Sapped to a pastel
against the brightly colored world
(I'd rather live in dreams about you).
I've started taking things that aren't mine
to feel closer to memory.
All pale pinks of my skin
washed in the greens of your eyes.
The bonfires I build, the misty greys I exhale
are all smoke signals to you
across the world.
*Come home to me;
you are a home to me.

I
Sleeping in your bed till noon
a silent prayer
redeem me
naked angel pulls you up
bathes you
and says make one wish

with her uncommon beauty
the combination of the
sharpness of her teeth with the
sharpness of her words
you cannot help but
wish for
her

II
His head is heavy when he wakes
Redemption is curled like a child in his arms,
put to bed with a bottle of *****
but lemons killed the taste.
She didn’t mean to wake up.

III
The thin blues of your eyes wash over
The blessings are small and smooth
Redemption waits for you at the bottom of the stairs
the delicate curves of her feet
buried into the grass,
she bristles out to become all encompassing
running towards the sea.

Nothing's kosher for Passover
so it's you me and some salad for the week.
This is, of course, alright with me.
At the end of the month we're taking  a trip to the beach;
I'll be slim and shivering
like the spring leaves that unfurl
when I am not looking
or when I am asleep.

You and I are best at night,
or in the lazy elbow of sunsoaked afternoons
curled up somewhere
talking books not television
religion not politics
in person not technology
honesty not reservation
life not death.
Sometimes you’ll hold my hand
mostly you’re looking the other way.
When we’re together it’s deepest sentiments
forbidden thoughts whispered
cinematic meeting of the eyes
carefully constructed
because sometimes you’re more theatrical than me.
More grammatically correct than I
maintain at three am.

This time of year impermeable black takes over luxurious afternoon.
I take stolen moments with my garden book;
fat glossy nostalgic roses can only depress me further.
Lonely for the company of my friends
thrumming in chlorophyll,
the warm green network is contained in a small *** that I move
I move around the room with me,
following a shallow puddle of sunlight so precious it might be gold.

You took me to the top of the highest hill,
nestled me in a Eucalyptus tree,
and laid the city out at my feet.
The view was unmatched
industrial beauty mixed in with the natural Earth.
The Bay in a pool underneath us;
the metal and stone of
city changing constantly.
You give me all the secret places
(in your city and in your heart).
In everything you’ve given me,
loving you has made me richer
than I’ll ever be again in my life.

In the last days of school, the first days of summer, we pile into a car. All these people I'm not close to suddenly become my best friends. I'm contented to go where they drive, my head hanging out the front seat window into the distinctly summer-tinted air. We pull up to the city gardens with a pizza, dancing to The Strokes and the beating of the world's heart, alive around us. I make everyone clover crowns. He is the King, his thoughtful brown eyes outshining his careful smile. I am the Queen. One and Another, the Prince and Princess he with his pleasant, measured voice and her trills of brilliant laughter. And the too-old senior tagged along for who knows what reason, is the Jester, loathe to wear the effeminate flowers above his ears. We climb things. We somersault. We throw loving insults up to the wind like kites. We hoot and holler at the blue blue sky and the koi fish in ponds, dancing along the stone borders. So close to falling into the algae.
We sing the summer in.
The Jester has never known true right from wrong, he is learning to live on his own, with the scars on his arms and face. He is not welcome at home anymore. The Prince is moving back across a world into the arms of a now unfamiliar life, nothing waits for him there but the promise of his next powdery high. The King's mother has three months to live, all we can do is wait. The Princess and I, the Queen of the wild rumpus, finally lay down to count clouds.
We have nothing left.

December 30, 2010 1:00 am

Am sitting, as always
at the left edge of the couch
clutching my tall glass of water
forcing myself to drink
the weather is so dry out there
forcing myself to exist
the weather is so dry in winter.

December 30, 2010 1:13 am

Barely illuminated, I search
my dead grandmother’s eyes
for wisdom, familiarity
but they tell me I look like
the French side of the family
which in reality,
Never existed.

December 30, 2010 1:27 am

I smell too much like you
but it is late, I cannot stand
long enough to shower
without my knees buckling
my heart beats in sets of three
the doctors cannot fix it today
so, I am like another inch gone
at the rim of my water glass
******* to the jugular
of my feeble, thorough
existence.

