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

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."

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.

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

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

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.

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

If there's nothing they can do,
nothing I can be taught
in order to push the cold away,
please tell me at least the food
will be okay.

The last time, sauce dripping
over my teeth like I am supposed
to sink down into it, pour myself over
the meaty softness of someone else's body
and rest, being absorbed
into their consciousness until
I am nothing more than
a weight on their tongue.

Tell me I'll be able to sleep. They were
always leaving the door open,
the lights still on, I can't sleep knowing
that any moment something could happen
and it could come for me.

Tell me the faucets will pour out
cold water so I can wake up. Tell me
there will be a mirror so I can watch
the lessons taking hold
across my jawline.

I need to know they'll let me in
to see the doctor. Not the one
who tells me everything will be
all right, but the one who has
a plan, who lays everything out
in the simplest terms, so I can
understand.

The one whose mouth zigzags
around broken syllables
like a crooked train track, spitting
Lorazepam, Citalopram, Trazodone,
I don't understand the language
but I know, he does this every day,
points nonsense words at shadows
hoping someday we'll understand.

Maybe I could. If I could only
pull the sauce out from my eardrums,
clear the junk from my tongue and
the wreckage from my teeth;

Mother,
if the food is good,
then maybe someday,
I'll be able
to taste it for
myself.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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 couldn't carry my heart
into the cold of the emergency room.
it was crumbling between my fingers
into pieces they picked up
from the floor, placing them back
into my too-small hands.

there were too many pieces
for me to comprehend the too-bright lights
and the quiet that allowed me to hear
moans and cries of the woman next to me
telling the doctor that she took too many pills
to forget the fact that all her kids are gone.

she had her stomach pumped. i needed
my heart pumped back into place
so it could feel the answers to the questions
the doctors asked me, so i could have told them
when i said i didn't want to die, i meant i was
too scared to propel myself into the unknown
like that. but i was too scared of propelling myself
into the horror of the next day week month not to try.

i wish i could have told them why my pulse ached
when it pounded through my bones. i wish
i could explain that it burst like that because
someone touched the seams that were holding
my skin together, someone poked their fingers
into the soul of me where they didn't belong
and it pierced my heart straight through,

maybe then they would have listened when i said
i needed help beyond what medicines could fix,
there was a place where i could heal and it wasn't
in the suicide room of the hospital
where i could count how many instruments
hanging on the walls i could stab myself with
despite the signs that said this room was harmless,

their concern was so misplaced
that they told me they had no beds for me, that
there was nowhere inside this building i could learn
to pick myself up off the tiled floor, they couldn't teach me
how to walk if i couldn't remember where my bones
were supposed to go. they told me i wasn't unsafe enough
to take me to the psych ward because i wasn't standing
with my toes on the edge.

i wanted to tell them, i would if only i could find it,
could locate the place where my pulse echoed
through my wrist so i could stop it from beating,
so i could keep it from punching straight through
to the ache pounding in my bones.

i wanted to tell them, if they would listen,
that i couldn't breathe in the middle of the night
and if i didn't feel safe then, how could i be safe enough
to let me into the dark of that night alone
without any bandages to repair the stitching
that had come undone while i was breaking.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The stars who carry an old man's face
in their bones stop to take a rest on
an uneventful day, laying down their burdens
for just long enough to make it count.

His nose is the first to go, cracking
decisively down the middle like a
half-moon breaking at the seams
of a teenager's whispered prayers.

Next are his eyebrows, splitting
at the roots into a forest which calls
like the girls at a high school football game,
just waiting for him to call back.

Then come his cheekbones, splintering
in one shuddering gasp like the mothers
who have borne a child and still aren't prepared
for the day he has to leave home.

His lips are the next to go, crumbling
into a dust that will never speak again,
like the girl he should have told to stay,
but who walked away before he could.

He breaks in the silence
while the stars still have their backs turned,
ignorning the stories that escape, shimmering,
into the cosmos from whence they came.

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

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.

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.

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.

--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.

There is something about the skin
of a woman that makes my fingers
want to sandpaper their bones
until they curve like
her waist does.

I want them to bend
around her hipbones,
come out the other side saying
Baby, my knees are so weak
you could carry them away
in your prayers.

And I bet she would.
This girl, she would pray
so hard it would move
straight through her,
every breath is a dance
and she's trying to move
so fast that the world
couldn't even touch her.

I want so badly
to touch her. I wish I could,
if only I could rewrite my story
until I became someone else,
I would find her eyes at the bar,
let her teach me where the cold
comes in so I can fill it
with my lips.

I want to see the way
her God anoints her forehead,
how He shows her the light
in the times she needs it
the most. My God, She tells me
I'll never be able to love you
with the lights left on, and
I think She's right.

My body quakes whenever I
step onto the sidewalk, because
I think they can smell it on me.
I think they can smell her on me,
these trees they whisper
as soon as I turn away,
and I think that means something
about the way I've learned
to make love to this Earth.

These girls, they love so much
differently than a man does,
a man can tell you that you're
beautiful but a man's hormones
have learned to speak for him
in order to get the job done, so
you never know if it was true.

If I could hold a woman, I know
I'd cradle her cheek against
my collarbone, I'd tell her I know
it will be all right, I've done this
before and I know exactly
how it will end.

I don't know how this
will end. I don't know how
I'll manage to keep her a secret
inside of me. There is a dust that waits
in her attic and I know I could climb
until I reach the sky.

At the bend in this river,
I know this course will carry me
to a clearing where she can teach
me how to smile in the sunlight. Where
the breeze will show me that my soul
is not stuck tight as the bonds
they push me into.

As soon as I can laugh
the way she does,
I know
I'll be able
to come
home.

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

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.

Sweetheart,
there is a star
cut out from my heart

I would give it
to you, hold it
outstretched
and let it fall
into your hands,
a warm and glowing
reminder of something
I told you, years ago

I would hold
galaxies, swirling,
up to your face where
you could watch them
turning  --

I'd leap over train tracks
and lay my hand close
to the flame at your core
just so I could
brush this white-hot
pain away from your chest,

I'm watching it
blistering there, and
the flames are licking
at the piece of me that has
always been connected
between us, veins weaving
together in tangled knots, I'm stuck
so close to you it hurts

And tonight, this holy
darkness closing over
your head, I hope
you can think of this,
and touch your hand to
your heart --

I hope you can smile
thinking of the ties
that bring me sailing
back to you.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

July 29, 1976*

Eighteen, skinny
as a whip, all curving bones
and freckled knees
Your curled hair, that timid
smile balanced above the
pearls of your jaw

The city is dark at night,
you were never afraid but the stars
were diamond-sharp that night
and you stopped, shivering in the cold

I can hear your last words
frozen on your tongue,
"Now, who the hell is this" -
your hand on your hip
voice a knife

A bullet to your chest
breaks the silence, folding
yourself in half, a paper crane
crumpled on the pavement

The papers said you were killed
instantly; I don't think you were
I think you knew, a bullet buried
in your best friend's thigh -
did she watch you die?

The petals in your hair,
they've fallen, years ago
This woman lying here,
the scarred pavement of a
New York City street -

She is someone else, not
the starling you were
in your father's eyes
Wings outstretched on
a fire escape, waiting
for a breeze to pull you
over the edge

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.

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

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

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

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 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

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 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.