nights take passion forth
into an abyss
of hundreds of arms
swirling under the weight of
bodies yearning
to connect

your destruction came
in moments, you fell beneath them
and growled, you were
the rabid beast
hiding in my closet
or behind my bathroom door
waiting to spring,

and you and i,
we fell for each other
like children, we fumble in the dark
like teenagers, we talk through every movement
like we've known this dance for years, years, years;

my hands, they're too small
to spread over your heart
like i want them to.
your hands, far too big
to cradle my face between them
like you meant them to.

we make it work
in the darkest of ways,
the black hole in the floor
of our bedroom
opening up
to swallow us
whole.

I kiss like
a thunderstorm,
crashing into your lips
with the force of a
hurricane, I haven't felt
the rain in far too long

There is a promise
sealed to your mouth,
a record you can feel
beneath your tongue

reminding you that
I'll stay forever
locked in your eyes --
I won't move until
you break your gaze

I kiss like
I'm dying, the candle
flickering down to
the wax, no amount of
kindling can revive me
from a death like this

And when your breath
unfolds from the back
of your throat, you'll
kiss me back to life,
falling back into step
with everything
I knew before,

your bricklayer's tongue
chiseled between
my teeth --
we fit
like rungs on a ladder,
pulling me back to the surface

I kiss
like a firestorm,
knowing that
one day
something
will ******* away

when the lace
from my shirt
fell away,
you helped me
tie it back
together,
even though i know
you'd love to love me
uncovered

i knew,
you cradled
the scars
the sunlight
gave me,
you kissed
between my ribs
where the swollen
skin lay tender,
you would have
stitched them up
if you knew how

i remember
the ultrasound
my fingers took
of your heart,
i could see it
beating
red and angry
in your chest,
trying to
unfasten the ties
that held it inside

my palms
were hot, but
they healed you
my scabbed knuckles
brushed over your eyes
and you settled
into me like a gasp,
slowly but alive

sweetheart,
i would
end the earth
in one swift movement
if i could watch
the asteroids fall
in your eyes

her tightrope
was a feather,
balance weighing
on the tips of wings
held suspended
above the ground

summer skin
taut
against her bones,
thousands of stars
threaded beneath
each of her freckles

she found solace
in satellites,
the man in the moon
winking from his place
among the planets

she felt
galaxies
coursing through
her veins, the Milky Way
bubbling up
from her belly

and
somewhere
within --

tiny heartbeats
mirroring the shower
of asteroids
falling
from the sky

If there were a formula
for the way her lips seek out
for mine while I am still attached
to those of a boy,
I would plug it through with
the determination
of a scientist, feeding it
back and forth through the
machines until someone
could give me an answer.

She visits me
in my sleep, bleeds
through the walls of
our separate dimensions
until she finds a way
into my heart. From there,
she rides my bloodstream up
into my brain, she puts
her hands on my controls
and guides my dreams

through to her childhood
home, where she knows
I'll fall in love with the gap
between her teeth and the way
she practices the word
"kindergarten"
when she thinks no one
can hear her.

I could never find her
through the keys
of my Macbook,
she calls to me
through typewriters in
store windows, when I think
I've lost her, I go into bookstores
and flip through the pages
in the poetry section until

teasing

she gives me a word,
just enough
of a puzzle to hold me
until next time. I think
when it's completed
it will look like her freckles,
the eyeshadow she spreads
over her heartache, the lipstick
she wears to feel like a woman
on the days when she needs to act
like a man, if I were a man.

I'd no longer be captivated
by the mysticism
of their skin. No longer see
the revolutionary twisting
through their spines. But
if I were a man, I wouldn't have
the same parts as my lover.

Maybe then
we'd be
just different enough
for me to tell her
how I feel.

heartache is
a penny, leaving
greenish glows
in the palm of my hand,
its slick caress a kiss
against the inside
of my pocket.

its weight yearns
like a kindergartener
whose voice
wasn't heard,
who knows
everything there is to know
about outer space,
something she can feel
wrinkling, biting a hole
through her chest.

and this tadpole heart,
it struggles and flails,
gulping to life
between words
it never knew
how to say.

silently,
somehow,
this monster
in my mind
falls gently asleep
with the tide.

There is a mineshaft
in my chest -- my heart
scales down the lines,
dropping into my stomach
graceful, a trapeze artist
descending from above

There is a tranquility
here, a blinded heaven
scarring across my eyelids

This ghostly skin
shakes me awake,
screaming ripping
like paper between
the sheets, I am stuck
with a glue I never spilled

The lotus unfolding
back and forth, a
sick dance twisting
in front of me,
the memories in my
head convulsing
like they're trying to
restart my heart,

I always knew
the end would be
brighter
than the beginning,
the candlelight
of my birth
painting pictures
I'll never get to see

because this heart,
it weighs me down
a death I never felt
roaring in my chest --

And this waterfall
will never
reach
the pond.

i rope in your lungs
with my fingers,
there is a space
between your bones
and i want to fill it,
pouring in the lines
they told me
before they left me,
one by one,
leaving you
to carry me home

your fingertips,
they are riverbeds --
they are waiting
for the moment
when i can grow gills
and swim with the words
that crowd inside your chest
when you can't find
the right ones
to say

there are stars
tattooed onto the underside
of your stomach, there are
tiny planets swimming
in your blood stream
that i wish i could
dance my fingers through
just to remind you
that there are heavens
stirring in your heart,

this heart,
it chokes with shadow
some nights, but there is
a beacon shining in your bed
that i can't wait to discover,
submerged in the wreckage
our bodies left behind

and someday,
let me stir clouds
into your eardrums
let me breathe life
into the caverns
you've forgotten existed
let me fill your skull
with salmon finding
their way upstream,

you found your way
through the stream
that flows in my wrists,
you kissed the reeds
growing in my blood cells,
and one night, you held
my jaw together
as the sickness threatened
to break through it --
you always knew

how to unlock
the fastenings
in my vertebrae,
the ones who beg
to pull me down.

if somehow
the darkness
in my throat
began to spread,
i know
you would be the first one
pleading
to be dragged
along
with it.

