If I die young
Bury me
Beneath the willow tree
Her tears will mourn me
To the end of time
Long after all those who cared
Are gone

Some places in me
Are hollow
And if you press too hard
I'll cave in

I don't need empty reassurances
Of my wholeness
Just acceptance
Of my vacancy

But please know
That barrenness
Does not mean less
When it comes to loving you

While I may still live in the night
The stars have finally come out
And I do not long for day
I am a child of the sleeping sun
But the difference is
I have learned not to trip
In the darkness

He captured her heart
She hasn't looked back.

What am I
But a memorization of
Echoes

are
insignificant
pale and empty
they shake over
the smallest task
ink stained palms
black and white

Your hands
are steady
scarred but strong
and when they clasp mine
I feel capable
of anything

And in that moment
We fell
Hopelessly, deeply in love

Sometimes I
Forget
How wrapped up
How entangled I
Am
With you
I forget that
When I hurt you I
Feel the pain too

It is a sharp reminder

And I do wonder
Why it is
I'm never enough?

Kiss me
Fully on
The mouth
Hold me
So tight it hurts
Until our bodies
Are no longer separate
But one
Please
Please don't let me go
You are a part of me
I need you
Like I need my lungs
Or my heart
(You are my heart)
I lean on you
When everything else
Falls out from under me
When I can't see my feet
You carry me
I need you
More than oxygen
You are my
Life support
Please
Please
Never stop loving me
Because I couldn't
Stop
Even if I tried

Time is motion         always

Reaching

I am seeking,                falling

Into place,                       never  

Going past myself,          
                                        graspin­g,
Slipping through      

empty

space.

i want to scream out poetry
that feels like swallowing rocks
when you hear it

My ears crave
The music of your voice
My lips covet
The familiar taste of your mouth
My eyes search for
The beautiful contours
Of your face
I anticipate
The scent of your skin
My flesh aches
For the flame of yours on mine
I am needing
Waiting
Wanting
You

Love is a funny creature
Over time it
Morphs
Changes
Until you find
It must have been this way
All along

Three years old
Love was tucked in sheets
And pillows that smell of Momma's hair

Eight years old
Love was the grip of locked pinkies
And hushed giggles

Eleven years old
Love was the flutter in my stomach
And the sweat on my palms

Fourteen years old
Love was the foreign feel of his lips
Chapped and uncertain

Heart break follows
Small fissures in my heart
This was the first time I begin to see
How the world works
And the true meaning of deceit

Sixteen years old
Love is the beat of his heart
As he sleeps
The sweet sigh of my name
And the endless fall into each other’s eyes
Love is just the beginning
A promise
Around my finger
For a happily ever after
Love is a dance
Clumsy, learning
Moving to the rhythm
Of life
Love is beating all the odds
Distance
Time
None of it matters
It is still very new
And still growing

One day
Love will be
Nights spent wrapped in a lovers embrace
The coo of a newborn  
Early mornings
And soccer practice
Love will be
Bedtime stories
Russian lullabies
The Lord's Prayer  
And Irish ballads sung at bed side
Love will be
The hum of a toddler’s finger
Tapping the key of a piano
And the laugh of his sister
Who hangs on her mother’s apron
Love will be
Meeting 'the one'
And deciding he will never be good enough for her
Love will be
Worry as the key turns in the ignition for the first time
Prom dresses
And broken curfews
Love will be
Seeing him walk in his father’s foot steps
Watching her walk down the aisle
Watching their families grow
Love will be
Rocking chairs facing the rising sun
Brittle fingers still twined
And weary bodies swaying
Love will be
Standing tall
Before the golden gates
And together
Embracing eternity

The empty feeling was sweet relief
After all the months of pain
A hollow shell was better than
A whole person
Filled to the brim with aches and troubles
And submerged in misery
Release came from
The glint of the silver edge
And just a little sting
But too much
Too fast
Sent my head spinning
And though they have long since
All but faded from sight
If I could go back
If I could erase
These ugly scars
If I knew
I would never have let myself
Get lost like that

Dear little free bird,
Where have you gone?
It has been far too long
And we all miss your sweet little songs.

Dear little lost bird,
Your wings are clipped
Your feathers stripped
You've cut off the remainders of your wings
So sing, little bird, sing
And scream, little bird, scream
Feel free to bleed
If it's the only way you have left to dream.

