I never understood
how people could drink tea right after it left the stove
or how holding hands holds that much
importance,
or how many times i miss you counts over and over
and how someone can do so much for one
at a table for two and feeling like it, too
not that one side, one-handed, one backhanded
table tennis serve, practice wall *******.
And i never understood how someone could take their coffee all sugar
i never understood what physical intamacy was
and how you could have both emotional and
physical
and how hard it is to stop myself from caring
or how irrational i could be
and how you can matter,
you and your Bob Dylan, broken chair, black projector
can matter, how
grocery trips and carwashes
can matter, how
much i can care about something in no more than a month
can matter, how
i hope you can be after because i hope i can be too.
If i could show you how much you mattered i would,
I never understood
how to before.

I was called a ****
because of my body today.
It didn’t phase me, because my mother
taught me not to listen to boys
who use their egos like knives.

I find it odd,
because they don’t know that I have a freckle
just above my hip bone.
I keep it closely guarded because
it is the only part of my body that I like.

No one can say they know my body
until they know which one of my arms
has a scar from when I burned my arm
cooking for my family.

They can’t understand my body
until they look into my brain
and see how the right side must be vibrant
at least that’s how I see it.

Did you know that I grew my hair
to hide the way my body looked
in the summer? To hide it from You,
so that I could at least be held steady
in my own roots.

I lied, you know
my favorite part of my body is my eyes.
My soul is climbing out of the window and holding to the window pane.
It longs to leave the cage.
It longs for separation from the cage.
It longs to have its picture taken, to be drawn, to be remembered, to be won, to be loved and cherished and wanted.

But it sings for just me.

While I walk to Hendrick’s
early in the morning
I hold tangled up headphones
and feel for the keys in my pocket
which I am always forgetting
and I have
previously
relied on my roommates but
after last week
I try to remember them
being locked out is never
fun

I walk by the empty streets
in the new spring warmth
listening to the sounds of the wind
pass through my hair
watching a single
silver Honda
slink away
I wonder where
they are going
as the sun says hello
I wish I could drive
if I could
I would go to the lake
and shake hands
with the sun himself
maybe he would
say hi back
if he knows me


I know the sun
knows my face
and knows my cheeks
the freckles reflect that
and his kisses leave
rouge the shade of
peonies
every time I sneak
a smile
if I could
say hi to the sun
we would talk about
David Bowie
and we would decide
he
is one of the best artists
of all time,
not comparable to
Elvis,
who the sun would say
had a few great hits
but nothing could beat
Labyrinth
and I would agree
and I would tell
the sun that
he’s doing
a great job
because I don’t think
that anyone tells him that
and I think so

I say
I want to feel what it's like to burn
you hand me a chili pepper in return
I say
I want to feel what it's like to burn
you hand me a firecracker and run
I say
I want to feel what it's like to burn
and you hand me your finger
you dip it in a powder
and hold it up to my lips
i kiss your ring finger
and let the powder melt in my mouth.
you say i want to feel what it's like to know you
and we kiss
and burn together.

I can’t help but to stare at her
and the way that she seems to brighten the world wherever she walks. Her eyes
Could rock me to sleep, sing me a sweet melody and
melt my insides. I can’t help but listen to her words
and the way they waltz across the pages, staying in tempo with my tongue. They are
leading the dance. I can’t help but to marvel at her, so
put together and so untouchable. My limbs are frozen, icy,
stiff without her touch. Oh,
if I could feel an ounce of her love, I could leave my bed in the morning. But
alas, when I wake, I am alone, watching her silhouette dance in my dreams. When she
wakes, her smile looks at the sun and burns
just as brightly, rivaling its rays. And her eyes are like
embers, while my eyes look like ***
and my clothing is wrinkled, while hers is folded neatly on
her bed in the morning. The
way that she can brush her hair aside, and it looks like an untamed fire,
the way her bangs look as if I could touch them, and feel the hot
flames. My hair is a cold dark open night, one worth chasing and
leaving behind. Her light will go fast,
you must catch it in a glass jar and
hold it close to you. When you feel angry,
you can watch as she darts from side to side, as
her aura fills you with glee and hope. She
is the reason why I get up in the morning and feel like I can
breathe. She is the reason I let myself be.

i log off of my camera and close my laptop
deep sigh
shift my weight to the end of the chair
i think i broke my tailbone yesterday,
at your house. I remember walking over
and asking you for help. I remember
you sighing and telling me not to worry.
its only a tailbone after all.

my tailbone connects my spine, to my ribcage, to my heart, to my lungs, to my fingers, to my skull, to my eyes, to my nose, to my arms and to my body.

when i lose sight of you, will it be worth it to break my tailbone?
will it still be just a tailbone?

I received a beautiful flower today

and put it in the window,

for it to bathe in the sunlight and

wait for the rain.

It wilted.

It stood still a moment so that I could see it sway.

Its body held steadfast and melancholic,

and the petals laid aghast, weary, and cadaverous.

The flower itself looked like a young child,

whose ears had listened to the heartbroken voices of their parents,

a new spirit already bent, doomed, still yet uncertain,

as if its first morning had also been its last.

Her petals hung around her waist,

the pink silk laying lopsided on the stem, ruffled.

The reflection of the clouds imposed on her belly,

casted onto my own chest.

I look at her, astonished of her beauty, but perplexed

by the nature of her own spirit.

I questioned her vulnerability and her truth, as

it felt like she had tried to reassure me, by her coming,

of the broken promises,

alas her thorns said otherwise,

and her salmon petticoat sheltered her true olive-green body.

I studied her movement with every gust of wind,

to see if she had recognized the brisk kiss,

or if it had felt differently from when she had been in the fields,

unbothered and surrounded by other flowers her size,

synchronized in the movement with each breath,

their balletic petals holding hands with the sunbeams,

before being ripped from their earthy home,

and thrown into a foreign place where it is frigid and florescent.

The flower’s strong veins–

–you could call them veins,

had been tattered as every root seized from the safety of mother nature’s nursery,

with hope of a new start and being gullible enough to think it so. Instead,

being tossed into my arms, where I cannot supply the nutrients to be pumped into its delicate heart.

And it lay there,

wishing once more to feel any semblance of feeling grounded.

The flower stayed ***** long enough for me to enjoy its beauty, be charmed by its hope and solitude,

but also watch as each of its petals curl and begin to flinch for,

each gust of wind brings a new danger to its well-being.

And then I will keep it so I may watch it forever,

remembering the way that it was, but also the way it could have been if it had been left

untouched by unkept hands.

And I felt the flower, if not alive in the beauty that the world brings,

then alive earthy tones of a leather-bound book,

that too had once held hands with the sunlight and felt the nip kisses of the wind.

And I let it live.