I **** like a fairy on acid
I could bruise you with the flat of my thumb
Fly my kite way up into the sky
you lay me back, feather bed
tremble anticipating gentle
I know you want to know.
I'm too hard for that ****.

This place used to be like my skin
I knew every corner, every street, every wrinkle.
the sweeping expanses of prairie grass and flower fields
thick and always moving, like you could comb your
fingers through the lush green. Still a ten minute drive
in any direction.
The streets are so dusty and faded
that half the time the markings don't show up
but after all that time, I just know where to drive.
The place is the same, the players are different
and I think I want to move to India.

Sometimes I forget
I don't celebrate Christmas
like everyone else.

Many times I think
it would be much easier
to be just like you,

And not field questions:
"Do you also celebrate
Thanksgiving, like us?"

I am simply a
Jewish American girl.
Yes I am different.

Not so much different
That you should tip-toe around.
Like you, I'm human.

Not to confuse anyone,
but as more and more people read my work,
I think it's best
to use a pen name.

Everyone is sick of raves except for you.
When you painted your face like a tigers
you forgot that your soul has to match.
My soul matches my face.
I left you behind too, I’ve left so many behind,
I don’t know where I’m going.
You were dead weight but
I miss you
anyhow.

just so you know
i’m keeping a mistress
on the side
in the style of My Father

something inside me is constantly dissatisfied

Over the bridges to the north side of town
fluorescent flickers, the beer billboards are bigger
Where you live.
We don’t really have billboards on the east side of the rail yard
Where I live.
But I don’t find you in the elementary school
shut down, infested by the deadly spiders.
or patriarchs inebriated, stumbling back to
cinderblock houses where no one really waits up anymore.
Every soul a flickered star. Maybe dying,
finding last comforts in the black velvet of night.
No, I don’t find you hiding in the hateful corners
of your brother’s triangle folded flag that rested
on a coffin.
Or the alcoholic bottle your mother hands me with a friendly smile.
Tiny threads of crumbling concrete barely connect my world with yours
I might be dreaming, at night lying in the grass of the tallest hill
Where you live
Holding me selfishly, the night is black in my eyes
and the view is not so clear back to
Where I live.

The yellow ones
buttery soft
floating on tiny wings
hanging on new tendrils
Out of the corner of my eye
one rests and keeps me company

I’m sitting in the dirt
planting the garden up new

another sits to drink

I wash my naked feet

There are rainbows in the sunlight
and in the dirt under my nails

the brightness blinks through
my eyelashes damp

four summers ago
I suppose it was that long
that I didn’t watch the
butterflies
alone.

Driving to your apartment
and waiting
for the call
“your daddy’s leaving”

and then you have to go across town
to your old house

might ***** your roommate while
we’re waiting
for you to come home

something like 2am
sopping in tears
when the call came
“your daddy’s leaving"

silence

I don’t think we believed,
but now we have to.

Feel muted sadness;
the lonely whir of your guts
look out the window

I used a thesaurus for this
I wanted to have the right word
for when you look at me
and laugh
because you’re amazed
I’m in front of you.
I wanted the right word
for when you unexpectedly
grab my hand
and say what I’m thinking.
For the way grape and melon slushies
or ice cream with too many sprinkles
are things for only us.
For all of those times I’ve said
“I know”
when I don’t.
Spitting off the tops of parking garages.
When I try to tell you what you are to me.
Trying to describe the deeps of your eyes,
my strange love for your nose,
and that smile that launched a thousand blood cells
or something.
The broadness of your shoulders I imagine curling
into sometimes
when I’m feeling tired.
VITAE
I wanted to fly kites and sing
directly
on
key.

Licking the foam off the inside of my coffee mug
I am sitting at the table working
and you can’t fathom what’s wrong with me
it feels like something other than blood is inside me
it makes me itchy all the time
and my heart concaves inside my plump chest
I am gasping at the air around me
and you ask me why I sigh so.
I feel alone wherever I go

My insides are all rustled up.
That internal migration pull
of elsewhere travel adventure.

