Sleep,
Breath
Heavy
Disease
Eats every
Seed
Everything
I needed
Slipped from reach
There it stayed,
On a clingy moss that grew off the cliff .
There it layed,
As a tired cat in the sun.
With teeth long as a trees.
It finally signed a treaty
Where the body meets its end.

No motives.
Plot.
Paths to follow.
Into that thick light green patch that would seem to never end.

Not a pulse or shadow, to follow into a light or wall.
"Its staying tonight, and that is all."
For when it wakes the second one will be what you have become.

When I pointed out the harvest moon to him,
as it hung in the sky, blurred yellow edges
hiding behind a fog,
he laughed at me.
And as the car pulled forward, I saw the shining yellow shell
of the Shell Gas Station shine over the street.
This moon is nothing like your’s.

I find
that when people try to impress me
it all becomes the more unimpressive.
Your talent and true skill
should speak for itself,
jump off the page of your notebook
and indulge my sights with the vision
of your gift.

So when you try
to oh-so-casually remove your shirt
and change as you walk by me
sitting on your bed, reading a text
on my phone and now starting to wish
that I was home,

leave your shirt on—
show me your love.

Don’t tell me about your award from the state.
Let me find the plaque as I wander around the room,
waiting for you to come back from the stove.
Your wallet is thin, but the food is most delicious
when it’s served at your kitchen’s round table.
And as the smells creep into your bedroom
from down the hall,
I slide my fingers along the bookshelves,
pulling out yearbooks and quickly searching for your picture,
hoping to find it before you can notice
I’m not there.
That’s when I’ll find the plaque, resting on a corner of the shelve,
not even hung up.
I’ll bring it up at dinner later, ask what honorable thing you did, good sir.
And then you’ll tell me the story,
And it will be love
ly.

But rather, I’ll sit on the edge of the bed,
nestle my jacket around me tighter
and reach for the intoxication.
I must make myself drunk with something other than love tonight.
I must find the part of me that only knows moonlight, reach her,
touch her, and pull her closer to me. Embrace this new me.
I’ll breathe in her breaths and then press them onto your lips.
And I will forget that this is not love and this is not safe
but I left that harvest moon in another state.

From a young age I knew
there was a man and a woman out there, complete strangers,
who were, biologically, my grandparents.
I knew my chances of meeting them were exactly zero to none.
The parents who took my dad home that day were his parents
And that was done.

Before me sat a grandmother, and the spirit of a grandfather passed,
who loved me more than any stranger-grandparent ever could
who was there for every dance recital, every holiday, every mistake, every success
who, though I bore no resemblance, watched me grow right before her eyes
who swore the Easter bunny left treats at her house for me--
even when I was beyond the years of belief.
Always wearing a  sweatsuit and gold stud earrings,
with an added neck-scarf and red lip for special occasions.
Telling tales of the "poor dear" animal she saw
Dead on the side of the road--
Sad enough, you'd think it was her own.
Church every Sunday and the shirt off her back,
Had you asked.

This woman I explain
Shares no blood, but, a surname.
I love her just the same
If not more
Than any grandmother
Genetics had in store.

She's a part of who I am,
though not in my DNA.
Nature versus Nurture:
Nurture wins again.
She taught me:
Strength, grace, humility, selflessness, generosity, and patience
Without sharing one biological thread
By example she lead
And I continue to follow
In her footsteps.

This boy
with the charming smile and
the intense stare.
The one with a sense of humor
unique enough to send
me into a giggling fit.
The one I go on little adventures with.
The one I share a little bubble with.
The one who opened the door
and brought me into a new world of music.
The one who constantly piques my curiosity.
The one with the ability to turn
my perspective around.
The one bursting with creativity,
with ideas so eccentric,
they make you think.
The one with a sharp mind
and a sharper tongue.
The one with vivid dreams that
I love to read about like novels.
The one with the dark side.
The one who gets depressed for weeks.
The one who's constantly invaded by his demons,
unkowingly taking my own emotions with them.

You.
Yes, you.
The odd one.
Simply put, I love you to death.
Within you are layers under layers
and I wouldn't mind spending my whole life
uncovering each one
and cherishing each part of you I find.
I'm not entirely sure of
what I mean to you,
but telling you that
you mean the world to me
just doesn't cut it.
Doesn't even come close.
I just.
I love you.

I took my luggage to you
and you said, “Just check it over here.”

Then we went sailing
as people do when they find one another.
We went fishing
for words and atonement.

I said, “I am this violent thing and
I thrash about like there’s anger when there is not.”

We put together seven hundred and fifty pieces of a
puzzle and it made my heart ache.
You put pieces together of me and I put
a few together of you.

You said, “You’ll leave. I am not enough.
Never was. That’s how it goes.”

We sat in a park, on a graffitied picnic table
and did nothing but talk then sit quietly.
I was once taught the value of silence and stillness
but before that park I felt too raw to practice it in turn.

I carved curves and names into the table beneath us
and bumped my shoulder to yours.

I am a woman of society,
I am conditioned to believe my body is not my own,
but the man who decides to take me.
I am helpless without a man because I am weak.
I was a woman of society.
But now, I wish to be, a woman of my own devices.
I am vulnerable, but I am strong.
I am clever, beautiful, and know my own limits.
I, just as all women, have my ways of finding my strength, courage, and confidence.
I will be confident, though you will judge me.
I will be strong, when you try to harm me.
I will be beautiful, because I am me.
I can be all these things, still love a man, and he will still love me.

How about that gasoline
in Autumn rain puddles?

How about them cars that don't start,
can't start.

I just wanted to start.

Playing games like this never amused me much;
I guess I'm more of a reader than a writer than a toy-game-player.

I want the facts.

None of this horseshit media circus,
ignorance is neither knowing nor caring.

Nay bliss,

It was bliss on those cold winter nights,
night twilights pressed hard against the city-smogged sky
where the gases of sugar beets and petroleum reflect back down orange.

Orange on the snow and orange on snow drifts and snow flakes on your eyelashes.
Little orange dusts
(**** your lashes grow long)
dusts fallen halfheartedly like rain in the fall
and rain puddles shone red
and blue
and green
and orange, orange, orange...

Always orange.

Like gasoline in rain puddles,
gasoline in cars that won't start.

They can't start, don't start;
My engine must be misfiring.

(How about them metaphors for a heart?)

Will you call me when you get there?

We have a cottage,
not quite out of the way,
but mostly.

Inside, there are cats that slip
in and out of their cat-flap.
We feed them from our hands,
and spoil them with cans of tuna.
(Cans that I eat, too.)

We sit in a swing on our porch,
Reading books dog-eared for each other,
And under a light rain,
We let the stray drops cool our cheeks,
and damp our pages.

Sometimes, in thunderstorms,
I pet your hair and hold you.

Sometimes, I hide on the roof,
and you throw pinecones until I come down.

When you’re mad, you throw apples
from our tree.
Once you throw a rock.
Later, I keep the rock in our kitchen,
blaming it for our problems instead of you.

When we go, the roses and blues and greens of our inside dull to grey,
the cats don’t come home,
the books wither to dust,
and no one makes fruit salads
or plants vegetables in our garden.

then one day, back from life again,
we tentatively tiptoe back in,
connected by our little fingers.
You go first, always braver, but I
am close on your heels.
Everything we touch turns bright,
a soft meow sounds from the door.
We don’t always have this,
but we always have each other.