There are power lines
buried in your wrists,
barbed wire fantasies
dying to escape

You and I,
we were fingerprints,
we were the ink stains
left behind

We were the frost left
aching on the windows
after winter has gone,
we were feathers drifting
down from the sky after
the geese have flown

We were the song
played during the credits,
we were the silence after
the storm, we were the glow
at the end of a perfect kiss

We were the hearts
that had never been broken,
we were the breeze that had
never been touched,

You touched me like
a sandstorm, like the flames
licking up the pyre on the day
Joan of Arc died, you touched me
like a fingernail moon,
longing for the sun

We spent our days in the sun,
our chapped lips turning red
under the sky, the paper dreams
you never gave me, because

if there's one thing I know,
it's that my waiting arms were
always waiting, you never
let your hurricane heart sweep me
up in the storm, I never knew
your mother died until I saw it
on the news, you had a life

outside of this and I never knew.
But if there's one thing I know, it's that
my heart stopped the day you let me
brush your freckles across your face
like wayward strands of hair

That little mouth
open,
soul escaping
through your lips

She taught me
how to whistle,
folded a blade of
grass between
her teeth and
scared frogs half to death
in the woods
behind her house,
that chord struck
deep in the crater
she punched through
my heart

Her sandy skin
burned in the memories
of boys, who watched her
run across a field
with hair swinging
like a beacon, those
candied lips quick to laugh
at a passing joke,
they thought that
she belonged to them

But those lavender evenings
of junior high summers,
bikes and scooters lying
like faithful pets against
the hot pavement, chalky
hands with nails painted
resting against her
scabby knees, those knees
were my altars, I prayed there
more than I prayed in any church,

She was an anthem
unclaimed, she was
an American soccer girl
****** into a taste and color world
where she could be worshipped
by boys with football scars
and veins coated thick
with peanut butter & jelly,
she fell so hard that summer
cupped into the hands of
one after another, after I fell asleep

on the leopard carpet
of her bedroom,
I could hear her
whispering, and the
magma in my throat
filled to bursting,
the fireflies I'd cradled
in the bones carved
from her wrist --
I knew I'd never hold them
when the sun rose,
they escaped far too soon

This mosquito-stung life,
we wore our bites like
champions,
brought them home
to our mothers
until they would fade,
facing the plastic leaves
of autumn, I wanted to
stay locked
in her cage.

To choose my own life
meant releasing myself
from his grip. The one
unholy touch I'd ever
known. If he had not
caught my scent, then
maybe his hand would
never have reached me.

To say ****** abuse
is to say I was not quite *****.
There is some dignity
I can still hold onto, a weight
I never felt threatening
to crush my body
into the dirt.

To say I am woman
is to say he is animal,
to deny him the right
of remaining ******
from the stink
of his mother's womb;

to insist on calling myself woman
is to forget the terror of knowing
I was child, I was bone
and I was sacrifice, the flame
on my tongue had scarcely
scorched his teeth before
they closed in on me
to drag me down.

To say I loved him
is to puncture holes
into my pelvis, let the marrow
drip until I was unrecognizable
as human, only a
thoughtless brainless creature
could love the knife
as it ripped them apart,
to save the hawk who grabbed you
from the river by feeding it one
of your young,

to say I was too young
is to say it gets better with age,
as if the signs become easier
to recognize once the baby fat
has shed its protective casing
from his skull.

To say depression
is to say I wasn't born
this way, there was a disease
inside his bloodstream
that erased me, it was
something from his veins
that made the doctors
hover over my wrists
like vultures waiting
to snap me up whole.

To say victim
is to say there was a perpetrator,
is to say our love was crime,
is to say there was nothing holy
until I learned to make it so myself.

To say ****** abuse
is to say *he has taken everything,
there is nothing left of my frame
for anyone else to hold.

i want you
to cup the budding bloom
of my petals between your hands,
to pluck my stem from the earth
and bring me out into the sunshine

i want you
to clear the snow away
from my branches, to show me
the light i've missed
for far too long

i want you
to stand barefoot
in my river's flow, showing me
i'm not so cold as i once was

i want you
to climb up the surface
of my mountaintop, to feel
the pebbles between your toes
and stand atop my highest peak
so i can kiss your feet
with my rubble

i want you
to blow away the seeds
of my dandelion, wishing hard
for springtime to last
forever

Desire woke,
carried football kisses
and barnyard blushes

The great American pastime,
getting ****** under the
bleachers with a towel spread
over the grass during the game

Voices rip through the halls
breeding rumors strong enough
to plunge shame so deep
into the heart of a person

that it may never crawl
back out through your throat,
the venom spewing from your lips
as dark as the blood spotted
on the backseat of your
father's car, that night

