Snow isn't pretty.

Snow just shows what you’ve could of been;

pure, clear, clean and untouched,

and eventually gone.

You’re the snow in populated areas.

*****, sludgy, and walked upon by everyone.

You make people slip and crack their heads open.

To be drained into the polluted river

and become the grimy water he drinks from the tap

and the bitter aftertaste that lingers.

748

Autumn—overlooked my Knitting—
Dyes—said He—have I—
Could disparage a Flamingo—
Show Me them—said I—

Cochineal—I chose—for deeming
It resemble Thee—
And the little Border—Dusker—
For resembling Me—

i have racked my mind
trying to figure this whole thing out
the staying, the going
the threads we claim hold us here
& the people who've stopped to play a tune on them
i sometimes relate it
to waking up in waist deep snow
in our former selves
the us we wish we could give one another
the children we've sat on the shelves
trapped, like the looks
we leave behind in snow globes
i sometimes imagine ships
dragging the bottom to the sea of "me"
for sleep & pieces of my old self
to sell to the new one
like history doesn't repeat itself
it gets me wondering
if you too want an apology from the rain
or if you dream of burning family photo albums
and wearing the ashes like perfume
if you're anything like me
how i hope god chokes
on memories of me blowing out candles as a child
i know i shouldn't reference my reader  
but don't you know, the only difference
between alone & lonely is you?
that if my hands could talk
the only thing they'd be able to say
is "dear god we've missed you"
and how can you tell me it isn't love
when even the rain refuses to fall
in places where i've kissed you
i remember the day
you found my smile at a yard sale
it reminds me of how you'll leave
i wonder if when you go
you'll tell yourself
the person in the rear view mirror
is closer than they appear

Mother told us when we were younger not
to step foot into the woods or else our bodies
would disappear like birch tree into morning
sky.

At night in the dark with our hushed breathing
lying underneath soft blue quilt and the moon pale
as Mother’s face shining through the bedroom window
she told us stories about wolves with teeth sharp
and naked, sinister and still like a fresh mistake, or like
the stories themselves, the ones that lulled us into
hard-edged sleep.

Now at night in the dark with my hushed breathing
lying underneath trees tall as a father I’ve never met
I am breaking every law I’ve ever known, standing
with feet bare and rough like the body of a toddler
that’s been scratched by saltwater. Now the moon
is as rough and gold as a cruel boy’s face.

Here I am breaking every law I’ve ever known
but also here I no longer have a mother. Here
there are finally people I can learn how to miss
and the trees look more like tombstones; on one:
the name of a father long gone, another: mother dead
with age, a third: boy dead by drowning.

If somebody could see me now they would see
the body of somebody holy, soft and aching and wrinkled.

fast forward three years
you're living on the coast binding books and your hips together
and i'm still in the small town that turned me into a sinkhole
you got out though, huh? you got out just fine, you have always been stronger than me
you have always been able to get well and get up without anyone bringing you bouquets of hands

you sit down to explain to her that love has made you reckless, that too many people
have been easygoing with your heart; let it cross the streets alone.
drunkenly leaving it in cabs in other countries
so for a while there you weren't sure who to give it to

my dear, I know now that you were never a hotel I could check in and check out of
you were in the best way possible, the mental hospital,
the time I woke up with nobody but the voices in my head (they were all yours)
(I couldn't leave until I got better)

you tell her you fell in love with a girl who never burned your letters,
who showed love in all the wrong ways, never picked up the phone, "honey", you'd say,
"she was nothing like you" ... "kept her hair light to contradict the dark inside of her,
didn't trust anyone to blindfold her and walk her down the street"
you try to tell her my name, but you can't
you can't remember what they call me, call me, call me,
I never picked up the phone

fast forward three years
you're living on the coast making love and mixed drinks a little too strong
and i'm buried near the sinkhole in town, next to the dog my dad kicked a little too hard
out the door of the house he lived in with my mother
i've got your name tattooed on my neck

last year I asked myself
if I would still be writing
about you when you're
no longer in sight and
thousands of miles away

but I saw you in the fallen
leaves I heard your voice
with the roar of the wind
I still see you in my dreams
and I still think of you

last night I asked myself
why you still crossed my
mind from time to time
because I haven't heard
from you since you left

I could cry or tear a little
about you but instead I
am writing about you
for all the wrong reasons
and you will never know

You ever have those days when you'd rather take the long way home?
With headphones on
Ignoring your heart beat
Trying not to crack like promises and iphone screens...
Well honestly,
You ripped the spine off of my notebook paper skeleton and crumpled it into the shape of your fists until it was nothing but a broken haiku:

What is love without
Lighting matches in the dark
Drenched in gasoline

You wear the whites of your eyes like flags when we touch
Like giving up is an option
And I'm trying to rewind the cassette tape memories to the beginning when smiles decorated our faces and I didn't know your full name or that you love orange juice and comic books
We're just kids in love with following fault lines to their breaking points and drawing assumptions on sidewalks while it rains. Raised on etch a sketch commitments that fade when shaken
We have no connection to the word 'stay'
**** the Christmas lights in your eyes, they don't stay up all year like I had hoped and I wore red lipstick to stop myself from kissing you and you stopped gelling your hair back like permission for me to massage your aching head, knead out any leftover thoughts of 'slow down'
But that was centuries ago and by centuries I mean lifetimes ago and maybe our souls have agreed to meet in some silent studio where you paint me abstract on subservient canvases and you'd feel like Salvador Dali as you melt clocks on my wrist to leave our moments up for interpretation...
We will not touch again, we had our last hug and the bass of our pulse has weakened so the memories don't keep us up at night
They have become elevator music in the back of our minds because we don't want to forget the sound of 'I love you'
Like astronomers falling in love with a blank sky, darling, it's in our nature to chase after the stars that chase after the moon that chases after the sun that chases after the world that chases after this idea of love.
Lets fold our empty spaces into intricate origami haikus like...

We ran out of glue
Stationary paper cranes
We burn down in flames