I'm getting sick of it here,
turns out I'm not all that bright.

My horoscope says I should tell him I love him;
I think I just might.
we can up and run away
Together.

My footing here is so uncertain
I think I might just jump;
I don't want to look back at this place
that laughs in my face.

The world sifts through my window screens
warm, soft air pressing up against my bare legs
a neighbor girl laughs through the black night
it’s to late to be neighborly
but still they talk
and the dogs bark
my brother’s piano music floats up to me from the first floor
and I wonder if the people walking
stop to hear Chopin’s light tones
turn to jazz and then to something distinctly more baroque
as the thunder clouds roll in.

The laundry is done
I am safe and warm in a pile of it on the floor
from the sheets and towels
I stare up at him adoringly.
“You are a gorgeous creature”
said the man on the television to the woman he loved.
“You are a gorgeous creature” he said to me.
I climbed to his lap to rest my cheek against his.

My brand was my voice
self discovery party
I've made friends, and love

I got a tumblr! Play with me.
http://mirabellewrites.tumblr.com/

The storm came in with a face in the clouds
looked like old father time.
Or God leading the way.
Turned the sky yellow and the trees blue.
Very near got blown away watching
that tree trunk split, how it groaned
and smashed down onto metal bent,
road blocked
and I hollered along. I stomped and soaked
in the shards of glass raining down to the street
hiding under trees in the garden like an animal
letting the vast plane of nature assimilate
feeling my roots be put down into the ground
I am this screaming wind, clean and new, angry and vengeful
like I was rained down from the clouds myself.

You being gone is an excuse for my bad behavior.
My insides are all messed up.
I don’t sleep or eat the right things.
Taking pills to fix the little black holes in my system,
momentarily replace missing you with something else
deeply rooted beneath my sternum,
straining at the tendons of my neck.
You are my love and you are not here.

it’s obnoxiously hard to identify
every year this time
I am in a depressed mood and I don’t
I don’t.

I'm a Marketing major thinking about
switching into Advertising
but no one will give me a straight answer
whether or not they're the exact same thing.
I guess no one really gives you a straight answer
when you're a grown up.

But when I go home for the summer I'll be
a child again, and I don't think I'll like it.

Currently the only rebellion afforded to me
are the bevy of boys from high school
who have always wanted to sleep with me
and I have never wanted to sleep with them.
So really that's very unexciting.

The love of my life so far is in Australia.
My life so far, I’ve gotten so far,
but I say it to mean “there’s more to come.”
My life so far,
he’s gone so far,
but I’m too young to expect him to stay.
Or to go roots-up with him.
My only job is to wait until January.
It’s not so far
till when he’ll be home,
but each moment in each cell aches with distance.
I am so far gone.

When the fox came at me, his eyes caught the last light.
I jumped in surprise;
when my feet hit the dust and dirt of the lonely meadow trail,
he turned his tail and dove into a bush.

I looked up to catch my breath
in time to see a falling star arc the sky.
Strong silver and unfaltering, the star fell
from it's throne in the sky to the horizon at my feet.

I was unnerved, and turned back the way I had come.
Standing in my path was another fox,
(presumably his mate) she looked into my eyes
then walked calmly away.

It was then that my heart turned to stone.

I saw him sitting at that desk drawing,
we were a bright neon star in a darker fall night.
He did not look up,
or see me the way that I saw him.
For me the world slowed down
white grit froze halfway up to some party kids nose
and the thumping bass slowed.
A light shined around him in a way,
my life changed in a way I will never be able to explain.

Something snapped in my heart
I don’t know when
but it’s been like this for a while now.
Like never trust anyone but yourself
nothing left to be loyal to
like I didn’t even expect to live this long.
Is it strength that keeps me here?
something has snapped.
Instead of taking a knife to my veins
I just don’t sleep.

He planted the heel of his foot
on the paper declaring my D+ in math
didn’t notice didn’t care
not with his hands on my hips
up against the bedroom wall
even with tears hiding behind my eyes
this is more important to him
this is what he comes for
so I keep him a little longer for myself
to forget, evaporate into
a girl wanted for something
a little less than ladylike