Through the cracks in the
armor, every girl carries this
burden in her chest: *** is shameful,
it's not to be talked about, and
there are boys out there who cannot
wait to take advantage of your
one warm and vulnerable heart

She found her own monster, one
with blue eyes and a blonde ponytail
like the cowboys in the movies, an Idaho
farm boy with hot breath like the smoke
of a gun, she gave him her secret when
she was fifteen and at night she screams

when she thinks of it, his ***** hands
and where he put them, lightning sparks of
the pain she can still feel, it sticks inside her
and twists, the wound growing larger
every day, she knows it will never leave,
her own ****** spot to carry

Patterns forever crawling up her spine
in the shapes of his fingers, and someday
when the one she loves drags his fingers there
she will never lose the memory of that night,
her promises to herself left broken and bleeding
on the mattress, her crime of passion shattered
in the wake of what she's done

Engulfed in shame like ink dripping dark
from her hair, she's ***** and she knows it,
she's filthy and she swears they can see it
in the bright ****** of day where she can't
hide from the pushing and the smile on his face
split wide, it's the Joker with his ****** grin

She spent years falling for wisps of dreams
she could never quite grasp, those fleeting Sundays
fuzzy outlines in her mind, lust comes with a price
she says, and she means it when she says that she
will never love again. It was a contest, who could go
the farthest without taking that final step.

She lost.

my mother's strength
could rustle tree branches,
knock down houses and
push through walls.

and her hope,
that feminine aching
for things to be better,
she shows the rest of us
what it's like to be warm
even through her shivers,

my mother knows
the soreness in my knuckles,
she asks me every time,
my mother strikes a chord in me
tender and careful, she carries
the child i will continue to be
even as i move on from her

the way she holds us,
her arms are temples to me
i've never known another
shelter so holy,

and every time she cries
i want to open up a wound
within myself, so i can cry
along with her, i walk beside her
so she'll never be alone,

my mother
never deserves
to feel alone.

this forest heart
will go on longing
for my mother's open skies.

maybe
there are earthquakes
in my skin. maybe
they hollow themselves
into the arches of my feet
and maybe i walk on rocks,
crumbling and cracking
under my toes.

maybe
i taste in color,
maybe i hear in
visions, maybe god
built a temple in my mouth
so its roof would fill my tongue
with the perfect words
to say to you.

maybe
heaven is not
shining white, maybe
it is green, i want to see
a forest when i get there,
i could never go an eternity
without a good climbing tree
and the breeze that blows
through my heartache.

maybe
when i tell you
that skeletons are
gorgeous, that
these empty bones
tell stories i can feel,
maybe you'll tell me
that even the corpse
has its own beauty.

maybe
you'll teach me
how to fish for crimson,
how to cast off my years
and be glad to the brink
of fear. maybe you'll teach me
what the Earth felt like
in 1836, maybe it was
a mystery, one not even
you could ever feel
working through your chest.

maybe
this familiar ache
inside my eardrums
is only my spirit
learning how to
listen
to the dawn.

i am the hanging branches
on your willow tree,
you don't wait
for spring to come
to tell me
i am beautiful

i am the rake
pushing through
your sand garden,
smoothing out the edges,
easing through the pain

i am the fog
hanging over
your mountain range,
covering you with
droplets of water
so sweet you can taste them
long after i've gone

i am the v-shaped flock of birds
flying over your turning tides,
calming you with every brush
of my wings against the clouds

but what i really am
is a snowflake balanced
carefully on one blade of grass,
waiting for your careful steps
to pass by me, for you to lift me
off the surface on one fingertip,
for you to bring me to your lips
so i may melt in your warmth

The moment
my fingers
curled away
from your heartbeat,
you held me up
to the sun, tried to find
the missing pieces
glowing in my eyes

From the moment
you first held me,
there was an understanding
passed between us (Mother,
you sheltered me) gently, I knew
a shifting ache in your bones
that grew on my lips
as surely as my own name

I grew up
on palm fronds
and astroturf,
tennis courts and
public pools pushing
the wanderlust
through my veins
like a sickness,

Mother,
you fostered
the dreaming
that marinated
in my head, pushed
child's sunglasses
over my face, and
you smiled thinking
of the brightness
my future must hold

You never knew
the agony of oceans,
the tear of the tide
ripping at my stomach,
you were disappointed
when I told you that
white-hot flames were
licking at my fingers,
threatening to escape --

You were disappointed
as your dreams fell
into the cradle of insomnia,
disappearing into a black hole
of doubt, my thoughts were leaves
dropping from my mouth
until they landed in your conscience,
floating in puddles made
from the liquid melting of your tears

Mother,
I never knew
the ocean's
stinging bite
would lap
against you
as it carried me
out to sea

Tonight
the sky stretches,
yawning, awakening
in front of me: it's been
a long and gentle sleep

The paint clogging
my lungs has cleared,
the stains around my eyes
rubbed away, maybe
by your hands on my face

And your hands,
they stick, love like
a film of dust that settles
over my skin, coloring
me pink

We are sunk
in this madness,
tied together like
the knots in your boots,
messy tangle of thoughts

You know,
there are stories
buried in your nail beds
I can't wait to discover.
But in this dream tonight,
that full moon
shining on your face

Night sky opens up,
pulls us in tight
And I know, the two of us?
We could sleep for days.

