Island can't stop sliding
even when dull pencils
stuck in sand push back
strong, even when your
toes are curling inward
and holding on tight

The sunburn highway is
crowded today and we're
stuck in traffic, caught
behind a particularly
thick cloud, compounding
beach  breezes and midday
shivering beneath towels

With sweaty hands clapping
beat and fast punches, the
overnight foliage blooms
and dies, laughing hard
in the bright room with no doors

I've never thought less of you
than in begging moment, flipped
on smooth river rocks, arms wide
on expanded hips, smile
fake and expectant.

You paddle kayaks in
awkward plaids and throwaway
sweaters, grinning sweetly
at dimples and polished toenails
and forgetting my name
while I repeat yours in echo.

On tall bicycle, you look down
at tear-strewn carpet, at
lingering rain, and you lean
to one side, precarious balance
while the sun peeks through the blinds.

On a wrist ticks seconds
like three quarter stops between
heartbeats and chests rising and falling
in cut time and 11/8
meeting every 22 measures as
the record ends and the arm
raises and moves from right
side graze to left shoulder
while backs of hands meet
split ends and the end of dust crackles
over tall speakers.

Feeling bones and sad
smiles and long sighs and eyes
wide and falling and glances of
concern and fear and hyper-vigilant self-
awareness that can feel too structured
and square until fingertips meet
curves and you remember that
the night can contain certain elements
of a smooth and shapely nature.

You touch toes and hold on tighter.

"God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life."

In all my dreams you're drinking Nick Drake's pink moon out of a red and white straw
Standing all alone in a black coat
Sinking into secret places where no one else dared go
And laughing; I love you when you're laughing

You're always singing my favorite songs
Where we were young, and laid awake through howls
In these spaces, I've returned
Trying to feel how it felt, is supposed to feel

In all my dreams there are greasy hands and frozen feet
Tiny tanks pushing through snow and ice
Painting all the walls blue and gray and black
******* and hands and eyes shut tight

I drive through Nebraska and Wyoming and West Texas
I drive through meadows of dead grass and think
Twenty-one on midnight and hiding in a tall booth in a dark bar in a cold place
Home, because I was with you

In all my dreams I am reaching out and up
Seeking earth takeaway memories
Lifting skinny fists, bare, raising my arms in surrender
Through the mystic on all the lighthouse adventures in the world

Tonight your ghost asks my ghost in earnest:
"How strange *is it to be anything at all?"

Knife brandished and dusted
on dirt rubber grout grown
stuck between concrete
slabs in parking lot, stabs
the oak bark and climbing
with hand hold knots and
claw bent cramp
of forearm strain

What if the lake came to life
revealed secrets from the last
era, before manmade channels
and bridges truss and bending

On approach grip loosens
uncovered, looks echo in time
loud, unsure when muffled voices
make it past headphones
while walking through clouds
of regrettable memory

Watching milk pour into little
ziploc bags with bananas and
Cheerios and fights over which
fruit better invokes the feeling
of sunrise, of home and
morning eye crust and blown
curtains in summer breeze.

Strawberries don't stain dresses
as much as blackberries from
a friend's farm in upstate
New York or Eastern Washington
or some ranch in coastal Venezuela
with coffee and sugar smells
stuck on sticky skin and licking
juice from sweet fingertips
right before it starts to rain.

When February sun peeks
through cumulus clouds after
a five-day downpour, you turn
your face to mine and proclaim
that the world may be beautiful and youthful, after all.

Like a footnote on a first date
phone call and voices low
and wavering, a quip quick
and quiet, monotone, sharp.

Free foundations firm
and faltering, a game
for half a decade second to
determine if the felt fear
is fabricated or fiercely
solid, a rock in a strong stream.

Eyelid shapes appear in clouds
and up and up the plastic
primary colors, the crisp white
sheets, the springtime rain.

Cream steam in mugs with
photos of pets and birthdays
and cracks in the rim, cracks
in the handle, hanging wearing.

Calloused fingers ****** the memories
and lose track of conversation.

You watch the little one teeter,
precarious, fifteen feet above
the mat on the chalked beam
with white tape wrapped around
her wrist and the cracked webbing
between her thumb and forefinger.
You watch.

Her fingers tight against themselves
she reaches left arm out and bends
to grab the structure wrapped in taut
leather and sanded down into a smooth,
uniform surface, the likes of which are
stacked in warehouses in central Pennsylvania
or southern Iowa or west Texas and shipped
to community centers and middle school
gymnasiums for use in competitions with face paint
and streamers and yelling parents donning
appropriate colors and shouting cheers in unison.

You watch her shift her weight from left
leg to left arm and kick up to handstand.
You see her look of concentration and you
see when her eyes open wide with surprise
and you see her balance shift backwards
and you see her overcompensate
and you see her back bend to the side
in a way it's not supposed to go.
You watch her fold in half and fall hard
onto the bright blue mat
in a cloud of chalk dust and you watch
her face full of disgust and disappointment
and white tears and sour looks.

You run to her, laying on the ground in a
small pile. You push competition officials
to the side and hurdle trainers and instructors
to get to her, to hold her in your arms and to
hear her crying and whispering softly,
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."

You put your lips on her forehead
and you put your lips on her temple
and you hold her against your chest
and your eyes start to quiver
and you grip her tighter
and you tell her that she's perfect
and you tell her that she's doing
all she can do, and that everyone
makes mistakes and everyone falls
down once in a while, but the part of
life that's most important is to get up,
get up, get up, get up.

She repeats,
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."
"I'm so sorry."

You hold her and the two of you
rock together and the room falls
silent and you are the only two
there, you are the only two who
matter in that moment, and if
she could just listen, if she could just
hear you, she would know and she
would believe and she would realize
that all she can do is be who she is
and get up and try again and that
every day is a new day and that
every moment is a new moment.

