i'm everything i already knew that i was. a strong woman, with convictions that wilt like flowers that aren't meant for the 90 degree weeks we've been getting here in april. we sit around and fan ourselves with half thoughts, and you pretend that my sweat is the sweetest elixir to ever pass your lips. you make me sick with the way you look at me, but for a long time i can't stop trying to memorize the exact color of the water or the sky your eyes are. when i finally realize why, i'm taking myself in, dizzied by the likeness between her and i, and my mind, it keeps glitching as you and he run together. i'm confused at first, uncertain, but then i realize this is my subconscious speaking, the universe cross firing my faulty wiring to wake me up. you've given enough to everyone else, and i know you won't stop, but in this way it must end now. find a way to love yourself through the one you choose to love.

and there is some beauty
in listening to mouths
speak a language
that you may not understand
but at the bottom of the screen
stream the words
that leave the lips

you begin to realize
all you've got to do is read
and that you haven't
forgotten how to
take it all in

and as boys fall in love
with girls in cafes
and ride around on mopeds
and ******* their bodies
to men who needn't the money,
but the ***
because they haven't touched
their wives since
they gave birth
to their second child

you begin to realize
how beautiful
french truly is
and that you haven't forgotten
what montmartre's graves
look like in the evening's fleeting light

and as a girl falls in love
with two men at once
and they discover
how sordid lovers can be
while painting their
stories for all artistic
eyes to drink in slowly
and they lay on their
brand new queen,
because there just isn't
room for three
on a twin

you begin to
remember that spanish
is full of passion
and that you haven't forgotten
everything you learned in tenth grade

words may be formed
with different movement
of our tongues
and you may not have the
slightest idea what i'm saying
as i scrawl down these lines,
but i'm certain
that we've all found beauty
in listening to someone
pour their heart out
on the page

wild the way that summer nights consume us
as we lay mesmerized in the damp grass
by the tiny buzzing bugs
who's butts blink bright inches above
our shining foreheads, thick with the day's sweat

and as our fingers walk a thin line
from blade to blade
they begin to dance
around one another,
seemingly full of life,
but all they yearn for is a place to rest

our faces are but inches away
and i can see the freckles
on your shoulders
as i look down because you've
already caught me staring
one too many times

little do i know, you're studying
the way the moon picks up
the blonde streaks in my hair
and the scar that sits
next to my left eye
and makes me look tougher than i am

and if we could both burst open
we would and our insides
would explode into the sky
like giant burning rocks hurtling
through the atmosphere,
gravity tugging us closer and closer
until we finally collide  into one another,
a beautiful disaster

i swore to myself
that i'd stretch you away,
each breath a release
of the negative space
you occupied as your
hands roamed and found
all of the pieces of me
that would never be perfect

i imagined us floating
above the water, lost in the
cracks between the planks
of wood that you cut and
measured as the callouses
became rougher on each
of your fingertips

i longed for them to get
snagged once more as you
took off my stockings, or
brushed my hair from my
face to see that i was only
a child waiting for someone,
anyone, to love me

i could still smell the wet
and hear the drops fall in
that measured way they do,
i allowed myself to be draped
in the clouds and the vapor
felt like your big dog breathing
on the back of my neck

i laid still and wondered what
it might be like to do so
in the tiny slice of heaven
you had created for yourself,
knowing i would never know

i wondered if it was the spots
or the lack of security, or
maybe it was the secrets
that i couldn't help keeping
even when my tongue
tried it's damnedest
to tell the truth

i woke up and my eyes
were still the same, clouded
and looking for something
i wasn't ready to see, 'maybe
tomorrow,' i whispered as
i found solace in my own
arms that rocked me back
to the inevitable in between

i used to be a perfect bundle of baby smooth
skin, unscathed and innocent, but life
has become about staying strong
through whatever tries to tear me
apart and leave me a pile of nothing

i think back and the monsters that went
bump in the night are no longer the
truly terrifying, instead it's what my
brain projects on my eyelids

the truth is that memories are
nothing but stories that we tell ourselves
to stay scared, or to get free,
and lately i'm feeling impatient
waiting for my chains to fall off

strength doesn't mean **** if i
can't put the key in and free myself,
and you're dead wrong if you think
a single other soul in this world
can do the freeing for you

trying to reframe every moment
in my existence, reveling in the
realization that i always have a choice,
that i will never be lost if i allow myself
to live for what i truly love

