Breakups are perhaps the space travel of relationships-
in leaving you I deserted my home planet.
What, what is this?
Everything is dark, unfamiliar, and cold.

Six red roses fastened to my doorstep
wept half a dozen treaties
and begged to be kept.

Is there anything so extraordinary as a hand?

I asked, as I ****** his finger
with a gusto hungry to milk some essence of him
that would nourish me after his body left.

Your divine digits! These brilliant explorers, who
fragile as separate spring shoots, can teach and tell and build what
would last for ever.

If a Renaissance lives, it lives in these hands , these ingenious orchestrations that can musick and paint and sculpt and-

          *-and write?

Yes darling, and that.

I migrated my tongue and attention to his palm and slowly painted his love-line pink, tasting his future.

Do you know, when I was once a little Catholic girl- they would tell their stories in Sunday School and I used to imagine the soul resided somewhere in your belly and felt like chicken noodle soup...

and perhaps not so, perhaps hands are the houses of soul where the most Authentic Self of selves resides waiting to touch, to hold, to caress... where the animal desires of humanity delight in the most truthful communication existing?

        -Then... what is the common language? Id?

Yes, perhaps you're right. And love.

His other hand, jealous of my attention, spoke aloud in a sonnet of pinches and strokes that could have drawn tears of reverence were I not held captive by the decadent finger between my lips.

Between gulps of air he queried my fixation
and with a final holy gasp I testified:

**"Darling, touch is the only transparent sensation"

...you stand surely to shipwreck.
all hands on deck.

accordion three-four lilts amelie
hymn hummed
beneath frenetic waltz of fingers
Rain-bitten and dumb

pirouette recessional to the sea

and such enchanting cobbled waves

how truly quaint rosy tempest in the square

pour down the dirge to murky drain.
throw in the bottle, the maps, the ropes

pirouette recessional to the sea

lastly heave-**
i throw in me.

Were Love a fragrance,
would it settle like a hummingbird
at your throat- or would it become
trapped under your hair, shimmering pinkly
oxytocin shaken out in your bursts of joy
Love, like an orange peel.

Would it be that sound is the body of Love?
Is it tucked into your quiet sighs
as forever as a child, is it the raucous laughing cry
of delirious grandiose 2am Love on crowded streets,
or afternoon halfsleep philosophies on the human condition?
Or the very quiet promises, and Love is the vow.

the hardest surgery is the one you perform on yourself.
Steady?
Ready?
No anesthesia but a chuckle of nervous humor
the first incision across your heart.


When you finish (many months later)
you put the scalpel down, wave weakly
to the clapping colleagues hugging each other in disbelief
from the observatory, sterile and eager
you give them a wan grin
and hope they've watched closely
so that now they know how...
how to do this.

At twenty-something, I was taught by Fear
who said nothing matters
and then at twenty-something-else I was taught by Faith
who said anything matters
And she wasn't the Sunday kind of Faith that you find
clasped between your palms, clasped like you're afraid
that if you let go the Faith will just tumble out and break.
No, she was the Faith that was bigger than God and so intimate
that sometimes I was the Faith, sometimes you were the Faith,
and sometimes the Faith was me.
So really, Faith doesn't have a name.
But Faith and Fear, they both breathe, they're each lung
and when I fill one, the other billows, after all
you need two to breathe.

And so then I, feeling bold, learned about Bravery.
I had heard about it in newspapers and history book indexes
and in our local volunteer firefighters.
Wondered if I could buy it.
Wondered how much it goes for.
But I couldn't find Brave until the moment I gave up on it
and said, ***** it, I'm so scared but I don't care anymore,
I'll just do it, Brave be ******.  
And surely enough, it was hiding beneath the tremors.
So really, Brave was the Siamese twin of I'll Just Do It.
which, by the way, wasn't in the glossary of this or any history book.

Everything changes, you know?
I'm changing, you're changing.
Oh, it storms me like the sea!
I secretly raise my glass to stasis, my faraway frenemy.
Don't tell the other Sagittarians, they'd exile me surely.
Change, letting go of my old faces
feels too close to dying,
feels too close to leaving you behind.