But she can only sit in your arms and cry
and whisper apologies to nobody and
everybody, apologies that seem out of place
in the first round of the junior varsity
gymnastics tournament in the fourth
of five divisions in a nothing town on a cold
Saturday afternoon in March when she's
got a scholarship to Berkeley in the fall
and an award for increasing student
engagement and a clarinet concert the next
day and a family who loves her.

You lift her up onto your arm like
you did when she was small and you
carry her to the car to raucous applause
and admiration for the little girl who did
it all and will continue to do it all.

She wipes the tears from her face and
looks up at you through hurt and furrowed
brow.

"Ice cream?" You ask and she smiles.
"Yes please." She looks down.
"Chin up." You lift her face towards the sun.
"Okay." She opens her eyes with wonder.

Face down on the turf
and dizzy from impact
with hands on backs and
words of encouragement
and reassurance that you
probably just got the wind
knocked out of you, that
you'll probably be just fine.

Step up slowly and clutch
stomach and wave off
trainers and push through
dull roars of boos and
applause to find a metal
bench and a warm towel
in appropriate colors for
wiping sweat from above
eyebrows, in order to avoid
obscuring precious vision.

It is hard to see sometimes
where lines live on the field,
which can make it near
impossible to display
adequate decision-making.
Constantly presented with new
situations. Time is of the essence.

It is hard to know when
to let go of the ball and
when to hang on and
shove your way through
the line like it's your job,
like someone is depending
on you. It is easy for some
to move onto the next play
like the last never happened,
and to stay focused on the
goal without dwelling on
the day's past events.

But when you're catching
your breath and laying
on the artificial surface,
pushed over by a force that
seemed much greater
than yourself, you run the
events of the day over and
over again in your head
and wonder how you got
here, and why you are
grinning so wide.

You learn so much about
yourself in the moments
when you're helpless and
mangled on the ground.

patience, patience
jaw tight stomach purr
like lawnmower cat
like industrial brewing
like wheat paste motorcycle
like bellowing brook

adapt, adapt
bite tongue with sugar
stick to cold arches
stick to dewy lemongrass
stick to knife scissor sharp
stick to hooves and acrylic

forward, forward
ink rolled down track
onto chocolate silver boats
onto plain air flight
onto lightning scared bees
onto several unsure sets

relinquish, relinquish
dreaming fixed empty space
pushing black blanket bike
pushing solid redwood glass
pushing bowls ceramic smoke
pushing fields blue red and gray

it is hard sometimes to determine
how to proceed.

Remember art class in the big room
with spray painted concrete ground
where you were given a tiny mosaic
square and asked to recreate it on a
much larger piece of canvas when
you knew full well you weren't an
artist and you never would be? You
spent the time mixing blue and white
acrylic paint together on a small piece
of a former gallon of milk, adding and
adding until there was more than you
would need but the color matched
perfectly and of that you were proud.

Now you're older and you know a bit
more about hue and saturation and how
difficult it can be, working with imprecise
mediums, to do that, to make something to
fit a very precise set of guidelines with no
missteps, no miscalculations, no question
as to its perfection. You wonder if the color
really did match back then, or if you are
remembering something that never really
happened, if you wanted it bad enough
that it changed your recollection.

That day, everyone's large square canvas
pieces went together into designated
spaces on the wall to make a composite
image and all the blues were different
shades and that made you frustrated
and nervous and disappointed in the
other third graders sitting around in a
circle on wobbling stools wearing dad's
old dress shirts as smocks and throwing
brushes at each other and giggling as
eight-year-olds do. You stared at the
tidal wave on the wall made up of all
these disparate pieces and you told
yourself that you'd notice when things
matched as though they were meant, as
though they were destined and divine.

You see the waves lapping at the beach as
we stare out at the vast Pacific. We stand
on the shore and you tell me that my eyes
match perfectly the colors of the Sitka spruces
reaching their arms out wide behind me. Your
flannel shirt matches the gray November sky.
It took all the way to Oregon until it happened
again, but you keep your promise to yourself.

You notice the matching colors. You
smile to yourself and look down at me.
You grab my hand and pull me closer.

Sky spits ***** flecks of
conversation onto swift
lips and the tooth knife
draws blood from grin
in the evening that is
probably too cold or
maybe just right.

I climbed the warehouse
wall in my head while
you watched my eyes
move up and over and
around and down back
to your denim jacket for
the sixth or seventh time
that evening and then up
to meet eyes with spots
from fluorescent lights.

I told you a story and then
we rewrote it for just a few
minutes in several different
locales with varying degrees
of passion and curiosity while
lessening the distance of feet
and hips and gaze to try to
feel something new and same.

On a dewy moonlit front stoop in
September the hiss of extinguishing
embers in an ashtray drowns out
crickets (in the city? Why?) and
truck horns from the highway
while the neighbors drink cheap
domestic beer and sing out loud
to radio hits, sounds penetrating,
muffled, through heavy doors.

Stretch arms up with back cracks
side to side, bending forward and
considering the pile of paperwork
shoved to the side of the desk, next
to a *** full of water that only
occasionally spills, only when the
chair pushes against the side of the
smooth black surface, only when
there's been one too many and the
Saturdays are full of drizzly skies
and shouting at televisions as men
jump and yell and throw themselves
into each other such that organizing
space is much less than a priority.

There is a spot on the front lawn
where grass is reluctant to grow
that on the Fourth of July held a
folding table with red plastic cups
and awkward side glances to try
to obscure the uncomfortable meets
and greets and questions asked
with eyes and loud patriotism
bouncing off the street still warm
from the afternoon sunshine.

