In the spring time
I walk through the city
Palms up
Touching every flower
I can
And think myself a pollinator
Inheriting the passing petrichor
The sweetness of red mud
And isn’t that enough?
The bees momentary visit
To the flower
Asking her to grow
Palms facing up

I deserve good things
Picking pecans from the ground
Peppermint tea on my night stand
I deserve to fall in love
With the indentation in the floor
In front of my kitchen sink
The bliss of
A wooden spoon
How many times a year
Can you give yourself to an idea?

I told you once
I was tired
Of living in
Wreck & repair

Now I’m thinking
That’s mostly what everything is

I bit my nails down to the skin again

There’s a pile of leaves
In freedom park that
I hesitate at
It’s tempting to
Dive in
Afraid I’ll find the pain
Of all the I love you’s
I’ve withheld
With cold
Curled fingers
Afraid I’ll find the ground
To be harder
Than I thought

Roses in a pitcher in a window at a suburban Starbucks. They’re still wrapped in the plastic from Publix. A koolaid pitcher. A kind gesture from a stranger to another.

Eating my roommates left over pastina (the kind he makes that I like with carrots and kale) room temp out of the *** while I load the dish washer

While I’m loading the dishwasher it begins to rain (ga is turning into Florida) but I like how the rain looks out the window in front of the plant cuttings I have rooting on the windowsill

The plant cuttings in the cute jars I don’t need to collect but still find joy in collecting

New leaves and how good it makes me feel to talk to them

A *** of tea I bought for two, and even though I’m just one now I can almost always still finish the ***

Peppermint

The tin of loose leaf jasmine, its golden color, and the instruction manual that comes with it. How to make jasmine tea.

Spending as long as I want in the grocery store or famers market

Produce makes me really happy
So does the bakery
So does planning a meal for friends
And so does buying flowers

Crying listening to npr in my car (this American life or wait wait don’t tell me)
Crying feels good sometimes and these programs make me feel closer to my mom even though we’ve almost always lived far apart

Making bread. I can only make focaccia right now and I’m generally bad at baking. This is teaching me a patience that I think I can have else where

Sunbathing

Time in the water til you get pruny and your skin feels slick. This is a specific summer joy in a lake or a river
Maybe the ocean

Public pools and the way little kids really have no spatial awareness
When it’s hot in the summer a lot of parents/babysitters, grandmas, etc bring the little ones into the sun for a few hours. Wading through the 3ft section dodging little kids with goggles that come up gasping for hair all snot faced

The idea that maybe I want kids one day
It’s a nice
Daydream

Talking about daydreams
Making big plans that you aren’t sure will happen, but there’s still joy in the giggling delusion you share with friends or lovers or strangers

The train, the light in the train, the knowing you’re on a train
I mean even Marta

Mushrooms. I think chanterelles changed my life. Brought me back to the day time. Brought me back to connection not involved a dime bag or 20 shots back to back. A day time connection. A natural one cultivated at the roots of oaks.

Oak trees are old.

Black berries grow everywhere in Georgia. I find them hiding along the fences under overpasses. Hushing traffic with their glistening dark pearls and red thorns. I’m not sure I’d eat those but they still bring me joy.

Honey suckle. I thought they smelled like jasmine so I told everyone I had jasmine in my yard. I was wrong. I love the smell and how far it travels. I love the tea I make from it sometimes.

Ash’s giggle and brightening personality
Danielle’s fierce loyalty and dedication
Mias softness, wisdom, and determination
Emma’s playfulness, her creativity, and wanderlust

Theo laying behind me on the couch
Using her as a pillow

Dog birthdays

The guy riding his moped with a plastic rain bubble around it on boulevard

Trying to place a prank call but giggling too much to finish saying anything. The adrenaline hits me despite my failure.

Achy
Like when I chew my nails
Too short
Bursting blood vessels
At the tips
The pads of my fingers
Sensitive to
The touch
And my heart
Gently
And painfully
Beating underneath

I say this because
I noticed you bite your nails too
And maybe
One day you’ll meet me
Where I am

I’m hoping the sunburn on my left shoulder freckles,
White spots to the white smoke
Pouring from my glove box
While I take the highway in
Sweat pooling at the base of my spine
I’d like freckles on my shoulders
More than crying shuffling around
Brownwood
More than the big hoodie
I can tuck my knees into
And more than
Any love thin
And distant in dialect

I’d like just a few freckles

Summers only get hotter
Don’t they?
Spitting cherry pits
On the train tracks
That separate chosewood
From Lakewood
Cherry wood
I like the stain left on
My fingers
My lips
Runny bliss
Sampling the simplicity
Of hot
& sticky
& condensed
Forms of self
Nice girls
Get the chance
To be hurt again
And again
Right?
Do bruised fruits taste less sweet?
Not really sure
Just spitting cherry pits
Onto train tracks

It’s blue hour
And I’m looking at the
Bird house
On the corner of flat shoals
Paradise plants
And like
Twelve cars in
The driveway