And I'm not ready to leave you behind.

Oh the West, keep your Mountains.
If only for a little longer.

I've excised my soul again and again
transplanted and sutured
but there's just no time.

Even with these visions from under the knife-
there's just no time to heal
before I'm laid on the table again.

Faith hold me-
Fear teach me
so I can...

Steady.

Please- stay with me.

*Ready?

We like to take care of skinny people
as if they were just passing through.

Like if we don't hold them tight, they'll disappear.

We put sweaters on them
bundle them up with words of concern.
We take them in.
We tuck them in.
It becomes an addiction
that runs both ways.

I fell in love with worried eyes
and pursed lips, the feeling
of ribs knocking into the yielding flesh
of a whole universe of mothers.

They do not leave.
They stay and take care of you
fortify you, nourish you,
bring the colour back.

Skinny, I can't let you go
because I don't know how
to just ask
for love.

Not from them,
and not from me.
I don't wanna grow up
I don't wanna die
keep me at age five
before the flood came
bring her back
take nothing away
ever, ever again.

Not strong enough to feed myself the inherent right for affection
and not brave enough to be strong.


And so that's why I chose you, Skinny.
My collar bones are my contingency plan.
If they disappear too, God help me-
because I got nothing.

If I begin to tremble,
I know you're just right.

Aware both of the autumn at my throat
and of your impossibly bright teeth
I turn owlishly as you pass
and am thrown off my orbit
by the gravity of your curls.

Knowing I will never see you again,
I watch you like a red balloon
stealing swift into the blue
far beyond the limit of eyesight

and I am overcome with the terrible desire
to weep and to laugh
and to know your middle name.

-First Date-

Shirt goes on. Shirt comes off. Wriggle into jeans. Bend knees. No jeans. Maybe the newish skirt? Loose dress? Bearing in mind it’s a nightclub, I close my eyes in a quick bid to channel my inner Oracle for foresight on how to dress myself appropriately for the occasion. Twelve years ago I went on my first “date”, yet I’ve Benjamin Buttoned one of the first skills I’ve learned- once so bold, I’ve since regressed- now so perplexed with clothing, in wonder at the texture of colours, the worn-mama of a Technicolor sock orphanage, unable to wear a sweater without wearing every memory woven within. Wool makes my hippocampus itch even more than my skin. Stumbling around my room like a strange toddler-giant, I harvest outfits from my floor, assess, and toss back down into my unapologetically red **** carpet. It came with the house, unlike me. I should have been downstairs 5 minutes ago. Boy’s razor has stopped whirring and all I can hear is the soft swish of my own rummaging, punctuated by the immensely dear and clumsy strumming of my guitar as he patiently waits. A basic four-chord pop progression, and then the bones of a Radiohead song I taught him months ago when we were Just Friends and I was simply the older sister of his best pal from undergrad. Strictly off-limits, and so we grew close in the plainest, most innocent of ways, letting our insufferably weird senses of humor and quirky authentic selves hang out like big bellies over unbuttoned pants. He laughed at all my jokes and I became addicted to the sound. In spite of my five left-arms I tried my damndest to learn Ultimate when he invited me to his league just so we had another excuse to spend our Sundays together. How suddenly and beautifully it changed, very late one night and as naturally as if we had been together for months and the only oblivious parties were us. How fitting now that we should have our first date with my favourite musician, an artist who we had bonded over in our early days.

