I will not be punished for what I feel
I will not let the anti-vagabonds knit together the
unsanctioned holes in my chest
Color will dagger
prisms will blind between ribs
And every day that I trudge through blank stares
and twin smiles
my hair will tangle and the moons of grit will sleep soundly
in nail beds
I'll keep chewing on words that free themselves around soul connections
Never swallowing them down
in fear that I'll be stuffed on my own metaphors
instead of the gorgeous others that await my digestion
of their seizured energy
I find myself, a rookie artist
thumbed down by grey roles
that fit me like a bustier made of hornets

Within me is a house
There is a path with tangled lines of dahlias
they reach out, celebrating the company of my steps
The flesh and pits of plums litter my yard
The purple ripe sadness chips at the soft butter paint
only on the shadowed right side of the house (logic)
It is a consequence to bear fruit in domesticated quarters
The path leads to earth born steps
first step from tangential cursing
onto cerebral acceptance
They take me further and further up
Arriving at a silver steel opening
Only I have the ability to enter
My feet monogamous to creaking wood floors
Grains of chaos and contempt
pounded down by order
Pages of words unspoken litter the desperate corners
Where tainted wall kisses golden wood gloss
No furniture
only prints and fabrics and feather
to lay upon
Ceiling-less, crowned by
Colored glass
warmed by sunny soul
and I am alone at last
A home to combust and contort
and howl into

It is a crawling
a snake of emotional creeping
an ache of mishaps
pushing up, seeking an opening
a release of pressure
a leaking gasket of **** ups
a painful agony of woes
it is zap of intestinal torment
it is numb lips
a haunting light
all of it leading and glowing into the
being
the being I keep avoiding.
the feeling I keep translating into metaphors
and unoriginal analogies
I keep trying to define it
like I can touch any of this
thought bubbles float above us
To think I could grasp any of it
I reach anyways
Separating immediately when I'm clutching air
holding hands with an empty ancient lover
I disassociate from pain
trying to beat her at her own game
I try and cut off limbs that steal from
my bliss
but they remain phantom
floating around and mocking
all that is left of me.

Leonard Cohen
I sought out your words
and disguised myself in blankets of prose
I followed you like Hemingway
and Bukowski
and cried when you died
like a mentor I never had
Or a lover I never
shed skin with
But your deep tones rattle my bones
to this day

If I could curl back up into my mother’s womb
And find comfort in her heartbeat
To nurse off the cereal I made her crave
And get lost in her dreams,
Instead of mine
If I could be swaddled in soft cotton
And shushed to sleep
My only vision-- a dream catcher mobile
Warding off the demons
That sat at my crib, licking their fingers
Hungry for my years
If I could disappear into the color of something
Or someone
The olive in the fir
The amber in my brother’s cheeks
The milk in the snow
The yellow in the breeze
If I could climb down within myself
Trudge through esophagus
Down to my tangled gut
I’d lay there, use my web as a hammock
Finally find rest from you, my dear
Then I would trek south
and dig under patella,
sheltered by a knee cap cave
If I could precipitate
Go from a solid to a molecule
And rest on the back of blue bird feathers
I would drip down to the earth
For you to step on and soak up the rest of my softness
I would finally disappear and let your light
Seep back to you.

A grown man pollutes this town
Bouncing around with flimsy cape
and
vampire capped teeth
"Good morning, beautiful"s that make you want to hurl
into sleeve
Oh and like really cool tattoos bro
Mommy checks each box
So, sweet man child, you can sleep your poor little head
in
                      Can
                              I
                                  cave
                                    ! it in ?

Collapse it into black bat food
Even upside down, they would spit. it. out.
I try to swallow you down
So you can transform into ****
In hopes you maniacally stop tormenting me at dusk

A pukey green
Peter Pan
You shadow different importent men everyday
Trapped in black and white,
non-identity
You groom
traumatized lost boys
a football fantasy testosterone ego stroking---ohhhh come on reffffff type of sadness
Perfect for you to money grab and purge on compliments
What a big boy you are.

Wendy and I do not succumb to anti wrinkle cream
Our blue dresses hold fold into fists
We cling to age
our weaponry
is pirate knife knowledge
Tinker bell, who?
I will not fade to dust
Even though you keep trying to file me down

Everyone around us knows who to trust.
That must be hard for a fool like you.

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.

