I took the pictures off the walls
Our memories are in a box

Your shirts and letters sit
And there the dust will settle

I do this before the trip to see you
Knowing our conversation will not end well

I’m caught in the middle of a storm
But tonight, perhaps the stars will show themselves once more

The end of us has been nothing but silence and screaming
Maybe I’m ready for you to leave

If this past year has been a story,
Then we are at the ******

And I am on the edge of my seat
Just waiting to see how this all plays out

It seems to me that your hands cannot find stable ground
they hover over soil,
not hard enough
they brush past rock
not fertile enough
they race past trees that aren’t high enough
but soar over cliff faces too dangerous to remain there for long
and your hands grow weary as they search
for a type of material with which they can make their dreams concrete

they are afraid to rest for too long
lest they forget the soft touch of grass
or the formidable strength of stone
they wish to remember all at once
While in their quest remembering nothing at all
to hold the earth in their fingerprints
to hold the earth and if not--
then nothing at all.

your hands have become weary, dear writer
let them rest
let them feel the mud between their soft nail beds
do not wash them. There is the world there, in your grasp.
You cannot let it go
even when the earth washes from the lines in your skin
it will leap back into your embrace through the air that you breathe
you were created to be its embodiment
so do not wander
you never have.

Have you ever seen
the earth give birth
to a new day at the
bottom of a whiskey bottle.

Well neither have I,
but I once stayed up all night
in an attempt to count the stars
and bring order to chaos.

In that moment,
head against grass against ground
I knew what it means to rest,
to be at peace for the first time.

Like all things that night it too
died along with peace and stars,
but sometimes in the right moments.
I can look up and feel at home.