Unless, of course, I take so long to get dressed that we miss it. I abide by Murphy’s Law as I don my original ensemble and scramble down the stairs with my hands open in apology. Boy is lying on the couch with a button-down plaid shirt and a clean face, a stunning picture of leisure even though we are late. He smells magnificently fresh and I stifle the urge to cough out the butterflies that tickle my throat. Soon we are in a car and the city glides by like a watercolour backdrop, darkened and intensified by the rain. Finding weekend parking on Granville Street is a trick and I feel my driving-nerves swirling about with infatuation for my date and my unbelievable excitement to hear Kishi Bashi and his magical violin live, creating a swamp-water of adrenaline that intoxicates me. I probably shouldn’t be behind the wheel at this point. A side street holds the space for the vehicle and we stumble out into the glorious fresh and chilly spring evening to The Venue. We share smiles and quiet stumblings through conversations that feel suddenly new as we dog-paddle the waters of What We Are Now (What Are We Now?) Normally this would fill me with anxiety, but there is a warmth and earnestness to his electric blue eyes that arrest my fear. I am floating. He is floating. We are red balloons attached by a string to each other and everything about this moment feels buoyant and filled with light, each quick step up the busy, wet sidewalk seems a little freer of gravity. With the seamless quality of a dream-montage our surroundings change and we are inside the bar. It is dark and the scene has been set by a subtle smoke machine that beckons people closer within an otherworldly fog. The lighting is nautical, a deep and dreamy pallet of purples, teals, sapphires that are opaque in the smoke- thick, sliceable beams from the ceiling that rotate lazily through the bar. I wonder out loud at how gorgeous they are and Boy agrees as we marvel at the watery beauty of the frozen fireworks around us. He buys us beer and the bottle is very cold, juxtaposed with the warmth my free hand finds as it punctuates our conversations with a magnetism to his arm, his side, like a bird testing out the tree it hopes to nest in. The bitter, hoppy fizz cuts through the mint in my mouth and I am purring, utterly content. As the minutes pass more and more people appear in singles and doubles and groups. Some are dressed in spandex and skin- ready to dance and flirt, others in heavy layers and caps, looking suspiciously like they had brought their knitting right with there with them. The best music draws out all types of people.

Suddenly I am arrested by the presence of a slight Japanese man, hair spiked up in an edgy bedhead and wearing a sand-coloured suit and bowtie who says “excuse me” as he passes in front of us like a common mortal, just some other dude of average height and appearance and not the music god whose albums have become a part of my blood. Boy catches my shock and follows my laser eyes to the passing man, before exclaiming: “No- no, that isn’t? Was that...?!” With my empathic affirmation I allow my knees to buckle, one third for comedic effect, one third because I am literally star-struck, and one third for the delicious slump into my stunning companion’s arms. It is Hallowe’en. It is Valentine’s Day. It is Christmas. “I’m dying!” I laugh, “I’m literally dying, I’m dying- this is too much, too much- I’m dead!” Boy laughs, his shy voice like a cozy bell and he kisses me firmly, purposefully, dominating my senses with his heat and fresh-smell and endorphins. He grins as he pulls away, shaking his head at me- “No. You’re alive. You’re so alive.” We smile in helpless excitement at each other. “Besides, I think he totally looked at you” he teases. My brain literally can’t process this and I gasp at him to stop. The lights dance more quickly and the man and his violin are on the stage. People are cheering and the room thrills in anticipation. The speakers are so loud and I don’t care, I am hungry for the bass that pulses up through my feet and entrains with my heartbeat. Kishi Bashi introduces himself and my brain stops. Boy’s arm is around me and for the first time in years I am full of an innocent, earnest sensation that I had left for false or even dead. I could almost weep for the joy of it.
Oh hello, will you be mine? I haven’t felt this alive in a long time... my lips move soundlessly with the song I had shown Boy casually months before (“this is my all-time favourite, you’ve gotta check it out”) In our makeshift guitar lessons he had assured me that he would learn this song for me, just to show off how good he was getting- a small jest that left me spinning for nights in sleepless analysis of what that could mean and if he felt the same way about me after all.

I read the signs, I haven’t been this in love in a long time... and I feel Boy’s chest move in a sigh and he draws slightly closer within the chorus so that we are cocooned in the blue and purple and heartwrenching sweep of the violin loops. The crowd sways but we are very still. I notice that my hand is in his and the imperceptible, feathery stroke of his thumb along my palm is as loud as the speakers. Boy was right. I feel this moment tattoo upon my bones, a picture that I will trace over with my mind again and again as time stops and stretches, bending the continuum into an impossible possibility of falling in love and realizing it is for keeps. That no matter how the rest unfolds, this first date, this moment, knew true happiness and belonging in what it means to be

alive.

