last night i went through old polaroids
of when you were still around-
the edges had faded and i couldn't
remember if they had once been coloured
or if the pictures had always been
black and white.  i tried to think back
to the exact moments they were taken, but
i couldn't get dates to stick in my head,
just the sound of your laugh right after
the camera had clicked- (it changed almost monthly,
and it was the only way i judged the
passing of time back then)

when i put them away to get some sleep,
i dreamt of your new laugh, and when i woke up
i realized i wasn't able to hear it.

for the first time
i am not staying alive
for the good of
every one else

(for the first time
i'm learning
how to love myself)

i turned away so i wouldn't
have to watch you leave, but
i heard your car start and
i panicked

how do i breathe without you,
how do i breathe without,
how do i breathe?

(when icarus fell
did he have time
to cry out?  or did
he fall without
warning or grace?)

i am tired of being
scared to fight for
what i want, but i
am too tired of
being rejected
to fight for
you.

i wouldn't mind if
for the rest of my life
i never saw anything
other than
ocean.

she tells me i am
magnificent
and when she
looks at me the
way she does,
for a moment,
i feel like it

we are to big for this space

there must be some law or
science that says it isn't possible
for us to fill the same air, and yet
here we are again, breathing
into each other's worlds,
inhalations of new life, exhales of
little deaths and

we are defying every rule we were told,
every promise we made to stay away,
every regulation made for our own good

it is dangerous and explosive and beautiful

i am trying
to convince myself
that we are
immortal

what was real at the start
doesn't matter any more;
in the end, we're all
imaginary

your hands are a double edged
sword, but i am learning
how to lace my skin with steel
and you can not
cut me
any
more

i want to glitter
like dust does in
sunlight

you make me
happy** he
said, and i
fell asleep
smiling

kissing you felt like
swallowing fire, like drowning
in thin air, like causing an earthquake
under just my skin

and it was perfect

the boy you love is in your bed and
he is shaking

you wonder if it will always be like this,
tremors through his arms and legs, or if this
is only because he is wrapped in sheets that
smell like someone else.  so you offer him a bowl,
partly to calm him down but mostly because
when he takes a drag he cups his hands and
bows his head and it looks to you like he is
praying and his hands are still shaking and you
wonder if he has faith in anything and if not
maybe that thing could be you

so you clime beside him and you inhale as
he exhales and for a moment he is
                                                                                          still

the boy you love is in your bed and
you are shaking

i am so shattered--
parts of me are
2159 miles away
and i am scared
they will never
come back

my bones are my of glass
    and
        i watched you sink last night
            and
                his mouth says he sleeps but his eyes say he lies
                    and
                   i
              am
        tired
    like
him.

i.
i spent my nights writing wishes into
paper cranes after we broke down, a repetition
of ink to paper - fold, press, release -

your name, your name, your name,
became habit every time i picked up the pen

ii.
when i dream of walking through
haunted houses, i hear voices through the
open windows, i swear it is you saying
come home, baby, come home. 

a draft cuts through each whisper and i pretend
it is your breath on my neck,
that your hands will follow, but when i turn
it is only the breeze from a crane beating its wings.

iii.
when it storms, the dock we used to
share secrets on floods - my fingers scratch
at my thighs like i am picking apart the wooden planks,
my skin splinters in all the places i have ever
been touched by you.  

i fold myself into a ship and sail where you can't
follow

benjamin tells me that
i should take my anxiety and
hold it away for a while,
let the restlessness build up
and then channel the overwhelming
into a sense of euphoria,
my own twisted high

and i don't know how, but
i will try my best for him,
i will try my best,
i will try

i keep thinking about the way
your fingers don't leave bruises on
my hips the way they used do

when did you stop trying to hold
on so tight? when did you stop
trying?

all i ever want to do
is stay up all night
and play guitar with you.

i started popping pills when i was twelve and
pretended they would save me until i couldn't
feel them anymore, and i'm scared that i'll only ever
love you like that, because i'm beginning to feel
numb when you're around, but i get headaches
when you're gone. &when; the time comes that you
have to leave, i want to be able to let you go gracefully

(i'll spend the next three months whispering your name,
trying to remember what it felt like to want to say it instead of
to need to)

step one:
find somebody who is
beautiful, kind, charming, intelligent,
witty, caring, and
broken

step two:
fall so in love that you are convinced
that no matter how many problems
this person has,
they are absolutely perfect

step three:
when they break down and show you their scars,
hold them when they cry,
kiss them on the cheek,
and make them tea

step four:
when they tell you they wish
they weren't so ****** up,
and that they wouldn't blame you
if you walked away

promise that you'll stay

step five:
realize that just staying is too inadequate,
that everybody says they'll stay
then has their bags packed in a week

immediately upon realization,
swear that you will not-leave
because staying requires no change or effort,
while not leaving is a risk

step six:
let the person know that they are worth that risk

i don't know what
to say to
make things
okay.

