I’m gay I’m gay I’m gay I’m gay I'm gay
it kind of
spills off my tongue
when I don’t want it to
an
impulse
a
burning choke in my throat
falling out of me when I wish it would stay inside
when strangers are around
when
they really don’t need to know

it’s painted on my face
it’s written on the backs of my hands
my collarbone is burning white hot with a tell
and my eyes watering every secret of it

can they tell?
can everyone see right through me?
I’m
too scared to ask
somehow
also too scared to keep it inside

It wants out more than anything
but
she wants to be safe more than anything

This is the fleeing breath that we will remember forever. Our final days that tasted so bittersweet as they flooded from our lips like our laughter that filled a  small house on late nights. Right now we are young and we are full of promise. Full of all existence and every being: all connected. Brimming with the life we were gifted and the individuality that shaped our lives into adventures worth living. Tomorrow we will still be seventeen and we will still have our part time jobs, exes to cry over, and classes to wake up for. But tomorrow is also infinite, and we will continue to persevere in committing our respective existences to the preservation of hope. Of what we have in our hearts that burns like our bonfires, like when our eyes first met, like when we ripped off our clothes and jumped into black water. These may be the best days of our lives, but I weep for the souls that endure their days in that state of mind. Each second of your actuality is an opportunity to shape tomorrow, today, RIGHT NOW as the summit of your life. This is beyond  a call to action. This is a call upon your passion. An appeal to all that you embody and every imminent prospect you contain. In this moment there is no matter more considerable than you, because we are pushing on the same path in peace for peace.

It’s like I’ve known you for twenty years
We have gazed the same stars and wandered the same paths
It was shape of your heart I was studying in my textbooks
all the gifts I have given leading me to gifting you myself
all the mistakes I have made showing me you are the one I do not want to mistake
mistake for a fling
mistake for a piece of my heart I could just let go
because we are so young and my heart is as old as this dirt beneath our shoes.

Your lips are the film reel that plays inside my head
I am distracted from this life,
from every eighteen year old telling me I’ll never make it
as they drive away in a brand new car,
Drive away. I know how you already crashed two others and your Daddy keeps buying more.

Will you ever learn the value of your privilege?

And will we ever learn the value of infatuation?

How could you ignore the perfection in someone’s infatuation?
That’s passion.

Have you ever worked so hard your own body betrayed you?
I stood forty hours a week
and the muscle in my back started biting at my insides
screaming and trying to tell me that it wasn’t worth it,
but I was driven by my passion and forty hours was worth the best four months of my life
Without that your presence would never have graced me
And this is passion.

Girl, there is a frenzy in my heart for you
and all that you do.
Because that night the moon lit up your face in loveliest way
and I saw every inch of you shine,
Gaby, you have the sun inside you and that is all I see
you are so beautiful it melted my wax heart
I carved it so well it even fooled me
and you saw right through to the imperfection
but kept going
and that part of you is so powerful
I know that no darkness could ever stop you.

I want to be there while you shine
I want to see you stride
right into my dorm room and
hold the flowers that I grew for you
eat the food that I have made for you
watch the L word
and take walks in the freezing snow with you
spend one more night on a pile of chopped up wood
And right now I carry you with me
you cling to the heart that I have placed on my sleeve
and I have trusted you to stay there
Stay, oh god, please stay

I need complications like I need a test to prove my intelligence

But I want you here to write a story with me in sync with our heartbeats
Cause since the moment your lips left mine I’ve been counting the seconds in time with your pulse.

We are the dreamers.
We came from the earth,
One day we'll return.

For now we breathe,
We feel, and we don't.

We don't fit in,
but amongst ourselves.
We're weird and we like it.
Oh so brilliant,
and terribly, terribly mad.

We're artists and thinkers,
lovers and believers.
Cursed with wanderlust.
Tragically unappreciated.

We're complex and infinite.
But we've never seen it.
Afraid of ourselves,
and the things,
our very minds create.