what i remember about summer
isn't quite sunshine, isn't beach and isn't
ice cream or flip flops or picnics

it's the way the sunlight touches your face
as it passes over the horizon, coloring you
yellow pink orange red and beautiful

it's the freedom of dry grass
and a field we could fall into,
sweaty palm to sweaty palm

in the freedom of brighter days
without responsibility to hold us down
leaving space for us to move together

i discovered you in summer, the outline
of your body came to me in light
where i could not ignore your shape

and i didn't try, where we swam together
through apartments and borrowed rooms
trying to find out who we were

only in the gap we call summer
could i find you bold and careless
waiting for me to touch you

some days i am as cold
as the clouds at the heart
of the snowstorm

but i know, if there were
a fireplace big enough
to house your love for me

you'd build up the flames
as high as they could go
just to keep me warm

you'd spin yourself into thread,
knit yourself into a sweater and
wrap your arms around my shoulders

you'd pour yourself into a mug
and steam yourself hot so i could
drink you down to the core

you'd hold onto my hands, no matter
how cold they got, just to see the crack
of my smile as i thaw in your arms

The car in the handicapped space
of the parking lot with the
Iraq Veteran bumper stickers breaks
my heart. I wonder if the sand in his boots
can hold the pedals down. I wonder if the
visions in his head can grip
the steering wheel. I bet some nights
he remembers that a hospital bed can be
a prison cell.

That hospital bed was not
my prison cell. It was a welcoming back
to the life I thought I had before, it was my anthem
careening through the dark. I heard it in the spaces
between their words. Their words were holes
drilling themselves into my muscles, I felt them
spinning toward the grenade that was my heart.

Once, my muscles were strong enough
to cover me like a blanket. I remember how
they sheltered me. I remember feeling proud
to wear the covering of my skin. I was a tiger
when he touched me. I prowled in darkness,
I slept during the day, some nights I remember
that a bedroom door can lock me up, my parents
locked me in a tower, they told me I'd be safe there.

Maybe I should have stayed inside. Maybe
it would have kept me from the car, the hospital,
it would have kept him from the war, maybe I'd be there
still. Maybe he knows how it feels to hold
an animal inside your chest, maybe he knows
what it's like to feel it shaking in your bones.

Maybe this man in the parking lot
can tell me what a gunshot sounds like
between the windows of your ears. I think
it would sound better than my own voice
singing me to sleep. Some nights, the lights
outside my window are too bright. I bet
he could tell me what that means.

i must have been drinking
concrete, swallowing
gasoline, eating ashes
and chewing dust
if i thought
this was going
to be easy

i've been holding my breath
and stopping my thoughts,
sleeping for far too long,
this house pulling around me
until i thought
it could hold me
forever

something in my skin
has died, there is a graying
underneath my eyes and
i'm still afraid of what's to come
this fear is breathing,
bulging beneath
a layer of my skin

i can feel my heart hiccup
at the thought of leaving
all of this behind

there are rose hips
swirled in
with the peace
of your womb,

they made their way in
through your nerve endings
and they crashed in
with the tide,
bringing newfound calm
to the child
who rests there

underneath
the cigarette slick
of your lungs,
the dripping hot flesh
of your stomach,
the stiffness
in your bones --

she swims
in decay
and swallows it
like a fog, she
simmers pink
with tender arms
and clouded eye,

she waits
for you
to notice her

--painting by Chris Brodahl at the Seattle Art Museum*

Legs bent over the chair,
her pants wrinkle as she moves
rippling

My face tilts back and I close my eyes;
she bends her fingers over the table
like she’s playing piano.

Images cross over and I can’t keep track,
lost in eyes pasted over fingers
lips glued onto hairlines.

And still she moves,
staying silent but shifting
rippling

I had a dream the other night
of a farmland in grayscale,
black and white movies in my head.

My mother in her pink cotton nightdress;
bluebirds mocking me from their roost in a tree
And still this silent farmhouse, soft in its slumber.

But I can’t move when I’m asleep,
and she can’t move when she’s awake
We’re perfect in each other’s hands

I wait until her eyes are closed
and then I kiss her, her eyelids fluttering
rippling, as if to say hello.

The universe,
it does not end
so much as it curves
downward, angles
brushing into cloudy
strokes across the sky

There is no
horizon here --
everything extends
so beautifully, a
twilit landscape
falling away
into the
blackness
beyond

The end of
my life, it will be
an encore
I will fall below
the curtain only to
appear on stage
once more,

I've never been
the kind of girl
who could let go
of something so holy,
who could give up
when she knows
it's time

These stretch marks
across my body,
they might fade
but the ties
I held onto --
they'll continue
snaking across
my frame,

and I know,
you would take
my hand, and between
the sunset and the dawn,
you would hold me
to your chest,
an agony of echoes
passing between
our lips

This end, I don't think
it will hurt --
I think it will fade
as easily as falling,
an endless high dive
where there is no pool
to catch me far below

I will never sink
so much as I will float
in the in between,
waiting for your hand
to catch mine as we fall

My dear, we will burn
like shooting stars
across that sky,
and I know, that
unforgiving moon,
he'll give us the chance
to join him someday

And when we
disappear
into the black,
I want to know
the last word
on your lips
will be my name.

