In California the sun is just a part of your skin
Melts your layers
Filling you captive
pushing you complacent

You’ll wake in September with a sunburn and gold glossy eyes
And when autumn's near, you realize
You got caught up in her like leaves in a gutter
Let her deal every poison you named
let her feed you, full bellied
But baby,
you’re no better than me

I lost my breath
somewhere between the peaches and the hair on my arms
blonde, and bleached by the sun
Seems I've been reaching up to God to often

In case you were wondering (which i know you weren’t)
I'm burying myself again
In a cold, in a tropical winter
To avoid watching others die
avoid watching my own irresolution
To avoid the the heat of summer I feel playing fast forward on my muscles
We’re tired
We’re all so tired

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 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 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.

Romanticize your nightmares
Become unstoppable
Build houses in the terror
And force it to live beside you
Suffocate it under relentless new growth

Twine our hearts together

Melt into your eyes

Rejoice for small seconds
in rhythm to the pulse
of your blood
Your breath
flows straight into my lungs
That voice of yours cascades like a river
rushing toward the boulder of my heart
I've been cracked by other stones
worn by time
and weather
I have stayed
for your cool waves
to fill my cracks
Wash away worries
Stay on course, love

Water wades high and low
I'll stay right here if you stay flowing

I remember when we would both rest our star-crossed tresses on that mattress
When you were asleep I could never stay under long. There was something about rain on the windows and how I looked up to see water on the windowpanes, but mostly saw little plants and knick knacks you had collected, all lined up on your windowsill.
Mornings like those, you'd wake up and smoke sitting there in your underwear. And you never wore a bra. It's like they didn't exist when we were out there.
It was calming just to know that the house was filled with magic, with tea, with art and nature.
That Isabelle was always there, speaking rapid french outside your door.


I remember laying there in the middle of the night just looking at you fast asleep and thinking "I must be the luckiest girl in the world to be laying next to this gorgeous person right now. You are so remarkable." There's a lot about your mom's house that will always tug at my heartstrings, but it never would have meant anything if it weren't where I could find you.

In the soft sounds of the rain
and loneliness
this house invites
I protect myself from the outside
And it’s winds that rattle
my windows and doors
To bring in the night,
the dark cold of winters breath,
the stolen warmth
But you and your smile
like a lit candle on my empty table
You see me
Your warmth travels
Always welcome

I am reminded of California when I hear the birds call to each other in the afternoon
I used to spend hours being as still as possible, so they’d trust me
or forget about me, I’ll never know

I am reminded of Maine when humidity hits
the smell of salt and wind cracking through my skin
I used to spend hours searching for sea glass on their tiny beaches
until my hands grew numb,
until my pockets were full

I am reminded of Italy when the Verbena bloom
a country full of colour, is somehow still one palette
from azure lakes to olive hills, and the small islands full of lemon trees and melon gelato
I used to spend hours in il giardino
thumbing through botanical encyclopedias
digging into latin, trying find meaning for my solitude
antirrhinum, basilico, mentha, zucca, cortarderia, pioppi, *vitis

I am the lady grey
torn from a tattered box
and hung up on your wall
I am the bracelet engraved with the exact place of your youth
and I carry it with me
I am the letter you wrote me in the hospital
I’ll only look at it when I need you
These are not things to take lightly
I am not a thing to take lightly

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.

Almost entirely,
we smell like lavender
and brush our teeth with honey-baked laughter

I found two magical things this morning, even before breakfast
but this life is not just fire, it’s burning
And my romanticised campground does litter itself with children and lemon balm

With this stress, it's all pulled apart
and the bits forgotten
but it’s okay; I’ll put the pieces into your food
and make sure it’s tasty

For now it’s better to have dreams about rats in the flour
than the nightmares that we used to have

You are part lightbeam
You are soft as tulip petals
I have so much tenderness for you and
I am so scared

You have such lovely people and I am not here to ruin that
I only want to be here for you
and to share life

