2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 4 minutes ago
I found out you were soon to be
Embedded in the earth we used to dance on
But who's counting?

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 5 minutes ago
My world came to a crashing halt.
The I wish I could have been there's
Shocked my skin like a nine-volt battery.
I didn't feel pain
I didn't feel anything
I hit the ground and my endorphins were racing
Like a pin ball machine
They kept running into each other at rapid fire speeds
But I didn't care.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 6 minutes ago
I sat in my car, getting high on every particle of air that flooded my lungs
I drove for an hour looking for a store that would sell me a **** pack of cigarettes
I planned to down all twenty of them
So at least then I could have a prayer of getting sleep that night.
But my usual spot had a cop car in front of it
So I stuck it out
This town gets so boring after dark
Everything closes at 9.
Needless to say,
I was tobacco-less for the rest of that night.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 7 minutes ago
I started to restore my faith in you.
It was ironic, considering you were already gone
And the circumstances were extremely unbecoming
But my memory was like a movie montage
Every picture we ever took
Every event behind the camera
I remembered.
And suddenly,
You weren't a drug addict anymore.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 8 minutes ago
I was praying this wasn't real.
I was really trying to believe that this was a joke
And you would pop out of nowhere saying
"Got you, *****!"
You always did have a slightly morbid sense of humor.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 9 minutes ago
I didn't cry for you
But my heart was a rock in my stomach
My body took the blow
Much worse than my mind did
At least at that time.
There was a total disconnect between the two entities.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 10 minutes ago
A part of me changed.
And I could use an abundance of metaphors
To describe this feeling more vividly
But the truth of the matter is
No words will ever be able to convey the pain of losing one of your first best friends
To an overdose.

2 months, 5 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes ago
I missed you intensely
And I haven't stopped since.

My childhood was measured
By smushed handfuls of red raspberries
That stained my clothes methodically.
By counting sports cars instead of shooting stars
After all, we have enough in the suburbs to last us a while.
By "don't touch this" that comes with the affluence
Of one of the most prosperous counties in the country.
By butterfly T-shirts that were stitched together with secrets
By people picking and prodding at my size
By "if only I was skinny" vibrating my eardrums
As I had heard it from so many people before I hit the age of 12.
By being different
As at thirteen, I had no interest in make-up or push up bras or jocks
But punk rock music and a boy who was a little bit more dangerous than I anticipated.
By unwanted touches from uninvited men
Who took it upon themselves to show me womanhood
Before I could identify it myself
By the way my father stopped looking at me
As though I was his little girl
Because he began to find out where my skin has wandered.
By how my father had stopped looking at me quite some time ago
Because I was never his skinny spitting image of perfection
By the way he criticized my clothing
Told me if I wanted people to make fun of me for my size
If I wanted people to call me a ****
Then I could wear whatever the hell I wanted.
When I replied that I, in fact, did not give a flying ****
My mother chimed in
"Well you should."
And by the way complete strangers have told me to go on a diet
While others have screamed from passing cars
"****, baby, look at that body"
As though my body is my worth
And as though my worth is something to be measure
I have been taught that my worth is something tangible
That can be compacted into a little box with a pretty pink bow
Stuck on a scale and weighed
And that the number I see on that scale
The number of pounds that my body physically contains
Directly correlates with my worth as a person.
Do those strangers that hound me about my weight even stop to think
That I spend hours in front of the mirror
Pinching my skin into too-tight jeans
******* in my stomach because I just want to look my thinnest?
Do they even wonder about my past
How I have tried to diet and that is the only time I can remember my father
Treating me like a decent human being?
Oh, but I didn't lose much weight
In fact, the only time I really lost anything significant
Was when I was bulimic.
But they don't question that either.
And to the strangers who catcall me
That "body" has been abused by men I have trusted
That "body" has lost all control on a bed when a man took it from her
That "body" is strong, healthy and beautiful
It is not just a door mat for you to wipe your paws on
It is not just a *** toy whose sole purpose is to satisfy you
And then be thrown away
Is this what it means to be a woman?
To have your personhood and purpose in this world
Be quantified and made so it can be held in the same small palms
That smushed raspberries at six years old?
I hope that my worth can someday be more
Than a measurement.

If i'm quite sure where to listen              the words exist perpetually

What once  little me                   sung gospels of
has sunk into the sea.

thoughts met with resistance
stagnate and form dis-ease

especially them reflex thoughts ,                given a
thought              turn out to be denial
that thoughts
can (be            let) pass
without marker or address               that a notion
can cross the endless ocean            of of my self-mind
without duress           or that opinions                 can
move right through.

i know i start things in fragments
or in the middle of a sentence
beginning with "so" or "but" or "and"
i know sometimes i leave things hanging
because some nights i walk out the door still not having
any poems come out of my mouth
and i get in my car and just can't quite figure it out
anything i write anymore is a love poem (oops)
but when i look in your eyes all i can think to say is "i love you," i guess
nothing too poetic
yet the way you say it
is what structures my poems

(it's not that i don't want to speak in stanzas,
but take it as a compliment that sometimes your eyes make me dizzy enough not to think straight)

I see you over there,
hey!
No, don't run away
there's no reason to hide
just because you're crying.
There's no need to wipe those tears
away and out of your eyes
because whatever fears you've subscribed to
only make this experience blithe too.
You're just lying to yourself
if you try to not cry
or run away and hide
because someone like me will spy when you do.
Be you, be real in this moment of feeling
no matter if you're kneeling or reeling
no matter if your mother has died
or your other slipped into the night without a goodbye
or even if you're clutching that rye-whisky really tight
please know that this scene of you crying
out in the open tells other's it's o-k.
There's no shame in having a good cry
it doesn't mean you're lame if it's after a futbal game
or in the middle of a stadium because your girl, or guy proposed.
It's fine to get misty-eyed in an art gallerye
or the pain felt when I tried to rhyme that last line!
Crying doesn't equal weak, if anything it adds to your mystique
as someone who has comfortability expressing their feelings.  

So the next time you feel your eyes start to well,
and your first impulse is try to quell such a sight,
say "What the hell" and let your tears fly as you cry
wisdom distilled.

as we cuddle for warmth
I feel your heart beating

as our hearts meet
a fire burns within
melting away my fears

inside me
there is a door
rotating colors.

it opens
once I'm quiet.
my tacit breath smiles.

dimensions
merge together;
like a submerged view

of the sun.
vagary spirit;
feeling umbuntu.