I am beautifully ******
in a zone wedged between
perfection and pleasure

perched on a throne of swans
with star's light illuminating my gaze

I wander through intricate plucking
into a field full of fresh, wet snow
I sway there, the sun warming my face

music ends and I'm still blissfully lost
next to the garden of my mom's first apartment

I stare into the tree of life's center
hoping that if I look deep enough
I'll find answers of what's to come and what has passed

Adam and Eve grin at me devilishly
and I want for nothing more than an apple

what better
secret is there
than that of lust? lovers using
their lips to share sacred stories
without speaking a single word.

it's funny how technology
has made it impossible for us
to bury things completely
our past is never hidden
when all you have to do
is google a name
and a lifetime pops up on the screen

tonight i spent hours
reading the messages
you sent me
that said that you'd love me
forever and that you would
always be a part of my
happiness, no matter what

if this were 1953 i'd be
reading letters
and my tears would smear
the heart felt hand writing
that bared your soul

instead the salty liquid
sits stagnant on the
spacebar and i'm
holding on tight
to my screen
trying to force myself
to simply shut the laptop
hoping that closing it
will wake me up from this
dream, oh nothing is
going to wake me up
from this
says the inner realist
and i'm still typing away
about you
adding to the never-ending
archives of our love
or what it once was

when i get ****** up
it starts in my teeth
i can always tell
by the way my chompers feel

candy flipping,
rolling,
tripping ***** ,
smoking blunts

my teeth get this feeling
like they're not quite right
it's hard to explain
just how they feel
but i know that something
is quite unreal

they feel sort of fuzzy,
strange to the touch
i rub my tongue on them
and i can't feel much

then the rest of me starts
to fall into place
wave after wave
crashes over me
i begin to feel it physically
the next thing i know
my mind is wandering far
to lands that i haven't seen in awhile

i know that many
will look at me harshly
for this confession
but i'll be honest,
i love to be ****** up

glued to crushed velvet
i think in hues of blue
tonight and wonder
what you see when
you stare at your
ceiling in the bronx

is it waterlogged and
cracking? or smooth
and perfectly painted
in eggshell white? or
maybe it's stuccoed,
or patterned, or hand
painted with naked
angels floating about?

turn on your transformers
and fire up the transporter

i'm coming to lay
side by side to see
what it is you see
when you tell me
you're thinking of me

freaky friday flybys
waiting without patience
for gravity to let go

you charge me one last time
because despite all of your theft
you still find your pockets full
of lint, flies, and crumbs

loosening limp hands with
sinister strength and subtle
hints of death and desire

marks on my neck are
all that's left and i will
treasure them until i'm
nothing but a blank canvas

ghetto ******* laundromat, funny it ends
where it began, i do love a full circle, but
i can't say i love folding, and watching you
do it is as equally painful as doing it myself

question always, what do i want? what do i
want? what in the ******* world is it that
i want? that lame dave matthews song comes on,
what i want is what i've not got,
****, i know what you mean, dave, and maybe
i should thank you for reminding me of just
one more thing i can put on the list, or cross off
of it, whichever way you want to look at it,
it's just a reminder of what's not right, with me,
with you, with all of this

being thankful is a funny way of flipping
the tables when you can't find a way to wipe the
sad out of your eyes in the morning, because i
can guarantee you if you find the right light
and photograph yourself in it every day at around
the same time, pretty soon you'll start to see that
your smile is reaching the sides of your eyelids, and
before you know it your irises will stop looking
so dull, and soon you'll forget what it means to be tired

tiny toy town

if i could take my shears
and cut you a cloak from
this dark night sky, i would

the yellow water squiggles
remind me of your pupils

we're doomed to wonder,
trash heap with motor
or whale, for eternity

i've got a bad case of the bends, baby
can't keep my frame up straight
if i'm not dancing, then i'm slumping
might as well lay myself down to rest

that night we fumbled, formed new foundations
separate was better in this case

a man i barely knew found more in my eyes
than i have in years, a silent strength, he
knew it well, but search he must behind
the silent and sly sadness that simply cannot
slip through fingertips that know just what to seek