when i was a kid, i pretended i could
breathe underwater so that if i was
ever caught in a wave for too long
i wouldn't panic- but now my hands are
shaking and i can feel my lungs getting tight
and my ear drums are starting to pound, and
these ceilings are
crushing
me.

he says
you're worth
everything
and he
kisses me
like he
believes
it

a year ago
you told me
that i am
filled with
lightning

(i
finally
believe
you)

you said
i heard that when
people are in love,
their hearts beat in sync
and you squeezed
my fingers
where my  pulse
raced in time with
yours

for all the times you were the only one
who could make me genuinely happy,
thank you

(i mean it)

some days,
i let myself
love you a
little too
much

you think nobody's been
listening, but i always
did

&las;; night was the first time i had faith
in anybody in a long time (maybe because it's easy to breathe
when you're speeding down back streets
and i only just then realized that i'd been
held under too long)

(maybe it had something to do with the way
your hands glided over the wheel like you could care less
about where we were going or when we would come back)

(maybe it was the way you promised that there would be a
next time)

(maybe it was just you)

i'm not sure if it
is selfish to say,
or if i deserve to
say this after
all this time, but

i love you,
i love you

imagine: there are two bodies floating
at the top of the lake, and you know them
by name-  one is the girl who has always
loved you, and the other is the girl you
have always loved, even though she tells you
she could never love you back. both are
drowning, do you save one, or do you
drown too?

your mind is a forest, and i
want to carve my initials
onto every tree

sometimes i wonder if
kacie would be happier if
she didn't smoke, or
if that is the very thing that
holds her together

(judging by the way she is
now, i suppose i'll never
really know)

i was tired of feeling so much
bigger on the inside,
       so instead of letting myself free
       i just poured myself out

(and what a shame, i ended up
a puddle instead of an ocean)

his fingers dance across
my shoulder blades and down
my arm until they reach my
hands, where they trace patterns
on my palm

you're safe with me, i
swear, he says

                             and i believe him

i'm not sure if we
are victims of
circumstance
or blessed by
coincidence

i just want a boy like
holden caulfield-
maybe not all yellow,
but a great whistler

someone who reads novels
before he goes to bed

somebody to catch me
when i dance to close to the edge

i guess that's all i could
ever really ask for.

your bones fit into the holes
of mine , and maybe it hasn't always
been that way, but we've collided enough
times that i have invented craters just
for you, so, please,
don't leave them empty

i read that astronauts
can tell from outer
space which cities are
newly built because
electricians are making
streetlights out of
sodium vapor now as
opposed to mercury,
so now road outlines
glow orange

and newer cities tend
to be more geometrically
planned, all straight
edges and such, while
older cities are made up
of frantic curves and
corners

and i wonder if i look
to you like i have been
worn and used, am i
frenzied and dull, or
am i new?  maybe my
jagged lines have
been sanded and smoothed

maybe
i still
glow

when i was a child
i was told tales of
mosquitoes' songs and
car crash children;
i covered my ears
as tightly as i could,
but it is common knowledge
that nightmares always
prevail, and i was haunted
        night after night
with the reality of
what our world has
come to.

tell me, when you were young
did you dream of
drinking with the
'grown ups'?
    --i did--
     then i met a razor blade
     who told me
     i have an addictive
     personality,
     and i fell in love with
     a boy with an
     alcoholic father
(things changed after that
and i learned that
naivety is a gift
i gave away a long time ago.)

some things don't change:
there will always be three hundred
and sixty five days
in a year,
( except for when there is
threehundredsixtysix. )
there are times when i
wished i was a constant too,
but then i realized
i'd be stuck in my past
and that was a very
scary place to be-
now i am thankful for
the constant flow
of in and out, the constant
change of the tides.
although i cry at change
i w e l c o m e i t.

one of these days
my mind will no longer be sharp
and i won't remember
my children's names
and my sister will be gone
and i will be
                    alone.
i would like to think
that i'll be happy
just to know ( silence )
but in reality, i will probably
spend my time wishing
i had treated my mother better
and had not let the
alcoholic's son free.
(i will be plagued by
nightmares once again,
the same ones of my
childhood.)

call me an architect with shaking
hands, building buildings built
to crumble --
     if that what it takes to
     keep you, so be it;
     i'll find you in the rubble

he tells me he is reaching
his breaking point
(and) he sighs,
(and) he looks away,
(and) i want to reach out to him
to touch his hand, shoulder,
knee

but i am afraid he will
shatter

maybe, just maybe, somebody
hollowed out the empty spaces in
the trees at crescent park
just as a secret message to me,
to remind me that it's okay
for beautiful things to feel empty.