Our words turned into string
Soft carrot angora
I used my size 6 needles
And begged you to whisper
Up to the stars
Off up to me
Your first thoughts
When you think of the first time you slipped your fingers
Around mine
Ah. Aren't I egocentric?
Fine.
I'll go first
It was the warmth of the first sip of black coffee Monday morning
It was the roughness of falling asleep to the sun, wrapped in the grains of sand
It was the familiarity of the pale pink walls of my childhood bedroom
It was the yearning I have seen on a homesick sailor's face fantasizing of land
And it was the sound of melancholic jazz ballads

I wait for your answer

To pearl off and offer a sweater, poorly knit
To keep you warm.

The moment I opened up
Like a true millennial I open my phone to text you immediately
And as I start to write my thoughts
you send a text
It's 7:30
You NEVER text me at this time
and I NEVER text you at this time
and here we are
Two energies seeking each other
My day ends in a hot yoga class
I had forgotten about that moment
and the instructor
Is super sentimental and likes to start his classes with an intention based off of a morning thought
He stated that the story we should focus on
is when we hold hands and can feel the hand after it leaves
when we go to call someone and they call us first
and BAM
It's there again
my eyes are open.
It's all connected
My energy and yours.
You are my relief
My dear pea
Our days mesh
You tell me about your doubts with the passion and love and depth you offer others
it's dangerous for them
you think you are a danger to them
but you aren't
you are sanctitude
You are magnitude
You are resurrection of the soul
that window you stare into
Your energy is felt even when you don't think it is
You want labels
Especially "crazy"
but you are color
Every ******* color
And this is not meant to pet your ego
and make it purr
It's meant to bring attention
to the fact that those souls
that you feed
They are hungry and you feed them for a lifetime
or momentarily
but both mean just the same
Because you
is in all of it
And just like I know what you are about to tell me
before you even utter the words
I feel every movement
to such a degree
that I truly believe the universe will never separate us
And my gorgeous dearest friend
You are an organized map of all that I am with you
and all that you are with me
and we can organize it together
without the ****** liberation
but with the freedom of the connected pod
You think you destroy and destruct
but you are merely just being you
The you I see in your hands
when they hold you up in crow position
You cannot dim your locks or your influencing spirit
Don't ever do that
Just because others don't know what to do with it
Your dreams manifest
You have to ask yourself
Where am I in all of this?
What do I need?
and don't shame that
You need and you want and you cry and look up at windows
and it's all gorgeous my dear friend
Your poems, your lyrics,
don't ever mistake your pores as seeping black
They have always been spilling yellow
Gorgeous layers of yellow
I beg to be sandwiched between those hues
I hope more that you recognize the slurpy messy textures of the radiance
in a form that is graceful
and
dear dear beautiful
soul brother
pea to my pod
You recognize that all of your glory
is good
Destruction is not your middle name
rather its complicated
It may have so much to do with the incapability of the others
and how they respond
and if they are capable of jumping off of the tip tops of trees
into the depths of the oceans
breathing and finding
I can actually breath the cobalt
and if they allow it
they could combat the world with you
instead of against you

It is so interesting
that the first person on this world
that made me laugh
was the first that made me cry
the hardest.

Your words are drilled into my bones
Unwrap my skin
To find capitalized syllables molding my marrow
I try to sand down at least my ribs
In hopes to remove you from all that protects my heart
But they are imbedded at a permanent level
Your teeth swim around in my stomach
Chattering up
Climbing up up up
Into the middle of my throat
And your tongue slipped from my clenched fists
years ago
Slithering down my stairs to lick up the tears
I form every time
I close my lids
And see your high cheekbones
They are thieves in the night
Ripping apart childhood images
My raggedy anne doll
grass stains on the knees of my white tights
and tea parties with empty cups
Your voice echoes in all of them
Calling me by my full name
Telling me to brush my teeth after dinner
I still cup my hands under the faucet like you do
And I still look at the water spilling
Wishing I was with it slipping down the drain
Away from you

I dug up the roots of my front yard Hawthorne
And squeezed tears out of ducts
To water soil
To nurture limbs
To bare berry
That round maroon flesh
Plucked by sparrow
Then **** out on your freshly waxed Subaru
I hope you are out of town when it happens
And it dries and crusts and mutates
And you have to scrub
And sweat
Right back into the ****
That was fostered by my sadness

I walk along cobblestone
With childhood sterling bracelet
clanking on left wrist  
stacked with personalized pieces
sagging on linked chain

I drop charm by charm  
into cracks of amber granite

my last name
a diamond heart
a pink pony
a cross of roses
a ballerina slipper

a civilized timeline of marriage and kids and golden retrievers

my vowels
my lungs
my lips

I continue walking
wishing I could
Drop
my name at the end of your sentences
And all of the exclamation marks that usually

followed.

