Blue plastic cows
munch green polyester grass
on a hillside next to a warm
pale blue farmhouse in Iowa
on a sweet Sunday last June.

You knew how to dance
in the barnyard under the roof
your father built last spring
when the sun was shining
through the clouds for once.

My feet stirred up months of dust
which got into your cornflower eyes
and turned your eyelashes brown
until I couldn't see you, just the
light shining from within.

The indigo Tuesday rain
painted streaks down your arms
as you harvested my heart
from among the tired wheat, ready to be carried off
into the flour mill, where it could get some rest.

But you left me standing there when
your father died on a Wednesday night
under a brilliant full moon after the kids had all gone home;
there was a rock at the bottom of my shoe.
The dream was never built to last.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I can feel his breathing
pull
through his neck,
the stream running clear
in his throat, desire melting
from his arms.

I never needed anyone,
he says
from a warm hollow down
within, I only needed myself
and I liked it that way. His tears
contradict him.

We share one of those
dark, sweet
kisses and he keeps his
eyes open, straying from me
out to the colder places, where
I've never been.

My crushing heart never
needed
anyone like this. The aching
locks where keys will never fit,
where cups lie emptied on the
***** ground.

Those long fingers I love
pause
against the grass, sunlight
breaking over his face, streaking
swirls across his clouded
brow.

His wild jungle heart bubbles
alive
beating crimes into the hollow
of my cheek, I never try to resist
when I find a heart so deliciously
lost and broken.

The baby bird in his chest has
flown
and I come home to the blues of
my windowpanes, grace in the
unholy whispers, thoughts engulfed
in the tide.

My lungs stop working when I look at them.

There is a happiness on her brow that never stops, not when she blushes and breaks their staring contest to rest her eyes on me.

There is a happiness that never stops and I knew it as soon as I woke up this morning, stuck under my bedsheets like I'm nailed to a cross. There is a rain that never stops, and something shifts in her eyes; she follows him when he turns to go.

My lungs unplug like a cork stuck in the neck of a bottle I can't reach, and somehow I am home.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She is
somewhere
beyond the sky.

It is difficult to ignore
the run-down playhouse.

The ivy running
up the sides.

It has belonged to spiders
for seven years,

the yellow paint is
chipping, you cannot see

the ladder inside, how tiny feet
clambered up the wooden rungs,

the windows clouded over
with dust.

And I start shaking,
only a child could understand

longing like this,
I've never been sheltered

like they've sheltered me
for all these years.

In the absence
of childhood memories,

this house is how I know
I was loved.

Your hand submerged
in the clearest of mud puddles,
my crystalline heart floats

Smile traced in ink, a
porcelain mouth
cheeks kissing dreams
over the pavement, shining
whiter than your skin

The clouds listen like her
favorite son, the blister of sun
gasping from above

Your morning eyes,
I've never seen them brighter
holding your mind asleep
beneath the overflow of ideas
recorded in your head

That shot of whiskey
clouds your speech, teeth
stained sharpened boldened
by the alcohol within

My breath knows
the walls of his mouth
like it's never known yours

Moons fogged over,
the eclipse complete
I forgot to remember
the dream as it lived -
no longer used, it sinks
to the bottom of my fountain mind

I focus on the turning
the weight of my feet
on shallow ground

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.

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