Three steel hinges,
pronged finger,  holding hands with wall and door.
They represent
land and ocean and continents
Isn't it funny how grief and longing become a sixth sense?

When my marriage ended
I couldn't stomach a welcome mat.
The door became
a safe functionality to the entrance of my home

(can I call it home? When my heart is only at home with you? And I didn't have you, until the three pronged moment)

Anyways, I get caught up in the details...

Your eye contact was my sustenance
it was the first step off of a 15 hour flight,
My flip book,
where I shove  
thumb, pushing pages
Snapping your sweet smile.

Can I create a crane out of these pages?
To hold onto them in some physical form

All that matters is you entered my (home)
When every wall whispered your name for months

Those hinges waved
and the corners of my residence
within my heart
within my breath
within my physical walls
were at last, hushed.

My miss. How I never want to ever miss you so.

Two weeks ago you said,
"We went through the wringer"
Five words
like sumo wrestlers
sit, legs open
comfortable on my chest

Three "best friends"                     Australia                           ­             me

When did it begin?


When I was pushed up against a wall in some basement bar
And he spit at me, "****" "*****" "Worthless *******"?
Shoved so hard that strangers

Had to "go through the wringer"

I walked home alone that night

You were not who I called.

Or was it when I was stalked and threatened
And then showered with adoration and the love (lip service) I never received from the man who is responsible for my birth

Was it then, that you felt like you had to go through the wringer?

You were not who I called.

Could it have been when I was forced to **** his ****?
Was that when you were "going through the wringer"

You were not who I called.

Or was it when he let himself into my apartment
And I ****** myself when I opened the door
He was eating my food standing over me

You were not who I called.

I think I know when it was

It was when he showed up to my work
When he threatened me
Then left the most eloquent love letter at my doorstep
Told me he loved me and would do anything to make it right
And tried to punch my childhood best friend's boyfriend in the face

What a"wringer" to go through

You were not who I called.

I am confused.

What wringer were you going through?

Because you were not who I called.

When I dream
I grab myself by the shoulders
I squeeze deep into the bones
that flare on the corners of collar bone,
just enough to feel the ridges that reach my back blades.
I take hold
and shake myself in a way that the halo of curls around my head
turn straight
I scream,
                                        RUN

                    I am nothing but a blank stare.

                                      NUMB

from the veins screeching out of your forehead
the liquor leering over your hateful sentences
the manipulative maze you force me to walk through,
blind folded

I keep apologizing
for your rage.
I disappear with every "sorry."

Please free me.
Leave me.
Please.

The all of me is a desert
Cracking at the surface
You withhold water
from your hands,
the skin is curling up
into greedy wrinkles
Seeds struggle underneath my lips
They could burst through
if you would just

I  am
a soaking secret at best,
Drenched in affliction
I am
a ghost gripping your shadows,
Hunting for the sun
All the while
You are
a voyager
Seeking hands under tables,
Locked doors,
Alleyways,
Elevators,
Vague descriptions and
Protective platonic stances
You are
a true modern day Columbus,
You find me, a flat dimension of self.
You are
an alluring Copperfield,
Hiding my declarative "no's" under hats
and turning them into whispered "yes's"
Your audience in awe
Unaware of what they are actually applauding

You are
sawed in half
"This can be enough," I tell myself

It isn't.

Should I dig up the roots and expose all that has brought my limbs to stretch towards the sky?
Or should I shave the bark to bare fleshy wet rings?
Naked to every year that has brought me to where I am now?

Small clenched fists
Dukes up
Resistant and Rioting against smiling in pictures and diamonds and last names and flaky white dresses and those ******* five senses that flood memories
They knock on the door of my hearts sinking ship
There are lifeboats I don't board
on purpose
As if being a martyr could take back all the wrong I've done to you

Should I press my veiny leaves on wax paper?
So you can preserve the road maps of my pain
And changing colors
With every season
So that I never crunch under foot and mold among the purity of the first snowfall

Should I offer you sips of my sap?
Poisoned with placating people and pretending to be okay
What a sour sticky substance
No, that will not do

Alas, I will offer you my soil  
Dig your fingers into the minerals
Into grainy brown slivers
This is where I have been quenched by the relatable tears of my clients
And fertilized by dear friends

Is that enough?

I was already mourning you
Before we even met
I was wiping waxy black mascara under eyes with the back of cotton long sleeves
I was already on hardwood floors closed up like a locket
Weeping into shiny silver hands
holding pictures of you
We hadn’t even met yet  
I was already calling my best friend while in the bathtub drinking wine
Listening to Leonard Cohen croon the pain my heart could never write through vein
I was already remembering the specific part in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Where she begs her doctor to take out her olfactory nerve so she can’t be reminded of her lovers scebt
I was already anticipating
the way you would haunt me through
all of the ******* five senses
I was already regretting how I shared all my favorite dishes around town with you and anticipating the weight loss to come shortly thereafter
I was already cutting off the vessel of my heart you would in roam
And attempt to inhabit
You see my dear
You were doomed from the very beginning