My silver bracelet emptied and open for

LGBTQ flags
DV advocacy
anti-trump
****** expression
poetry
the full moon
Zodiac signs
the *******.

Black and green scale segments
My coat of arms
I twisted around sage brush for 30 years
I had predators
and potential nests
Always
Foregoing eggs
Alone but capable of swallowing the world
Moving through long narrow casing
Like a jawbreaker swallowed by an ostrich

Then I met you

.Ecdysis.

I shed thin snow skin
A layer of suffering slowly flaking off of me
A new dermis of
a love I have never known
Affection I've never shown
and a part of me never grown.

Your body is nectar
It shifts and shakes me
Into a yellow and black beauty
I grow wings
But I wouldn't dare to use them
I keep them tucked behind blades
And **** up the honey
That I rinse out of you
I become a fiend
My habit is your hands
I crave **** and ****** and
Collar bone
Your pores are pebbles
My ache comes in currents
And soon I am sinking into your soft sands
Your lips are morning dew
That still drip with dusk
I become every hour of the day
And I'll peer into your kaleidoscope way
with wreck less abandon
For as long as you will let me.

With your hands you transform rainbows
that have arched from the earth
You bare down, even in the fervor of summer's firing flame
To consecrate recipes that are born by the grit of the soil, not by nursing mother
Your loved ones raise hands and bounce up and down,
begging to be invited around your wooden table
and feast with fierce female culinary queen,
and her doting family

I had my daughter with the type of man
I came from
Generationally marooned
forever
fetal positioned
on bathroom floor
Aching and punishing myself for not asking for more

I cup my daughter's face
Only to know you will try to erase
my fingers
my palms
my voice
You try to rob fingerprint
The blonde in her curl
Her lips are frozen on "mommy"
You ignore.
I am always more.

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.

I am a lost and not found item
when she leaves
I am a scratchy polyester
elbow patchwork sweater
picked up from mustard sidelines
forgotten when bell rings
I wrinkle away in cardboard box,
Puppy eyeing
Any stingy non owner
Is there any thief to claim me?
My stretched gap knit
is your shallow water made of holes
At six foot six
You brag that your toes brush the bottom of the same dune
That our toddler's tootsie touches too
She is taller than you
All the while the everything of me is
in the deep end,
treading ferociosly.
I dog paddle to
dolphin attorneys
and counselor coy fish
"Can you help me not drowned?"
I sink and
swallow
Algicide anger
dip crunch my lungs on shark teeth
Try to become sacred coral reef
Just for my daughter to find me

You are visiting OUR friends
Only YOUR friends now
They met each other through US
And I met  YOU through HIM
they just adopted a baby boy named Finn
and as you cradle babe
I spend twenty minutes steaming a dress I'm going to shove into a suitcase
and the bags under my eyes
could hold enough dresses to last me the rest of summer
Last week I taught myself
how to stop from flinching
at your ghost
Swallow the lumps you shove down my throat
wash it down with whiskey
My therapist called me last night
She said "it was out of protocol"
"I don't want to be invasive because enough people in your life already are."
Do I think I'll end up with a man?
I don't know
I don't feel anything anymore
I turned myself into you
thinking only with stagnant organs
only breathing with logic
only giving a **** when I feel like it
Only grabbing and gutting
only hunting and harboring
my soul
my vessel
my streamline sailboat
a river of loneliness
man-made and full of fish to ****
I am a salmon's skeleton

A crimson curtain
Like a pleated skirt
You pull it back
with fibrous ropes of pain
Ten years, barred by rib-cage

Alas!
Ladies and gentlemen!
The main attraction
Has finally arrived!

Throbbing and cut
at the nape of aorta
Hailing hurt
valve. by. valve.
Bleeding cats and dogs
and
the animals within me
neighboring ribs
a shelter for the stray and wild and cross breed
                                    
                      ­                                  Center Stage

A moonbeam spotlight
shining light on age spots and pale pink vessels

Come and see
Is it all that you hoped for?
My sawed open vessel splayed on a single stool
barely pulsing.