Dear little caged bird,
You are weighed down
By the shackles on your feet
And these iron bars of the cage they keep you in
Have all but killed you
So write, little bird, write
It's all you have left.

With love as infinite
And boundless as the sea
He gave his last kiss to the shoreline
And drifted away from me

But the tide will do as the tide does
With serenity and calmness
In all that he was

Though his footprints have been washed from the sand
Do not cry, rest easy now
He's in Gods hands

He is in every rising wave
Every sea gulls cry
In every day we are brave
And in every breath the wind sighs

A wise father
A gentle brother
Returned again to the sand and water

Because what The Deep gives
It must one day take
But do not be afraid
Just know
When the currents pull
They are pulling you home

And to this day
I fit her like a pair of
Old sneakers
Favorite worn out jeans

I am a place
To rest her weary bones

She is silent
Violent
The way she stretches me out
Filling the places
I had long forgotten about

Surely by now my lips have memorized the heartbeat
In yours.

My lungs were not made of glass
But of mirrors
Reflecting the hollows they occupy
And my bones were not made of ashes
But if they had been
They would still be worth more than the dirt
Beating in your chest
That mine so desperately craves

Same song Different Unbearable-
tune

Dreading
Many
somethings

Except-
Clicking pieces
A Timeless Touching
Dreaming From early dawns
Hour

You have taken my mind
Stolen my heart
And collected my soul

You are pumping through my blood
Whittled into my bone
And inscribed on my skin

You haunt my waking hours
Ghosting among the numbers
Hidden within the harmonies
Tucked between the letters and rhymes

You occupy
My sleeping minutes
Though tonight I have none

Time has a monstrous belly
And nothing I have
Satisfies

HEART BEATING
                              TO A
                                      RESTLESS
                 ­                                       RHYTHM
THERE'S NOTHING
                                   LEFT FOR
                                                    ME HERE
                                                            ­  ANYMORE


IN THE FACE
                       OF MY
                                   PRESENCE,
                                                       I AM



                                                   absent.

Sometimes I feel like there is someone inside of me and she's scratching at the walls of my mind and struggling against all the knots I've tied her in. Sometimes I can't fight anymore and she walks around wearing my skin and my clothes and talking like me and laughing like me and breathing like me. Sometimes I know she will do things that I would never do- she screams and cries and cuts us apart and says things just to hurt you and pushes everyone who's trying to help us away and gets angry at nothing and breaks everything. Sometimes I hate everything about her especially how she hates everyone she's ever known and how well she knows how much the lines of love and hate intersect. Sometimes she blurs us together until we can no longer recognize ourselves as separate. Sometimes I am her. Sometimes she is me. And sometimes,
We are us.

He swallowed her words
Too desperate for salvation
To see he was
Choking down razors.

My body is a house
holding dead things inside


My sanctuary desecrated.

Feel the heat from your skin
Brushing but never touching
Inhaling the air from your lungs
Sweet as nectar on my tongue
My entire being
Hungers for just a taste
Just a little
Of what you are

I remember just how you tasted; like morphine and regret.

I’ve torn myself to shreds
And there is nothing left under this skin
Worth loving
Anymore

Wipe those waves from your eyes sweetie
There's no reason to make your cheeks a shoreline

Those days when the sky is an impossible shade
that is stuck somewhere between "Oh god, anywhere
but here" and "It's too late, just let me be",
when the air itself is grey and every
breath you take only darkens it
until you walk around curtained in black,
and the mist clings to you like a
second skin and freezes your bones
and you must move slowly as not to
break them, but you can't let go of the fear
of being left behind so you ignore
the SNAP!-SNAP! of your extremities
buckling under a speed they
cannot handle.

Those are the days
when I walk softly and speak quietly
terrified one whisper will
shatter the world I have so precariously
built around myself.

I don't want to wake the dead.

My heart was iron
Impenetrable
Impossible to break
And unmovable
But then you came along
2750 degrees
Of pure fire
You melted me down
And worked your way in
To my molten core

when its empty
and lonesome
so am
i
when theyre gone
faded into yesterday
so am
i
when they disappear
so do
i

since when did i become
a prescription?

There is something alluring
about the danger of falling in love-
handing over the most vunerable part of yourself,
your beating heart ,
and praying that they handle it with care.

In gentle winds
birds sing until they break evil bones
but it just takes looking past the storms.
Despite snow, my bones rage and scald
inside


and your warmth is at bay

from here.