The dust of front window and
squeaky red door pulls additions
when stomping feet on soggy
doormat and turns quickly to
mud on the concrete step that
is home to insecurities and
broken promises that fall from
mouths well trained and bike
accidents of a karmic nature.

Squint and smile into the dark
with toothy grin that mocks
and muses and beats down on
insecure eyes spread wide with
admiration seeking your
go-ahead, the few moments of
your life when you drop your
shoulders and admit that
someone else has a point.

Touching hand to doorknob, a
waver. Hand reaches into pocket
and pulls out another. Lighter
flicks into shadows lit by a
moon too bright. You sit back
down and listen to the night.

this creative sea
you, me, us
a cavalcade of pronouns
dead tigers
swimming and spinning
through cascades of metaphor
and simile maldefined.

so sick of seeking truth
a battle poorly placed
awkward timing
skinny lines
of belief, disbelief and nonparticipation
waiting for clarity
in the waves of obscurity.

“as you know, we’ll never know
and blindly ford the river of paint
horse hair in hand
to an actualized bank.”
scoffs, she does, and moves face and nose to her art
up for air, and down again
actualizing the truth
that was never there, always.

He was long-winded
and going on about
physics, about gravity
and the processes with
which it associates,
about how you can
blow lightly on a
precariously assembled
house of cards to see
it fall over but if you
remove one of the great
mortared stones from
the base of one of the
great mortared pyramids
the structure stands tall
and sturdy, a forever
remnant of one great
injustice and remarkable
innovation.

In the dusty garage that
day his glasses covered
in gray soot and greased
fingerprints on side of
face and shoes with caked
mud from the recent rain
that quickly turned to
cerulean sky as the clouds
were whisked by so quickly
it looked like they were
being pulled by some great
and holy wind, beckoned
to festoon someone's poorly
timed outdoor wedding and
force crepe paper flowers
to stick to stucco walls like
wheat paste.

You think you need to
talk to a person when
you have a problem,
but those automated
systems were created
in the images of people
who were created in
the images of other
people who were
created in the image
of God or some other
restless celestial being,
perhaps a dying star
or an asteroid hurtling
and on a trajectory to
startle a species primitive
and struggling to survive.

The vast mathematical
implications that determine
the universe are sometimes
a bit too much for dinner
conversation, so our chats
turn quickly to local sports
teams and the evening news.

What time is it?
We should be fine,
on time in Nashville.
Muted colors and eyes
heavy, wander in
blind monotone, sing
to waving adolescents.

The light turns orange
with age before brightening
morning sky, the flood
on the tarmac transitions
to scattered blue as seconds
creep closer to the dawn.

Arched window voice in
rolling fields with fences
cry out like grass seed sneezes
from rainy Octobers and Julys.

In the windowpane of a well-lit city bus at night, this is where I want to be. New York City yelling yelling two days awake at 5am. Chaos.

People die and people die and things happen but we just want to dance dance dance. I dance on the graves of my forefathers, I dance on the graves of the lace-laden aunts. I dance dance dance.

He smells like the wrong thing, like 2002. Like a coffee shop conversation gone wrong, a first kiss never had. I smell my knees as I sit at my computer, I take half-**** photos of myself and send them to people I barely know. I flirt and I lie (awake on a Saturday morning). All of my sentences start in the possessive.

When she found out that her toes were different sizes she just near threw herself off the building. When the phone never picks up, the people up the list from her. She gets a wrong feeling about the place she's in. But she still asks for the space on the floor, still wants to be there. 5am and the traffic continues, cop cars disguised as taxis. We had to convince her to hold back-- no one wanted blood on their shoes.

When you get frowns and one word answers from your heroes, when you read too much into everything. When 5am rolls around. Maybe sometime, sooner or later . . . but I don't think I'm ready yet. I just don't want to, I'm not feeling up to it. The sun is rising too fast. The earth is spinning and I feel like I'm ten years old again. Holding hands in the grass and denying kisses, what has happened to me? I am not connected.

That summer that we wore no shoes? And we danced on the fourth of July? And we listened to your sister's records?

It's just one of those things.

Stand in dusty pew and listen
through cracked stained glass, hear
bellows of bike corpse peddlers
under glassy sky with loud sirens
that pierce the mindful silence
of a downtown service riddled with
seemingly thoughtful reflection.

Nose and eyes, I am dripping
from my face I am grabbing
at my stomach to keep it from
screaming out, to keep it from
disrupting city noise and
undiscussed knee touching and
squinted side glances.

In some corner in some alley somewhere
a young boy cowers, covered in dirt
and takes a long swig from a bottle of cheap rye.

My girl is the softest planet
and I am unsure, but she says
the gaseous rings are clinging
tight to her knuckles and it is
after midnight when she finally
exhales and the room turns pink
and bright with starlight

On absent Tuesdays, and only those
of even number, we sit on docks
and watch the city float by
on cumulonimbus and pouring
and hail tie-dying the whites on our shirts
and blue eyes gray in stony reflection

Purple tangle watches, thorny stems
on a chase through the downtown streets
after falling for and off of you
under creaks of a lifting bridge

1:22.

She puts her phone back on her bedside table next to a small blue vase overflowing with fresh white tulips. Her feet are tucked behind knees still jeaned and under thick blankets. She lays down. She sits up. She turns on her side to the left and pulls her shoulders down. She turns over.

1:30.

She wants him to call. She wants some water. She has a song stuck in her head. Don't **** with me, don't **** with me now. Something doesn't feel right. It's just a little too cold. It's been just a little too long.

1:43.

She still hasn't gotten water. Someone is dead or dying in a swimming pool, somewhere. That person got a lot of water, she thinks. She thinks about holding his hand. She thinks about being next to him. She wonders if he wants to be next to her, too.