A spectacle
of what my chest heavily heaves
A daily occurence

Nothing but a miserable audience.
Just me

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 wore your long ratty red tank
all night
then the next day
then that night
and then I had to go back to
my buttoned up bereavement
my starched sadness
my dry cleaned darkness
I had to go back to it all

but at 5 o'clock precisely
I put that red racer back
back on
my brick bearing
back

During weeping grief
Clothes wear me
they sag heavy over bones
Cotton is cloth owner
over core
Concealing ribs
that, during loss, are useless
They merely cage a shattered vessel

During lengthy anguish
Food consumes me
Water sips me up
Sleep abandons me
Oxygen breaths me
Until all that is left
is an exhale
Lungs and life deflated

Dear loved ones are gone. Some of them still on earth
and some of them raining sweetly in my dreams

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

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.

You laugh like you have never been lonely
You forget that I know you
That I see
the lump in your throat
                                                          ­                                                 hiding

You clean up after others
like you have no mess yourself
that is alright my love
I see the cracks in your elbow grease

You are just like your mother
A warrior in the battle of suffering
How could anyone not love that about the both of you?

You disperse tissues and cotton sleeves and squeezes
to anyone who even blinks a tear towards you

Your mother has a handkerchief for occasions like this.

Behind you I focus on the way your curls twist
Chestnut waves and rings
I've focused on them before in times like this

How is the familiar so comforting?
Your father's glasses and upright chest
Your sister's side hugs and repetitive "how are you's?"
Your mother's matching necklace-earrings and observing,
always on watch
Your husband's one Old Navy button up and dispatched humor
The way, these days, I want to hug you and never let go.

I yearn to be a thief
Can I rob your father's pain? Your mother's pain? Your sister's pain?
                                                   Your pain?
If I am present long enough will you let me help you?

When you called me and told me you could never imagine losing your best friend
I repeated the cadence in your voice and the words for hours on a long drive home
I reminded myself that I always hope I go first
So I never have to see what the world is like without you.

She is gone
and all of us remain
to make sure that we relationally gain
Even among all of life's pain

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.

Black is the only color to her
She is night
Grace is her hands
Vowels, adjectives, her own language
They fire out of fingertips
We side glance
Laughter erupts
The mountains of motherhood
Cascade sisterly love
We are gold rings
She circles the best parts of my life

My wild daughter chasing her sweet son.
They hold hands
The same way we hold the harshness of world for each other

My sacred home.
Hers, a floor below
I open her door to layered acrylic paintings,
an aromatic hug of spices
We show up in
socks
slippers
smirks
She exists in all of it
Circling and wrinkle nosed smiles
We have known each other in novels and framed photos and multiple lives
Probably nine
The crazy cat lady in us abashes
To think I felt lonely
Did that ever exist?
We ever persist
As warriors embedded by fire
We hold baby and feline
Conquering flame.
This corrupt world
Has nothing. on. us.

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

If there is a Jesus
He wears a dress
it sequins to the sun
as drag "devils" sing from Beyonce-glacier-tops

We, humans arrive bursting with rainbow love
While anti-humans stretch across ocean and state
a cloud of ****** and hate

If only the stars could shield our trans
Earth and ocean, permeate
Phobias
Tsunami the shame way
I beg the whole sky to open up
Create a blue orb of protection
for "the gays"

Seductive emerald green eyes meet seductive full lips that hide a smile that is only exposed at the most genuine of times. A man who has probably fifteen different types of laughs in response to three different types of scenarios. Sleepy, but not in a boring way—a sentimental kind of “checking in for the night”, Chris has only one dimple and only one type of tolerance for people. He isn’t a schmoozer, which is shocking as a salesman. You know where you stand with him and every type of person finds him so appealing that they secretly hope that they are always on his good side. Values aren’t a word or a list for him, they are a way of living. It’s not a thought or an intention, rather just who he is---a beautiful golden boy. Oh, but not in a sweet, novelty way. He has the perfect amount of edge---where you just want to keep looking, keep watching his every move. To say he is interesting in every sense of the word wouldn’t be enough.
I digress.
This is a bio meant to be reflective of his cinematic professional role. He is the lead. He isn’t center stage, but you want him to be. So modest that you have to grab him by the hand and pull him right in the middle so everyone can see him where he belongs: the spotlight. He’s the conductor sitting in the drummer’s seat. It takes an encore to get him to perform and when he does it’s a well that will never run dry. It’s never enough.
A jack of all trades? Would I describe him like that? Maybe some days, but for the most part he is king of hearts, He’s passionate, competent, and the best kind of human-organically sincere. You want to buy what he’s selling, you want him to call you friend, and if you’re really lucky like I am, romantic partner.
Success is in your veins my love. You were never meant to be a part of the crowd and that’s what one of the hundreds of reasons why I adore and love you.
You are all I’ve ever wanted.