since then i've thought long and hard about
just what sadness means, how the heart walks
itself out to a field full of dreams laid down to die,
faint last breaths echo amidst the sunny bliss,
but i've decided to take that heart and throw it up high,
into the blues, the bends that reach towards the sky

i hate that my brain consumes me
completely entirely in every way
i feel as if it's a bunch of caves
that i've gotten lost in
i haven't seen the light in awhile
and god, do i miss it
this cave system is intricate
and i swear that someone is moving the walls
every time i see sunlight
and head in that direction
the next thing i know
it's gone
these caves are dark and dank
and ****, do they smell like rotting
the corpses of half lived dreams
litter the ground
i climb over them
stumbling often
landing disgusted on forms
that instantly turn to dust
i wonder if i'll always be trapped
but deep within myself
i know i've got a map
tucked away in my back pocket

remembering to let go
of what i've been
clenching in my fists
for so long
hurts

in the same way
the hunting blade did
in the raeman cabin

at first it's all shock
and the blood explodes
and it squirts
everywhere
and it's on my face and hers
and my clothes and hers
and the floor and the walls

i just looked at her
and said,
"i cut my finger"

and when i went
outside
everyone gathered
around me and stared

i'm not even sure what that
has to do
with what i began with

perhaps it's the shock
of something tearing into
you so deep
when you least expect
it

or maybe
it's the sustenance
that still pours out of me
despite
my desperate want
to hold it all inside

or the fact
that no one can help
but gawk with their
gaping mouths
at you as you're
losing vitality by
the seconds that pass
in slow motion,
but so quickly, all at once

and then all you're
left with
is a deep aching pain
that reaches
places you didn't know
would feel the gnawing throb
that settles in deep
and won't soon vanish,
but rest assured
when you lay
on your
pillow
surrounded
but your
curls,
resiliency is not
something
that you
were slighted of

i have walked to the ends of the earth
and peered over the edge
sat with my feet swinging
like a little ******* a bench
wishing her limbs would grow longer, stronger

i have seen what lies beyond
and i'm no better than i ever was

in fact,

i'm worse

because all that i've learned
is that life in eternal solitude
isn't life at all

and all that i want is you,

telling me i'm too close to the edge
holding my hand so that i can't let go
reminding me that the beyond is for those
who can't figure out how to live and to grow

and i love you for the things
that you teach me when i don't want to learn

for the way that you make me see
something that's been there all along

i love you because you made me believe
that i'm not always right and that
admitting i'm wrong doesn't have to be
laying down and giving up my plight

i love you because you're not afraid
to look me in the eye and tell me
******* it, erin, don't be so terrified
that you can't let go and fly

i fell in love to the sounds
of the sky falling down,
but the reflection of
the earth destructing
in your eyes
didn't bother me one bit

we laid there, holding one another,
knowing that we wouldn't
see this through,
that love couldn't conquer death,
but still, smiles and sighs
of utter satisfaction
lingered on swollen lips

urges of fight or flight
disappeared with each breath,
defined with depth
and even tempo, as we explored
the places we had pondered,
but never navigated before

i drowned in your arms,
and the panic caused by
the pressure on my lungs
never did come

love, the most powerful drug,
had made me numb,
and if i had to say good bye
for eternity, bare legs
tangled in fresh sheets,
wild curls on whale pillowcases,
hands holding hopeful hearts,
was the only way
i wanted to go

I am a ghost chased by the present
Forever burrying my mind in the future
Under ancient texts and maps that tell
Of times the world no longer speaks of

I linger and I run, then I repeat,
Until my legs give way and I slip,
Tumbling through the earth until I land
With a thud on a different continent
And I am content there until
The locals begin to know my name

I am a shadow shrouded in anonymity
Smiling at strangers, but never speaking,
Looking vaguely out of transit windows
Like I'm learning something very important
From the senseless blurs that pass us by

I am alone and I am surrounded, all at once,
And I'm not afraid to die alone because
The truth is that we all do,
No matter who's holding tight to
Our old brittle hearts and our seasoned souls

In the end it's only going to be me
And I'm enough

i'm the kind of drunk that
floats home gracefully
in boots with soles that
slip and slide through sobriety

i wake up with bruised knuckles
and stiff fists and wonder what
witless wonder stood in my way,
only to find out that a few garbage
cans looked at me wrong

keg stands, house shows, hipster
filled houses with filtered lighting,
the stench of hand rolled cigarettes,
familiar faces blurring into
bearded babes once i've got my
goggles on just right

i sit around and wonder,
when the **** am i going to grow up?