1:47.

She closes her eyes and can feel him kissing her, his hands on her hips, his lips on her forehead and temple and cheek and neck. She is reaching out to him. But maybe he went too far away and she can't reach him anymore. Maybe she pushed him too far.

1:54.

She stops that train of thought, brings it to a screeching halt. She stretches out. She sits up and finally fills the water glass. She looks outside to dark gray and yellow skies and wonders what he's dreaming about, drug-induced, nauseated. She thinks perhaps if she can sleep, she can meet him there.

2:07.

She puts the phone back down next to the vase. A tulip petal falls on her hand. She places it gently on the pillow next to hers, closes her eyes, and heads in his direction.

these old books and all those boys
tripping on squeaking baby toys
your mother's last apartment floor creaking
under seven or eight count teenage weight
spilling boxes of recorders and claves
from the highest shelf and a xylophone
crashing onto solid oak table
spilling the last standing mug of tea
steaming, staining, spitting varnish
resolving to small puddles
in the divets on the table

I promise, I swear I didn't,
I mean,
****.

What was I supposed to do?

I'm in the flood waters now.
There's no hazard that could dissuade me.
I remain convinced.
I remain self-possessed.
I remain stolen and broken.
I remain.

And where did you go?
Where have you been?
What happened?
How was that enough?
How does that make sense?
Where am I supposed to go now?

What was I supposed to do?

I didn't feel old or bent or faded.
I didn't feel a surge or a skip.
I felt content, immeasurably at peace
with one foot, two foot, three foot, turn,
turn, laugh, look, smile, turn.
I avoided the touch of gaze
and the strange, knowing smile
because we both saw how years and months
could compress into a few hours
as if they never happened at all
and neither of us wants to know
what that means.

I'm supposed to ignore it.
I'm supposed to not let it touch me.
If you don't irritate them, they leave you alone.
And you can't even touch it.
You're afraid it'll fall apart.
You weren't sure it was anything at all
and you weren't sure it mattered
and you weren't sure it counted
and you start to doubt yourself
and you start to see things
and wonder if they're real
if they're anything at all.

I remember that night,
slipping on Chicago ice and laughing out loud.
In a broken snow globe the glitter still shines,
though it's slowly slipping away.
I caught the drops in a tiny bowl
with lilac blooms and melodic metal double kicks.
I'm packaging it up, wrapping it in cellophane and tape
cellophane and tape
to deliver to your future home.
I'll pass it over our shared picket fence,
hold my fingers on your wrist for too long,
and you'll look blankly or you'll smile wide.
I'll close my eyes and turn around,
walking back to hand chimes and north arrows,
my invitation hanging in the damp air.

You do not know, my friend, you do not know
what life is, you who hold it in your hands.
You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.

I will dance a borrowed dance
and walk a borrowed line
and sing a borrowed song
until the words return
and I can control my knees
and the squeaking butterflies shut up
and the ferns are cleared from the path
and I can move forward with grace and intention,
with an open hand
and tenuous direction
and a starry smile
and a space for you next to me.

My nostrils stay cold in the warm weather, cold in the rain, a forever remnant of the days of ******* and truck beds. I inhale and exhale the poison of cigarettes, but the shotgun electricity of the little white lines pierces the folds of memory. As much as I ache to forget, I can still feel the powder laying latent underneath my fingernails.

The days of wanting stress are replaced by wanting to alleviate it. I'd rather not sit and listen to your scratching your tense fingertip-tapping jitters. Silent leg shaking bouncing making my records skip. The dust-covered dumpster-dived needle has stress enough without your additions, subtractions, multiplications. You sneeze white and red, the signs of frustrated futures and presents. The record skips back to one, water stained, nothing changes.

I once played without direction and felt it cheap and unnecessary, like angels that breathe deeply underwater. Grasping for sympathy and votes of confidence. Forging intimate connections without it, needing wanting grabbing feebly into the air. Desperation never even gets a chance. We are strong as equals, love dissipating into the aether, waiting watching wandering wishing waking.

I tried to bend and not break, divide and not conquer. I tripped on the wire, skinned knees, forgetting. The clouds of gray hang low low in the air. I will hold strong to my promises, even in this time of turmoil and smashed faces. My foot will stay planted. I will move forward. I will keep on keep on keep on.

Even when they doubt me, I will keep on.

Northwest autumn turns to winter
Damp leaves, slipping on uneven ground.

That is, of course, the rain.

Under this criticism
the red orange yellows
behind the backdrop of electric
blue,
wet eyes, wet face, wet hair
and a suspicious swagger
over boots and coats and windbreakers.

The winter comes,
defeat of the sun
for a charcoal blanket
and a slip fall break
of twigs caught in the spokes.

Hanging in the orchid room
some smoke from someone's
clover leaf traffic jam
and disappearing words in
highlighter yellow scream
out from behind your eyelids
thinking, a memory, past fear

I don't know what to tell you
except that she's gone
and you've been sitting in
the same spot for three or four
hours and the ceiling is
falling around you

She only sleeps in specific
increments and watches
her feet, dangling off the side
of the tallest building she
can find, sweat dripping
through the marine layer below.

I am the tiny wine glass
underneath a crisp white cloth
crushed under the wide, leathered
foot of groom under chuppah in a tall
synagogue in colored leaf autumn
in a wedding I'll never have
on a street I'll never see.

I am the dinner plate
being thrown from the edge
of a blue, chipped paint dumpster
on the side of a sparkling parking lot
slick after persistent winter drizzle
that spits angrily from the sky
in a stack of other kitchen
items to be smashed
against pavement.

