I smell the ocean.
I feel it cool my skin,
Baking in the sun,
Or from your stare.

My hand parts from yours,
And travels west to meet the sand
That melts golden, molten,
Through the cracks in my fingers.

Thoughts now flow to the back of my mind...
Where they will crash onto hot rocks,
And sizzle, steam away.

Who else felt the night coming off the tracks,
When we first stepped into that crowded, 1 bedroom apartment,
For the 21st birthday of a guy we knew (his friends, we didn't)?

Strangers derailed and built up drunken tension.
That settled once he found the smoke,
You found the beer,
And I brought the ***.

I know my regrets.
But do you still enjoy the white line you crossed...
Off the counter top,
Before we left for IHop?

You hit me, held my hand, and made me promise in the stall,
(where I held your hair just last week)
That I won't tell.

I won't.

We loaded up in the car to go back,
But got stopped along the way.

Two pipes, one baggie, and an open container later...
Maybe birthday boy became a man,
Sometime between when he got cuffed...
And when he apologized.

Was it just me or....
Were the State Troopers cutest when they lined us girls up,
Looked at us,
And let us go?


Just in time for Mother's Day.

i drink whiskey because
after so many
shots
something like a dragon wakes up in my stomach
and crawls out my throat with the exhalation of cigarette smoke
i drink whiskey because the dark brown
mingles with the fire in my veins
and the wild south of my soul is reawakened
a part of my soul that lingers in the bricks of marie laveu's and between alleyways in the french quarter
stirs up like a ghostly collection of downy feathers
and the fear that is carved into my ribcage seeps out
i drink whiskey because the salt of my fingers plays
with the back of my throat
coaxing all this fear out, chased with mason jars of water
i drink whiskey because it makes me feel ugly and fierce
i drink whiskey because it makes it easier for me to burn bridges and sever ties
i drink whiskey because it makes being used by men with pretty faces and holes in their dead chests easier to swallow the next day
i drink whiskey because it makes me rowdy and alive
i drink whiskey because snarling rage needs to be let out sometimes
i drink whiskey because it sobers up my headi drink it because it helps me forget that i didn’t say no
i drink it because it makes me angry about what you did
i drink it because i remember the way your hand pushed mine down and the way your hand curled into a fist in my hair and yanked at the top of my dress
i drink it because i didn’t tell you no

if ever the salt in your soul
becomes too much
so grainy that it
fills your veins
and stills your happiness
if it becomes so heavy that it fills your combat
boots like the desert sands
you will fight on
and piles onto the floor when you open your
mouth
if it becomes so brackish
that gin and whiskey will
not drown out  the voices
of the demons in your stomach
i will take your salt and
toss it in the four directions
of the earth
i will give it back the dirt
i will place it on the wings of crows and ravens
to deliver it to the laughing sky
to the sea which craves it
to the cleansing fire
i will give it to all these
and place some of
it in my own heart
under my own tongue
and in my own soul