It’s a specific type of hot
The ten minutes before
The sun actually sets
And silver halos everything
My sweat makes me a little
Too cold to feel comfortable
And I think about the
Long sleeve
Denim I left
At a one night stand’s
House, uncomfortable,
I hope he knows
I didn’t leave it
For any reason to come back,
Just that I’m forgetful,
Fraught with impermanence.
Although I would
probably
Come back too
You know
If I was wanted, maybe,
A whisper of affection
Or if things were different,
If I was different

Anyway
It’s blue hour
And with everything that
The silver halos
I can’t stop staring at
The bird house
On the corner

it's rainy season
and I find myself lost
in small love(s)
not present
& purely situational
but it's nice
holding hands
during rainy season
inheriting
the petrichor
that's just passing through

spring floats through
with graduation balloons
and plasticine
alteration accompanied by
sweat behind my knee

I'll keep pivoting
and maybe soon
I'll find the courage
to take a step
in a direction

i bought myself a necklace
the letter "M"
is gold
and strong

it got so tangled in the
baby hairs
at the base of
my neck

you cut it free
because I was
so lost in
you

I've always been a lover
the kind that dives in to the deepest
end of the pool
it's easy to empty
the contents of my lungs
to sink
further
not really knowing
if this water
is safe

and now looking up from
the bottom of you
I've decided
it's time to
come back up
for air

Talking about sheet cake
And its plasticky persistence
How it holds to the roof of your mouth
The way words carry abundance, multiplicity
And the way roots dig into the ground
Comparing our years
In a wealth of cigarette butts
And saw dust
And new leaves on the plants
We’ve grown since
Ducking under wet branches
And building into ourselves

We’re older friends now

The gold touches the tops of the trees in atlanta
Pekerson park smells like
Elementary school breakfast
Nostalgia
steamed in a bag
My tire is flat
Again
The guy says you
Can’t plug a hole
On the outside
can you do it from the inside?
I don’t know much about rubber
but I know I’ve bounced back
Enough to feel like
My blood could just be air
I am sure though
That’s not true
Because I can feel it thicken
Early in the morning
In the crisp mundanity
Of finding honeysuckle
& blackberries crawling
Along shady fences
In the Atlanta south
the gold is still just touching the tops of the trees

no one likes to talk
about the waiting,
how everything is patience,
sweat to
tear muscles down
so they can regrow
and it hurts
but it's good

I had a dream
that you got braces
to close the gap
from your lost tooth
it was your left,
my right,
I think
and
I wonder what
it means
to dream of
someone else's
teeth

my stomach
hurts when
I think about
how much of myself
I've given to
"you"
indefinite or unspecified
"you"

I have a hard time titling poems that I feel didn't introduce themselves to me?  I just found them hiding underneath the way someones eyelashes hit their cheek unnoticed... Or in the way a retiree shuffles off the bus to buy flowers and tea.
I have a hard time titling words that felt borrowed from a moment, small & bruising.

still
the night
she reaches through
hazy and taciturn
leaving me
with memories
of myself echoing
into her breath -
staggering into
the grip
of planned
obsolescence

Walking down memorial
the smell of hot & wet soil
packed into plastic
making walls along the sidewalk
the gardener and the garden
both remind me
how the seasons begin to turn
like pages in a book
that was left
without needing to know
the ending

and yes
how sweet is that scent

Remember when my necklace
Got so tangled in my
Hair that you had to
Cut the chain free?

Something about
The cool scissors
And your hand
Bracing my neck
Felt sweet

& now
The lock you cut
Won’t stay in place
I struggle with it
Most days

Then again
Sometimes you’ll find yourself
Lost like keys in the sofa
It’s so easy to forget
That you’ve been
There before

When I think of you
I think of
Bergamot
And flowers
And the artists that
So carefully grow them
To be pressed into
Pages
Protected beneath
Gentle words
And the clouds
That linger
Soft on
cold Sunday mornings

and
when I think of you
I soften too

Everything I made today broke
And I keep telling myself that
It’s ok
And to
Love the impermanence
And imperfection of
Creation

The disappointment of it all

And I just
Feel
Go-to-bed-at
8 pm
Sad about it
Ya know

And you said
It’s been a dream
While I’ve been awake
Counting stars on your ceiling
Memorizing each snore into
My neck
Full from food and
Peaceful cinema
You say it’s been a dream
And I’ve always been bad
At telling
The two apart

I deserve good things
Like kettle corn
And the promise that
Seeds I spit will grow
Laying shoulder blade
To shoulder blade
sometimes
Summers on top of
Your comforter
And comfort
In knowing
The heavy softness
Of knowing
You

A memory
Chiseled away
Somewhere deep
In tertiary terrain
The need to be small
Trained to touch
Make no noise
Don’t need too much
I still shut doors
And turn the ***
To be as quiet
As a mouse
In my minds glass
House