I am wrist bones of
the minuscule, important variety
in the moment a twig is caught in spokes
and thrown from the bicycle, you make impact
with the brick wall adjacent to the alley
and hear some small cracks
and are unable to lift your
fingers or right hand,
or twist to pull
yourself up.

I am the double-paned
window of a basement apartment
in the summer when hoodlums and homeless
kick glass for fun and seek to scare
innocent movie-watchers as
fireworks pierce and light
the third of July sky.

I am a sad little girl
with sad little eyes that look
out to the future and see something
moving in the distance, a pair of two young
people holding hands, walking on an
Oregon beach in foggy mist,
that blink and realize that
mirages are cruel, and
have no remorse.

I don't remember the strength I earned
though I hear in time, it's relearned.

The most sinister sounds exist in your head
or they are in the walls too, scratching and
clawing and gnashing gnarled teeth to
intimidate, initiate conversation. I, like the
elephant man, can't get people to look at me.

Crawling in the walls, crawling in the walls.

Body noises, bodies making noise all on their
own, no contact necessary, no touches, none
small swift sweet brush of fingertips on freshly
shaved legs, these noises follow marbles down
tubes of recent cell growth and death and the
burnt cilia from one or two nights up too late.

Who wouldn't want the danger? Who wouldn't
be seduced by the threat of extinction, the on
and on challenges of basic survival? I don't know
that I want to know the people who would lie
down during the apocalypse to be taken up to
heaven or who hang on to thoughts of angels
in clouds out of fear. Stop apologizing. Just stop.

Move slow through tall grass on hands and knees.

With one light slow breath I can pass pathogens
to unsuspecting commuters on the 7:05 train
who will pass by hundreds of people in their day,
breathing heavy from flights of stairs and some
pollution in the air and some emotional turmoil
that will likely resolve itself right before collapse.

Understanding imminent destruction has a
strange power reminiscent of floodlights
coating a thousand heavy construction sites
covered in some damp **** ***** snow.

Who even are you anymore?
Hiding under small orange
bottles are letters from a former
life, a former name and address
in former envelopes and former
handwriting, former pen
smudges and former doodles
on the folds. Save yourself.
Save yourself first.

Swipe, snap, flint on stone
to make sparks that make
flame that make fires that
make light and heat and
allow drawing of deeper
features than really exist
with shadows moving in
erratic fashions, swinging
back and forth between
the you that was farther
from death and the you
that is much, much closer.

Giving is hard. Taking
is the easiest thing you
can do so long as you
can run fast enough to
escape the guilt that is
falling on you like trees
in a northwestern forest
with gravel crunching
sound of logging trucks
not too distant grinding
their way up small roads
and wind blowing through
trees that are deceptively
deciduous and shaking.

I'm judging you for
just about everything.
I am hard like feverish
breaths in a sweaty
freezing bedroom that
belonged to someone
else who bled in all the
corners and licked all
the walls and is reaching
out from the breathless
past to steal yours too.

It's just you and me
here, you can tell me
anything, I promise I
will hold all your secrets
like they're crystal glasses
that belonged to your
grandmother's grandmother
and made their way here
smuggled in a suitcase
with pulled out gold
teeth and brown plaid
blankets folded neatly
such that none of the
corners stuck out the side.

Sneakers sinking
into mossy muddy
backyard ground,
you extend arms
up and grab the
lowest branch of
the tallest tree and
pull yourself up
to sit atop and look
down at all the people,
holding your fingers to
your eye and squishing
their heads between.

Think about it and you'll realize
that there is no better color than wine-stained teeth
on high school students' prom nights
and muffled giggles from the girls
bathroom in the banquet hall of some
community center or middle school
gymnasium or overgrown grange hall
tell the secrets of the universe
under rushing water and dripping mascara
and notes scrawled in the grout with hearts
and other embellishment

Damp palms on shoulders and waists
with batting lashes and shy smiles and
stomachs growling from a skipped dinner
toes turned outward, awkward
when the slow song moves to charging beat
and hands flex like an accidental graze on the hot stove
a hip shake to assuage and seem like they meant it all along
that moment guides the other movements
and other movements

Driving up the hills and back down into the canyon
up the fire trail and to the right, no, the second right
crap, you passed it, turn around
watch the glitter lights of neighborhoods and boats
know there really are no better photographs
than those from disposable cameras that are blurred and laughing
developed weeks later and comingled with images of her dog
and your mom
and the backyard with candles blown out

It's good until it's bad and when it's bad it gets worse. I noticed the car, butterfly, car, butterfly, caught in the engine. Curling fumes and smoke and drip drip clip clop clipping of the pipe outside the window. It's all just sounds.

I transfer the days and the seasons, Winter as Summer and Summer as Fall. The seasons all come late, after all. And the days get shorter and the nights get longer and the air grows colder but our teeth get stronger. These are the months, this is the decade. This will be my year.

But as the seconds tick and the nines get closer, I wonder about the holes in the floor. Where will we go if it collapses? What does the center of the Earth hold for us? I don't buy all that heat. It's just friction, all the tension. The hand-wringing and the nerves. The butterflies. The awkward sidestep. The silence.

In my head, it all made sense. I would do what I wanted to do now, let the reflections continue digitally until the next time I had the opportunity. But my ego is large and I trip over it on the daily. And I confuse with my circles and expect and inspect and continue, move forward into a tangled mess of dubstep and electro and Tom Waits. Breath sweet like ecstasy and Ritalin framed by clouds and clouds of *** smoke. So uh, we need to get going now, right?

Carve me a square in that floor, carpet and curtain me up. Send me to the dance floor deep in the fog. Maybe that will quiet the butterflies.

