please do not be afraid i will not hurt you i
think my hands are made of splinters anyway i
think my hands are made of splinters anyway

And
just

the whole time you
were talking I was
watching your hands
and thinking about
how I'm going to
miss the way your
fingers drum on
your knees and
always make their
way over to me and
start a beat on every
surface of my skin.

I can't do this.

god i swear when
i got home today
i saw you standing
in the entryway of
my building (in
the spot where the
rain dripped on
your head on all
those soggy nights
this past spring)
but i blinked and
you were gone.

I learned I cannot play
the banjo and I haven't
heard of half the movies
on your shelves, but I
like the way your
voice sounds when
you tell a funny story
and how you
absently strum your
guitar and play with
my fingers at the same
time. I could have stayed
at your house for weeks.

you are a flood
in my brain,
snaking into all
my cracks and
crevices. I tried
to shake you
out of my
thoughts today
but all you did
was slosh around
and settle back
comfortably in
place. maybe I'm
not supposed to
drain you.

No matter how old we get Any
Man of Mine will always
remind me of you and teeter totters
and long curly hair pulled
back into perfectly parted
piggytails. I hope you
carry a little piece of me
wherever you go in life
(and you're going to go big
places, I'm sure of it) and
know that your heart
can always find mine
because you're the only
place my heart has had
any sort of safe home.

There is nothing I would change
about the way you fidget
with your hands when they aren't occupied.
I'd rather keep that image
in the box I hid
behind my heart.
That way I wouldn't have to worry
about someone else knowing
how your fingers constantly move.
I don't want other people
to understand
the way you tap the sides of your
fast food drinks. They aren't allowed
to watch you fuss with your hair all day.
I'd store every part of you I can't be without,
but then there would be nothing left
for anyone else.

Can't you just
have the same
thrumming in
your chest for
me that I have
for you?

I think maybe
I loved you a
little bit. I knew
it then but never
told you. That's
okay, though,
because I think
you loved me a
little bit, too, and
never told me,
either.

If "settle" wasn't a bad
word I would tell you
all the time that it's what
I want to do with you.
Because your voice is the
only one I want to hear
humming in the kitchen
when the sun is barely
awake. You are the last
person whose quirks I
want to learn, whose
mouth I want to memorize
the taste of, whose body
I want to call my own.

carefully

                     carefully
  
                                             carefully


you slipped yourself into my veins

i am trying to remind myself that
i am the one who has always held
my skin together on the worst days,
the one who has sewed myself back
up time and time again. i have picked
my own body off the bathroom floor
more 4am's than there are numbers,
taken myself to bed. no one has cared
for me like i have cared for me and
yet i don't know when i stopped
thinking i was my own home.

I want to walk on
runways but I can't
get past that spot
on my thighs
where they touch
and the crease in
my stomach keeps
me up at night
wondering if I
should have eaten
that should have
thrown it up
should have taken
another diet pill.
Probably not
probably
probably.

If I could change your name
I would
turn it into a sentence.
It would be
"I Think I'm Falling In Love With You"
just like what you said,
half asleep,
from the backseat of my car,
when we had only known each other
for forty-eight hours.
I would call you that,
I Think I'm Falling In Love With You,
any time I needed
your attention.
"I Think I'm Falling In Love With You,
come read this."
"I Think I'm Falling In Love With You,
while you're in there,
could you get me a glass of water?"
"I Think I'm Falling In Love With You,
I think I'm falling in love with you."

I don't remember
a time
when I was ready for change.
I always seem to take it
right in my lungs
and let it out so slowly
that people get annoyed.
No, yeah, I wasn't prepared.
Sorry.
Here, teach me how
to be like you
and pretend this was my idea.
I told you
you'd be happier
with someone else.
Duh.

i like that my bloodlines
run like your bloodlines
like the salty sea spray
you exhale when you
dream at night

I haven't
figured out
how my
heart
is still
beating
after this
time. And
I'm not okay
but I'm able to
breathe a little
bit easier this
week and
god that
must
count
for
something.

I wrote your name
and drew a circle
around it.
And waited.
I thought you might
appear at my window
but I only saw a
streetlight and the moon
and no you.

I think my name would be safe in your mouth.
I wouldn't be concerned about you
misusing it
or putting other names with it.
I trust you
would keep it secure
between your teeth.
There would be no worry
of you spilling it out with vicious words.
I'd be sure that you would treat it with care
and only use it
when the setting is perfect.
And you would sing around my name.
Songs I probably won't know but
that's okay
because my name would be
somewhere good.
I imagine you
would only surround it
with words like
"careful" and "forever"
and "here, take my hand."

I cannot find
solid ground
in you
anymore.

i have stopped picking my
skin apart, have stopped
trying to pull pieces of
myself off in the hopes
that there is something
better underneath.

I'll never forget the way he smelled at the
park that first day in his flannel shirt
with the water dripping from his
hair. While he pushed me on
the swings, a cigarette in his
lips and the rain falling off
of him and onto my face,
he tip
          top
                tapered
across my rib cage
and into my veins.
His fingers felt like
they did the same
most quiet nights.

I put all your physical words in a box-
"you are ADORABLE" scribbled on a receipt
          the book with the pictures of
          New York City and the one with
          the history of Christmas
the map from the pumpkin patch
          your band's cds
a 9 volt battery
          a button from the trails west
          festival
a ticket to the show your band played at your dream venue
          my ticket stub from This Is the
          End
directions to Kim's house
          the journal you gave me for  
          Christmas with a letter from you
          on the first two pages
a napkin I kept hidden in my wallet with "you are very cute" written in your smallest print
          a Virgil's Rootbeer bottle cap
          from our second first date
(god did you know I had kept all those things)-
but I can't figure out how to package all the sentences you left swimming around in my head

I dreamed I was
on your couch
and you gave me
that white blanket
I love and you
played with my
fingers and kissed
me on my temple
just like always
and your eyes
did that little
crinkly thing I
look forward to
when you laugh
and you said,
"I've missed you
so much."
And I woke up
and reached out
to find you, but
I found I was
in my own bed
in my own room
in my lonely apartment.
I don't want to go
back to sleep.