My dear, you are so wonderfully lovely, and I want nothing more than to write you eloquent poems, and sculpt you from the ground up.

I want nothing more than to paint you in a million different colors and sing songs of your beauty.

But I’m no artist, my dear, and all I’ve got is “I love you.”

I don’t ever want to be apart from you again, my love.
I know happiness is never far, when you are near.

I just want to smoke my cigarettes and drink my coffee, alone.

I know they won’t last, nothing does, cigarettes burn, coffee cools, but while we’re hot just let us be together, alone.

“Hey, how’s it goin’?” you said, calling me up on your cigarette break.

Good to know how you think of me between puffs of smoke.

I’d like to think of myself as more than just another one of your
addictions, but you know how vices often go hand in hand.

I never thought I had an addiction.
But I’ve tried to quit drinking coffee nine
times and yet again, I stand in line at the
shop, waiting for that consoling dark brew.

I know later, I’ll come down from
that high and when I crash, I’ll
feel lead-***** and dead inside,
like a car running low on fuel.

But if you told me right now, it
would mean the entire would to you
for me to give it up, I’d dump this
out on the pavement, and quit
cold turkey.

If you wanted it, I’d quit.
If it were cigarettes and you asked
me with earnest blue eyes,
to put them down, I would.

Not out of self-preservation, but
because you mean more.
You always have and always will.
I could never give you up, though.

Rock n’ roll music, Folger’s, and paint-smeared hands.
Dresser drawers filled to the brim with undeveloped camera film.
Blue bonnets and overgrown grass, pecans and crunching fall leaves.
Dirt roads and river-rocks, typewriters, polaroid cameras, and feather-quill pens.
Those hand-me-down blue eyes and brown ones that are “sometimes hazel.”
Crystal clusters and Lord of the Rings.
Countless mosquito bites and play-pretend games in the clubhouse.
Early-birds and night-owls.
Trudy; and Randy Hayes.
“Don’t touch everything you see,” and “If you say you’re bored, I’ll find work for you to do.”
Sweet tea and okra and southern dishes blackened and drenched in cheese or gravy.
Grandma always burned everything to make sure it was fully cooked, and to her, it was never burned, just “well-done.”
Cigarettes and carpentry and cookbooks. Wild blackberries and birthday parties at the lake.
Sleeping in all day and staying up all night and procrastination.  
Shepherd's Pie, potatoes, and four-leaf clovers.
“Nil Desperandum. Never Despairing.”  
I’m from a whole house that eats eggs for breakfast, and I’m allergic to eggs.
And trees as tall as buildings and buildings as tall as trees.
“You should never take the lord’s name in vain,” and “Jesus loves you, so you should love others.”
Day-dreams and stargazing and thunderstorms.
“All or nothing,” and “There is no try, only do.”
Old family pictures in dust-glittered frames.
We are crystals. We have facets, each one makes us who we are.
With only one window of our lives to express, we’d merely be glass.
I am a part of each of these things just as much as they are each a part of me.

I always admired the lake-leaves
weightless, almost,         with
lilies of pure white resting
atop the water, as if they had only
              truths to tell.
I wish I could drown     beneath them,
  the     light burning      holes in my
spine, through the cracks in the green,
     purifying me, making me new.
How my tongue drilled       into the dust and
my skin                 willed a lie.
     I couldn’t stop the bleeding        this time, though.
I carved a hole in the dirt and poured
myself into it, the earth       wrapping
               around me
      like soft palms comforting.
The dust falls upon            the skin of my thighs      like dew
on the wings         of the first pale moth       of morning.
And my heart sighs       knowing that I cannot simply
      fly away, that I cannot dig my way out, and
that I am the one        who put me here.