He looked down sadly
Staring at his hands
"I'm covered in heart break."
I touched his arm
And he looked up at me
"I know."
"Its the color of your eyes."
"I know that, too."


.

some days they are sad. sad about the weather, sad about the thing that happened last night, sad about losing their favorite book, sad about their coffee being cold, sad about the fact that they can't find matching socks. lots of things make them sad, lots of nothings make them sad too. you see, when you have a predisposition for being sad, every little thing counts.  so when you ask her why she is sad and she cannot answer, do not press further. do not go looking for a reason that just isn't there. when you ask what you can do and she says nothing, do not be hurt. do not feel useless. when she wakes in the middle of the night and she is silent, but you can feel the bed shaking as she cries, do not assume you know what she is feeling. you don't. hold her if she wants it, don't touch her if she doesn't. if you ask her if she wants you to stay and she says yes, do. but if she tells you to walk away, do not listen. stay with her, because if you don't, she might not be there in the morning .

That summer was hotter than any of the others before. The county was dryer than it had ever been, and the kids more restless than years past. I was sitting on the front porch at my granddaddy’s, swinging slowly with the breeze that offered no relief from that God awful heat. I was in a little black sundress, which was hard to find because most people prefer pink or yellow or orange  - anything but black during the summer. But you can’t wear pink or yellow or orange to a funeral. So there I sat, in my black sundress, black sun hat and black heels. I even had black sunglasses, but I opted for those on my own. I had no desire for every eye in Harlan to see me cry. The sunlight hurt my eyes anyway; I had one hell of a hangover. The night before was the first time I’d drunk anything but sweet tea or water in my life. My body did not take kindly to it. I was doing a lot of things my body did not take kindly to as of late, drinking being only one of the many vices I’d begun to partake in. “Come on girl, we best get a goin’. Ain’t gonna do to be late for this one.” Granddaddy offered me a hand and helped me up. The car ride there was silent, but I would catch him every once in a while glancing over at me to make sure I was “Keepin’ my **** together.” He knew about the drinking and had my hide for it.  It was far too soon that I had to step out of the car and walk to the front row where your family sat. The rest of the day went by in a blur. Your momma hugging me. Your daddy shaking my hand. Your sisters clinging to the skirt of my dress. I don’t know when I started crying, just that the tears seemed like they had been there since the day I was born. The songs we sang were all wrong and the sky was too blue and the birds sang too loud. The wind blew too much and not enough, because if it had been enough it would have carried me far, far away from that place, but too much because it’s sigh sounded far, far too much like yours. I kept it together until that first handful of dirt hit the lid of that ****** box that was going to hold you for the rest of eternity. I remember being jealous because I wanted to be the one holding you, not that hole in the ground. When it was my turn to throw it in, I fell. I fell as hard as when I fell in love with you, except you weren’t there to catch me this time, you were too busy in entering into the arms of our Good Lord. So I kissed the dirt I held in my hand (when it finally stopped shaking) and threw it in, then I tried to throw myself in. But granddaddy caught me before I could get to you and they covered you up before I could claw my way in. It hasn’t been the same since you left; the air doesn’t smell near as sweet and the sun doesn’t burn near as bright. I haven’t had the heart to wash the mud off that dress yet and I’ve had too much heart to throw it away. You left me to live in a world full of contradictions, Darlin’. Left me to live a life that knocks me to the ground and waits for me to get back up, just so it can kick me in the teeth.

And, I suppose, in your absence, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Hands where
They are not welcome
Against flesh too young
And too willing to please
Pushing to break the last barrier
That separates
Innocence
From exploitation
Lips parting what should be closed
Taking what is not theirs
And can never be given back
A body demands
As the other yields
Bending to its will
And calling it "love"

A woman asked me
How it felt to see my lover again
And I found myself
Most inconveniently out of words, darling
My mouth opened
I almost said
Being with him
Is like Summer rain
In the Sahara
Or the first sip of water taken
By a thirsting man
Like the cool feeling of grass beneath bare feet
In the spring
The smell of blooming Wisteria  
Like a bonfire in Autumn
The sound of leaves falling from the trees
It is like the first snow of winter
Blanketing the world in white
Or the the steam from a cup of tea
But instead I smiled
And closed my eyes

"It was everything I needed it to be."


.