it's the kind of thing
where you can't stop
singing beatles songs
or smoking too many
spliffs to stop yourself
from gushing all day
long

the kind of thing
when you feel as if you're
sitting over the edge with
your legs dangling and
every once in awhile
you're tempted to
jump

the kind of thing
when you memorize
irises and listen to songs
and you swear every
single one was written
to make you feel this
way

the kind of thing
that leaves you breathless
and too full all at once,
heavy and weightless,
empty and full,
grounded and
free

this is my favorite part

sometimes we celebrate
learning to press tofu
and sleeping warm

sometimes it's getting
to work 15 minutes late
instead of 50

this notion that life is a
grand adventure doesn't
always equate to climbing mountains

sometimes the molehills of
waking up and breathing
are enough

it's funny that they call it plan b
because usually it's more like plan d
and even then, you're not really sure
that it's such a good plan at all

and even though the pharmacist
in wegmans doesn't flinch,
you still wonder what she's thinking
and the wondering goes on a long while

i watched **** tattooed men
make me drinks with 80 proof whiskey,
and tried to forget that i ******
someone i didn't give a **** about

that maybe, just maybe,
cells had begun to multiply,
but maybe they hadn't, and i
was feeling like ****
drinking my 10 dollar drink
for nothing

the next morning i woke up,
red lipped, wild curls framing
a face that spoke of last night's failures

i stood in front of the mirror
and i captured the face of a girl
the morning after

the night that the earth stood still
i backed up into a parked car
and ran away drenched in cowardice
with guilt dripping off of me in long greasy streaks
like oil leaking out, painting the pavement
a color that none of us quite understand

i played games and ****** ruthlessly
and gobbled up a luna that came from a place
where the sun was still shining
and people were going to drop off their minds

i wore boots and stomped loudly
up old creaky stairways
with lace curtains whispering
of past indiscretions,
but i didn't listen,
just breezed on by

and when morning came and i laid there in silence,
except for the jangling of my bracelets
as i searched for the words that would sail me back to you,
i knew all at once that i was a liar and fraud

the earth was now moving
and i loved you, god, i loved you,
but i have never been on time

desperate men with beard ridden faces
and unique t-shirts with caps on their heads
watch girls move with precisely practiced motion
thrown off by a kilter from the drinks that they mourn

stares that long with a linger that forces
a sharp startling shiver up pale weak spines
keep girls on fences surrounded by sharks
one wrong move and all you'll see is blood

this game that we play with each other is daunting
but fun if you wear your poker face right
and i start to believe that i'm floating above it
when i'm the one who's been dealing hands all along

sometimes my head emerges,
i breathe deep in clear skies and then
again, i'm lost
deep within the fog that makes it hard
to know which way
is home

i worked endlessly to extract the pieces of you from my brain,
silently sawed my skull open as i slept and plucked each
memory of us moving towards forever together with the
tweezers you left behind from that time you got a splinter and i
held you tenderly as i removed tree matter from your skin

that's one of the first ones that came back, followed by us
riding our bikes to the beach to drink beers and celebrate one year
even though the storm was coming and we only had that one old
ratty towel, i photographed you there and often looked at that image
of you after alcohol ruined us both and turned you into someone without
eyes that were smiling and skin no longer tender from being punctured with ink

i hid in that image of you, bronzed and perfect, content and looking
ahead to following me across the country to become a permanent
fixture in the family unit we had created over 3,000 miles away from
the one i was trying to escape, you were the one who reminded me
that there never really was escape, only ignorance, and i laughed at you,
wondering why you would damper our dreams with what i considered sadness

now the tears surround me, a curtain to the outside world that soaks
me in all i had worked so hard to lose, all i had refused to look in the eye,
all i had thought left me the moment i left you, but in all of my forgetting i had lost
sight of the understanding that pain doesn't fade that way, only tucks itself away
silently and patiently waiting for the relaxation, the lack of resistance, the remembrance

thom yorke,
when will you teach me
that lightning does strike
twice, but the second time
the electricity ******* hurts
so much worse
because you know
just what's coming