Too young to be recognized,
feeling older than earth.
Aware of everything,
and no one else sees it.

And in that one blackberry were all the tastes of summer. All the flowers, wildfires, ****, and ice cream bars. In one small fruit was an entire season: from the moment you stepped off campus to the last stitch you knit before you fell asleep. The day you found your first tiger lily and your heart melted like it did the first time you kissed her lips. And the first night you danced like no one was watching. It was also heartbreak, longing, tears, and resent. Every time you cried remembering complete bliss that slipped away. Every time you looked at his face hoping and longing to kiss his lips. They danced like his hands did when he scaled that redwood by the ocean. And the moment he looked down at you to smile your throat caught and your blood started rushing faster. But you drove him down that windy road by the river and that was the last time you saw him. Now it's every time you curled up on your bed at 4pm crippled simply by reality. And after that season was gone, taken by all the leaves that withered in the record heat, after you still couldn't believe you lost everything that you ever loved. You took another berry from the vine and withered in the memory of all the days that vanished while we were climbing trees and getting lost.

July was deeply Yuba blue
Reflecting everything white and berry tone
I only saw through it in time-lapsed clouds

August burned through the soles of my feet
orange and red and scorching

But September has come yellow

The poppies faded
yellow

The grass drowned in
yellow

The maples turning
yellow

So I will sit in my own golden California
watching time as colors
and willing Autumn brings kindness
until October comes purple

It is not pretty anymore
I have no pasture
no sweet annie
or cider apples

I miss the nights on Myrtle Ave
always wine/music/friends
and Arlo’s playing guitar
and Brendan’s picking his mandolin
Zach’s holding my hand, we were crying in my bed earlier
but you
had wool and gold draped all over
drinking Italian prosecco
eating berries off your fingers
curled your hands over like a rabbit
tiptoed toward me
"drunk hands and sneaky feet”

Hey, that's just a memory now
Tonight there are no more
gimlets/dumpster food/hand carved spoons
it is cold toes/empty bed/hollow stare
I would trade this safety
for that love, wholeheartedly

On the 6th day of October was when it broke.
Twelve pieces of eyelashes,
a chip off her favourite mug,
an old cashmere sweater with one moth hole,
a single earring on the floor,
the skin of her lips lying next to it,
and one broken heart, damaged, but still beating.

I don’t need to be saved.
I can save myself,
I do it every day.
It is essential that I leave
The wanderlust is fogging up my eyes
and I’m starting to see the cloud that hangs around this town
It’s not the town, I love these mountains
It’s what four walls can hold when hearts escape
Occasional hikes aren’t working
I can’t be motivated by weekend parties
I demand nothing less than wildness
Simplicity, and my home back
I hope you never feel the heartache of losing your home
It was ripped away too soon, when I finally found where I belong
I was taken back to pristine houses that can’t hold dust
When I used to have a cabin that wore its dirt like a diamond necklace
Home will always be you.
Where ice was a friend whose crunches carried under my boots walking to breakfast
When there was nothing better than mashed potatoes we stuffed in tortillas and called tacos
My heart aches to hear bird songs again.
I would give every penny I have to live like that.

I long to lay in that garden once more
let the veins in my chest grow in the patterns of grass roots
I ache to flow my love for the farm from every part of my being
those are the lives that fostered my passion

In the Summer I came back to enjoy the fruits of my labor
of countless tomatoes I seeded in tiny trays in early spring

I need that place to nurture my growth as I discover more land
I am reaching for the sun and stars,
but I need water from that acre
the love of all the farmers
and the magic of mycelium

I was planted on the edge of the path
I have been run over by wheel barrows
and trampled on by tiny feet
Had snow and mud piled on me,
but I feel myself coming back this spring

I am stronger than any year before
and I have come to tell stories of resilience and hope,
through miraculous green leaves
and flowers of breathtaking color
like the roses in my cheeks from long days
ankle deep in compost,
but not a rose bush
not pointing hands of thorns
keeping away my gardeners
lovers
I left my heart in the lupines I planted last year

