you make me melancholy

you are here and you are whole
my initials are printed on your cellophane skin
you paid to have someone else mark you to say
"this is the last time"
"this is my home"

you have made me into a saddened poet
and nearly a mother
our names used to run together justlikethis
now they are separate creatures
ensnared to each other by &
and that is better
we appear at parties, an institution
wedding guests in patchy blazer
and swollen dress
people take photographs of us
i hope someday to see them captioned
by someone who never dwelt in that moment with us

you are thinner this time around
more delicate, i worry someday i will cling so tightly in need of you that you rust beneath my fingers
like i sent you around a carousel and you came back astride a horse and in an ill-fitting suit
longer hair, thinner face, fuller beard
sunken eyes
i made you into a watery corpse
and i'm sorry

i lie on my side and bite sea green glass bottles
think about the child i'll bear you
suffocate and cannot dream
i cry tears of frankincense and battle the dead inside me
calling for me to join them for a day
boy, pray for my life

i can be cold and altruistic
and all i want to do is pen songs
that is fine with you
you have become a mortician now
in dress, in manner, in aspiration

i missed you terribly
i know i am incessant
you stumbled through a curtain and onto my doorstep
i welcomed you with flat palms and clenched teeth
i love you
and i'm sorry i smoked you out the first time around

i told you in a rainy place we've been before
we took it as a sign but i'd already made my mind up
when we lay sunken in my floor, and i breathed with you without hesitation
**** it, why'd i ever let them take you away from me
i'm sorry, friend

we blew kisses to our stars and now i'm making you a father after all your friends
in your veiny hands you'll hold our only child
i'm so sorry for what i did, and what i'm bound to do
you'll be back soon, i miss your sunken cheeks and the way you say goodbye
i need to rest my bones, you make bitterness taste like home

i wasn't a bad person
until i woke up one morning
and decided to make all the choices i wanted to
instead of the ones that would keep me afloat

there's not enough time or change in the world
for me to recount every good story
every song i liked, every window you rolled down
every wrong turn
the kiss on my cheek

all i listen to these days is your sleepy breathing
and a cassette tape that fell behind the passenger seat
"cut me open, we didn't bring rain jackets"
i am small, this seat with the stuffing coming out is my throne
we end up in a diner, i order the blue plate special
your hand is on my knee, the coffee is hot
every gas station looks the same
might as well just never go home
we have too much to talk about

friends & lovers, it all blurs together
cellophane over my eyes, i can't see a thing
can't see anything wrong with this.
taste america, the deep south where i grew up
taste you, fill up my cup, it isn't enough

the sun is a burden, night driving is free
the phone rings and we deny it three times
she's on the other end, yeah?
wants to know where your heart lies, yeah?
one foot in the door pretend like it's okay as long as we don't lock it
if she asks we can still say no we didn't, yeah?

i watch you throw away motel receipts on the last day
pack everything up, avoid questions that haven't been asked yet
the same songs come on but they sound louder, sharper
i am anxious
we go to the same diner, i order the blue plate special
my knees are cold. the coffee is too hot. i can't stand it.
home is a metallic taste in my mouth
i pledged my wandering heart to someone who doesn't have enough space left in his suitcase

a list of things i keep having dreams about:

1. underwater. not drowning, but free to pull my head up towards the white, bubbling sunlight. my head pushes through but then it is night and i am in the lake, weighed down by white dress. men put hands on my shoulders, words murmured in rapid prayer. i am baptized but there is blood on my hands. and then those hands join with others and we dance around flame, murmuring together. we are are all arriving we are all arriving we are all arriving. i did not believe in dancing but i dance among the pagans and the black trees look like obsidian knives, jagged, pointing towards lady moonlight. and my face is aflame and my mother says my grandmother spins in her grave each time i pray to a god who is not of abraham but then i realize that i have become my own god and i pray only to myself. and then i am the one spinning and spinning and then i am the water again but it is deep blue like melted velvet and now hands do not pull me up do not pray for me they push down and this time i am drowning.

2. we are lying in bed. my sheets have little roses on them and the lamplight is warm and forgiving and i am in satin and you are in nothing and we kiss and touching you feels good again. and i sing Dylan to you and i guard you with my own heart. and my feet rest in swimming pools that reflect me into you and suddenly there is no me and no you there is just dimness and an airy room where you are showing me such love and tenderness with your lovely blood and bones and i clutch my necklace and wonder what this would feel like if it were a cross instead of a moon. i cry because this was all that i had left because i feel thirteen again like it's the first time i said i would wait until i had a husband and so that's why i say i will marry you yes my love yes because we must atone we must always. atone.

3. barefoot. running. muddy dress, american forest, it smells like home only different. smokier, damper, sadder. gunshot. i slip behind the reddish brown trunk of one of the giants living in the woods and breathe. breathe. scream. hands around my stomach, pull and tear, drag along wet red clay. barefoot. my dress is red and my face is red and my hair is a dark night sky for a single moon. they chant. **** the witch **** the witch **** the witch **** the witch. i was buried in a churchyard. i wake up feeling thirsty and needing to check my voicemail.

