Darling, darling--
I still creep beneath you
I yearn for your reach.
Lit between the floorboards,
I watch you dance in panels--
watch you undress under strobe light--
watch you sleep in shades of dark.
Sometimes, I crawl out
through the vents, to come sit
on your nightstand.
And we breath in synchronicity.
The air grows hot between us
and sometimes, I can't help myself
but reach out for the covers
to uncover, but instead
I crawl back down
and sprawl my legs
and disappear again
back into the walls.

Like the seed I swallowed when I was small,
from my depths a tree now grows. As first
I didn't feel it all, and then it felt like
n o t h i n g at all, and now as its branches
tickle up my throat I wonder if I'll die
before they're reaching out like arms
from my (normally) empty mouth, poking
wooden fingers through my broken teeth, or
if instead it will finally give me something to say.

...and what could I say?

Falling apart isn't easy to do,
on the bathroom floor in a puddle
of tears and sweat. Remembering
a time when things seemed simple, a
time before someone smashed
through the car window of the minimum
wage worker, living in her car, at six a.m.
and took the tokens of her life
away, to be under loved.

The unraveling was gradual:
Graduating from school and watching
her own brain start to melt away,
dripping out here and there,
on the couch, the bed, the floor,
all over the apartment but rarely
outside. Splattered on the walls
rather than scratching a way out. It's fine,
the mind just makes a mess of things.

My soft skin opens,
draws you in, earns your trust, and
then swallows you up.

Remember when the pier burned down?
That familiar boardwalk we’ve known
since we were kids. We used to get milkshakes
at that Ruby’s, watching waves through
the window before they crashed down
and demolished beneath us.

Strawberry moon on
the darkest of nights, guide me
back home with your light.

Remember the long drives we used to take
down Pacific Coast Highway? The only road
worth traveling in the thick summer heat.
Pick your poison and wrap it in a palm leaf,
tell ourselves it's natural while we light it with a wick.