Was your voice an illusion,
That haunted me, like a ghost?
Was your touch just the morning breeze,
That tickled my eyelashes and woke me up?
And were your eyes just puddles,
Left over from the rain,
That dried out from the summer sun?
Because it was like one second you were there,
And you were anything and everything,
And all that was in between.
I could see you, and you were the moon.
And now it looks as if you’ve disappeared,
But I’m still here,
Clinging to the ragged ends you’ve left behind.
So were you ever there at all?
Or, maybe,
You were just a fragment of my mind,
That shattered when you left.

Hey sleepy head?
                                                          ­    Where are you tonight?

Are you standing in the corner?
          Over by the white christmas lights?

                                                        ­                   With a miscellaneous mug,
                                                            ­                                   Stolen from not-your-kitchen cabinet.

Are you not ever tired?
              Do you never sleep?

                                                         ­                                                    And when you do,
                                                                          What could you possibly dream?

                                     Of red and white flowers?
                                                *no

  ­   Of bombs destroying towers?
               no

                                                Of illustrated novels about foxes?
                                                          ­                                           no
Do you dream of anything?
                Or is your soul as empty,
  
                                                                                                    As your eyes seem to be?
                                                             ­                       And when I kiss you,





                            *why do you turn away from me?

Can we pretend for a bit,
                that every day is a bicycle waltz?

That every day is filled,
                filled with wine and whiskey love.

And skin feels like heaven,
               when no one is watching it touched.

That your body & my body,
               will never grow tired of the endlessness of each other's.

Everyday should be a bicycle waltz,
               With you my dear,
                                      *my immeasurable amount of intangible motion.

People forget to draw the line between loneliness
and being lonely
The wanting of acceptance
can fog any mirror.
And to those who don't own a mirror
I applaud you.

days like this, i want to
apologize to the sky
for not thanking it
every time it rains--

(too often i got
distracted by the way
your heartbeat sounds
alongside a storm

or how your eyes
become cloudy
like it is
outside

or your smile
you can't contain
when lightning strikes
and turns everything
purple)

but you're gone now,
and even still
i feel butterflies in my
stomach
every time it pours.

i wish i knew then
i didn't need you
to make things beautiful

     "Sit in my hand."
I'm ten.
I can't see him,
but I hear him breathing
in the dark.
It's after dinner playtime.
We're outside,
hidden by trees and shrubbery.
He calls it hide-and-seek,
but only my little sister seeks us
as we hide
and she can't find us,
as grandfather picks me up
and rubs his hands between my legs.
I only feel a vague stirring
at the edge of my consciousness.
I don't know what it is,
but I like it.
It gives me pleasure
that I can't identify.
It's not like eating candy,
but it's just as bad,
because I had to lie to grandmother
when she asked,
"What do you do out there?"
"Where?" I answered.
Then I said, "Oh, play hide-and-seek."
She looked hard at me,
then she said, "That was the last time.
I'm stopping that game."
So it ended and I forgot.
Ten years passed, thirtyfive,
when I began to reconstruct the past.
When I asked myself
why I was attracted to men who disgusted me
I traveled back through time
to the dark and heavy breathing part of my life
I thought was gone,
but it had only sunk from view
into the quicksand of my mind.
It was pulling me down
and there I found grandfather waiting,
his hand outstretched to lift me up,
naked and wet
where he rubbed me.
"I'll do anything for you," he whispered,
"but let you go."
And I cried, "Yes," then "No."
"I don't understand how you can do this to me.
I'm only ten years old,"
and he said, "That's old enough to know."

You came like wildfire
Indistinguishably incendiary
Struck my butane skin
With phosphorus fingertips

Clouded myopic eyes
Saw the ashes to ashes
Flushed lackluster lips
Whispered dust to dust

What you left me with:
A collection of burnt bridges
A drawer of regrets
A heart of hieroglyphics