our celestial protector.
She cradles us in her branches and reaches
us towards the Sun. She fertilized us
as young seeds before the harvest. Feeding
us the fruits from her feet. We breathe in the oxygen
she filters through her brown barked body.
Suckle at her ******* for air.
Like our mother, we too are rooted
in soil, nourished, and nurtured by her
natural nutrition and her
natural

disasters. She,
throws us from her
branches, her skies grow grey.
Grow angry and sad. She starts to
cry, growling, thrashing and thundering.
Her winds whip us, whirl us we weave back and forth,
trusting the roots she gave to hold us
down in our foundations.
But the ground beneath our soles start to
shake and rumble. Soaked soil from Mother’s cries, turn
to mud, and our world starts to wash us away.  
She drowns us. Mother Earth,
our terrestrial
terrorist.

I don’t care that my parents don’t
like you, because the way your unruly
blonde-brown hair matches the way your *****
pants sag makes the buttons on my corsets
and 100 button boots pop,
onebyonebyonebyonebyonebyone.
I’ll meet you in the backseat of that Coupe De Ville
in the cargo hold. You can rev my engine,
and leave handprints on
more than just the back window. You can
show me how to spit off the bow of
The Titanic but, I can show
you how I …
I have only known you for one day,
but these last 24 hours have felt like a
lifetime. If for some reason this ship
hits an iceberg or something
and we find ourselves clinging
to half a door lost in debris
THERE WILL BE ROOM FOR TWO.
Jack Dawson,
I will never let you go.

Warming up like an electric orchestra,
the sound of your dad’s band practice seeped
through the vents from the basement.
Drums vibrated from the floor into my feet,
And we tapped our toes together,
thump thump thump.

Drowning out the 80’s punk, your mom
plays polka in the kitchen, making pasta. I stand
over the sauce stained stove watching the *** of water
sizzle to accordion cries and the idea of clogs. We sway
from side to side. Your hands hang off my hips.

Retreating, back to your blue room, we wait
for the wafting smells of garlic, grilled onions and
peppers to call us for dinner. You pull out your
keyboard, a pen, a pad. Pressing buttons, I hear
synthesizers and song samples through your
headphones. We smile, bobbing our heads in sync,
Bump, bump, bump.

~

Finding myself in a foreign living room,
I am alone. The TV is on mute and a “motivational”
speech muffles through his speakers. There are no
basement bands. No pasta, no polka, or clogs and cries.
Only sounds of silence. I press my feet against the floor.
I can’t hear the bumps, I can’t feel the thumps

You stole my voice, but I let
you lock it away. Behind neck kisses,
lazy Sundays, and “who’s texting yous.”
Don’t worry baby,
I found it between the cracks
of your fingers, wrapped
around my neck, you tried to stop
the word *****.  Nice try.
You can’t mute
me. Watch me throw up,
watch me wail.
Your ego is deafening, as if you were afraid
of mine being louder than yours.
Well, I’m ******* screaming,
and I hope your ear drums shatter.
Perfect perforation.  
You can’t shush me.
My voice is not cracking,
*****, did I stutter?
Nope.

But, no hard feelings, right? ’Cause this
new dude says he likes it when I
scream.

Light give way not.
Harbinger of death,
time is. She sought
the scars yesterday's
sunsets burned and
brought. Pain demands
strength. Master
*******, cheated
calendars, and rewound
clocks. Nightlight savings,
an hour lost. Inevitably,
she was caught.

Intentions intertwined,
woven between wrinkles in beach blankets.
Underneath the glow of revolving lighthouse beams.
A taste of hops drips from your lips.

Your fingers tangled in mine.
Your mind tangled with hers.
Our tongues tangled together.

Miscommunicated body language hangs off your hands,
hugging my hips.
You, stuck between skinny dipping in the swells,
and scared of getting a little sandy.

She calls.

You always try to break out of your crib.
Spend childhood somewhere between land
and water. Save shells. Dig up dead animal
bones. Hide them. Blow bubbles with
now absent brother.

Fall. A lot.
Fall. Fall. Fall. Pick the scabs.
Break open again. Pick.
Repeat until scarring is complete.
“Rub some dirt on it.”

Dad tells you that everything dies
someday. So you find comfort in all things
morbid. You want to be an archaeologist.
He shows you The Doors, The Beatles,
The Who. You are raised right.

Chase the handsome boys around
during recess. Teach yourself how to
read. Secretly peek at encyclopedias.
The anatomically correct bodies
in the back. Hide them. Giggle with the boys.

Travel to Vietnam with your mom.
Understand your spirituality while climbing
thousands of feet to temple. Understand
your culture and where you came from.  
But you still don’t know who you are.

Write stories. About everything. Illustrate them.
Collect fossils, crystals and minerals. Spend
Sunday mornings eating ice cream and playing Xbox.
Pass notes with the boy. You play softball, because
he plays baseball.

Watch MTV. Dad said not to. Tilt your head at
Music videos. Hide them when
he walks by. Sneak Mom’s makeup
so you look like the girls in the
videos. You don’t.


Stuck in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Still.
You try to wiggle your way into your identity. So you
always evade parental supervision. Stop
testing the waters and begin full fledge fleeing
into the swells.
Meet boys, like them, kiss them. Love one.
You fight. You steal a little. You lie a lot.
Stay up. Sneak out. Get caught. Do
drugs, hide them. You are way too young.
You are 13.

Skinny dip. Sell ****. Make honor roll.
Create your secret life. Decide you know
everything. But you learn it all the hard way.
You get arrested. You decide you
don’t know anything at all.

Get expelled. Your secret life is
not so secret.
You learn your way around
the razor blade from the medicine cabinet.
You aren’t who you thought you were.

Attend mandated therapy, community service, tutoring.
Drug test. Court date. Drug test. Court date.
Regret nothing. Except for
making Mom cry. The boy comes over
to share pineapple pizza. Your favorite.

Decide you want to be better. You
cut the ****. Your report cards still
marked with A’s. This is your ticket back
into the school system. You get your first job.
Pass your last drug test.

You scuba dive. You travel. You meet new people.  
Cover your walls with art, and maps. Fill your bookshelves.
Inherit Mom’s reading habit. Live by Dad’s movie collection.
You write. You graduate High School.
You get three more jobs.

Old Saybrook, Connecticut. You’ve spent your
life somewhere between the land and water. You collect fossils, save shells,
pick scabs and skinny dip. You try to wiggle your way into your identity.
You visit the boy on Thursdays. You hate MTV. You are 20 now.
You regret nothing, other than making Mom cry.