Having fallen enchanted with terabytes
And crackle static audio that
kissed my cochlea
at arms length a thousand miles away
i realized with fear my folly
And the cursed blessing of feeling your butterflies.gif
As pixelated and intangible as
your portrait freezing before me
a betrayal to our union
a betrayal of our humanity
full of blood and heat and scent
when warmth is plastic beneath palms
when the fan cannot keep up with fervor
when solace is typed in syllables, sacred,
that do not err or lose their way in translation
And now i am Pygmalion
prostrate before his masterpiece
Clutching his beloved rock
And waiting for lightning.

August was a turtleneck that didn't fit.
Arrested at the crown of the head,
overheated gasp.

Don't you think- she thought,
I see the irony in everything I do?

Pressing ruthlessly against the yield of flesh,
probing against the pale underbelly, measuring
the distance between skin and bone.
is it better now? Is it better?

Imperceptible white ribbons at
the curve of the thigh, a bow tie atop
the gift of a new healthy body
swollen against the wrap.

I hate... I hate myself. Feels all wrong-

She eats her dinner and
the food digests in her brain.

Healthy, now? Is this-

Healing?

My name is Murmur. I have a Funk.
My Funk is bright purple. My Funk smells like skunk.
And sometimes my Funk can act like a PUNK.

(And I'll have you know now, those days really stunk)

You see, your Funk always knows when you feel sad.
When you lose a job, or when things go BAD.
This is the stuff that makes Funks glad.

But since your Funk follows you when things go all wrong
Maybe you should just invite him along.
Make a new pal, sing a Funky Funk song?
Embrace your Funk, he can sometimes be wise.
He's usually honest even when in disguise.
He might even help you fight monsters round the bend.
By the end you may just have a new Funky Friend!

It's okay to have a Funk. And sometimes you will.
Sometimes your Funk will hoist you over a hill.

Sometimes Funks will help you. And sometimes not.
Sometimes they remind you of the good things you've got.

Sometimes they will take. And sometimes they will give.
And sometimes Funks remind you to just get up and LIVE.

my body is built with glass
so that light can filter in
my bones are made of sticks
my whole heart is a forest
of monsters

it's dark
I've lost the path

my soul is the moon
it guides and blinds me
like a moth
lonely for stars

I cannot contain my light
I cannot reach shore

I sing aloud with empty lungs
the song of everyone I've ever met
the forest echoes the howl
I've forgotten

I've forgotten what my voice sounds like

when will the morning come?
my lantern isn't bright enough anymore.

Oh, my cherished-
If I could give you him
I'd wrap him in picnic plaid
Like the gift he should be
(I know you'd like that)
And I'd tie him to you by
his tweed and sheepish smiles,
so tight that you'd turn into
a Great Ancient Tree.

Darling, if I could
shake the demons out of your forest,
I'd holler at them in a pentatonic fury
and bend them from your nation.
(With air. Not fire)

My Siamese twin,
connected at the heart,
If I could give you the world
I'd carry it to you
like Atlas
though I'd have to work on my long distance running.
I'd do it for you.

I'd do it a hundred,
and bring you all the jam ever jellied.

On an L shaped couch on the eleventh floor
I spend these short days with my ghost, hosting tea-parties for silence
drinking espresso like a cure for hurt- I need a drug that's stronger than Love and bolder than Compliance-

-my brain has wrought violence upon itself as I tumble again and again into the abyss of affection, seeking the path but losing the direction. Perhaps when I called you, you detected the inflection of a woman who feels so absolutely that she can no longer discern...

and without careful reflection nobody can learn.

I was never good at playing for sport. I aim for hearts. Every day is Open Season, and my arrow will shoot true-
I'll be ****** if I cannot find something to love in you.

And I'm divided in two, no- a hundred and two, watching myselves like mirrors upon mirrors reflecting every motive, every spark, and every smudge that swings the pendulum from instinct to conscience. Showing the audience centre stage where the white knight swerves off-course to save any soul who's fallen off their horse.