It’s windy here

but there is no use worrying for the newly sprung greenery

or small chipmunks already awoken from a long winter

because this wind comes every year to dry out the soggy April soils

it takes some lives just emerging from the earth but

we need it so we can finally break ground and wake up our gardens

there’s this thing in agriculture called hardening off

when you grow seedlings indoors they aren’t accustomed to the harsh climate outdoors

they need to be hardened off

slowly introduce them to the winds and cold beyond green glass

gradually and then all at once

just like how the spring comes every year

it may feel like a sudden drop of heaviness on your chest

but you are hard and strong just like new seedlings

and you will survive the storm

I am white dresses and floral lace
Hair in bows
The rest displayed as roses
I dance as I walk
Describe me as dainty and cute
Invite me to your garden parties and front porch tea time

Just so I can show up in reality, burnt out.
18 years of small scars from big adventures
Bones already creaking under the weight of my own privilege
And I have always wished to be something attainable
Simple and pastoral  

I’ve decorated my world in bundles of lavender
They hang next to paintings of flowers and handwritten letters
I dream of sheep and fields of farmland  
But my lovely is fading fast and I have not created something to be proud of in quite some time

As if
the taproot of my spine.
And you grew roots from your feet
as we both tried to run,
but the earth turns,
so we are anchored,
but each heart carries.
So our wanderlust
leaves us spread the world
but you say it isn't enough
to fly with sparrows,
and die with another.

Felt like winter,
it tasted like summer.
Ninety-nine cent nostalgia,
one album new memories.
The air crisp,
the park silent as night.
An overwhelming relief,
despite a knotted throat.
Over-thinking everything
seems worse than actuality.
Reality sunk in,
Here leaning and breathing.
Time kept moving,
just as it always had.

One day he came home with a tank from the thrift store
bought five tiny fish
and named one Princess Peach
said, "that's you, I named her after you"
I looked at this eyesore in my haven
then at him;
a completely disheveled lump of black clothing
and just laughed

On February 14th
in the middle of a Maine winter
I was accosted in the kitchen
with Day Lilies and chocolate
"Happy Valentines Day"

"Stop skateboarding in the kitchen.
I'm trying to nap"
"Sorry I didn't know you were home"

And after I left he said,
"When you come back,
we can sit and watch cartoons again,
just like in Peach House"
I didn't know how to tell him
I might not come back

Every single time he looked at me
it was like I was the only thing
that had ever been kind to him
and I am too soft to say I never loved him

I've been waiting out these rainy days
with my head down
and my ears waiting eagerly for your call

I had my own whimsical hopes about you
and how maybe we could be
because I liked the way you don't say much
and how you only smile if someone actually deserves it
and when you sit alone in the farthest corner of the gardens
because it's exactly where you wished to be

I was captivated by your mystery
and the possibilities I had told myself were more than a good chance
My hopes built higher after you mentioned one evening alone together
they peaked, and pointed to a plateau of so much fantasy I could finally see clearly

There is always a caveat in these situations
and mine starts with a but,
but, you rarely look at me when I speak
but, you never even held my hand
but, you never ask about me
but, I can hardly get a word in when we're alone
but, I can't be with someone who doesn't value me

I've spent my entire life building up fantastical stories and telling myself that boys liked me because it was the only way that I could feel like I was worth something.
My main objective for as long as I can remember has been changing myself to make it easier for people to receive me,
but i'm not a ******* package waiting to be delivered to price charming's doorstep just so he can open me up, use me, and throw me aside.
No longer will I pretend that I am not a whole being.
The parts of me that are not soft and pink are still worth something.
I have baggage and rough patches but I think those scars are beautiful.
My thoughts may come out scattered but they're still worth hearing,
and I cannot go chasing down the love of someone who doesn't care to understand that I am more than just a sum of a few pretty parts.