it's not there,
i feel it

i take pieces of us,
of you, of me,
and i tuck them
between couch cushions,
into empty cigarette packs,
amongst sheets stuffed
into the crack between
bed and wall

i hide them in places
meant to be found

i'm not planning on
losing us,
on losing you, on losing me,
but,
there are times
when i'm unsure
of what to do
with the pieces

i walked in the palm of my father's hands,
uncomfortable under his gaze
i cut the strings long ago, but
this image remains, an epitaph
of my youth-filled days

i hid from the touch of my brother,
because he used to touch me in ways
i didn't like, but the strong carry on
and our hero capes we don, when really
we'd like to end it with a kitchen knife

i remember the smell of my lover,
7&7's before seven AM, he'd light
up a smoke while telling a racist joke,
i took that vice with me when i finally
got the guts to run

i guess satisfaction with survival
is kind of a strange concept
but admittedly i've been warming up to it
ever since my feet walked over pine trees
to climb absaroka mountain ranges

and now i watch bike wheels
spin over pavement while head phones
leak limp noodle notes into my brain
and i may not be able to eat a meal
more than once a day
and maybe i wonder how i'm going to
find my way home
but i'm still standing, i'm not dying
and good god is it nice to be alone

fast fingers send off
flashes of unfinished
fragments to friends
when i can't find
the light

feeling the weight
of each raindrop
that slides down
my window pane
glossed over
with grime,
corrosion and
dry rot have
me uneasy and
i'm sick of
a mouth that
drowns in
it's words

entrapped in my
fortress, i can't
leave these blankets,
but sleep won't
come easy and
once it arrives,
i will dream of
lost keys and
lone gloves, of
ceilings with
no floors, of
sneakers on
wires and children
with bare feet
desperately trying
to reach what
they cannot

i'll wake with a
gasp and wonder
where i've been
hiding and hear
the same sounds
that sent me
this way

of raindrops
on glass pains, of
deep breaths
and whispers, but
i'll never know
what they're
trying to say

electric impulses knaw
at nubs formerly known
as finger tips,
worn down to bits by
the desire to drench
this world with one
simple thing that may
or may not be
everlasting

i'm in search of
a replacement for
flimsy false hopes
and finicky heart pokes,
for flat lined finite
chopped up bits
flying up nostrils
in hysterical hits

even escapists smack
walls from which
they can't slither
through silently,
walls covered in
mirrors full of
faces fueled with
hostility

all the faces are
my own and it's
time i find some grace
before i finally
pull my last astonishing
escape from this place

the tree's roots reaching down to hell and branches soaring up to the heavens reminds of us of the duality that dwells within.

lest we forget our immortality, the fallen giants of the forest reminds us that immortality forgets no one - we all return to feed the earth.

heart beat hammers as i
appear to study holy
horoscopes over green tea
and grand gestures

i'm sure you've come to
tell me where your
hack sawed heart still
lies, barely beating,
instead i learn of your
new found freedom as
we take our buckets
full of *****, bad habits,
abusive fathers, brazen
moms and bare it all
on the table between
sabre's shots in the
laundromat as i fold
every ******* item of
clothing that i own

i begin to dread the
departure and the
growing space that looms
between us so i ****
you in with the promise
of a six pack and vinyls

satiated for only so long
you find my fresh buzz
and the blank lines between
us vanish, hands on my
head and lips on my neck,
i'm holding on tight, but
it's only a matter of time
until reality escapes me

quick trip down the
slopes and i'm over flowing
with what defines me,
our tempos are timed by
the too fast kits that
hammer in sync in our chests

sun's coming up and
luna's got more than just
moons in her eyes, she
sees me and then looks
beyond me into past lives

i'm reminded what it is
to actually feel something
and the passion is exhilerating
and terrifying as my
numbness is washed away,
wave after wave, in
comfortable silence
******* cigarettes and
slipping through
song after song

we built our friendship
out of whiskey bottles,
bowl packs and friendly *****

porch sitting in the sunshine
and soaking in the laughter and stories
that raced from our lips
one after another
like derby horses darting from the gate