You sat with your hands dangling over the stuffed leather booth
I sat across from you with a **** eating grin
We had a huge sundae in front of us loaded with extra cherries on top, just the way we like it.
Now you can find us sneaking extra cherries behind the bar to add to our whiskey sodas.
Drinking all of the whiskey down so quickly the cherries end up being futile.
Long handled spoons in hand we dip into the lactose filled shell and scoop large mouthfuls like shovels. We talk at the same time as we chew.
We are older now, but we still don't care about manners or laughing too loud or how we really want to get whiskeys instead of this belly ache of sweets.
We inhale our singular bowl and aren't shy about who gets the last bite.
We leave.

We are back in your sisters house and I'm sitting in the same part of the kitchen that I sat the night that I drank too much wine and threw up in her front yard.
Not much has changed except that her children are older.

Chloe isn't bouncing her creepy Dolly head from couch cushion to couch cushion in the living room.
And your dad isn't there with Nancy commenting about how old I am now.
And I'm not secretly wanting to throw punches at Nancy, but instead throwing back glasses of wine.

We still feel so connected in a way that I have never been able to put words to. I've tried in the thousands of cards and letters and sentimental moments. That is what is so difficult about feelings towards someone you love deeply. Words are so finite.
I decide I want to try with words anyways. I want to share with you how much you've meant to me all of these years.

Before setting my alarm and falling asleep to the sound of rain
I had been having an existential moment. Well, lots of them, since I found out I would become a mother.
Not only was I growing someone in my womb but I was deconstructing and rebuilding the one I had become.
Awake I couldn't stop thinking about all of the moments we had been through and how we survived them all. We still love each other through it all.
Awake I became aware that you were as close as I could get to having another sibling.
Not in a cliche "I love you like my sister type," but in an innocent wild green way.
We still had it.
That part of us that did not let the world rob us from our wild selves, our hunt for nature, our questions that we weren't afraid to explore together even if it made everyone else uncomfortable. Our sensitivity...heightened sensitivity to everything around us.

Back to my dream...

Somehow we weren't at your sister's house anymore. Now we were on the dock of your mom's house and I told you how much I had been going through.
How much I felt myself changing and that I had to let you know how much you meant to me.
How close in my heart you remained and will always remain.
I told you that you were the most influential person during my teenage years. I met you the year I found out that my father was struggling with addiction and had to go to rehab. I met you when I was the most alone in the world and the most confused. I had never had a friend like you.
I met you and you picked me up from my house in your green Honda when I had been AOL instant messaging my ex boyfriend and he told me I had rats nest as hair. I ran out to the driveway crying, after of course brushing the curls out of my hair. I was really sobbing about the fact that my father was in rehab and I wanted to disappear behind the crook of my closed bedroom door.
I met you when I was swallowed up with insecurity around what right thing was to wear and should I shave my legs once or twice a day.
You introduced me to Goodwill shirts and letting your hair grow as long as you **** well wanted.
We became close friends instantly.
Through our twenties we floundered in a lot of ways. With ****** men and divorces and affairs and despairingly drunken nights and moments we still needed to be chaperoned. Our innocence shifted.
We became aware of the world and how it really was.
Then we decided we wanted to do something about it.
The foundation of our paths have always aligned.
I told you that you offered me freedom and relief and that when you were having a hard time sometimes I couldn't be there in the ways that you needed and when I was having a hard time you couldn't be there in the ways that I needed but none of that mattered now.
None of it ever did.
Because our foundation was still there. Like the marrow in our bones.
I hugged you and told you that you are still that person to me. That you still show up for me in so many different ways, just by who you are as a person...not even what you do.
That here I am going through one of the biggest moments of my life and that it all seems like it is going to be okay, because you are still here. With me.
Your sister. Your mom. Connor and Chloe and Sig. The smell of eucalyptus. Your light beaded dangly earrings. Your square shaped fingers and toes. Your hairy legs. Your voice belting over Aretha. Lake Chelan. The way you make tea steaming up to our noses. How impossible you are to wake up in the morning. Armpit bangs. How we have held each other with words, with arms, with history, but mostly with acceptance and understanding.
I had been told by a client a few years ago that if you hug someone for over 20 seconds that your heart aligned.
What a pathalogical sentiment am I right?
ha
Anyways, in my dream we hugged and our hearts turned a bright yellow and glowed from our chests.
They left our rib cages and
Circled around my belly
She felt the warmth and knew
as she entered the world
She too wouldn't have to be alone.