Give me one truth to hold onto

cause I’ve been wishing on stars

higher than my expectations

My maybe stars and mostly flames

but they always fall down like hail

and leave bruises on my shoulders

already riddled with red spots

left by my bad habits and self hate

And bruises mostly stay longer than you want them to

talking about your weakness to strangers you’ve never met

It’s the same with hickeys and sunburns, but aren’t they all reminders

that yesterday your heart sang into another being

or ocean waves crashed into your ankles

and I know your eyes light up when that music starts

so don’t try to deny your vulnerability

You know, most of us been waiting for our lives to begin

for as long as we can remember

hoping and hanging onto daydreams

of inner peace and finally having love

but the smallest nighttime erases them

and our whispers are lost in the cracks of thunder

just like

every other wonder of every other lover I have

and all those lovers are stifled by each other’s unspoken phrases

and the rumble in the back of your head that chokes out

“don’t make a fool of yourself” “your words can’t carry your heart” “you will only end up embarrassed”

Why are we all so embarrassed?

When our beautiful friends stand in front of us blossoming as wide as a montana sky

and you stand there with a gate constraining your compassion like you’ve never cried yourself to sleep

But I have been both the guilty and the ashamed

and the only certainty I can give

is to speak your truth

or else wonder if you’re wishing on satellites

The world around us gets bigger when the snow melts. Suddenly there are new plains of the earth that our life has been deprived of. It’s not necessarily a happy thing. At least not at night when the spring winds are blowing strong and my mind is wandering to places darker than the retreating winter.

When the screaming finally stops,
and you are left with yourself,
you must find a way to come to peace with that.
Be afraid to be alone,
but do it anyway
This is your way of loving

I was sitting at a traffic light
and I saw this huge rosemary bush
in bloom
and the lilac poked through
whatever tender golden blossom
lie next to it

and it made me think of you
and your sweetness

I’m gonna fall from the tips of your fingers
beads of sweat off your forehead
oak logs into ashes
shaken leaves in autumn

I’ll pour into flower beds
and nestle with red wigglers
Tell me about the slow stretch of your shoulders
and the scars on your knees
Lets pound them into perfect soil
roll around in cover crop
I’ll probably need you to pick flowers out of my hair
when I fall asleep in the dirt on summer nights
I might need your raspberry lips to kiss grass stains
off my overalls
and sun-kissed shoulders
but in the morning I’ll praise
the way you lay still clutching my waist
like holding tight to the tops of trees

I have dreams about your softness
and I'll write about my jealousy
while I’m kneading the sleep from my eyes
kneading bread on the counter
kneading my tired heart

There are some people whose worn and wrinkled skin only tell stories of horizons at the end of suburban streets and modern collages of white paper. There are others whose creases seemed to have transferred from dry soil that was cracked preceding water falling from the hose in that hand. American spirit was lost in those who spent their days nodding to a television behind them. Disconnected from hands that once felt the soil where nourishment sprouted now used only to unload cellophane wrapped vegetables from plastic bags. That spirit was carried on by a man born in Kentucky not fooled by artificial colors for he knew the full spectrum of letting the sunlight arch from ear to ear.

Freedom isn't always
cutting ties
isolation
Freedom is
acceptance
loving without limits
giving all of yourself
taking your heart out knowing half the time it will be spit on and crushed
bashed into the art of your proudest moments
Freedom means you know what's best for yourself
it is the unconvention of spending two hours on love letters
and two minutes on schoolwork
You are not wrong in following your heart
there is no shame in loving the ocean as well as the forest
never feel like you are confined to the mountains
because you are worried of the pines reaching jealousy
I only ask
tread lightly on my needles
visit occasionally
keep loving the forest

I want to find
all the ways that trees speak to me
the wind consumes me
and my mind kills me

