our friendship has always been
platonically stitched, with letters
that start with I was thinking about you today
and could probably end with can I just hold your hand?
maybe to feel its warmth or be close to another human when
we're both so far from romantic assurances--bothered by neither
departures or the static created by bodies nearly touching. If one
were to use the other it would go both ways, kisses, while inherently
affectionate might just be to feel lips on lips the way grade-schoolers do



but we have known each other for years with gaps, and if you asked
me to be completely honest, I would. But to broach this would mean
relinquishing the rights to such sincerity--something only you or I
have the power to do. And I

prefer it this way.
never having held
your hand but knowing
if I asked, you'd say yes.

chatter downwind fills
up the glass baubles strung
from the ceiling and Zak
shifts back and forth
older and yellower,
still angry as ever
but Kynlee softens
him with her wide
eyes and inquiring
gaze, one leg to the
next, a sudden raucous
behind the white paned
doors, but the crickets
find their way back
into the hum--
Sometimes it just gets to be too much
he says, and we both look across the
way where a sliver of his wife can be
seen in the evening glow--
and I don't answer him
because we are no longer
children with a response
for everything, or teenagers
with an affinity for bragging
two adults with financed metabolisms
and organized problems

more chatter, a bit of song.
I am the last unmarried sibling.
I loll back on my heels and press
in to the quick air between us
yeah, I say.    


*yeah.

the
girls at the counter have
called me beautiful closely
followed by it's disgusting
meant as an endearment, but
i feel every letter sink into
my heels, like sharp rocks
on the islands down by
the Arkansas--the ones
you don't expect that
your flesh rolls over,
smarting in the late
summer fuzz---but I've
always felt this way, like
rolls and wetness, curls and
clumps of mud sacked and
tied onto my joints, buried
by the sound of my own
laughter with a headstone
reading couldn't love herself
enough, rest in pieces.

God, I hate girls like you
zipped up with a smile and
punctuated by a hearty
chuckle--just kidding
yeah, me too.
because I
used to be the
wallweed who
was too forward
with her affections
unlearned the art of
grace--on how to say
thank you without
a hint of panic,
because they
teach you that
an agreement over
beauty should only be
one-sided, should only
be an extended invite as
long as you're not there
as long as the compliment
coats you but never takes
residence
how
then


do I say thank you to that?


I'm not trying to dredge up every
instance where beautiful was
replaced with ugly, where gorgeous
fell in line with rejection, where attention
was reversed with inadequacy--because
not every speckled bruised from my
childhood came from a direct hit
but all grew from the same
seed, the same insult, the
same withering glance
that taught me I
should be careful
where I put my
thank-yous
where my
heart lies
in the seat
of it, bleeding
out discrepancies,
escape plans, and
a certain measure
of unbelief that
cannot be gainsaid.

perfect timing,
as in,
doing a once around and through
to find an old couple departing in
the senseless maze of a parking lot
pulling out in that corner space near
the front--they must have had
your name on their lips, on their
suede coats in the early October
chill, your name printed meticulously
in the shopper, carelessly thrown into
their suburban driveway, subliminal
during their morning coffee,

yes,

perfect.

Love will come back to you in nameless ways.
Pale imitations of it finds itself in buttery cookies
& all kinds of sweetness.

In the catch of someone's laugh.
Your fingertips try to recognise their rough & sharp edges.
It is not theirs .

It is the hum of summer hot against your skin.
Though, the fire burns brighter inside of you.

It comes back, even if the night speaks of ravens and inkiness.

i'm sick of doing things that make me
half, 1/3rd, 1/4th happy
and crossing my fingers they'll be enough.