And then I woke up.

You reach your tiny arm out,
unable to sleep
Curled up under rib
I whisper to you

"Baby,
tell me your dreams."

"Popsicles
Frozen
Minnie Mouse
Lights
The song 'The Wheels on the Bus'
Reggie
Mamma holding my feet"

.I only dream of what affects you.

The last three months I awake
my *** is pillow
to your toddler cheek
I sacrifice sleep,
watching in AM wonder
You stuff
special blankey,
ferociously
into teeth
There is a tiny corner of fleece
you wrap around thumb
and rub to the tip of your nose
back and forth
A soothing swing
Material fluff rocks you to sleep

It is holy
to be your mother

I am still hell.

say "please" and "thank you"
"share, please"
"do not put that in your nose."

Sometimes I think
I want
to be
back in my body,
feeding you
holding time
You in my core, as baby
Then again
Who are we fooling?
Wild, tender Audrey
fearless flower
I am lucky to be the seed

I lick my wounds with
a sorbet sunset tongue
A slurp so icy thick and orange that it covers elephant horizons
My pain---a mirrored cloud skyscraper
it is king to
Grief
A planet where there are never enough parking spaces
If you find a place to rest
it will cost you an over- romanticized sensory memory
and then you will never be able to sleep again
I took up space
Decided I would sing among the meadows
Black filled my cracks and
my clothes started to wear me.
Everyone tries to hug me
They start their sentences with a dry, choking,  "at least."
I start to resent strangulation
Oxygen is my mother
She shows up and holds my hands tenderly,
rubbing her fingertips over my nail beds
I beg her to stay
to swaddle me and morph me into ten-year-old-me
She just murmurs, "me too."
"I want that too."

Could I be cotton?
Or the light that fills checkered New York cockroach apartments?
Could I be anything but a woman who is grieving over a black shelled conman?

You are a desert,
the two white webs in the corners of my mouth.
I lick my lips
only to slide the salt of other lovers who have crystalized
on your
sophomoric saliva
They cheapen my rich kiss
And leave the webs spinning
slowly closing in on words and intimacy and right
Little did you know
I am black widow
I take thirsty lacework
and Spiderman shoot your
***** back to you
Even though you have always been
droughty
lushy
fatuous
Open mouthed you beg for my wet
Insatiable and bare footed
You pink your heels
desperate to climb my pyramid
Never, will I allow you to the top  
Light your cigarette on heat wave warnings
and keep disintegrating in your broken down
washed up sandy life
Even if my body becomes a well
the moment you turn to dust
Not a rain drop, would I exchange
unless it meant your copper compliments would rust

My daughter dances to the dryer
Worn sleeves are
warmed up.
Swaying,
She closes her eyes
like I do
Every time I lose myself to dance.
We quiet a world
That asks us to be more body than clothes
I join her
We move to the knocking
of cotton
dirtied by yesterday
cheerios.
salt.
saliva laughter.
I fold into her
We do not need
to be cleaned
The purist of love
moves on hardwood floor.

I let
my nails and hair grow out
I wear black turtle neck sweatshirt
My teeth crowd in
on my words
Elizabeth Taylor divorced
I re-enter the world old and slew.

Posh boss.

I am told I carry myself well
All I carry is misogyny
under nail beds
Black flesh wounds
Scratched until they bleed
Red makes them flee

I walk fast,
stomp hard
through streets I frequent
Look him square in the face
Become rooted tree

This modern love is about
*******
Vulnerable nakedness
And sharing words drenched in ulterior motives
After ten pm texts
Netflix and chill
drunk sloppy saliva
Dead weight silence
Ghosts and poltergeists
who look at your stories
While screening your calls
Bored married baldies
**** pics
Heavy thumbs swiping right and left
2 second clever convo starters
cliff jumping into ****** innuendos
Thousands of pictures of soft male hands holding animals as props
Dead or alive
Shirtless mirror pics
Pretending to reach for your wallet
Situationships
Friends with benefits
“Hanging out”
Daddy’s who date with their toddlers

Every part of it
A fake feeding to the soul
I walk up to the table with a Michelin  star meal to be offered crumbs
Insatiable
I choose couch over barstool
Cat over dog drool
******* over touch

And do you have
Instagram
Facebook
Tik tok
Or a brain?

