I know back roads and bonfires.
I know pine trees and rivers.
I know parking lots and cigarettes.
I know trailers and trailblazers.

The day I was born I was wrapped in dust,
it coated my skin and made me sneeze.
I was laid down on a bed of dust and my nose began to bleed, it hasn't stopped.

In school we'd throw a tennis ball against a wall, we'd run through the field, we didn't have swings, we didn't have a soccer ball.
We read from dusty books, we inhaled the words and dust alike.

In high school we drove fast down back roads. We drank beer and started a fire. We swam in the rivers and smoked doobies on the rocks.
These are the things I know.
I know this small town, I know the people in it, I know the trees and I know the back roads.
I don't know heartbreak.
I don't know alcoholism.
I don't know anything that is not covered in dust, I don't know anything beyond this valley.

When we make love,
her tongue recites
and brings to life
the sweetest of poetry
between my thighs,
just below my hips,
stumbling beautifully
from her cherry red lips.

It all started when I was four
and it came with boys holding buttercups beneath girl's chins
and chasing in endless circles
and my skirt was a little too long
and my face was a little too round
to chase them too

I started sitting indoors and painting scenes
'cause I couldn't run like the other girls could
but four year old boys don't like brushes and  blue skies
they like little girls with flushed rosy cheeks

And when I was six
I couldn't sit inside anymore
it was time to go out and face the boys that called me fat
and try to be a rosy cheeked little girl too
but I just got flustered when I heard the laughter

But at least kids are honest
and I knew I was not wanted

By the time I reached nine
I kept my eyes glued to the ground
when I stood with my mother and listened
to my grandfather drop poison into her ears
and told her that her daughter was a monster
and that's why I didn't cry at his funeral

But at least he was honest
and I knew I was not wanted

Things changed when I turned eleven
self-loathing stayed the same
but the new boys were all skinny compared to me
and they did not hesitate to point it out
although quietly
and subtly
more awash with gasps from choking back revolting laughter
that got caught in the back of my throat and turned to tears
I never did cry in public

And the way I walked through the halls was a carefully crafted way
to make myself smaller
but they still plucked me out and told me
'You're so pretty'
(laced with sarcasm)
'Be my girlfriend'
(prolonged by a smirk)
I always kept my mouth shut

And at least kids are honest
at least I always knew I was not wanted

By age fifteen I was so obsessed with mirrors
that I carried one in my hand at all times
I'd tried every makeup technique I could find
and my mother was sad that my blonde curls were gone
now straight and brown to fade into the background
I never knew why this attracted boys
but for once I was glad I looked like everybody else

I was hearing 'you're so pretty' with a genuine tone
from boys who flirted for fun
but I didn't understand
and I thought I was special
and I thought I would marry every one who called me pretty
and we'd have three children and a dog

What I didn't understand was why every night ended with tears
because I was finally feeling the way all the rosy-cheeked girls did
but maybe it was because kids are honest
I preferred to know when I wasn't really wanted

When I was 16 I felt like a woman
because I'd had a history with boys who were *******
and this is how I thought womanhood should be
every night I rubbed three years of makeup from my face
and removed my push-up bra
and said goodnight to the boy that made my heart skip
and woke up the next morning knowing I would be ignored

I wished people would just be honest

At seventeen, I fell in love with a man
who called me his little girl
and made me feel like the rosy cheeked child
I always watched and envied
I fell in love with the way he threatened to leave me when I forgot something
and the way he slapped me
and I fell in love with how he taught me that it was okay for me to be *****
in every sense of the word
because I was the tiny little girl
with the skirt just short enough
and the cheeks just red enough
to be wanted

Let's make a deal,
You won't try to fix me and
I won't try to change you.

We're not going to fix each other.

What we can do,
Is make love until our cracks are
Indistinguishable.

We might never be whole
But we could love
Like we are.

Something about her
the way she sips her beer
as if it’s tea, and she’s in a kimono
peering out into a storm
as the wind rattles the ***
and snakes through the silk
she undulates, sliding her finger
over the rim, then sips

I know the real storm
broods inside her frail frame
but she says little. mostly listens
and it drives me utterly insane
she should scream or bang on walls
she should throw ashtrays into tvs
but instead, she simply nods
her glazed eyes as still as pearls

She’s like a cherry blossom descending
towards the  muddy trail below
she will be trampled by hooves
of  merchants and thieves
and I am the charcoal cloud, aching
as I feel her falling farther from me…

She sat beneath the high-noon blinds
The light too garish - spilling bleach
Not the soft song that falls behind
Far-off horizons of aural beach

No, this was hill-light - mountain-light
It was harsh, abstract, Cézanne
Cutting deep into each crevice - dust-mites
Irradiated at dawn

Overlooking every balcony
Of barking mutt - of barbeque
She craved for an epiphany
To change how she perceived the view

To find some meaning in the pools
The bars - the plastic awnings
She muttered, “I am such a fool”
Then took a drag and kept on longing.

I need to read love poetry
For the same reason monks read bibles

the irrepressible need to believe

That love exists
That love is omnipresent, omniscient, all powerful
That it is eternal

For someone somewhere, at least

The emptier I feel, the more I read

Let me believe

Someone kisses
Crusty eye-lids in perfect bliss

She had the kind of voice that
Could calm a stormy sea
And in its absence, my heart
Is a maelstrom and I'm
Discovering how deep the
Ocean really is.

Every night I lay in bed
Fighting between two choices.
Trying to decide what will hurt less;
Dreaming of what could have been
Or staying awake to delay
Waking up to another day of
What isn't.

Tell me,
How did you get so much power?
How your voice shapes my day like
My hours are clay in your
Beautiful hands.
Because it's not a good morning
Until those words dance off your tongue
Into my awaiting ears
And without them,
My morning feels a lot more like
Mourning.