Your car
is my own personal
spaceship, hurtling
through galaxies --
billboard planets
and streetlight stars

The city
doesn't sleep
so much as it snores
this early in the morning,
piles of buildings
stacked together carelessly
across the skyline

My legs
curled beneath me,
an insect shriveling
back into her cocoon,
we don't speak
only discontinuing silence

You retreat
into your shell
before I can speak
a word of the truth
that is congealed
in my chest, a
cancerous mass
that is sure
to stop my breath

This night,
it hasn't broken me
so much as it has
brought me back to life,
soon I'll remember how
warm a person's eyes get
after they've been so cold
for such a long time

We whisper
under our breaths,
fumbling to connect
with sentences strung out
across a wire between
our ears, cans pressed tight

And now,
my house looming
before me, a
swirling black hole
that swallows me whole,
your headlights barely
a spark in the distance

I wish
more than anything
that I could follow you
back home, curl with you
until this ache has left
from my bones

But if I did,
I know it would be
different than we thought
Your quiet mouth would
change beneath mine
and I know, you would never
stop until you understood why

this blooming pressure
tears at my lungs
until I can breathe again

There are tongues
hidden away
inside cabinets,
fingers pressed
between the floorboards,
members ******
into dresser drawers --

You caressed them
lovingly,
every tooth
and freckle
turned over
in your memory,
you play them over
as you sleep

And every
once in awhile,
their faces
gulp to life
beneath your chest,
and maybe
your heart beat
quickly
for a moment,
and you whispered
to yourself:

thank god,
this day
has finally
come

--

His kindergarten
dreams
his sugar sweet
mouth
his cream soft
tongue,
they succumbed
to you like beasts
trapped beneath
the riverbed

You let them float,
dry tongues hang out
between bloodied lips,
you touched their lips
in the darkness
and the dance
continued
until morning

And later, caught
up in the nightmare
you stared into
the sky. Maybe
the full moon reached
out and touched you,
maybe you smiled

But you said,
thank god;
thank god I am
the man I am

--

And something made you,
starstuff shaped and twisted
until they formed those fingers,
those hands those eyes
the brows that would furrow
in the darkness of that closet

until it came down
over your head
and as the memories
surged through
your mind?

I hope they
came first,
one wailing scream
pushing
through your heart
before you succumbed

thank god,
thank god

Mother,
you grew up
on honey
and white bread,
cream between your teeth
******* dry against
the roof of your mouth

And Mother,
your dolls
were always
children -- you swore
you'd treat them better,
dressed them up
in pink gingham cloth,
ran with them through
the jungles in your
backyard,

and that backyard
swallowed you
in secrets, you never
questioned what lay
beneath the floorboards
where your father slept
in the basement, you
tangled yourself in
the reeds

Some days,
you wondered why
the walls of your house
shook (they never knew
you listened) and some days,
the dust tracked itself
along your skin like evidence,
giving your hiding place away

You sheltered yourself
in paintings and broom closets,
caressed your clouded heart
against a generation built
on dreams and divorce,
the echoes of war aching
in your father's palms --

Neil Armstrong
landed on the moon
the day after your birthday
and you took it as a sign
that you would never
hold the stars in your hands

Instead,
you cradled
a child
against your chest,
hoping
it would be enough
to save her from
the sunlight in your eyes

Sometimes it's just a conch shell
I am tired of holding
to my ear.

The birdsong outside my window
fills me more than your affection
ever could. When I say I am in love
with the entire ******* planet,
I mean it is impossible
for me to settle down.

I am not the type to sink
in the river, I want to float
on my back through the bloodstream
of the Earth and let the moon tell me
when it is too dangerous to go
swimming.

I never learned how
to swim. I am far too cautious
when I talk. My body is self-conscious
about letting the chlorine of
a summer pool touch me, fill me
like you used to.

I guess that's why I'm leaving,
love. The open air is a much better lover
than the sea. I would rather burn
inside the marrow of a far-off star
than feel alone at the bottom of the ocean,
only fish to guarantee I'm still alive.

Love is Pluto,
drifting in space searching
for something to hold onto
never knowing it is in orbit
circling something it will
never get to touch.

I wish I'd never touched you.
Never felt the sandpapered scars
that fold inside the creases in
your wrists. Never let you think
I had fallen from heaven, I wish
I'd told you I'm searching
for a way to float on top of clouds
without needing a God to tell me
I'm happy.

Maybe I only loved you
when you were unhappy.
Maybe your shoulder blades
never contained the wings I thought
I could see when the lights were out.

Baby, you were the ink
pouring from Shakespeare's
****** quill. You were the barnacle
in the sand waiting to take in
the blood and screaming disbelief
of a child, you were the whales
beaching themselves in one sorry attempt
to taste the grass.

You were the one
to always keep sinking.
It was your sandpaper
I held under my tongue
hoping it would rasp
long enough for someone
to tell me I was bleeding.

You were always
bleeding, especially when
I was gone. Now,
you breathe smoke
and still tell me it's me
who needs you.

finally, something
has gotten through.

I'm craving fields
and painted skies,
I want to choke on
the poems that burst
through my throat,
I want them to sing
the way your eyes do

finally, I want
to do everything I can.

I want to throw open
the doors, draw
on the walls,
swallow my clutter
and exhale my own kind
of laughter -- I'll submerge
anything I don't want to feel
beneath the waves

finally, I can smile
the way you do.

my spine has grown
softer, there is a magic
in my fingers and I'm learning
how to release it, it's coming
straight from the peace
I'm finding inside my chest,
somehow there is no longer a war there

finally, the reeds
are untangling themselves.

my gift is to hold, to
cradle, because i know
that whatever i am holding
must be deserving of my love.
maybe someday soon,
i'll realize that i can hold
myself, just as well as you can.

finally, i feel
like dancing.