So that when he
comes back under my skin
I will be long gone

I have seen death. I’ve flirted with it ever since the day your lips wrapped around that triangle you called your favorite place. Millions of drops flung themselves against your glass, and I wondered if rain was water committing suicide. That sounded so poetic. You came closer, but I ran farther into realizing that if I killed myself, poetic would not describe it. “Expected” is what they would have said. “So tragic” said the kids who never bothered to learn my name. They all told me how you were something that destroyed life. You were a ghost barely visible, but when you passed by everyone’s blood turned cold, giving the whole room stuttered breaths. All those days that you held my waist I thought that I knew what I was doing, but, ****, I was only 15. You were almost done as I dug my nails into my arm hoping no one would notice the scars. After your body collapsed onto my back you turned me over. My whole face was wet, because my tears soaked your pillow that I buried my face into. It felt how the river does in April: not refreshing, but an awful biting; burning pain. I was trembling the way you do when you hear someone has died. Shivering in a cold sweat I vaguely saw you staring at me, and as I opened my eyes, trying to pull my eyelashes apart, you turned your back to step off of the bed. The muscles in your shoulders exposed, and I remembered them a year ago lifting me out of the lake to kiss my face. You pulled something over your hips and glanced back at me again. Then you walked off into the bathroom. And I thought how no one ever imagines these things will happen to them, but there I was, laying on your bedsheets naked and trembling. So this is irony.

The holy,
is a woman
on her knees
at another

We bring fruit
to each other's tables
Yelling,

"Please come tender,
come glowing,
come wildflower eyes,
come bread breaking,
come holy steps
barefoot on my pebble heart,
come,
come,
come."

I only like nasturtiums
only bachelor’s buttons
calendula

I think you only like me this way
only soft and silent
when apparently you love her any way

I am soft and loud
I am the rose, the thorn, and the petal
The rapids
and Her love

If you’re driving home from a friends house
in twilight and soggy muscles
I hope you’re rolling down your windows
For fresh air
And the way it widens your eyes
To pines beyond the roadside
Freeing the world to hear Matlida

Home in 10 minutes
But for ten minutes you are free
To appreciate windy road, solitude,
And what was given in summer nostalgia
Contented

I feel crumpled and lost like the embarrassing memories you pushed to the back of your mind. And I wonder if it's possible to win at life when the world really isn't conspiring in your favor. Alas, I've given my chances to the broken-hearted people, let the seeds that I plant take the time I have here, and walked in the lines that all others seem to follow. But I am not the lady staring at her toes. I am the elephant in the room whom no one, not even myself, wishes to acknowledge.

Tonight you called me sad
I picked up the phone
worried you were as broken as I was
but quickly your words filled my heat
I never knew it was empty until it was opened by the sweetest hello
I could hear you were tired
So I strung it out
"You can go to sleep, love"
It has never been an effortless task to cut a connection with you
But it's like building myself up every day after nights I fell to pieces in my bedsheets
It is by no measure easy,
but I need it to move on
Let's keep moving forward
It's still hard
to press "end"
I never want to end you
I still gonna hang on every word you say
so I can hear them ringing in my head
like the ring on my phone
I sometimes imagine it's you
because call me
I wanna listen and be there every second I get the chance to hear your thoughts
what a beautiful mind that can see past
the rubble of city streets and 450 miles
I'm starting to see the pines above me kissed by the ocean waves below you
Still, call me
so I can drift far away
I know it's just your voice but
I recognize the warmth of your tone
It's the same as your warm breath was
on a night so cold it could have frozen any heart
but there will always be love in winter winds
that's what carries my whispered words to you
I hope you hear them as lullabies tonight.

All of the lines started to blur together
Summer, complicated passed without guidance
one twinge of a special river rushed inside,
breaking bones,
tearing up any sense of self I once knew packed in wood stoves and bird walks
There is no discovery in purpose.
Progress is made by going without knowing why
You are not found in schoolbooks
Your muscles were not built upon hopeful, “one day”
You build your own self in hazards and nimble choice
You’ll find a way to heal broken skin
And your terrified eyes will only build more muscles for smiling

The 60 degree wind that finds your knees under your last summer dress. That's the kind of glorious chill that I get when I see him smile. Like the first leaf that crunches under your feet, and the last time you roll your car windows down for the year. It's hard to fall this hard and remain composed, but Fall has graced my heart again. Now I can dream of the first time that I will lie in bed in complete bliss while leaves and rain fall in celebration. The new uncertainty still wobbles my ankles and mixes up my insides. "What if's" rattle my daydreams from sunshine and smiles to rosy cheeks and wringing hands. One week until daylight falls on our river-drenched smiles.