I admit that I still ache
for you,
but I've come to accept
this truth for what it is

so please forgive me if my
words perceive a penned phantom pain
for this life comes in waves
and I can't catch them all,
sometimes I get ****** into the depths,
lured by the undertow

as we walk the shoreline
the sea erases us,
an eternal gift of returning
things to what they once were,
something we rarely get
to experience in this world of
metal and stone

i think of the ways i wish
my brain would wash itself,
forgiveness eternal from the
bliss of forgetfulness, no
longer enraptured by replaying
shame, defeat, and hurt on
sleeping eyelids

freedom does come with
the change of the tides

the answer comes
quicker than most,
stop slaughtering time
and start living

warm night breezes
in a false summer start
make it easy
to do just that

sometimes i look at the clock
and then i'll look again and
it seems that time has jumped

i wonder where it goes
and i feel sad

sad that i can't keep tabs on my minutes
sad that i'm unsure what i've spent the time doing
sad that those are wasted minutes that i'll never get back
sad that my life has become so obsolete and unlike my own

i used to take great pride and joy
in the fact that my time
was used doing things that
were important

now i have no idea
what important is

i'm not sure i ever knew

i am trying to find
the space where i feel
anything because of this

tragedy, sadness, self pity, guilt,
none of it comes

instead, a strange calm
continually washes over me
as if i lay on the sea shore
waiting for the tide to whisk me away

i've thought so much about loss,
what it means to feel that
dull empty ache that radiates
from the bottom of your ribcage
up to the back of your throat

the kind of loss that brings
tears to your eyes with every
sad song you hear, every image
of a baby you see, every man
who brushes by with a mustache
like the one that tickled my nose

i begin to wonder if i'm cold,
too calculated in my logic,
but i knew what i'd do
if this happened eons before
i decided i could turn off emotions
and ******* without any
sense of love or regret

tomorrow when i say goodbye
to whatever it is that you have
a mind to call this, i know i will
sit heavy with the fact that i
will never forget you and your
innate kindness, or what we
created and what i've done

perhaps tomorrow i will feel

sometimes it's all too much beauty -
this slow swing of life, legs dangling,
rainbow kissed fingernails clutching
ropes that are nearly worn thin, lungs
throwing air out in neatly folded piles
of whoops and screeches, which explode
into messes once they've escaped the
long, damp caves through cheshire cat smiles

your head on my shoulder allows me to
spot the tiny surfer riding the corn colored
waves of your hair, and the pulses that make
your sleeping arms dance
comfort me because you are comforted

we spend entire weekends watching
petunias bought with snack money bloom,
and the spiders swarm our honey dipped
deck to show us their latest web innovations,
we smile and stare and see
tomorrow after tomorrow in the sprawling
forests and caribbean beaches in one
another's eyes

if I could breathe you in through one of
these death sticks I would, slow and deep,
and you'd curl up tight in my soul, and I'd
never stop singing Jonny Cash songs
while you drifted off to sleep

you are wholly you and sometimes that means
that you're not a poet because you're a yogi
or a program manager or a sister or a friend
or a hiker or an auntie or a crying mess in your bed

i'm sorry for trying to shackle you to the notion
that you have to dream one dream and be
the thing you drew on your "all about me" poster
when you were in first grade and they told you
that you could only grow up to be one particular thing

i love you for being multidimensional, for capturing
the world in film, footprints, fountain pens, and friendship,
for being able to cut the dead weight out even if
those pounds feel like the most essential part of you in
this moment though you know that they have been sitting
directly on your chest and stifling your every effort to breathe

i love you because you are you, and at this point you
finally feel okay with that, and so you're able to look out
into the world and truly begin to love others in a way you
never conceived possible - your innate quality of giving has
taken on meaning that stretches beyond band aids and equality,
and instead reaches realms of equity and true understanding
despite the fact that the lens you see through is nothing like anyone else's

i love you because you are learning and willing to grow, and
a lot of growing happens to mean letting go, even if the emotions
you feel are validated and warranted, you've learned to see them,
to be them, and to breathe them back into the universe instead of
placing them in the mason jar that lives beneath your rib cage
until they explode and sends shards of glass into your most vital organs

i write to you to let you know that i'm proud of each moment you
decide to take care of yourself even if that only means washing your
face before bed time, for being brave enough to make decisions
based on you instead of him, for standing up for what you believe
and equally as much for admitting when you're wrong, for living a life
no longer based in fear, but in love for yourself and all of humanity

i wish i could tell you why i am this way,
why i see you and love you and still want to rip you to shreds