He sees the world in corners and edges
And life is lived in still shots

Past the grizzle and grit he sees
The lovely framework
The bones of the earth

That sparkle of brilliance
Crashes in his eyes
Wonder colored blue

A little mind races
And I watch as his hands try to keep pace
A heart of glass and gold
Transparent
A prism of possibilities
The light it throws
Colors us in day dream

Thoughts like the tide
Rise and fall
Carving out the shoreline


An exquisite curse
A hideous blessing

A beautiful mind

His face trembles in my hands, melting into a mirage of colors, dripping to the ground. The picture falls face down on my bed, tattered and ripped along the edges, crumpled and water stained. I sit next to him, laying on my back. I stare off at the empty void above me. My lights are off. The doors are locked. Windows cracked just enough to let a lightless breeze in. The air is crisp with snow, and I know the carpet is getting wet but I don’t care. My fingers graze cold metal and I grip it tightly. Why did he have to go? Why couldn’t he just stay and fight like I did for him? Was our life together not enough? I twist the ring on my finger absently, realizing that it will never have the second, matching ring on it. I get up with shaking legs and open the top drawer of our dresser. The smell of him hits me like a ton of bricks, right in the face. Holding my breath, I reach blindly around, trying to ignore the feel of his shirts. I find the little velvet box with one ring from a set of two in it, remembering the last time I opened this drawer.

The dress's collar is too tight against my throat and I pull at the itchy lace right before the music starts. The steady rhythm is the only thing allowing me to walk. I march to the beat, lifeless, like a zombie. He's waiting for me at the alter and I hurry, wanting to feel him again. His eyes are closed. I wish he'd look at me, tell me how beautiful I am, hell, even cry a little. But no, he just keeps that dead look on his face. My heart squeezes painfully, and the wrong kind of tears run down my cheeks. The priest looks at me mournfully when I finally get there. I wrap my fingers around my soon to be husband's cold, stiff hand as I look out at the crowd one last time, a solemn sea of black. I turn my attention to him now, never taking my eyes off his face as I say my vows. I give a gentle squeeze in recognition of the response he can't give, and slide the ring on his swollen finger, then mine on my own. "I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the... groom." The priest has a hard time keeping the revoltion out of his voice. Ignoring it, I plant a soft, loving kiss on my husband's pale blue lips. He no longer smells like he used to. The priest allows me a moment before he begins unlocking the wheels on the coffin. I hold my husband's hand as we make our way down the aisle. This is not how I imagined this day two years ago. The rest flys by; lowering him into the ground, the prayers, and I don’t even know if  I'm crying. I can feel nothing. I am home, except I'm not because home is 10 miles away under six feet of dirt. I can't stop staring at the ring on my finger. It is consuming me in thoughts I never wanted to think. I rip it off and throw it in the top drawer- his drawer, so that I'm not tempted to go back for it. The thought of taking my other ring off passes through my mind, but it is so unbearable I cannot entertain it. I've gotten so used to it, feeling the absence would only remind me of what else I have lost, so I keep it and then collapse to the ground, a bottle of xanax in my hand. I swallow three and wash it down with the half empty bottle of wine next to the bed. I fall asleep with the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other.

The memories shake me, and I regret ever taking the **** ring off. Ceremoniously, I slide it back on, placing his picture on the pillow on his side of the bed and lay next to him. The coldness of it bites into my palm and makes me tremble harder. I feel it brush against my temple and suddenly, I am doing this. Fear leaves me. Now it's just me and cold, hard determination. I breathe deeply for the last time. My finger pulls the trigger back, and I am bathed in a newer, more permanent darkness.

I don't have to miss him anymore.

Fate stitched us together
Love sewed us a pattern
Every bit of me is
Threaded through you
Darling we are patch work
Cross stitched across boarders
Time has hemmed us to perfection
And we are
A master piece

Numbness
Is my newest
Sate of mind

Nothingness
Is my newest
Addiction

And yet his eyes are a certain shade of dreaming.

Small flame in darkness,
You became my inferno


Your spark scalded me.

There is something beautiful in the way his fingers dance across my skin
and the shadows they leave.

When you kiss me
Do you taste
The words left dead on my lips
A mouthful of ghosts?

When you breathe me in
Do you fill your lungs
Then choke me down
Like a shot of whiskey?

When you touch me
Do you trace your fingers
Along the signature
Depression left on my arms?

When you hold me
Do you feel all the pieces
That won’t ever be put back together
Can you tell
That’s the way I was made?

I’m not broken
Because I was never whole
In the first place.

Mud beneath our feet
Stars above our head
Wearing nothing but rain slicked skin
And frosted breath
You
Cannot keep your hands off me
I
Cannot take my eyes off you
We
Are two planets
In rotation
And neither of us
Can defy gravity

A heart solid enough to love
Not yet strong enough to withstand breaking
Body of a woman
Mind of a child
A soul divided

What am I?

The mirror splits in two
Glass reflects
Jaded blues
And a steel smile
Glass reflects
Precious purity
And blind innocence

I walk along the edge of
Something unknown
The line ends soon

What awaits me
At the end?

Sadness
is the water filling my lungs
and flooding my throat.

You were under my skin,
so i tried cutting You out;
now all i'm left with are
hand-me-down bandages
and something for the pain.

I always feel like there is someone choking me, tying impossible amounts of knots into the noose they have strung around my neck and used as a leash.

My hands tremble
It has been too long
My heart is raw
And my lips are dry
Parched
Thirsty
My stomachs twists
I am starving  
With a kind of need
That cannot be satisfied
By dreams and played back memories
No.  
My body
Is craving
You

There is a
Hairline fracture
In the structure of my being

My life is but a collection of moments
Spent waiting for myself
To
c
       r
  u
              m
       b
              l
                  ­ e . . .