Far within my mountain
lies a tiny pretty rose.
But no one knows,
how this little flower still grows
for its home is deep inside my mountain
where no sol ever shows.

Surrounded by stone
covered in snow.
So treacherous a place
few ever walk.
Those who have,
they shake the earth
For my mountain is frightened
it tenses, it shakes.
And my little flower breaks

I’m hearing flowers sigh and drop petals
at the discouraged weight I carry
I think my feet grind into the sidewalk
awkwardly, hoping it will crack
and prove my existence
It has been cracked ceramic pieces
and running red lights
dead and disconnected
I probably shouldn’t be driving

You kiss me first
And I'll crave to see right down to the space you spend all your time
You kiss me first
And I'll take you back to wandering woods
You kiss me first
And I'll call you home
You kiss me first
Because I wished for me and you and us
        the space between our lips
        the shuffle of our hips
        our twisted sheets
        our hands meet
But you kiss me first
               kiss me first

August came
   with stinging goodbyes
   in the full-glory of a red sun
   over pastures, cabins,
   and so much hope I couldn't bear it

I know nothing of what's happened here
    but this place, these soft people

And at least it doesn't feel like rotting anymore

Just the longing
   of lambs bleating
   and children waiting

Creating the perfect scenarios in my mind. It turns out I can race through every bad decision that I ever made. Right down to the kind of shame I felt for lying about love. It breaks me beyond her smiles and kind words. Little pieces are shattered; your blood stained the floor, but the clover grew straight over it and in the spring we make crowns from the flowers. It turns out that I don't simply want to be with you. I simply want to be, but with you. Only you always you. You and I. Bring along bluegrass chiming with every push up the hill. No shoes, no anything, and when I felt the curve of your shoulder it reminded me of river rocks. How we can float out of water, because it's easier to scale boulders than to cross the street. As if when the river runs it breaks the reluctant nature of our bodies and we simply feel fluid. I think the light in your eyes reminded me to open my own. To see, to mainly remember that I can be bright as well. But still I dream of the night like an opportunity that gives you and I someplace to break down walls, and create something like the only afternoon I ever enjoyed a car: it twisted up miles of fairy rings that hid stories and hope. With laughter through the tops of trees, through hillsides, and the place I call home. I want to be so alive that I only feel euphoria with you as my access to the world. Relaxation in your arms like soft touches and a specific catharsis. It's the opposite of reality, now. However, this purpose was to destroy structure. To destroy the  fear; to leave only possibility. What would you do if you knew? If I could show you that I am the thing which very few believe exist?

She was the cloud above me that could have been vapor or smoke.
She was sitting right next to me with her heart wide open
and I could see straight down to the person
waiting
for someone to take her away
into the woods of pine and oak.

She was under my skin,
because I let her into the past three years.
I think we knew what this looked like
We never intended two hearts to meld together
by a ***** hand,
but honesty is messy
and that's why it hurts
The way it hurts means it has weight
That is so frightening.

This will never work.
I want it to work so badly.

Honey Bee,
I say we take out our old bags
and settle them into new hearts
Mould yours into my well
Take heavy books
atop heaving chests,
down winding veins
Settle into
the softest parts

You refrain from speaking
of the little bugs in your head
Like we caught the marriage of
the fig and the frog
while looking into the stars one night

Of our own tales,
We have come upon journey
Down winding paths,
in chocolate dirt roads
I see why your lips don’t follow
what’s in your head
Our two bumblebee chests,
they hear what rumbles
Close.
Hear peach fuzz moving,
hear whatever comes after
the roll of your eyes
We are told what’s next,
with the hum in each lost breath

I hate this feeling of not quite ready to leave
having an ever present flight date
and that it only rained once while I was here
but that it will rain next week when I’m gone
I thought California held magical promises
of summertime gardens fruitful to the point of exhaustion
and reckless freedom
but the only thing I found here was a truth I didn’t want to hear
that I’m lighting the candles and playing the records
I’ve created everything I love inside my head
that doesn’t mean its not real
just that I’ve wasted a lot of days blaming the sun for being too bright.