Hatfishing
Height fibbers
Terrible smiles hidden behind pursed lips
The ABCs of
misogyny
objectification  
And
“I don’t like condoms”


The most sacred thing in the universe—
Human connection and intimacy
Stained.
A perverted shallow watered down sea
Love liquified and left washed up
The tides never ending
Swallowing me head first
While some man baby expects me to swallow head first

Yellow rubber boots slip on
as soon as you see me
I puddle up
You thrash down on the blue of me
I ripple in hurt
Go ahead
Stomp heel into rainbow gasoline cups
I beg to brim on plastic ankel
Water wallows
A woman who holds breath
For no ones
Boots who don't deserve oxygen or water or color

I wait for the punchline
Curtain to cinch back
This nightmare
is an Oz of affairs
Emerald streets lead to hunter green tears
Ducts never dry
My voice hitch-hikes to my gravel road pain
Thumb points back to rib cage
There is no place like home
Sharp shame
Bone bars crumble when you ignore my name
This heart never stops with ruby red ache
There is not enough air
Inhale is at stake
You cast me as the wicked witch every time
I choke on every biting mistake.
The air remains a

My best friend is perfect.
She cuts avocados and Mother Nature applauds
Meals are her healing message
She is a stork
who confits and door drops
Rebirth
To the grief stricken
Even when you think you will never eat again
You will.
She is there.
Ladle her famous soup and homemade crust into mouth
Watch as your weep is resurrected into brothy strength
And loafy self compassion
Her hair is a layer cake of curls
A ringlet goddess
the moment she lifts cheek off of pillow
She will not bend like her follicle
An ancient rooted tree
The fortunate are invited to intertwine in soil
A Resilient nutrient shared
Watch us grow
Her hugs are
Insulin
Acceptance
Ink pen
Lemon
An introduction is all it will take—
You are special
Remembered,
every detail studied and scribed to memory
Even the undeserving
Her biggest fear is being unliked
She will breathe her last breath without that ever happening
She notices when I pick my fingers and the second my stomach sinks to my feet
With one brown eyed gaze
I am back in the room
I like to believe I comfort her with all the ways I am not her perfect
All the ways I storm through life
She and I sit on thunder and guzzle rain
She is my warm towel and umbrella and favorite childhood memory
Her family is mine
My family is hers
and when the light never feels like it is going to enter
I remind myself of that
How we are a coming of age film
That never ends
Cinematography of black and white Polaroids
Of us
Parachuting off of the risky cliffs of our twenties,
Holding hands the whole time
And giggling
While everyone else around us is holding their breath
On the nights I turn into Ernest Hemingway
I remind myself that I have my Hadley,
My miss
Who I should never miss
Because she is always within me

When she became to be
Within me
She strummed ribs,
Finger picking nylon bones to her fancy
Twirling among a galaxy of placenta
Knowing full well I would wiggle with her
My fleshy palms pressed upon apple core
Desperate to know if it was her elbow or heel or maybe even a shoulder blade
A Where's Waldo of who my baby would be
A Where's Waldo of your daddy and me

Now here she is

We find every part of ourselves ever lost
Within her
I see you in the pure sweetness of her eyes
A translucent mountain of green cane sugar
Like you,
Only the lucky ones get to witness the Emerald City
I see myself in the way she grips loose hair strands at my nape like an anchor
She holds on the way I have my whole life,
with vigor
she can't be left behind
In a world of brothers

What do we do with all of this life up to me and you?

Bottle me up
fill me to the brim
Posture me on your grainy shelf
Watch as I
Scoot my ribbed bottom closer and closer to the ledge
I inching over bourbon blondes
like a solo cup at a wedding
Anxiously awaiting a lofty bouquet toss
I await to be uncorked
Ah, the moment you grip my glass
and collapse a key into me
OPEN and ALIVE.
Please let me air-ate  
Let my maroon acid settle like freckles
on your tongue
See how my tannins feel like cannons right in the ribs down to the gut?
Notice how my words are cabernet crisp?
It is a beautifully intoxicating experience to break me down from solid to liquid

This is not my true form

I am solid.
I am a cascade. a basalt boulder. at the very, least a cloudy glacier not meant to melt and definitely not meant to be bottled.
I am a mountain.
Delicious if you are willing to trek to the top.