Love will be the end of me.

Cupid, we need a divorce.

I gave up on astrology
when you gave up on me.

       these stars will never align

doomed to a quickened heart
when every other year
you tell me I'm
beautiful.

you're a devastating black hole
I've wary watched the effortless pull of
galaxies into your guile
invisible webs gilded with your smile

infinite universal promises of nothing.

having fallen sick with the brush of your hand
(careless earth-shattering connection)
    
          he loves me... he loves me not
                 he loves me.... he loves me not

"your old friend"- how dare you?
at the origin- ever aliens!
you never obeyed the customs
when every look was all a kiss
and every touch a secret question

"we never were just friends," I muse-
fleeing on my gondola down the milky way
casting over my shoulder your cordial invitations to love you
from this millennium onward, you've changed the font but kept the paper
into the nebulous reality you've tried to gather
I don't. I won't. I would not rather.

let daisies decide.
leave me alone.

i meditate emptiness:

i am a lantern on the water
i am a raindrop about to land
i am a birthday candle
i am a wave against the shoal
i am utterly
alone

i am afraid to let go
i am scared of impermanence
shall my emotions afflict
my waking karmas
to despair?

i loathe loneliness.
it is the footprint of my fearing
doctrine, oh doctor, please assuage-
my chronic symptom: disappearing

i am a nothing
an irrevocable passing away

i feel it on the street
i hear it in the songs i play
i know it within my secret heart

and when you turn away.

The tea cup clouds were reason enough.
Reeling, the clock hands spun on an axis wobble
noon flirted with night
and I broke into a run
as the sky opened its maw
and screamed.
Even the suits scramble for burrows.
Retrospection always has a punchline.
Hide away, slide away
Stop looking at my *******, please.
Now watch wide-eyed behind
public glass, with a
sitcom gang of affable protagonists
who are now late for their respective chapters
Staring at their phones, willing the weather
forecast to telepathically change.
The light strobes, the bricks quiver sympathetically
and I riddle a fourteen year old pantheon
as they sway, as they jaunt
ankle deep in charged water
daring each other and daring the sky
daring the noise with headphones still around necks
like defiant plastic boas
Clothes plastered, mouths open, rain-drunk
feeling ****, revealing secret intimate shapes,
feeling sheepishly exposed next
to crushes who will kiss them at the next movie.
I am aware of each nerve as I drip and shiver
I'm terrified of storms, my reasons are mine
but even this fear
can cat-stroke my skin
hyper-sensitized, electric
and make me feel
****, too.

makes me grumpy,
no, not because I don't delight
in strings of coloured bulbs
and the flavor of lip chap and hot chocolate sticky,
and the bright eyes of young magickers
but because it seems that whatever the occasion,
any revelry that involves thousands of people
destroys the city, belches post-apocalyptic refuse,
and shoulder-shoves old men, knees small children.
The reason I don't like the Santa Claus Parade
is that once it's over
everything that happened
within the anonymity drug affect of invisible hordes
and the ambulances pulling away
is nobody's fault.
Merry Christmas.

are the tattoos I etched
to mark my recovery.

And boy, did it hurt.

The white squiggles at my hips
wink at me every time I look down.
Don't look down!
As if.
I swear, they conspire with each other.

I'll never forget the very first one.
Shiny. Indignant.
I hugged my skeleton and wept.

Now I've grown accustomed
not to the deliberate finality of dropping my gaze
mesmerized by my slow evolution,
but to looking up.

I look at eyes and mouths
instead of the impossible circumferences
above my knees,
the ever shifting law.

Stretch marks
are the tattoos I etched
to mark my recovery.

Do I regret them?
Oh, a little bit always.

But it's sure as hell a story worth remembering.

I take up more colour than I used to,
and these- these are the lines that will never be filled in.

I earned them.

And when I molt
you make a headdress of the selves that
have fallen from me with time.
Like you, they are colourful and cautious.

And as you carefully creep skyward,
I throw myself down in the cool grasses
of your lengthening shadow.
I was tired. It made sense to rest.

