my hands are tired from
having no purpose
so why don't you take
the load off and
slip your fingers through
mine

i
a  m
positive
that   you
are  made  of
s  t   a  r   d  u  s  t
and  water  balloons,
oil  pastels  and  the
collecti­on          of
settled     sugar
at             the
b o t  t o m
of      my
c u p s
o     f
t e a

I only want  you
to  think  of   me
as someone  you
can  call  "home"

I read somewhere that
we are all made of stars
and if that's true then I want
to study your universe
until I can teach a class on it,
a history of you.

i said goodbye to the first
part of you in Lawrence
thirteen days ago walking
pastthatantiquemall.itrailed
my fingers on its brick and
thought of you reclaiming
my heart in its basement
and i did not want to turn
into dust, did not feel like
melting into the nearest
gutter. i simply took my
hand from the stone,
continued telling
jillian about how
they closed our
hookah bar,
breathed
the early
fall air.

i am scared that
no one else on earth
will awaken anything
inside of me like you have.
please come back.

I only know how to love you
in ways that hurt, that feel
like scraped knees and


dropp
                i
                     n
                          g


skittles on the floor,
stubbed toes,
****** nose,
chest x-ray
came back negative
because I gave everything that
was in there to you so they had
nothing to see in the doctor's
office. My heart was never
really mine to have, anyway.

You said,
"I'm not
worried
though
because
my heart
belongs
entirely
to you."

I don't know how
to be friends with
you when simply
watching you talk
to other people
hurts my head.

y  o  u
a l w a y s
told    m e    i
was too  skinny
but no no no i am
beautiful, i am strong
(stronger than i used to
imagine i  could be)  and
my heart is still thumping
like   it   has   been   for   all
these   centuries   i've   lived
even after losing you, even
after feeling like i wasn't
enough  to   make  you
happy.    b u t    jesus
c h r i s t    i    w a s
enough     i    was
enough   i   a m
e n o u g h   .

breathe,
breathe.
you are
flakes of
silver and
copper tubing
and lilies at
sunrise. do
not be afraid
of the thickness
of your words
or the quake
of your laugh.
you are more
than the confines
of tongues that
have tried to
define you, more
than words spoken
into your neck.
you have a century's
old soul and the
things that have
written themselves
into the backs of
your hands are
just markers for
this lifetime.
you are okay.
breathe,
breathe.

heartbeat

i have
been trying
to remember
to pay attention
to my body when
i'm walking, to not
forget it is me in here
but is it me in here with
these storms and hurried
thoughts i have been reaching
for a long time toward some
kind of reconciliation and
it is getting further and
further away from me
my forever ending
was not so forever
was not so final
was not what
i had hoped
it would be
who  am i
if not the
owner  of
these hands
when did my
will to fight run
so fast i could not
catch her i could not
begin to keep up with
her dreams and all of her
ambitions but she calls to me
from somewhere so far away i
can justbarelymakeoutthewords
please     don't     lose      me      but
i am struggling through weeds
and branches that are too thick
and she cries for me from the
top of a mountain from the
top of where i used to
keep     his     heart
put yourself here
she says
put yourself here


heartbeat

I am what Webster's defines
as a wreck
a mess
a disaster
because lately I've been
missing you so much that my
legs ache, that I can barely
speak around the knot in
my chest when I see you.
how do you tell someone you
don't know how to be without
them without sounding desperate?
I only know how to love you
in the scariest ways.

Today I am glad that you
will never look at me that
one way- like I am made
out of gold or something
they scraped off of the
surface of the moon, like
I am every answer to
every question you could
have possibly had- again.

i
am
s  o
sorry
that   i
couldn't
help you
find  your
way    back
to your heart.

what i would miss most is the
way she says my name
calls me "sweetie"
calls me "meggie"
says "i don't know what i would do
without you and your sister"
i've been collecting these words
since the day i was born
(her birthday, too)
been storing them in
locket after locket
jewelry box after jewelry box
always worried i'll
run out of space but for her i
would buy a thousand jewelry boxes
ten thousand lockets so i can
remember her voice until i'm
two hundred years old
so i can show my kids
how grandma whispered
how grandma laughed
how grandma loved

we have wandered to these parts
(yeah, 'these parts,' mim, that's what
we call that here in kansas)
because you said this was the only
place the sky could almost touch you
if you stretched your fingers far enough.
when we reach the top of the hill
you climb up on a rock that seems
impossible, shout nasty words
because you don't think anyone can
hear you way up here. the sun
starts to slip toward the horizon
and you turn to me with a pink
reflection in your eyes, tell me to
reach my hands up until i can't
reach any further.
oh, this is a good one. you feel that? you feel that?
i look at you, your arms far above
your head and eyes closed, your
skin honey colored in this light.
*yeah. yeah i can.

I have been letting people
dig in deep and take out
chunks of me for their
bookshelves for far too long
now. I cannot make
them stop. So I always
love more
I always love
I always

orange marmalade
gooey on our fingertips,
sweet on your lips. i say
i could spend all day feeding
you toast and honey but no
no only cookies you tell me.
the warmth from behind your
knees runs through my thighs
and i think i could get used to
the way the sun turns your
skin as golden as your heart.

My lungs are bruised from

all this uneven breathing

and I want to hurt yours

until you feel the same way I do.

where you are a soft hum
in my chest he was a riptide,
a cheese grater swallowed
whole, the fifth sunburn
of the summer. you are
the breeze on a rainy
morning but i can't
love your hands the way
i did his why can't i love
your hands the way i did his