Just blank, and lines
that stretch beyond thousandths
of a decimal degree, traverses
Norway to Lithuania in a day
maybe two, with favorable winds
it's hard to be sure

6/8 masked with the bass drum
on the twos and fours, it just feels like
something extraneous and unnecessary
and other couplets of two words
that mean the same thing

Anger like snakes, like tentacles
the chaos of a cephalopod
the cunning of the reptile
cold-blooded, living in the deeps
the depths of storm clouds
and waving from an airplane

Forever goodbye, river
and all the secrets you've swept upstream
just to be churned at the confluence

I wasn't sure if I should ask
(when you tempted and taunted)
I wasn't sure if I should say
I wasn't sure

You alone hold keys and locks
and encryption codes
it's just you holding on so tight
little inverted pyramids in palms
and fronds in shadows on milky knees

It seems absent and unsure
who you might have been and when
and why you might have been there
it seems like errant leaves on the wind
late to pick up stepdaughters
with wild hurricane hairdos
or kneaded loaves of bread dough
braided, coarse, and bright

We're dancing on live electric
wire sparks shine in cold night
with high heels tapping on the porch
on eaves mosquitos hug the light
and here you're clapping to vibrato
vocal cords strained, you invite
a twirling dancer to your circle
with swirling, howling, coursing might.

With swirling, howling, coursing might.

It coasts on the dips and dives
along smooth muscle, contracting
pushing, friction absent
and lubrication self-perpetuating.

She called it a spiral, but
I don't see it that way.

It is funny how the little things --
orange and purple and white petals
strings of words together like beads
white-bordered photographs in sepia
-- are bigger than they should be
and shrinking into the smallest spaces
ubiquitous and permeating
reproducing
on and onward pulling.

How do you determine the area of a feeling
how you wipe it down like auto wax
all the crevices like jelly in the webbing
between your fingers
all the misplaced metaphor and you're assuming
I know what you're talking about
you're assuming I care.

I see them there in the bright lights.
I want to be with them.
I want to be a part of nothing.
I want something to be a part of me.

The circle is the mockingest of shapes
daring the others to find its edges
a noose for the mathematician
relying on impossible for truth discovery
the approximation to determine strength or mass or density.

A curve is inherently incorrect
and creates problems for the navigators
who trust cohesion and consistency
who trust each other in cohesion
and constant and consistent standard creation
who challenge the borders of the world
and braid together the loose ends
cruising on new planes.

I watched the wing fall into the water
into the lake, that's a lake, right?
It feels like it goes on forever.

Loud noise.
Open eyes.
Dart right and right.
Grab. Hold. Release.
Quiet.

In chalk on the floor, I drew one of those shapes.
I crawled inside of it, curled up into it.
I closed my eyes tight and held my knees together.

I want all the songs that give you goosebumps
to live on one single piece of wax, a low rumble
that spans acres, that stretches for miles in each
direction, that raises the skin of all who can see
and feel its grooves and pushes each of us to swim
in sound.

I want you to find all of the noises that pull you
and hold them in your heart as tightly as you gripped
the note I passed you in class complaining about
our professor's tenuous grasp of English grammar, the
ink sweating through the notebook paper and staining
your fingertips. Hold these noises in your heart and allow
the tones to imprint themselves inside your chest, next to
all your other organs.

I want you to sprawl yourself inside of all of this
calamitous cacophony such that you don't know
where your breath begins or if it's part of the melody
or the harmony or another part entirely that you've
never experienced or thought possible, like alto clef or
diminuendo or a vibration in your stomach that
snaps you back to exactly where you are, exactly
where you are.

I want you inside of all of the waves, inside all
of the resonating structures, like unreinforced
masonry and rebar after a larger earthquake
than any of us anticipated, like a tuning fork
standing tall in the middle of the city, like a
memory you can't get out of your head, like a
cold beachfront property sitting high atop
eroding ground.

I want you to reach over to the stereo and
pause before lowering the volume, thinking of
my face listening and falling in love with the
crashing of instruments and electronic tones
and I want you to know that when I was with
you I was inside of all of it, feeling the rough
edges and all the parts of it and dulling the pain
from your sharp angles jutting out in my direction
and I want you to put yourself in my head and think
what it would be like to have to avoid eye daggers and
unspoken thoughts.

I want you to fall inside of the music and allow
yourself to be pierced by its high treble and
shoved by its low bass and I want you to think of me
and how all the sounds are mine and how you will
never catch me sharing my records with you again
and how the needle pokes your fingertips when you
try to drop it and how that feels, bleeding on the
vinyl, alone.

All you've got is dead
ends and some cilantro
and maybe a few basil
leaves and a book of
stamps and your feet in
the sand and the rain
beaded in your hair.

What is to be done with
foggy film and sixteenth
notes, how am I supposed
to build a bridge alone?
I can't even see the next
pier, I don't know how
you expect me to reach it.

In testing new environments
and procedures you grab
the cast iron skillet and
throw it at the wall
to see what sticks.

With sparkles and bells on
I respond with a tremor
like a California earthquake.