And so we played with feathers and inches
as children do.
Running in circles and circles until we fell asleep holding hands.

What were we,
but our love?

It takes a strange courage to submit to stasis
a gentle acceptance to admit to accordance
a small release to move with grace.

It takes a surprising effort to allow joy to enter
to reveal my belly with trust for all the world,
to allow my hangdog face to return to the kennel.

I watch many move in cool hues, violets and blues,
the slow step of broken people, crushed by crushes, worn with work
as the common connecting thread, the rope bright red held by toddlers at daycamp so no one gets lost.

Sadness has become a language, a lingo so powerful that crowded rooms have little else to say. Whomever heralds the heaviest woe wins. Misery begets fine company. I've watched friends form from frayed souls that fate has patched together, I have watched lovers born from mourning.

I'm so tired of weeping. I'm not sad anymore.

I want to throw open every pair of crossed arms I see like shutters on locked windows. I seek the bravery to tell the world how happy I truly am and accept it as something other than a defeat- I want to laugh even though it will set me apart.

If I can light up a single room it will be enough. A tiny sun may feel lonely, but if it burns bright the rest will orbit.

Never will I permit the easy current of melancholy to drown me.

No more will I hide from the beauty of my life.

They say it gets better
but they never tell you when.

Isn't a breakup, after all, the surgical excision
of another whole person from your own?
Doc, gimme something to work with here
no post-op measures of comfort, no chemicals,
how long will these symptoms last?

Which day shall be the worst?
What can I eat?
How do I get to sleep?
Why is there so much vertigo?

I've lost my captain. I've lost my compass.

But forget North-

*what way is even up?

his mouth is an empty church
his heart is a steady horizon
his eyes are the way home

I resolve to achieve health
Physically.
I resolve to not lose weight,
to celebrate my strong woman-ness,
to go to bed earlier,
and never forget sunscreen.

I resolve to achieve health
Psychologically.
To have courage against the stigma
of needing someone to talk to,
to cry when appropriate
and to take every opportunity to laugh.

I resolve to love you
Deeply.
To honour you with my
thoughts and movements,
to compromise and support,
to adore you with all my heart.

I resolve to find my resolution
Not at the end, but rather in the turning of things,
I resolve to move.
I resolve to give.
Within every struggle
I resolve to live.

Autumn in the city makes me feel lost-
Raise your voice. Shoulders back.
I bury myself, because I cannot flee-
Curve your lips. Fill your lungs.
Threads of geese passing by-
I can. I can.
Over the road, across the sky*

One year ago in a public park, wooded and frosted
with ice and the gold crunch of sleeping grass
I saw a wolf. It held my gaze. Drew near, waited.
Just the huff of our breath, little stormclouds of silver reason.

Premonition. The wolf was I. One year later,
come to tell me that I would be alright.
I can blow down even brickwork now.

Said the fawn unto the fox:
Sing to me a song of happiness
And the fox swirled rusty 'round
her twig legs- breathing about her
a scarf, crimson draping the snow.
First- said the fox:
First, show me your secret antlers,
and then I shall sing to you a song
of all the happiness of the earth.

Said the fawn unto the fox:
antlers, I have not.
They are spoken within a tree
and written in his knots.
And the fox swirled rusty 'round
her twig heart- breathing within her
a Sun, crimson draping her soul.
Then- said the fox:
Then, take everything you know
feed it light to make it grow
until the tree is the whole sky
and you are the North Wind, just as fast
telling stories to the aurora borealis
and making promises to last

And then, said the fox:
*And then you shall be mine,  
and I shall sing to you a song
of all the happiness of the earth.

You could win my heart with peanut butter
or with passion for the never ending quest
of finding the perfect running shoes.

You could win my heart with literature jokes
with Kishi Bashi, Bach, or Bocelli
and if you play with me, I'm yours.

You could win my heart with affection
honesty, cleverness, and candidness,
I'm addicted to non-corporeal human evolution.

But I'd rather you didn't.
Not yet.

Monday in the park we
purchased Messiaen chirps about
nothing and watched a red kite
lying still on the grass

it was a puppet-show to my past.