i look inward and backwards and beyond
and i see a young woman, a little girl, a grandma -
all of them intertwining fear and love,
sewing the edges together with stitches as they
sit by a fire and watch the quilts of their lives converge

each one beautiful, each one tragic, each one alone -
always wondering whether any outside eyes will ever
look past all of the complexities to see the simple truth -
we're all just looking for love without toxicity,
for love without contingency, for love without jealousy

i want you to look me in the eyes and see my faults
and love me regardless of the blood that drips from
my fingertips from pricking myself time and time again
with the quilting needle that's pieced together my sad story

i want you to know that my insides have been stolen
from me since before i can remember, and i may be
nothing if not afraid but i've learned that bravery is the
best mask out there, and that sometimes people are
worth trusting, and that maybe if i don't rip you to shreds
i might look into your eyes for awhile and find home

does anyone even know i'm still here?
covered in every holiday imaginable -
easter, christmas, halloween, even the last owner's menorah.

i'm full of dust
and i'm not sure of
the last time i saw light
from under the collection
of all things forgotten.

these curtains
that hang over my edge
have got psychedelic swirls
of orange and brown.
i can't tell
if it's *****
or a design.

eyes peer up
over my ledge
periodically, but
no one seems to see me
buried beneath
the mountainous
memories that i've collected.

loan gloves call out
for their partners
and their voices go hoarse
over the years,
but they never quit.
my ears grow tired of
their low pleading groans.

prized possessions
that once put human's
eyes aglow now sit
in sorrow and stew in the
realization that they have
truly been forgotten,
much like myself.

i remember the hands
that cut me
from an old oak
in mississippi.
i wonder if those hands
remember me.

today i woke and found what was lost
a day of hurt, a day of cost
a look in the mirror reveals what's known
i am the only place where i find home

i control this lonesome land
with naught but a pence thrown in my hand
but still control belongs to me
which should convince me that i am free

a drive of doubt fuels me forward
though my heels dig in, i move onward
a flash of what i know to be the past
despite my desire does not last

i take my hands and hold my head
without self control i'm better off dead
muscle memory moves me on
finding solace in the promise of a new dawn

i know that when my eyelids part tomorrow
there will be less of this god awful sorrow
but for now i'll allow myself to sink a bit
mondays really are nothing but ****

children born from the trees
scrape their way out of bark
and cut their limbs from roots
to take flight into the starry sky
that goes on for eternity

whispers from the wind guide
them to a land where fires burn
on mountains made from remnants of
their birth place, yet their hearts don't
skip a beat, instead they dance
and sing and laugh, until they can't

journeys through grassland
yield discoveries of friends, foes, and
perhaps the most important, the key
to unlock the secrets of the skies

a map lies above them,
burning chunks of rock
eons beyond our elementary understanding,
and as they climb the tallest of their ancestors
to dip hands deep in the universe
they are enlightened and lost all at once

someone please let
me in
on when life loosens its
tightening, frightening grasp
on my reality

this is my white flag
this is my deafening thud

as skull meets asphalt in deadly heat
blood pours out and boils beside my face
scents of pavement, iron, and salt swarm my nostrils

and if i'm not pathetic, then i'm prophetic
ahead of my time,
or better yet, eons behind

don't wanna slow down, don't wanna catch up

rather be ****** up,
yeah,
i'd rather be ****** up

i am a hoarder of memories and monuments,
and lately i'm beginning to discover
i do the same with dreams

when i lay my head on the pillow at night
and enter the fitful in between
i often have 7 or 8 drifting through,
and the same affliction seems
to follow throughout my walking daze

i've always operated under the notion
that you're supposed to follow your dreams,
but the problem is this seems to ignite
a series of battles within that i like to
call the "this or thats"

to dive head first into this or that,
to give myself fully to this or that,
to let my passions lay with this or that,
this or that, this or that, THIS OR THAT

i wish that i had a telescope in my hands,
i would take it and shove it right into
the very center of my soul,
and i would lean forward and peek through
that eyehole and see the universe within,
after all,

we are all the moon and the stars

you see, i've lived a life so long in fear,
hands clasped over eyelids regardless
of whether the lights are turned on or off,
and now i must learn to pry each fingertip
loose, and with each digit dislodged
comes a lesson learned

i am proud to announce that with the
first came,

i am the moon and the stars