Unfit to wait forever I am
impatient I am noticing fluorescent
light flicker while you waffle and
waver I am sitting on the front steps
pushing the doorbell on threes and fours
if we don't leave now we'll miss the bus
come on hurry up now it's time

Yell through sore throat I hurt heard you
I have done and undone the buckle
on this bag I am waiting are you going
to strangle me are you going to straggle
will we miss this flight while you focus
neatly on the folds of your skin
come on hurry up now it's time

Restless you are restless I can hear
your foot tapping on the hard wood
and fingers on the tile I can see
where you are wanting to go why won't you
talk to me while I lay silent on the carpet
come on hurry up now it's time

I should go I should just get up and
go and let you linger and concerning
the electrical bill well once you fix
that bulb we can talk but right now
I need out of here I need to know
if you're going to follow me down

come on hurry up now it's time

There is no creativity in sunshine.
Absolute light in stripes and dots,
seeking meaning in descriptive plots.
Statistics and vibrations
have no place in conversations
about the weather.
If you keep looking at me like that,
gray eyes so warm and quizzical,
I’ll try to grasp some kind of meaning,
some sort of fleeting feeling
in your confusion.
the sharp back twinges and hits,
hips and elbows and fingertips,
grasping, reaching,
forever teaching
to be calm and content
in melancholy and nonchalance.
There is no creativity in sunshine.
Gray clouds add depth
to the skies, and your eyes,
add a level of complexity to our path,
avoiding rain using complex math,
spatial patterns, infinite maps,
lines and layers, moving fast,
seeking sunshine to escape the past.

Snow white cat on streetcorner sits
reflecting blinking bike light
into the road with no streetlamps
on a night full of stars.

Every song that feels
like it's written just for you is another
reminder that your feelings are
more commonly experienced
than you might think.

Breezy autumn evening rides
for time travel and other such activities
make music from wind in leaves
and weave from side to side.

I am off to build a house
and lay down bricks one
at a time, one at a time,
to live in for a short while
and then to leave sitting, alone,
until long abandoned, we
return for exploration.

The clouds were laying flat on the rooftops and the mountains, smelling toxic and too clean, roses and lemons. The tears streaming down my face dripped in time with the math metal kick drum and fast crashes. It wasn't snowing, it was just nuclear fallout laying, staining the mountain tops. We opened the drawers and water rushed out, flooding the office, the whole **** apartment. I waded through the waist deep, ink stained memories now rushing over my legs. Disappearing.

The next day was sunny, and we snuck on the roof to read the numbers on the tops of city buses. Together, wearing each other's clothes, oddly discontent with our divestments. We saw the rain steam off the sidewalks from our designated spaces, perched above the crowds of swagger, staggering college students below. The blue and gold was overwhelming - we hid under blankets, curled against each other, kickball and four square on our minds.

I've been screaming for hours, pulling the acrylic off of my shortened fingernails, coming up with plots, ways to shut you up. The graphs are old and borrowed and coffee-stained, like the textbooks pulled so lovingly from the bottoms of boxes in attics and basements. I will continue to wait until the times you decided on, I will continue to wait.

My yawns were wasted on you, the subtleties of conversation breaking your kneecaps and knocking you over. Yellows and greens, parodies and satire, video games, hours spent in ***** beds. The chaos of a youth untamed. The chaos of a youth forgotten.

Yellow plums with sweet
flesh and sour skin
bleed down chins and smell
of summer swims and sneezes.

Once upon a time, a girl.

The grass seed and tree pollen
and dust and pet dander
and prickly pinecones and banjo strings
and the transition between analog and synthetic,
between automatic and didactic.

Ears perk like dogs at impossible pitches
upon a hidden harmony, missed melodic movement
she stops mid-sentence to hear, listen not hear, listen
for the sounds buried under sounds
and other sounds
and tape distortion
and old speakers
and ambient noise
and the head voices
and the wind in the leaves.

Candle flames hiss on extinguishing breaths
sighing promises for future dividends
dancing in circles on hardwood floors
skirt breezes
hip shakes until it's too much
floor shakes until it's all fallen
borrowing thumbtacks and bringing it all
bringing it all down.

Far in the distance I can hear the bells tolling, ringing not tolling, ringing
in time with the sunrise blinking, winking
sharing a knowing promise for a better day tomorrow,
today not tomorrow, today.

With the blank slate before me
I recognize that memories, like secrets
are hard to keep.
Watching the white on the empty canvas
I remember the white on her dress
which deteriorates to purple and blue, with time.
Even her eyes, so many hours spent staring
are fading away.

But even in this mess of
failed relationships and
melting pools, even in this,
I believe it is
still alive, I believe that the sparks and spikes
and blocks of ice are just as cold as you
remember. I want to dance in the snowfall of our youth,
the fountains freezing as soon as the
liquid hits the air. The chill that permeates the
skin, the wind blowing through
veins. I find myself wanting, wanting.

But we keep keep on keep on
moving forward as
new obstacles emerge, protruding from the ground
four feet, five feet, six feet in front of where we are
walking. The smooth path is neither hope nor
memory, just an echo falling off the
cliffs in my subconscious.

But this is this is all we are.
And we go go hush hush
crouched in gardens hidden by roses and daisies.
And the daisies remind me of her and
her pink green orange dresses that all fade
to gray looking back in the fog.
That trip over the bridge took
so long on a broken tandem bicycle.
I could barely see the fringe of her skirt
get caught in the chain.

When I rediscover the artifacts of our
lost romance, the tube of rose-colored
lipstick leaning nonchalantly
against a corner in my bedroom
I switch, sweep it all up
into a pile that holds a decade of color
threatening to burn a hole in the carpet.

But my dreams are losing it,
the faces all ****** and solid
the movements rhythmic and calculated
the reds and greens and yellows turning to gray
the outlines coming in, minimizing the frame
until I’m left with a blank canvas
a scorched carpet
and a palate with colors ranging from white
to white
and back again.

Stripped down, stripped
bare handlebars on coldest ride
into the wind and shouts loud
discouraging and dissonant
whipping faces clean with
enticed tears and red noses
pedaling harder
into the fog

Pin down butterfly wings
on frozen dissection table
and claim aviary consent
by the beating of its wings
in specific, modern rhythm

Let's all don masks
of ****** beetroot red
and live our lives like lab rats
locked in dingy basements

My secrets are all hidden underneath poached eggs and hollandaise sauce as the sun creeps up over the horizon after another sleepless night. The requisite, routine, clearly, clearly, that's reasonable. I was surprised by your cunning, clever nature. You are so much more than you seem.