I am not unaware that
I have not always been here
I don’t know what to say,
but that I am here now and I am here to love

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

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

I have sand under both of my *******
and blood under each of my nails
Your song breaks us together
your love shakes me home

You were the first one
who brought me flowers
Held my hand,
told me you loved me
No matter what
All this,
when I was nothing,
and I believed you
and we believed in each other

And you are as far away
as this country can reach,
but I feel you in this drink
and in every acorn I see
In this place you would hate
and these people you would not understand
Neither do I

I’ll always have tenderness for you
but I do not know how to love you
from here

When I need to be held
I cannot ask this of anyone
So I fall into my mother
the river
And she catches me
in her current
strong arms
strong waves
of reassurance
I ask her
“Is it right to love like this?”
She presses into me harder
“of course,
my child”
I cry to her,
“I love her, mother”
She floats me downstream
wrapped in her whirling hymns
past the falls
past the sharp rocks
and unkind matters
There’s no one else to be found but us
And she showed me this time
Her miracles are my answer
“Will I be okay?"

Been thinking bout love
Thinkin' bout the way it's soft and warm

She's a calm and holy thing, my love
She's a kiss rich like indigo
and my one hand praying behind my back

I thought we knew
Thought we both know I'm a little wild,
little bit of a tidal wave inside
I think we both know she's up in a cloud somewhere,
think we both know she's Aphrodite

The unspoken is the holy sometimes
and the humanity is a bedsheets love
Real people love in real skin
its playful
its present moments

Sometimes the present is forever
Sometimes fantasies never come
Still always predicting and,
doubting the usually right
We never wanted to be right

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

Yes, but I want her back
I want her to tell me
how she sees none of this pain
That she only cares for sheep,
her small box of love letters,
and the radishes on her windowsill

That she saw brightness in herself
and for her future
That there was hope
hanging onto her curls,
in the muddy light
of her fire escape at sundown

And even though she cried
and often called him
to resuscitate her
that she still knew
she was strong
That she would live
to fight for her own
broken mind

I’ll whisper flowers in your ear
leaves to your palm and petaled pockets
latin and ancient
and walk away when you look back
you need not know more than what speaks to my heart

That these images have been part of my life is too surreal
I walked through Italian cobbles
Rested my head over canals
Bought a pastry each from the Lidl
With the same pack on my back then
That's hanging on my bedpost now

Fields in Maine
I never knew blueberries looked like fire in October
or that wine and cheap chocolate
are best at the boat dock in a thunderstorm
I soon discovered
three feet of snow is the same as six
and sea glass calls to everyone

I have wished and pleaded
for every gift, but
all I'm gaining is... questions

Like what place can hold me up
And who will not hold me down

I tried too hard not to need people
now I only love myself

Do not touch me with filthy hands
I am holy skin in blooming cocoon
My skin in jasmine; yours in blackberry
How can you fill me without looking
how can you feel me without knowing

Yeah, I feel like ****
And I’m walking with her and
she is so pure
in love and beauty
and yeah she’s talking
and I should be listening
but this park has flowers
and now all I’m thinking is
Nigella
Nigella
Nigella, where did I ever learn that?

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.

Am I supposed to write about  
How I feel you biting at my ankles while I sleep
How I’m having dreams again
but my cynicism is tearing them to shreds
How I spent all day labouring over
my own softness
and tying each strand of my hair to
lace curtains

Am I supposed to feel like blossoming?

Oh bring her back
Oh dew and robins
Early morn, tasting wild lettuce
dreaming of sweet lips
dreaming of wholeness

Oh she’s coming back
Oh open eyes
Afternoon, crying youth
dreaming of right here

I'm still daydreaming
of the slow stretch of your spine,
your collarbones along my raw lips
Find your new home in me
Alongside rubble that I tried to clear long ago
We'll make baby baskets
and carry all our eggs in them
Take our tea to the garden each morning
I'll show you which herbs taste as sweet as your dewy cheeks
Please darling,
Sink your toes into my soft earthy heart
It feels like lamb’s kiss when you do
Meant to be
here
on slow mornings with racing hearts

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.