I hope fall is
being sweet
in the cereal isle
& making playlists to
pick pecans
off the ground
in Brownwood Park

lips to the path
between shoulder
blades like
fingers to
moss
& the dissection
of your dialect when
you say
hello

I cried
Driving home
From the bar
But I just work there
Mostly
The moon I poked out
Of the clouds to
Taunt me
maybe -
I’m not sure -
But she was Beautiful
And big
And she was taking up space
I want to take up space
Steal light to give
Others when it’s
Dark

I’m no good at
Crying &
Driving
But I think
I’m good
I think
I’m good
At other things

It’s 8 am
And I was writing
Poems in my sleep
Perfect prose
If every
Mundane minute
Was at least
A year
Coffee stirrers
And reaching
Into the glove box
For ribbon

8 am and it’s
The third morning I’ve had today

Low flying planes and
The bruises on my legs
Not sure where
They’re from
But I can guess that they’ll
Fade bluish black
Then yellow out
Like the tobacco
Stains I’m sure you
Have on your walls
From smoking in
Your room when it’s cold
It’s too cold
And I think for the first
Time in awhile I really
Feel
Alone
Like how it could
Feel maybe
In space
Or under cool
Dark
Water

it's winter
again
and i'm somehow
always surprised
by the leaves
changing
and dropping
like edits
to your smile

my cupids bow
cracked
from weather,
weathering,
&  the softening
at your touch
crumbling
again and again
just like the leaves
do
in
winter

and I don't think my lips will ever heal

Wishing
You were the
Tingle at the
Nape of my
Neck

Shaking hands
Not to be confused with
A meeting over
Four cups of coffee
Cream & sugar
The bridge between
Lips and a
Bitter water you
Grow into
Sometimes intolerant
My hands are shaking
Over caffeinated
And wet from walking
Down Moreland
Touching everything
I can

you said you liked me
wintered
weathered
working
you said you liked
the crease between
my lips and nose
from the pack and a half
a day
you said you liked me
but you said you didn't
need me

I dreamt you cut your hair
galvanized and grey
You are the graze
Of finger tips over
A dropped knife
Stuttered speech
Is the same as the way
You catch me
From across the room
And I’m sweeping
The fondness shed

Sweat pooled behind my knee
Do bees need to sting?
And didn’t you ever love me
Even if only for a second
I just wanted to know

I’m not
Drunk anymore
Not ever
And I used to worry
That would
Take away a spark
I thought I had
No more feet pressed
To pavement in early hours
No nighttime
Sunburnt love
No more fires
I don’t want to put out
Poetic lush
A prophetic  touch

I used to worry
And I still do

Remember when we were sweet
Butter cream and gardenias
Not built to last in the
Atlanta south

My roommate
Cut his feet
On glass I broke
Twice at least
And I feel a lot better
Than I did a year ago

Poems
Like the flowers you keep
Pressed to pages
Mythology of the
Soul
Or your shoulders
In motion
The summer time
And salt on
Your lips
I found out
Barefooted
On asphalt so
Hot

Sometimes
I wish my body
Was softer
In hard places
And my mind
Would soothe
In dark places
Sometimes
I wish I could
Press my lips
So quick
To liquids
That could numb
And other times
I don’t wish at all

Unfamiliar
Like a dog
Brick alley
And chills of winter
Suited up
In feathered armor
Cold and
Longing for
Home

I take pictures of my hands
But not because they’re beautiful
Marked by my gnawing
A sense of growing older
And the tobacco stains
From each night before
I take pictures of my hands
To hold my place

I sink in
Window like a screensaver
People living
Moving like
The leaves still attached
On the brink of
Fall

I sink further in
Cerulean chair
Bones from the 80s
(Could’ve been the 90s)
Cut & carved
With a story
Never ending

Photographs like light captured
From the edge of your smile
Wholesome threat
And your snaggle tooth that at sometime
At some point
I’d pray to never forget

I’ve been seeing
Shadows at the foot of
My sleeping sound
Sleeping so
Much my back creaking
At the thought of moving
Moving on
Moving forward is
so hard when
You won’t let me go
Like the thousandth
Cigarette smoked
Back to back
And discarded on
My porch

I wake
I see you
And I beg
That you leave me
Alone

Dreams of running in tunnels of sand
And burning cop cars
Making glass
A call and response
But the cry is never heard
Sand makes
Mass
In our self contained
Timers
But how long have
Some folks been
Waiting for just the
Toe to ground reaction
From white folks
When cop cars
Make glass
And white heat
Makes violent
Gas spitting at
Peace
When will I be
So old to see
Any change?

Summer in Georgia
Is air clinging to my face
An attempt to keep
Me grounded
But how could air
Force me down
When It’s so light
Like pleasantries
Between neighbors
And the smell of
Oranges and tobacco
On my hands
Soul in my
Fingers
Historical clay
And a walk
On pavement
Cracked
And hot
Like the air holding
Me in place