The spoils of our labor
turn heavy in the heart
and light in your arms

I missed you today,
I missed you yesterday.
I’ll miss you until our hearts open with morning glories
in soft sheets above ground.
High above the sights of reality where our voices can turn to robin songs
and your hands intertwined in mine are the sugar pine roots.

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 tell her things she says she doesn’t want to hear
She just doesn’t want to show her face

I told her she spent too much time making decisions
She spent two hours painting herself red

I told her she was too cruel to her family
She drowned herself in a bathtub,
called it an accident

I told her she wasn’t pretty like the other girls
She stopped being a girl

I told her she was too removed
She didn't cry for months

I told her she didn’t play well with others
She left for Alaska to hibernate

I told her she didn’t need to stop feeling, just stop being scared
So she broke open her head, found every last fear,
And swallowed each one with blind determination

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.

It is all too loud
and I am crawling into myself
and I am bowing my head
and I am leaving now

The light, two redbuds, and your moss covered roof
take me home
take me to the light
where the grasses hug your toes and the flowers glow like sunshine
Pieces of canyon, ivy, the woodpecker’s holes
It is soft there, I am no longer afraid

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.

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 days fall through me bruised and orange
and my feet touch nothing but Nevada red dirt
does summer come with brakes
or must I shade it all myself?

I saw her swing from 22 stars
she drank moon blood and whispered,
“the body burns in suffering,
but you are a ghost”

in love she boasts four crystals
plain face

a thieving crawl,
loneliness her wicked coat

*my honey drank poison
drank sleep and wickedness
and wed in sickness

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

I wore black and rested in poetry
I was lonely without her but her nape
and her name as Grace
spoke to me heavy
like the silence of our big valley in its misty grandness

I wore black in mourning
of myself and a facade
and in mornings of our love
she kept me small and shrunken as I was
in that tattered linen
I loved her nonetheless

I’m wearing black in practice
and I will continue to betray
my softness
until she finds me underneath
our marriage bed

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.

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

Wake up to the birds chirp
and truck engines rev
Despite all, I am still peaceful here
I still want melody and affection
but I do not need it to bloom

You speak like I have answers
I am only lost in the light
It all seems brighter there

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.

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.

My heart hasn’t stopped
fluttering since you left
Your fingerprints still
like flowers grazing my neck
Take everything in my skin,
take it to place aside the
winding coil
that your heart wrapped me in
I know you keep it close

Honey Bee,
I fought the day by
singing your name
into clouds of autumn air
Shaped the word into
a tender hearted sword
That I’ll save here
until you come back

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

I started purging your name to the rocks
and the river
the current answered, “I’ll love you forever”
That echo rang in the caves of my heart.
Filled them up and my heart is gay with
“I love you“‘s forever.

I need the peace you have

I see you find it in your morning tea
and the kids you love
every day

Who believe in magic and gnomes
they have fairytales
of acorns and moss gardens

and it is the only thing I want

Everything is damp
and I can't escape how my eyes drip black
They won't stop

I try to turn my back
but all I see are ruins for miles
And this broken house I built

A road that I paved
That I destroyed out of somewhat necessity
With broken nails and a weak heart
This whole town was mine

I destroyed it all for you
and the promise you never kept
You said I'd have hope here
You said this was right and warm
You said I'd be safe here
You ******* liar

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.

While you were here
you gripped my spine
and I still feel it
every month
when I lose more blood
to cleanse myself of the men
who have been inside of me

I am clean and still
full of holy light
but they linger in the places
on my body I do not see
but that they have
and I am desperately
forcing them out of me

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

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.

My voice leaves me
in no manner of conviction
as my pulse warms me
with minor habit-I'm drifting


Lately I’ve been dreaming about Berkeley  
and how the streets there are covered in fruit trees
I dream about New York and the separate life I lived two years ago
Speaking Mandarin in Boston
and English in Bologna
It seems more like a film reel than my life


I used to dream of what my heart looked like on the inside

I thought it was important

And when I was 16 I was convinced it was a mountain range

Now I worry mostly about my lungs quivering
and when my dreams will tell me what it means

The void said I own nothing but chrysanthemums
while they tore roses through open air
(the earth angels are coming)

"I hope nothing but holiness touches you
and that the blessed is not of man. Not of his rib"

*"—no helper to mankind"

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

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.

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

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

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?

I am both cold and warm in heart
So it feels balanced and peaceful
The world sings sin and you can hear it or love it
Don't last this way, but notice when it appears for you  
Feel heavy and clean after rain but know you will feel this way again
for that to happen it must be ***** and free
We should be ***** and free

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 sometimes see people as ghosts
and when they speak to me
my heart jumps
"you’re not supposed to be alive”

I wish their words were mine.

I can still feel her hands
lingering touches
the top of my thigh
the valley of my hip

I can still feel her ear
pressed to my chest
and the rumble of her laugh

since yesterday

since the coffee, melted around her palms
since the air froze
still
I wanted her close
swinging dreams in front of me
close enough to blur,
to mistake for the mid-day sun

it’s all a time game now
how long will she take to leave me?
how long will she take to stay?

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

Break me holy like bread
Take your step toward heart song
I am here at the gate
All linen flower and no regret
Open me holy like sunrise

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

It is not perfect,
but it is something

So you lay here wondering why he doesn’t touch you like that,
or why he does

And it doesn’t seem fair your beauty be ****** in like this
you are only woman but you are holy
sacred light, hallowed bloom, and Her

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

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’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

All these soft people are hurricanes
Have you ever seen a storm from space?

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

We are all ancient
with past and future selves
Do you know who you have been inside of?
Who has been inside of you?
Who you have guarded your soul from or taken step to embrace
I feel all of them at once; I am stronger from this

If you wanted to take the blue from my eyes you could’ve just asked,
I probably would’ve given it to you
A year takes a lot of energy to light
Are you happy now that the fire’s gone out?

You tried to buy my meals
I think I’d rather starve
It’s not you...
(I hope you know I'm a liar)
it’s just that my exit feels eminent
like burning at the ends
to get smaller and smaller

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.