After such long last breath
-caught in throat-
full moon eyes
waiting for puppet master to leap from the guise
I saw instead an onion child
tugging his layers uncomfortably
(like a Christmas turtleneck)
pulling threads
counting minutes

you're a tiresome genius,
my pretty pianist.

Half decade to pine
over songs you
half professed to be mine
full dance card, empty wine.

The daisies said yes, you know
but I've far greener grass in my garden to sow.

The thimble is tossed. I love you... not
Go on, cryptic darling,

sing softly your loss.

Taking stock
I tuck this year inside
the first little furrow-line
across my brow.

Hm. Skin's changing.
I'm changing.

There was more anguish in 24
than the Doc ordered.
Somehow, the endless easy wealth
endless easy employment
and eager entertainment
evaded me.

But there are also little dents on either side of my mouth now.
A ripple between lip and dimple.
There was joy on this face-
enough to carve its name forever.

24 and time has begun to speed up,
people talk a bit quicker
fleeter of foot
and calendar has begun
to foxtrot-

And I sit on the side of the Hall
watching the days dance on and on
how selfish they seem
How quickly Spring woos Summer
How fickle is Summer, as she whirls to Autumn
How chilly, Autumn as he falls for Winter,
How feverish, they dance.

24, a left-footed wallflower.
24 with wide eyes that try to capture
the entire world and hold it STILL.

This ball lasts forever and never.
There's no break.
24, I guess it's time to give Life my dance card
surrender and cut in,
24, ready, steady-

*let the dancing begin.

August
Even then, you know, you
were right about one thing-
I -am- insecure. That, which
unsettles me to my
core of worth
was the selfsame fuel
for pathos with you,
my foe.

September
See, I was all too willing
pressing my ear against floorboards
to catch echoes of smear, until
I bled crimson anguish.

October
I became infatuated with your name,
entranced by your body, identity that had
shared such a ferocious similarity with mine,
that we have both riddled our helpless portraits
in the heart of hazel eyes with the beautiful
terrifying wonder of *what-if-always?

November
The more ghastly your claims, the more
affixed I become for your passion for me, I
could feel your heat crawling from the coast,
a welcome malaise.

December
You know, often I've felt caresses though your skin.
A shallow breath as if against your neck-
wrapped as tightly as you must have,
and I wonder at how it must have been
such a
bitter
bitter
bitter
broken.

January
I pay attention to you, I
read what you write, I
listen to what you sing,
it's not a healthy addiction but
how could I possibly help myself?

February
I didn't plant a flag so much as
stumble over a root
I didn't steal so much as
find
I didn't dictate so much as
quietly ask.

March
Possible, that the heart of your extortion was envy,
though envy of what, I may only guess.
I suppose, the bottom line is, we're both imperfect,
good-trying people who are shattered with the terror
of vulnerability.

April
When I realized this, I could have
cradled you like a sister. I could
finally see through your eyes.

May
I'm not a viper.
I'm simply a piece of you, as you
are a piece of me.

June
In this way we will be
forever bound together,
hollow with each others' desolation,
Tossing with opposite bedfellows of doubt
Slowly ******* out the same poison.

July
The funny bit is-
in another life
we could have been friends,
and all I can do is write letters,
letters to miss Anne,
that I shall never
ever send.

Don't call it falling.
Falling implies you can get up.
My infatuation lies along the fault lines
tucked beneath the first
bumps of turbulence.

Don't say swooning,
not any ocean's salt could
revive me.

It's a tachycardia- a frenetic, feverish ardor
that keeps us
p a c i n g....
.... p a c i n g
p a c i n g....

                          

                    A mania.



Yes, that's it- I'm manic in love with you.
Ill with adoration for you.
Anxious over you.
Possessed by you.
Elated, then devastated by you.

Prescribe me nothing.
Let this ravage me until bones are soil
and one day this up-for-grabs heart is
donated to someone who
thinks their life has been saved but
can't quite put their finger on
that immortal ache written within each valve.

But do not call it falling.
Falling implies you can get up.