Bright red flowers
lush
against the sidewalk,
waiting
for someone to pick
them, tuck them
behind their ear

Sleep
was impossible
with the memory
of you curled
next to me
like a semicolon,
legs tangled
under the blankets --

My fear of god
is not because
I fear power. I fear
lightning, I fear cliffs
and elevators and
power lines, I fear
what makes us holy

I fear your eyes,
I could fall
straight into them
and never come out
again, and when
I had to leave, I'd be stuck
between your eyelashes
like a cancer, you would
hold me there forever

This human heart
beats quicker
than I remember,
dreams gone soft
in the twilight;
my unholy breath
beats rough
against my tongue,

and once, your tongue
beat against mine
and I remember thinking
this must be what
heaven feels like

If I could climb every tree in this world, I wouldn't dare. There are far too many places where the trees aren't worth the climbing. I pick my trees like I pick my teachers, there are lessons in this world that I need more than the others, lessons that make me gasp with the grip they are holding on my tongue. If there were a temple at the base of Mount Everest, I would be the first person to go there without asking for anything in my prayers, knowing that this mountain held everything I could possibly use inside of its belly and I had only to reach its core. But if the temple were at the top I wouldn't bother, there are things I need to learn to do and climbing mountains isn't one of them, I've got plenty of problems here on Earth and I don't need to touch the sky to know that Heaven's got 'em too. I couldn't imagine a Heaven without a good climbing tree. There is no such thing as pure unadulterated joy, if I'm going to be happy for eternity I'm going to keep climbing knowing that boredom will be the one thing that is always out of my reach, because joy without anything to compare it with is completely and utterly pointless. My God, She'd understand that. She would bring me up above the clouds but continue to put obstacles in my way so I could know the glory of feeling proud for what one has accomplished. But my God exists only in my poetry so while I am still alive, you can bet your *** I'll still be climbing. Those trees will not have a branch untouched, there is a whole forest waiting to breathe its secrets into my veins and I plan to live there until I'm full. When I am full, I will be happy to go to your Heaven so long as it has volcanoes with bellies deeper than I think I will ever reach. There is always something different to learn.

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.

There is a rhythm
to the movements
of your eyes across
my face, sketching
sunbursts onto my
cheeks,
freckles blooming
back to life

Your gaze never broke,
not once did those eyes
leave mine --
you knew a beauty
in my face that no one
had ever before explored,
something I tried to keep
hidden against my chest

These trying arms
melt in their own embrace,
waiting for you
to hold them up,
I can't hold myself together
without you

Waking up
to this hardened
world time and time
again, my gentle eyes
finding only red
among the black

This moment
hangs heavy
in my fingers,
waiting for the
better days
when they'll have
yours to hold.

i want to become the rain
so that i can fall
from the greatest height
only for you to catch me
with every inch of you,
so that i fall into every
corner, so that i caress
every pocket of doubt
you carry within your bones

i want you to open your mouth
so that you can taste
my desperation, my vivid dreams
and the blood that flows
within my visions

i want you to leave
your hood down, so that
i can soak into every follicle
of your hair, so you can keep me
close to your teeming mind
full of its passions
and its wild dreaming

i want to be absorbed, to
disappear and become a part
of something deeper
all at once

to become a part of you
would be the greatest purpose
i could imagine

i often wonder
if i'll remember
in the morning,
how i cried with
passion battered
against my chest
like a child,
i can't cradle it
much longer

dust
turns red
through my eyes,
maybe if i dream
just a little longer
i'll smile longer too,
some days i get tired
throwing phrases
against my throat
hoping they'll
escape

i've always been
fascinated
by tear stains
the way they track
my mascara through
years of freckles,
i never knew i had
this many
until now

our bodies
lying hot
between the
concrete and
the sky, whisper
windows of silence
through flowers
wilting against
my skin, i knew
a destruction
you could feel
in the scrape
of my nails
on your back

and this dream,
it's no better
than the rest of them
i've always feared
forgetting
the most important
things, but this
is more important
than anything
i have ever known

this flash between
your teeth, i don't know
what forever is, what
it means against
the sunset, you spoke
these words and it
crushed me, my heart
is beating, but it's frail
the fight within its chambers
is slowly beating out to sea

the ocean never
called to me
like some girls,
i wanted to feel
the rain on my skin
without being pulled
into the undertow,
this breathing love
between our chests --

i don't know if it works
the way you wish it would
my words they tangle
into knots on the way
from my mouth into yours
and i never knew
your breathing the way
i wanted to, i've never seen
you breaking the way that
you saw me that night

your parted lips
pull
against my teeth,
and i wonder
why i always bite
instead of breathing,
why i hurt instead of
loving, why these lungs
don't fight for every breath,
they only fight when they're
close to dying out

i want to watch
you sleep, i hope you
take that the right way
i want to walk on an earth
where your arms can heal
and your mouth can cut
me open, i want to feel
more than i am feeling
i want to dance
for hours, i want to drink
and hear you laugh
in the dark of night
when nothing matters
except your eyes

your eyes,
they capture me
like butterflies
pinned to papers,
i wish i had wings
to beat against
your cheek, that way
i could tell you
everything
and i know
you'd understand

the half- moons in your fingernails
fell that night, the soul
within your nail beds
filtering out with the grace of god
and you shuddered as they went,
wishing you'd had
some kind
of warning.

