I might hate you.
You told me it was your trademark
to leave people wondering
about where you were going.
I thought you were just mysterious
not intentionally cruel.
But you have left me here
left me not knowing
if my heart is on fire
or if I stepped into the crematorium with you.
I can’t breathe right now.
Completely burnt out.

A yawn is stuck in my throat
and my feet have sunk in the soil.
I cannot move.
What lies before me
has cleaned me out-
body and soul,
mind and spirit.

Eternal life.

I will leave you
for miles and meters,
lost in the sound of my own feet
kissing the ground.
There are days I will not come back,
as I will have collapsed onto the ground,
allowing my feet to breathe
and my heart to rest.
But I will always see your face in the sunrise,
cresting the horizon with blinding beauty,
and wait for you to run after me.

Please,
run after me.

I am a product of my parents:
a combination of hypersensitivity and anti-depressants.
I can see my mother
in the way I flinch
when my the bus heaves
taking me to my next appointment.
My parents did not teach me to be inquisitive
but after running
from one doctor to the next
I needed to know
can medication really save a soul?

I was born with winter
in my blood.
I can feel the cold spread
with every heartbeat,
with every roll of the eyes.
I don't know why
I was born
in June.
I don't know why
I should celebrate my birth
in the heat of summer
when my heart belongs
to those winter chills.
I don't know why I must sweat
that summer sun
for only seconds
of snow.
I was meant
for other things
and different times.
I was meant
for hot chocolate
and snowball fights.
I have months left to go
until I will be home again
in winters storm.