Laying on your chest and
Listening to your heart beat
Like the ticking of a clock,
I can feel the time slipping
Through the vacancies
In between our fingers
Like sand in an hourglass

The balance beam between
The strange misery of love
And the peace of anger.
I am no gymnast, but
I cover my limbs in chalk
And climb on again and again.
The falls leave bruises
That will never go away,
But I choose to continue.

You picked up my *****, cracked,
******-up glasses from the concrete,
Wiped them off with your sweatshirt,
Balanced them between my eyes,
And everything became a little clearer.

Laying on my back under the covers
Staring at the popcorn in the ceiling
The sun is peeking through the blinds
The dust is swirling through the air

Feeling the thumping of the broken fan
Breathing in the stale afternoon
The air is rattling through the vents
The pup is snoring through her dreams

Is the ceiling spinning, or am I?
The sun lady says, “Patience.”

No one desires to be looked at
With a tired pair of eyes:
Grazed over, thrown away.
Everyone desires to be seen
With brand new eyes:
Analyzed, every detail noticed.

Do you see me, love?
It’s been a while since
You first laid eyes on me.
I long to be recognized—
Open up those weary eyes
And you might see again.

I believed that I had etched out exactly what I needed from you,
When my grandmother stopped working in the back garden last year.
You misread every feeling that I sent to you across the night sky.
Somehow, you did too much and not enough at the same moments.

Dear God, I pray that I can fall in the crack between and love you the way you need to be loved.

When a fragile thing is dropped,
It shatters and becomes a weapon.