that grace,
it surrounded you
like silk, there was a candle
in your chest that flickered softly
just waiting for someone to notice
its quiet and tender smoke

and when desire filled you up
some nights, you held a violet close
to your heart and dared it to catch fire,
watched it turn to dust in your hands

this ashen life,
you couldn't find
what you searched for
in the sand -- you bit your lip
and cradled your own brokenness
in your palms, the heat from those
blue eyes tried to keep it warm
and my god i wish they had

because that morning,
when you kissed me?
i could feel the ashes
sparking on your tongue

My sister
is a signal fire
burning
until she finds
someone to
rescue her

tell me why
the sky turns red
whenever I touch it

I watch her
burning out
across the sand,
crackling flames
spitting at me,
then crumpling
into ashes

tell me why
the sand turns to glass
when I bury my feet

She disintegrates
into pieces, blowing
past me in the wind --
I could pick her up,
replace the freckles
on her face, but
the only way she knows
is pushing me away

tell me why
my loved ones scorch
when my hand comes near

My sister
spreads hostility
like wildfire, turning
my own tongue
into a lick of flame
We trade insults
like red-hot peppers,
the bitterness congealing
on our tongues

*tell me why
you loved me once
only to turn me away

I toss my solitude down,
let it mingle with my insomniac
let it mingle with my rubble,

There is something
submerged
beneath my --
human, make me
the red of desert earth
until I crumble into
cactus spines and skeletons,
I wasn't meant
to stay here for so long

There is a catch
swimming with my organs,
it pulls when I breathe
through it, I never wanted
to see what
falling
would be like
until I saw the holes
they drilled into your spine

Your leather-spun
heart, it aches
like a sunrise,
I knew a wanting
in your chest
that stayed
hungry,
you were always
hungry
for something
I don't think you ever found,

Because there is a sand
beneath your fingernails
that doesn't rub away,
I have a dust storm
waiting in my belly,
there is a lust there
that is deeper
than the Marianas trench,

And someday, God will loop
his fingers through yours,
and he will whisper in your ear:
"Come. I can tell you
what they died for."

I could never paint
your eyes right,
sticky drops of green
plastered among
the warmest browns
Your river's light lost
in the reeds

The walls of our house
stir and shake, children's
fingers poking in between
window frames, pushing
skeletons through spaces
in the screen -

They pulse there, hot
and wet like grass outside
on the lawn, my breath
catches when I think of them,
lungs trampled into the carpet
Our youth this yellow honeyed
liquid decomposing in the sun

Someday we'll sit, together,
and remember them
as they pass - today is not that day
Winds bluster through the cracks
and my highest clouds melt
with the fog

Deep love shoved
as food into the garbage,
moving bright under the grime

Yearning to be seen for
what it was,
kaleidoscope heart
shifting
until it found
what you were looking for

i am a maple leaf, i float
on your puddle and soak up
your dreams and your heartache
until you fill me up so much
that i can't take any more

i feel your cool touch
through my veins, they are green
and they are beautiful, that's what
you tell me
your kindness is
my sustenance

when i stop growing,
when i stop needing you so much,
when i can't let you hold me any longer
i'll remember the breath of fresh air
you pulled through my lungs
while i soared through the sky
reflected on your face

i'll know you needed me,
needed someone to pour
your life force into, someone
you could hold and someone
who would fly like you could not

at the end of the season, i'll stay
wrapped in your embrace

The tracks
in my veins
are violets,
lavender scars
pushing up
from underneath
porcelain skin

These angled bones
are fists, I'm
brushing the dirt
from my palms
after I've spent a night
buried in the garden
that grows
in your bed

Red blood kisses
burn against
my snowflake mouth,
each one different
never the same --

Hips blades of grass
darting through my thighs,
beanstalk limbs
shooting up from
the ground,
no one can tell me
when they'll stop

If it doesn't rain
soon, they'll stop
sprouting for good,
a stunted twelve-year-old's body
hanging in the balance
of years left unmarked
in the crater of my belly

Child's fingers
pause
against
the window,
waiting
for the sun
to fade

in some way
maybe the milky way
swirls rose pink,
i'd like to think
this flower petal blessing
might have come true
somewhere, so far away

space to me has never seemed
quite empty, to me it is full
all the words i send through my chest
all the ones i don't pick for my mouth
they make their way there, hide
among the stars until i select them again,
compliments for someone else, ones
the last one never deserved

somewhere in all that space
there is a hollow made for me
my niche is not buried in the earth,
a cavern beneath the surface --
it is open sky, open stars, i belong
above the universe looking down
that way nobody can ever look down on me,

and when i can't catch my breath,
there is a planet there
who exhales for me, gifting me
with a strength only something
with that amount of gravity
could ever hold

my gravity is small and i huddle
against the dirt, wishing i were
small enough to float up
through the clouds
and join my brothers
and sisters
in the black

my compassion keeps me
grounded, if I didn't have that
I don't know who I'd be.
I live my life through empathy,
through story and heart and
breath, I try my best to listen more
than I speak. but it's hard
sometimes, because there's so much
that I need to say.

if I could, I'd take with me
everyone who loves me, and
I'd bring there somewhere warm
where we'd all be safe. I forget
how strong I am, that my arms
can hold in all the worry and
desperation escaping from
someone I love.

my eyes can see past the superficial
and right down into the deepest secret
place. it helps me feel more human
to help others.

but sometimes I'm scared
I'll lose myself in them, feel myself melt
into someone else's world until
I can't find my own anymore.
I bring that quiet courage here
to you, to teach you how to love
so deeply that the other person
becomes an extension of yourself,
feeling what you feel and
laughing as you laugh. finding beauty
in others helps me find
the beauty in myself.

