The peaks in your voice crumble and shake
as you laugh
Rocks tumbling down the cliff,
boulders crash into the sea

This mountain life is tracked in your veins,
the cracks and breaks
shattering against me
in the rough hold of your arms

I never knew someone so holy
Your eyes held up to the sky, watching
the snow on the mountaintops,
whispering their names in the sunrise

And when morning comes, your lips
crack open, that precious smile
breaking free
from the traps you've held it under

I breathe in the years, wish
my mountain veins would peak like yours
Swallowing bruises under layers of skin
rocks settling in my blood, magma melting hot

Your dusty eyes my compass, I've come home.

Pay attention,
she said, to these good hands
you're inside.
To the air outside, as it freezes
through your bones.
Pay attention to the names
of everyone you've ever loved, and
pay attention to the way they sound today,
the way they never will again.
Pay attention when you speak.
Your words are muted, stilted, muddy,
your clarity is gone. Pay attention
to this paper cup, the champagne bubbling
within. The sparkles in your eyes are spots,
there's a surgery for that. Pay attention to me,
pay attention to my lips, these unholy things
you love. Know what you love, love what you love.
Pay attention to the clock, remember to wake up
when you have to. Get to work on time. Then come back
home, and I'll make you dinner, and we can watch television
like we used to. Pay attention, and maybe we can fix these spaces
in your bones. Pay attention, and maybe you'll let me hold you
on this windowsill in the dark, the rooftops shining with moonlight.
Maybe this time, you'll look at me when I speak. Pay attention.
And maybe things will go back to the way they were.

Staring into the puddle
like it might open up, a portal,
and let him in,
falling through the sky.

My tongue is cold against my teeth
and I tell him not to think too deep,
not to feel so much, just for a second.

He is the ivy crawling up the bricks.
He is the patterns in the dust, outlining
stories against the pavement, scattering in the breeze.
He is too much a man for me, and still never quite enough.

The sawdust in his hair clings too tight,
and when I get the call someday --
the one that will tell me if I should have believed him,
the one that will fix everything and tear it all apart,

I will remember his mouth.
The parting of lips and then the teeth,
stark white against the black.

At the center of the planet,
I believe there is a fountain.
I think that once you've made it through
the Earth's core, its hardened shell,
you pass through the curtain into the heart
of everything, and there,
you'll see it for the very first time.

The fountain would be simple,
shaped from rough grey stone.
The water rushing softly over pebbles
tossed into the pool at its base, left
by every traveler who's passed through
before you.

You have a pebble of your own.
You've kept it since you started digging,
and it's stayed with you since, lighting
your way when things grew dark, and
showing you where to go when you've
gotten lost. It's kept you company, when
no one else could.

Let the pebble slide through your fingertips
like a cool summer's rain, and keep your hands
held outstretched, make sure you don't
miss anything. This is important.
This is what you've been waiting for.
The Earth receives your blessing.

She is waiting for you outside the curtain,
and as soon as you pass through, she takes
your hand. The evening shadows in your heart
pull back, receive the light, and you fall into step
with the tide. And this, never forget this:
the moon will always sing you home.

I come from a pair of hands, one nesting within the other, raised upwards, toward the sun.
I come from the darkened pigment of henna on one's skin, of prejudice unmasked.
I come from the sights and smells of a foreign place, of culture shock and a mind full to the brim but still empty enough to learn more.
I come from a pen, from ink, from a desk in the corner of a room with empty picture frames covering the walls, waiting for worthy people to fill them.
I come from a legacy of change, of peace as a movement instead of an idea; from strong-minded individuals who knew what really mattered, and knew what really didn't.
I come from a puddle of light on a windowsill, waiting to be captured under the scrutiny of a careful artist's eye.
I come from silence.
I come from apprehension, doubt, and a graceless fear of falling.
I come from my destiny, something I intend to fulfill.
I come from starlight, from a fingernail moon, from something not me altogether.
I come from death, voices unheard.
I come from underwater, ready to seek my fortune on land.
I come from the past, unclouded by memory and dreams, the cycle beginning anew.
I come from the vibrant heartbeat that is life, reverberating in my skin.
I come from a voice above the crowd; a lunar eclipse; a light, universal, mine.

As he dived headfirst into the
kiddy pool, he was thinking of you,
and the roses gathering dust under
your bed that you wouldn't find
until next year, when you were packing
for a trip into the countryside
to clear your head.

He remembered your dreams as he
plunged hard into the concrete floor
of the place you spent your summers in
as a child, the one you loved most
when the sun was shining and no
bodies clouded the path between light
and what we perceive to be darkness.

In love and lust, he mourned your
freckles upon hitting the bottom,
his bones floating off to sulk
in the corner somewhere as his brain continued
to think of the possibilities when one has
gone and broken his own spine in a
reckless attempt to somehow get born.

When you pack his tongue into your
briefcase someday, I hope you'll remember
the way the sky felt on the day you told him
you weren't in love.

Like eyes,
      the pond stops rippling,
      its happiness too strong to bear.

Just rest,
      this is your home now,
      stars where bricks should be,
      holding the ceiling above your heads.

She is everything,
      her fingers breaking
      every promise you've ever made
      in the twilight.

Outside,
      the farmhouse as day breaks,
      you are crossing the river
      of every love you've left behind.

Your tongue
      held across your teeth
      like prison bars,
      you shudder into silence.

She waits
      patiently in the darkness,
      loving holding breathing life
      into the spaces in between.

You are
      the spaces in between.
      She'll follow you there, a field
      beyond right and wrong-doing, as Rumi said.

She is
somewhere
beyond the sky.