I fell in love with the process, like the little black notes that make up a slow jam or the pores on your body all clogged and gasping for air. The little spaces in between the letters seem so functional, so right. I am grabbed at grabbed at too too much. Radios and drama, culminating in a slow and painful downward spiral that never seems to end.

The green bar at the top of the marquee distracted me and I walked into pole after pole. I have saved this afternoon for you, don't you know! I paused and rewound and found the perfect spot to stop and rescue you. The sea birds are a little faster than me. The mermaids will not sing for me. They see through my game.

And I can't recreate the sound of home, like I want to. And the bed is so empty without you next to me. And the drive is long and lonely and without destination.

I wish to leave you with this—
the passionate preamble of a post-pubescent
rabble-rouser with red ringlet
curls, cascades of casual
looks looming through the locks
that hide her harrowed hands
gripping the sides of her face.

"You, young lover
you, angel in the dark stage
you, wanting woman
waiting while we wash
our hands of this mess
of living breathing beauty.
You are me
and I am falling asleep at the wheel."

She sheds, shines
careless crimson
over the outside door,
twisting the tight tendons
of her frustrated neck,
spine spinning, swindling,
trying to trick me into saying,
"I will, I do."
I don't. I wont.

Her hand holding hands
lays latent in loud laughs
dies in the demon drunk night.

Soft glow and saturation
make the dullest blues into
a steady walk, predictable,
cloudy like skies in February
and November, broken strings
on the head and into the coda.

Tracing trail maps with
fingers and bootsteps that
mud imprint the floormats
of your grandfather's gray
four-door with the cracked
windshield and long
scrapes down the sides.

Keep pace with the clicks
of fingernails on wound
nylon, don't fall to expected
declarations, don't let them
beat you to the top.

She wasn't sure what she
really loved until first
flight, when it became
clear that every experience
was available, that every
agent was awake and asking.

Everyday believers,
habit creatures.
Swimming in silk and
holding down the receiver
all shaking from the speakers.
Toes gripping harder in
tune with the bass,
nose to nose, eye to eye
tongue to ear to face.
Dark lines, white lines,
dripping and drying and
laying in ink, yours and mine.
Everyday believers,
habit creatures.
A song behind the papers.
Ground littered.
***** snow and window fog,
the four walls all painted
over and over and over.
Old town.
Loud street.
Everyday believers,
habit creatures.

Long winds are coming through
the building, they blow via taps
left on, they spew hot air.

Circle games, let's just move in
and stack the cardboard tubes
in an intelligent fashion,
let's pull it together for
breaking ice and watering down.

Power up and out of the office
and into the wires of emergency
rock, the tables, the walls, the
bookcases taut and tensionless
and keeping secrets of the room,
imprisoned by gravity and friction.

While you watched me watch you watch me,
your eyes darted back and forth,
inspecting my left eyelid, my right eyebrow,
my left pupil, my right iris.
Your brow furrowed, an involuntary smile
creeping across your face
gave away your intentions.

Our noses touching
you leaned forward, turned your head
slightly, narrowly missing collision
and pressed your lips to mine, slow,
with passion, conviction.
The corners of your mouth turned up,
our eyelashes engaged in whispered conversation,
our fingers twisted together,
sharing secrets through squeezes and taps.

You moved closer, our hips
touching, your arms
wrapped all the way around
my tiny frame, your breath
slow and even and sharp with desire
and anticipation, saying without saying,
"I want to be closer, can we be closer,
can you hear me, do you feel it."

I rolled my ankles and stretched my
toes, lengthening my body and leaning
on your bones, kissing you softly
in the spaces made for quiet brushes and
accidental contact, my hair on your neck
tickling and shaking and making silent
promises. I buried my face in your
chest, wanting to be inside this feeling,
wanting to put it in a jar and to display it
prominently for all to see.

That night we lay together caught,
swaddled and sheets and lost in
each other, starry eyed, content.
Lost, but not alone.
Explorers.
Wanderers.
Adventurers.

Separate in satisfaction until we awoke,
grasping for hands and moving closer still,
ecstatic in clutched embrace,
emphatic in anticipation for contact to come,
euphoric in a sea of effortless ease,
and content in the lazy morning,
tracing shapes,
feeling the world in tiny twitches,
subtle movements.

While I watched you watch me watch you,
my eyes darting back and forth,
a sly grin slowly appeared
and I pulled you closer.

It is important to establish
early comfort, though pre-dawn
is the best time for experiments
on flowing swooping arm
gesticulations, on shades
of lips and knuckles scuffed
from carelessness and bicycles.

Where even did sleep
or when, those words
of inquiry are tight and
relaxed, small boxes
of language with nouns
punching holes for air
buried beneath verbs.

"It is OKAY to be who you are
when you are and where you
might go and how you might
get there. You can hold what
you will and teach what you
wish but you still are tethered
like the yellow rubber ball,
beat to death by adolescents."

Glowing rooftops and alligator skin
washed up on green sand beaches
camouflaged, hiding shifty eyes
except irises purple and pupils expanding
what does distortion look like
reverberating through salty waves

Light flashes between the fifth
and minor four like a polaroid
but you probably don't remember
that kind of instant gratification
in a modern world where tangible
means antiquated and to make
means a veritable lifetime

Buck up, kid
the world is full of shortcuts
that introduce dense foliage
and exotic invasive species
and first dances on wedding days
and bare feet scuffed and scraped
racking up years of tear
and callouses leathery and intimidating

When the rain disintegrates your cover
and your muscles ache and strain
touch your toes and listen
to birds singing in the wind