I had to travel a long way
before I got this far. I didn't fall
into a well of strength by accident,
I had to pull it out from within
me, from a place I didn't know existed.

if I had only one thing to say, it would be
to trust yourself beyond anything
you ever thought possible. believe
your own story and the things you've brought
from your hometown to here, wherever
you've settled. allow yourself
to be as scared as you feel, but step forward
anyway.

through telling my story, I hope
that every shy kid on this planet
finds their voice, and that every
courageous mouth finds the ears
to listen.

Her skin is held together
by a thread, rips and tears
make it hard for her to breathe

Vision going yellow in the
half-light, twilit fields rippling
in the breeze

Holding seeds between
her teeth, her bones balanced
over the concrete

She knows it will not last
forever - she has seen the yard
where she'll be buried

She's a victim still intact,
waiting for just the wrong eyes
to reach her hair, her skirt

Fear presses through veins
and she watches the sky,
remembering that angels

will wait, in the clouds,
until you need them - her
grandmother said, they

will wait, and she believed
it. Her cactus tongue ******,
catches blood there, and

the tide washes through,
its rhythm a comfort
She finds her way home.

Sometimes I want a baby so bad that my entire abdomen feels empty, and I clutch my stomach thinking of the day when I'll be old enough, mature enough, to have children of my own. But other times I think about the things I'll have to teach them. I want to teach them that everywhere they look will be hands waiting to help them up if they fall. I want to teach them that there is fruit their mouths will not believe they are tasting. I want to teach them that they will have mentors who will inspire them and show them things they're sure are too beautiful to be real.

But I have to teach them more than that. In my freshman year of college I sat in a classroom where we were talking about survivors of genocide. My professor asked us to respond to the question, "If you had experienced something terrible, something you were scared your child would one day experience, when and how would you tell them?" I watched my classmates ponder this question and wanted to tell them that I already know. This is already how I feel every time I wonder how I'll tell my children that I was ***** by someone I loved. I want them to know that I love them, that I would never hurt them, but how can they ever trust me once they know what was done to me?

They'll start to believe that love is an empty promise which will never be fulfilled. They'll learn to flinch at every hand that comes near them, whether it's a stranger's or it's mine. They'll know that even if they love someone with their whole being, it could be thrown back in their faces at any time. This is what I was taught, and it didn't save me from being *****, so I wonder how it could be different for my children. They'll have depression, anxiety, insomnia and paranoia woven into their bloodlines, and even if it skips them, it could hit their children, or their children's children, and the cycle will never end. I'm terrified that no matter what I do, no matter what I tell them, no matter how I shelter them, my children will never be safe. The world's children will never be safe.

I know that if my children are born white like me, I will never have to teach them about what to say when they are stopped by the cops. I will never have to fear that they won't come home because a policeman thought that instead of reaching for their wallets, they were reaching for a gun. If my children are people of color, I won't know how to teach them any of this because my privilege has kept me from experiencing it for myself. I know that if I have a child, I won't be the best mother. I will **** up, and I'll say things I don't mean. I'll blame myself every time they feel pain, and they'll feel guilty for bringing their pain upon me. I know my being will be entwined with theirs from the moment I know that they exist. I know it will hurt. It will hurt more than anything I've ever felt.

But if I can teach my children not to hurt other children, to respect people's boundaries and to consider the impact of everything they say, maybe the cycle can end. If I can tell my children that they have privileges that other people don't have, and that they can fight the system in place that gives them that privilege, then other mothers can feel one less moment of fear that their children will never come home. If my children know that their voices are important, that they can change their environment every time they tell their stories or encourage someone else to tell theirs, then maybe that pain will be worth it. If I can tell my children how I feel, maybe I will be the best mother I can be, for their sake, and the sake of every child in this world.

There is a day
away from here
where you'll be safe.

The space of an
afternoon, or the bubble
within a coming dawn.

Stay. For the reason
your hands are cold
when you bring them

out from beneath your
pillow. For the break
between the tracks

the record skipping
over. I am laughing,
it is old and it is new.

It has always been there,
love. These fingers are
constantly stroking

your cheek. Those
rays of sunlight fall
perfectly on your face

every single day, I know
there is a blue sky
beyond every ******* cloud,

a paper airplane in every
rejection letter, stay. I want
to walk with you through

the trees in California.
I want you to tell me
where they came from,

how it hurt when they
were born, tomorrow's longing
whisper can be yesterday's lost time.

I didn't have the time. This
glowing wish inside my chest,
longing for your eyes. I saw

the moment when it missed
me, I watched it as it passed.
You were the rain, love. You

were always falling,
every
single

day.

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.

There is a delicacy
to her hand falling
onto his thigh,
pale edges curving
onto the denim,
shining there
clear as glass

Her tongue
sheltered against
her cheek,
painting clouds
onto the roof
of her mouth,
she's breathing in
the thickest fog

Their fingertips
in the dust, etched
onto the windowsill --
someday they'll be
blown away,
curious children
or anxious mother
clearing away the dirt
of their past

Her dreams
poured softly
into a Mason jar,
his ideas
sifted coolly
through a strainer,
their ghosts pass
through the kitchen
faint as shadows

The bones of her hips
bowl like cradles,
carrying the grief
of impermanence,
sheltering the hope
that someone will remember
the days that have passed

Dots of paint
staining the carpet
will preserve her breath,
folding out into the fog