I woke up this morning
While the sun was still asleep
Before the dew dried
And as I began to reach the edge of consciousness
My fingers grazed the empty space beside me
Searching for the comfort of your warmth
But instead I was greeted with stiff sheets
And cool pillows
The groggy euphoria of the hope
That I was waking to your arms
Was short lived
And so with worn down feet
And shaking limbs
I rose to greet another day
Without you

1998
Born last of winter
Spring skimming my toes
        
           First
                  Slow
                         Steps-
Wary.

Learning to read
Salvation in words

Poetry discovered
A love of rhyme

Pain in strength
Hates first ink
Heartache

Two in deliverance
Beautiful Minds
Doubled hearts

Lips touch
Timeless
Pieces clicking

Hearts grow
Entwined
Love
Is
Here.

Here
Is
Love.
Entwining
Hearts grow,

Clicking pieces
Timeless
Touching lips

A heart doubled
Minds beautiful
Deliverance in two

Heartache
Inks first hate
Strength in pain

A rhyme of love
Discovered poetry

Words in salvation
Reading to learn

Wary-
        Step
              Slow
                    ­ First

Toes skimming spring
Winters last born

They tell me I'm crazy but I think that's a bit of an overstatment I mean it's not my fault there isn't enough air in this room to breathe.

His delicate notes
And symphonies
He plays
Drift through
The house
Filling the air
With sweet music
Melting my heart
Of stone
Bringing tears
That fill and spill
Out of my eyes
Like the spray of the ocean
And I wrap myself
In his love

Maybe you don't understand
The appreciation I have for drowning
But I really like the  way
The water loves my lungs

The earasing hands of time will never reach you
Where I’ll keep you
Tucked in my pocket
A one line ryhme
Take you out
Unfold and hold you

I trace memories the way I used to trace your lips
I hold pillows tight to my chest at night
The way I still haven't gotten to hold you
I whisper fragments of poems to myself
The way I used to whisper them in your ear
I still do all the same things I used to do
Hoping it will be enough
Until you come home again

Hell is not
Fire and brimstone
Frozen
Or sheeted in ice
No,
Hell is
The hollow pain
Inside your stomach
From days spent staring at the walls
It is the panic
That sits on your chest
Crushing your sternum
Under the weight of his absence
The ache
In the marrow
Of your spine
As you wake to face
Another Mountain
Another Monster
Another Day
The terror of forgetting
How all his corners and edges
Feel beneath your finger tips
Or how the constellations
Glittered in the cerulean night
Of his eye
Hell is
The fear that
All the threads holding you together
Woven like tapestry
Will fray
And fall apart
The thought
Of your souls untwining
Pulled and picked apart
By time
Distance
And silence

I am Monday
The sky on a rainy morning
I am the sea as it rumbles
The air as it trembles
I am the storm
And the calm  
I am a mess
Catastrophe with eyes grayer
Than the smoke
Of the world that has burned down
Around me

every day is a constant battle but im always looking for just one reason to get out of bed in the morning

i dont usually find it

there is two much and still not enough and i cant say im isolated but its almost worse being alone in a room full of your friends and family knowing they couldnt give less of a **** about you and whether or not youre about to crack

i cant take the lackofvoices in my head anymore

three days of the week i cry myself to sleep and the rest im silently screaming until i have no oxygen left and i pass out choking on the words i wanted so desperately to reach anyone whos willing to listen

im always disappointed when i wake back up

there is no longer any reason four me to brush my hair or put on make up or eat or sleep or starve or be anything but the worthless shell of a human that i am and i dont deserve the well meaning but empty condolences of the few who care and have stayed through all my **** thank you guys but its a waste of time i'm drowning and i dont want any of you jumping in the lake to save me youll just drown too because  its not water its quicksand

i dont think i could take it if i was the reason our skeletons rested together under the soil i meant only for myself

i hate everyone and everything five times more than they hate me and if thats not enough then i hate myself as well and i guess that means that the whole world could burn and id just laugh because the fire tickles compared to what i do to myself

there is no reason to punish me because i doubt you could do anything to make me flinch

six hours of the day i spend losing myself in poetry and books and music but that is my only escape i wish i was someone who could drown themselves in ***** or drugs but getting drunk only makes me sick and i still have too much **** pride to go out and knock back more pills or smoke things that will make my head float

so much and so little to do  with so much and so little time

there are seven cuts on each of my arms one for each day of the week that i think about killing myself and i swear i didnt do that on purpose it just happened that way and i wonder if thats what my entire life is made up of only those words 'it just happened that way' so now there are fourteen more cuts to add to the countless scars and im so ******* sorry i cant stop but i dont think you people know what it feels like for bleeding to feel better than not

would you believe me if i told you this was one of my good days?