I'd sit back on a lawn chair before a wide ocean,
look at the sparks on the sea and the sky
I'd think and think about beauty like it's not a waste of time

I'd drown my mistakes with years
The skin their hands touched would disappear.
I would get drunk somewhere in the beaches of Guatemala,
kiss strangers--

like the lights over the ocean at night,
like still water.

I would breathe, for once.

She exhaled, and the smoke became her neighbor.
"I came from you," it said, "I've been through your lungs.
Why are you so anxious?"

Anxious.

She looked our her window. The trees were still.
"You came from my lungs," she said,
"why don't you tell me?"

She turned to it, but it was gone.

Hello, 6 a.m.
Today you look the the six year old
who wrote stories.

She knocks on my door sometimes,

and I live in fear of her,
because she cries and it makes sense--

and I just can't think about it.
I can't think about it.

Pen-named or inked-- 
her wrist swivels. 
She's had many names, this author. 

even through so many lives
still learning how to be unafraid. 

Her wrist swivels. The page turns. 

And the blank pages terrorize
like a cliff.

and she, on the edge, 
does not know how to jump--
does not know if she should.

What happens to poetry
When it only exists
While it’s drunk?

I miss the sound of snow crunching under my brown boots,
walking back to her, my friend—
Friends; people who, for goodness,
We beat and live and cheer each other,
cheer in the midst of our shattering, the fall-down,
and the rise—

and I was walking back to her,
my dearest,
dearest friend.