In a dream we went to the mountains
It took two hours to get there
and I spent most of it searching for a tree
that looked like home

The sunset was a soft flame
over mountain pastures
and those yellow flowers you love

We sat in the springs
soaking inward, but mostly out
while the cold kissed my shoulders
while I had a dizzy head
and you slowly removed all your clothing
throughout the night

and by the end of it
I was certain we were dreaming
Of slate sand and hot springs
the clear night and it’s star-dappled pines
Tiny bats and bugs on bare skin
but mostly me and my hazy eyes
still searching for home

I think you’re

apple blossom

kissing salty ocean rocks

and thunder drills

The way golden lyrics flow not from lips but strings

and tie up souls

It gives hope to a long forgotten place that once held the promise of sanctuary

new life

and a fresh start in the land of granite rocks, kiss

miss

home.

A temporary home in your arms

and I think I’ll be alright if you just stay here.

Just keep your hand closed on my back and I’ll choke down whatever comes up

I’ll be okay for one more night because

captured rhythms

beat down whatever grief was scheduled for tonight.

The black locust bloomed the day you left
It's sweetness will replace yours
The honeybees will find me

Not even the vines
that come creeping through
the cracks in my cabin
Not even the dreams
that come as omens
or the weeds that have grown taller than me
I consider it all irrelevant until I'm threatened
Where have I learned this selfishness?
Where has my awareness gone?

They’re trying to shove tinsel under my skin cause they said I don’t shine.
They clasped open my eyes with peppermint-flavored coffee and strung my hair with cranberries.
They forced glitter down my throat, because they thought my insides were ugly. Then they wrapped ‘em in a box and tied it with a red bow.
I’m sorry you don’t approve of a heart filled with humus and flowers.
I’m not asking you to pack up your Christmas spirit, I’m asking you to listen.
Christmas doesn’t mean anything to me.
Winter means something to me. The perfect destruction of a windstorm and a cold that pierces your skin.
Put praises of frozen earth on my lips. I want to create my chapel in the rain and worship the stillness of December.

I long to be the story that's told by the curve of your lips. The afternoon glow that meets your tired eyes on Sunday afternoon. To discover 4am alongside your musings. I swear the roses in your cheeks could rival the sunset. I thought of spending such a twilight in your arms, and that was bliss.

I was broken the first day I fell in love

made up of spring blooms and teen heart songs

I gave the world such precious babes

still beating, still pulsing

through poisoned air by filthy words

and touches I was told to accept

Foul play was never pure intention

it never touches hearts

crumbling instead, dry ice in viens

colder than the frosts on late crops

you left it through summers, autumns, winters, and springs, but never gave thought to years and five, and ten, and twenty

thousand of the nights spent wondering how the secrets came flooding through the cracks of well built homes without one mention of transgression

without one mention of “how could we let this happen in the first place”

I just want to know what hold this town has on me
why it won’t let me go
and why it breeds such pain

We used to sing barefoot with shooting stars
your lips boozed and my heart fluttering
taken sun tea or sun kissed
always drenched in river rocks
Your hair changed like the moon
and my heart stood strong at your feet

but where are we now
I’ve let this heart free
But it will always chose you
and I’m not sure I can sing with the stars anymore
they just remind me of what was

Well darling, you're my constant
the only weather in my world.

Well darling, you're an old friend
the only one I fear.

Well darling, you're my wish
the forbidden fruit.

Well darling, you're so frightening
the alarming beauty.