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

Spring makes me soft
I just wish
there was a spring
that did not break me harder
than the year before

There are havens in our lives
They're all tiny places I couldn't live without
The spaces we run to without thinking
Without second thoughts
They're decorated like our souls
And feel like a cabin in the woods

Peach House still makes me think of you
but you never even lived there

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 was once a little girl
with ringlet curls and grass-stained knees
I was scared of the ocean
and soft for my mother’s tomato vines
but I was not pure with youth
because I did not feel clean then,
no white satin or freedom
I was not full of love

I feel pure now, softer
I know my whole, my skin, the corners of my mind
I know the flowers I have planted outgrow the ones I will pick
That lambs come in twos and ewes make me cry
I know how much one honeybee is worth and why I had to let you go
It is all bringing tenderness
It is all tenfold my young freckled face and sleeping heart

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

I’m all hopeful and fleece bits
but there’s blood in the soup
and a bitter taste in all our mouths

She's all morning sleep and maple lattes
but there’s heartbreak under her sheets
and burnt bridges in the telephone wires

We’re all hazy summer and weary nature
but there’s castles on mountains
and softness in the water.

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?

The universe is screaming at me
that others are not enough
that I cannot slide my heart
into other people’s pockets
and expect them not to wash their clothes

but how do you chose yourself
over others
when there was never a choice
in the first place

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.

well what if I see her and she pulls me under?
I wanted to stay golden with another
cause (my one) she’s all heavy and precious inside
but this other girl is enchanting
I wanna choke on her somehow
wanna find where that labyrinth in her lips goes
and I know it ain’t righteous
but i’d sin before a goddess Herself
and fall willing into black water
for a taste of her while living

the premise of a perfect garden is a lie
you cannot break something
order something
meant to be wild
something that still
so intensely
has it’s own free will
it’s own direction toward the sun
but you can marry it in it’s perfect home
with it’s perfect companion

Be soft and evoke those who are
Let your eyes wander

Open yourself to this world despite its sharp edges
You will bleed, but you will heal
Some of us bleed with the moon anyway

do not feel the need to fill silence, it exists to bring peace and truth
but you must also speak your truth
You are blessed, glory
the light

The thunder rumbles in sore throats

and rivers of yellow speak of high hopes

for the people who plant flowers and complain to pollen

the earth will give you too many chances to worry about sunflowers

because drizzles help

until there you are,

achey muscles and grey face ******* on Ricola

crossing a street to go to work

and how does it happen to be that the first day of rain in a month comes on the day you lose your sunshine

Well today the sun came in a bottle of Tropicana

and tomorrow I will count the losses of those who just can’t take one rainy day

Spring in California
feels like the dream;
meadows high with sunshine
brushing hips

Oxalic sour grass on your lips
sweet sweet berry

Painted clouds, straight
from your breath

It is falling in love
only,
if you see it

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’m in the strawberry’s secret seeds
hiding from blue in the red
before my pink becomes entirely grey
and muted
and suddenly everything stopped
and the lights went dark
no, the sun went down
but I’m still hiding while the others
crawl out of their caves
to sing praises to our moon
and kiss each other in whole holy love

Doesn't summer feel hostile?

Your hot skin drips honey
that wastes into the pavement

It feels raw

Naked bodies
bathing sweetly in a sensuous river
Tired books in the hands
of holy women

Thinking all morning
about sweet peaches
And all night
about salvation

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.

The creek beside us in its
lines and waves,
and your hands just the same
Sing me our willow song
one more time
before the sun goes down
Sing into my open mouth
once more
Of the tiny spiders,
and their silk
Woven through the hair on your arms

The peach fuzz on my cheeks,
soft as lambs ear against yours

Should we hang our linen in the granite caves?
swim into the shaded creek
Should we take apart each inch
of each other's skin
Just to feel what's underneath?