Her crumbs cascade waxy wood floor
I breath
Can I function intentionally?
My hand rests on my chest
I dig my fingertips into collarbone
I count
the way I was taught as a child
1...2...3
I am still here
Before my daughter goes to bed
she begs me to read books about Mr. & Mrs. Elmo and whales and Mrs. Doubtfire
I cannot protect her from false fathers
Imbalanced teeter totter parenting.
A genetically predisposed man who wakes up and occasionally chooses to hold her
I trained my heart to let go of tucked in promises
and Disneyland Dad ego strokes
I hope she views his love like an orange window at sunset
I won't let the line to the ride even be created.
She will be okay.
I echo this.
I bite every layer of cheek
Awake and asleep
Her mother is instinct
No choice is involved
It's almost as if I felt her every hiccup
in womb
every twirl and spill and swallow
I beg the orbits of hemisphere
to protect her from her father's contrast
Planted pink egg
faltered *****
a fingerprint.
When she opens her lids and voice
It is only her
Not her mother
Not her father
She is exquisite.
She is Audrey.

Should I blame my father?
Is that who is at fault?
A man with a salty cobalt smile
A felon, turned male siren
Bringing every oak fortress
to her shipwrecking death
The wind, never able to drown out
Every sailor weeping, "How did we not know???"
If only we could remain children forever
blaming our parents and dissolving our sins from theirs
I want him to be in the court house
I want him to sign my name with a blue ink pen
I want him to paint midnight  on my eyelids
the way he did my mother's
I want to swallow every lump in my throat and purge it onto him
I hope he never washes the stains from his collar bone
Maybe then he could beat the yellow out of me
instead of her
Yellow
Blue
Black
The way the sun seems to set
But our generation of women have never been settled

How did I not know.

How did I not know.

That your smile would be my pearly gate to hell
That your ***** would produce my God--
The most gorgeous curly headed goddess to ever step foot on this planet
You will try to take her from me
I will never let you
You will try to stain her iris from blue to green
Her sapphire spirit will never be boxed by you
She will be the fortress that you cannot take down
Like a mine field
She will blow you up and I will collect the bones
You will starve me for years
I will fast even longer
I am her mother.

You deep sea dive inside the ocean of me
and man-make a continent sized drain,
positioned  
next to a family of oysters on my ocean floor
Mother, father, brother--you drain my whole life of pearls
A sea-leech who slithers secretly
into deeper waters
You do not belong here.
A cobalt vulture, snagging the empath of my soul
that mistakes air for kindness

He is a black and white photograph
A sweet sweater peeking above collarbone
He looks right at me
As if we know joy and pain in the same way
He steps out of still-frame
out of memory
He is alive
He raises his right palm and he asks me
if I would like to dance
I am no longer me
I am a child
I am my best friend
My sister
and I am also me,
A trinity
He smiles as he twirls all of us, as one
A record player needle
across vinyl
pulling tune and tone from bottom to top
across a kiddy sticky floor
What is this?!?!
We are annoyed to have our soles(souls)
Pulled down from heel
Take your shoes off
Now we are in sand
on Loon, rather than a high-school atrium
He stands at the end of the dock
Italian.Tall. Floating.
A superhero
He sweeps his cape over
the sun room
Like the moon
He whispers to me
"Remember the depths of intimacy,
Do not let yourself get in the way. Please remind my family."
And he looks at me, I am still sister, best friend, me
I pull my knees up to chest
As he leaves
he releases a belly laugh
about how he flushed the ****** down the septum tank
And how he would pay to hear Damien curse over the course of that.

Pang after pain
My heart sinks to my feet
Every morning
I wake up to maroon socks
A trail of crimson every where I step
I am reminded
I am not the robins fluttering outside my window
I am not my cozy cobalt couch
I am not my daughter
Freedom will always come with shame
To rest is to sink into blue veins
No one will wipe my nose
Only women will love me like I love her
Like I loved you
I hold onto feminine first aid
like ancient coral roots into a deep sapphire sandy floor
Please let me be the one to crush chested ***** on heel
Instead of you
You **** milky marrow from my bones
You lick your lips on vulnerable aorta
I wrap open nape with the tentacles of my ancestors,
You ******* vampire
I wipe alligator tears from my eyes
My back wrists are sponges, they were prepared for this moment.  
Every time I breathe I gulp up salt water
I fight
I refuse to drown
For her.
You hate that she needs me more
You crumble because you cannot eat me up
Full, I sit without you.