the taste of gunpowder on his tongue as the night tangled around us like sheets: & so we hung, from the stars, as diamonds. His touch was new & like nothing i had known. (it made me feel alive again.) He is fragile flower petals, the burning soul of a constellation.

we will wait for snow, he says, & i know somewhere inside. For i remember the winter night; some three hundred days ago. i wore mittens - hand stitched blue- everyday that frozen month.
They said he wasn't there. he had gone home, 'for the holidays.' & so i left. tiny steps down the sidewalk, frosted like a brilliant glowing cake.

Alone that night i drove the long way there- that cemetery where you sleep now. (He misses you so much.) And you waited, said hello, & i wanted to cry. A blanket of snow, we talked of stories and i know. You miss him too. We were together, then. That candy cane night.

sometimes i look at skinny pictures and think to myself,
i wish i starved myself or threw it up
tomorrow i'll drink more water and eat less food
because i don't want to impress anyone,
but i want to feel that small under big shirts
and i want to wrap up into a ball
and i want to look fragile but
i don't want to be fragile...
and so i remind myself
to be strong is hard when i'm making myself small

i walk with no head between my shoulders
setting fires with dead lighters
dirtying the lines and the condition carrying heavy in each step
and the steady ticking of my watch has become my heart
i can't recall much between coffee grounds and a pair of soft eyes and smile
things don't seep in and it has become a taught art
something tied to me; something i tied myself to

i was going to write a poem
but i had my headphones in for an hour without even listening to anything
and my teeth feel weird,
as well as a tendon in my ankle that i'm afraid won't get better
and i really should get sleep tonight
so maybe another time

I wrote a book once
but every page was breakup letter to myself.
It’s not you, it’s me appeared to be the theme
yet I found those words incredibly hard to believe.

darling, I know the voices in your head
can go on for hours each day
about just how insufficient you are.
but I'd scream from the top of my lungs
just so you could hear the truth:
you are enough.

you have always been more than enough.

swish, swash
under a blue moon
you, in your chariot, racing north
on Highway 1

while I look for footprints
in the sand--five toed tracks to prove
you were here with me

swish, swash, sea songs
replacing your voice, like I had any choice
but goodbye

after your confession,
and your appeal for absolution,
on the same shore we first lay,
naked

and walked until the sun rose
above the silent cliffs--the same bluffs
you climbed now to be with him

would you two also tread a beach
and marvel at weather worn gems, the purple waves'
evidence time smooths and soothes all things

I don't believe it
even as I find and finger new green and amber shapes
on this eternal stretch of sand