4. a thousand mirrors. like versailles, only not. my hands on your lapels. you are seven feet tall and you love me. your hair is wild and i am an enchantress in lavender. we dance to piano and mournful horn, a thousand miles away. i am two inches tall, but you love me like i am the new moon.

there are neon lights tonight
at the edge of town
and i was sleeping in bed
with the lights on

pale yellow against paper skin
hiding in caves, counting crystals and gems
and finally i walk out into cold violet twilight
with bare feet and the wind in my hair

every time i think i've forgotten about you
you come back to me
in a flash of candlelight
that stirs my soul

while i sit here taking notes, buying tickets
i remember the way your nose felt pressed against my shoulder
the smell of your coat when you'd come home
and i hugged you in the hallway, a sprite in stocking feet

nights stayed up laughing. my head thrown back against the pillow
listening to soft ***** music and tambourine
frustratingly happy to call you mine

a dozen dances, a handful of weddings attended
side by side, a pair of foxes in moonlight
rolled up sleeves, champagne cocktails
rowboats and stumbling feet, each kiss like white sugar on my tongue

your unshaven face meeting my cheek
the wild, moon-kissed look in your eye
you'd give me when everything was quiet
before reaching for me, your hands as open as the endless sea

i loved you every night of my youth
but i'm trying to move past all of that
fix my hair, drink my tea
fight against every thought that wraps around my head
like brown, thorny vine

you pick and scratch at my mind
all the time
even though you're not here
i feel like i danced with the devil too long
and now he thinks that he's my friend

why else would i be clawing out of bed
so i can stop dreaming about your sleepy kiss

friday night and i'm drowning
sweating and struggling to find the right air for my lungs
you look straight through me

and i feel like calypso
but you pulled at me with blue-veined hands
through white sand and concrete
and this is where i leave you
lips bleeding, your only loyalty to blue velvet sky

we outgrew the fort where we played lovers
still sitting inside, our heads bumping against the ceiling
plates and forks too small
and every time the clock ticks to five i think of you
striding through that door like a giant in a house of fine things

once we thought we wanted to be the greatest
and then we settled for something a few stories down
stopped wishing for skating across wood floors in socks
stopped planting lace for flowers and a sunday preacher
instead we settled for cold dinners and dead peonies in teacups

clutching pillow, laughing
turn the sound off and it looks like i'm screaming
and you're screaming too but for completely different reasons
by lamplight on creaky bed frame with a lone car zooming into the skylight

you were my moon&sun;&stars;
and for you i was the person who knew how to put your stars into constellations
i was a drowning mermaid
something seeming impossible but dangerously real at dawn's light
hands poking through teal-grey surf, clawing clawing

you stepped back and looked down, horrified and delighted
and i stopped being a mermaid and became a gold necklace
a hand adjusting that gold necklace, cool to touch on the nape
with my art school hair and sideways monday never smile

i fought through hell for you
i went through screaming at the top of my lungs
and came out on the other side, trailed by hideous, dark things

i sat on the sand
looking at the gold in my hand and thinking about how it looked bigger the last time i saw it

tonight i died
yesterday is a pebble crushed under my heel
but in time i will rise and fly backwards
swallowing deadly creatures whole, olive eyed and free
drinking rose petals and milk and bursting through brick

ashes become wind and wind blows through hollow tree
i will love again
but this time it will be me

there are three blood stains on our sheets
in the shape of various european countries
and there is a dying white rose you bought me
last tuesday when i called in sick

it sits on the dresser, strangled by baby's breath
a single window, broken blinds
shoes tripped over every morning

when you stumble out of bed to go to class
and i stay and bask in the glow of your empty space in the mattress
wood floor scratched by broken glass
tubes of lipstick half-melted in august sun

the tv where we turned on carrie on a sticky summer night
and lay on top of the sheets
and couldn't remember how it ended

this is the room where i fell in love with you

my Bad Days come in capital letters
starting with mornings overslept
and greasy, greasy hair
red lights glaring through the fog

and punctuated by sneaking feelings
creeping through damp underbrush
peering out and launching onto ankles

self-doubt. anxiety. fear.
two a.m. feelings striking at a quarter to nine in the morning.
i am having an existential crisis in math class.
blue marker on white board and all i can think about is
why was i put on this great green world

  and how
there are tiny organisms that could fit in my eye
and we don't know what the bottom of the sea looks like
and the first person i ever loved was a capricorn

in the morning i stumble out of gray sheets
crawl along cold tile and count four little orange pills
so that today maybe today
i won't wonder why i was made a person and not a river

some days i wake up
and the sky is tinged with blue and pink
my heart makes sounds of sweet muses

those days are not good
they are average

but i do not feel average
i feel good.