we must not forget how often a child is not a child,
how often a spit-soaked handshake means:
"i'm trusting you not to **** this up"
and then suddenly, as sudden as the cutback of a razor scooter
(may god protect those in low-top sneakers),
everything is all sorts of ****** up
(including us)

because in this life, in this interstice between birth and death,
we are dastardly

we are cowards,
afraid of singing in public and laughing out loud,
too good for a daydream or two

we forget how to be youthful
(in truth, i disappoint the past me all the time),
forget how to keep pinky promises
and we most often forget that it is us
who cause a child to no longer be a child.

it’s a long way down
from here.
sometimes nothing is gentle,
sometimes everything burns,
and sometimes
you just have to let it.
watch the fire as it consumes you
and everything else.
it’s okay.
sometimes the burns remind you
that you’re alive.
if you feel the heat, don’t let it go -
try to catch the sunlight in your mouth
and feel the world move within you.

it’s a long way down from here
so remember to enjoy the view.
if you do fall, remember
to dive headfirst.
dive headfirst into everything
and don’t be afraid
of hitting the ground.
let the adrenaline remind you
that you’re breathing.
it’s not always easy to stay steady,
so let the wind shake you.
it’s alright.
no one is as strong as they believe.
so fall away into the world,
feel everything you can
at your own expense.

it’s a long way down from here
so take in this moment
and let it push you over the edge.

I.
Everything breaks in the winter, even you. Your words will form like shapeless prayers, your hands folded into a rock you threw against the stained glass, your body a silhouette of begging. There, in a cathedral of snow, you will wish for spring. You will wish to be soaked in May, to grow flowers from the dirt under your nails. You will pray for another chance at sunlight, another chance to dance in the rain. You never wanted to disappoint six-year-old you, but here you are, eighteen and trembling, eighteen and doubting. Some nights you find yourself curled up like a fist at the foot of your bed trying to find an easier way to exist. In January your footsteps will be slow as the dawn and you will finally learn there is no easy way.


II.
When you were nine, you caught a butterfly in your hands and felt its wings drum against your cupped palms. Years later, as his fingers flit up and down your back, you will be reminded of how sometimes you must let beautiful things go simply because they are beautiful. And this notion will carry you back. Back to your eighth summer, back to the fireflies you caught in a plastic water bottle, the fireflies who needed scissor-popped holes to breathe, the fireflies you set free so they could make light. It was then you realized that some stars can be held but never kept. And now, as you fall asleep at night, somewhere in the world a child reaches for the moon but ends up with a broken-winged firefly. In your dreams you will reach out for her but never touch.


III.
I ask that September be good to you and you be good to everything else.


IV.
October broke you open like a question
and you found an answer composed
entirely of words
that will never come.
Dusk is a language
you have become fluent in
but refuse to speak aloud:
a conversation solely between
you & the silence.

V.
Now you find yourself back inside your home built cathedral, an unanswered prayer frozen into the cracks at the sides of your mouth. You move like a broken-winged bird in the heart of winter: a sparrow incapacitated by its own song, a white noise falling through the air like snow. Here you are again, curled up like a fist angry at everything, a swear forming in the back of your throat but freezing there. Not even in the darkest months can you convince yourself to abandon the hope of light. So you stay, silent as the spring and still as the dawn, and remember seventeen.

lay with me
until we sink into oblivion.
let us become here
but also not -
a pretense, a past tense,
a shattering of the space-time continuum.

you feel like the light coming through,
sunshine and everything else,
or anything but.

a question -
what if
the most beautiful sound ever made
was never heard.

imagine the ache in every note
in every piano
in every universe.
a void that listens best
to the sound of clocks ticking.
be still
and you may hear it too.

Forward the crowd marches
toward their god. He is
not mine. No god of mine
lets his creations bleed
themselves dry.
My God sheds a tear this night,
lets it roll down His cheek,
down the neck,
down like this city.
Stray dogs whining lullabies or hymns,
wolves' teeth flickering
in torchlight.
What boy ever cried out for this.
Not I. Not I the girl
with a tendency
to catch fire,
not I girl with a fear of breaking.
Forward the crowd marches
until the blood dries.
The rain pours from God's chin and
we pretend to cleanse ourselves of sin.
The dogs and wolves alike
shake their fur.
How easy it must be to call ourselves human.
How hard it must be to admit ourselves animals.
My God says
He created us to fill something:
anything but this.
The crowed marches forward
until the torches are swallowed by torches.
What human, what animal, what god
lets a good city burn.
What color must every creation bleed
to admit ourselves just that.

this
is exactly the moment the collision occurred
this is the distortion of reality
the glance at your hands gripping the wheel
this is the stoppage of time
the numbing silence

you looked so beautiful knowing it would hurt
i always figured it would
i always asked you to wear a seatbelt
you always asked me to leave in peace
this is it then

this
is the tranquility of non-existence
this is the blood in my mouth that i can't identify as mine or yours and
this is the steel frame of the car and heart distorted

this is where fate meets human fragility
where the light makes sounds
where i can't remember the last words i said to you but
i hope they were clever

i hope something becomes of me
i hope you here my voice in car horns
and see me in ambulance lights

you were always so vibrant and i wonder where all your light went
back to the crash then
i felt us collide with the guardrail
and my soul wrap arounds yours

i know, i'm sorry
i said i'd never write about you again but
here is my apology.

1. we were just kids back then, i remember pulling your nightmares out of my blankets and whispering on the phone that i believed in you.

2. everything was so new and delicate and we just wanted to hold and break all of it. i can't blame you for wanting to know and destroy love.

3. the truth is that i miss you, but not in the way i should.

4. we may never have been in love, but i truly did feel like we were. i wish i had met you later on in life.

5. i'm sorry the little girl inside of me wanted to be enough for you, i'm sorry the person i am now couldn't be.

6. i know you didn't mean it when you told me it was my fault, but it still stings nonetheless.

7. it wasn't all your fault, i played a part too. i remember saying that i will love you forever.

8. i think i still will. but i know that i need to stay away.

9. i'm sorry we ended like this. i don't regret you. i regret letting you hurt me.

10. i pray that someone loves you better than i could. i pray that you learn. i pray that i do too.

11. i am sorry for everything, even when i shouldn't be.

12. goodbye and goodluck.

one day you might show up laughing
and i’ll let you in the front door
and we’ll sit and talk about the way time passes
faster for me since the day
you walked out the threshold

some day i’ll have to dig up the promises
we have buried in these backyards

once when i was nine i popped a red balloon
and out came my seven-year-old self’s seventh birthday wish
wrapped in unsigned birthday cards
(the ninety-nine cent kind)
and two-ply kleenexes

i had trouble blowing out the candles and that’s when I heard,
“hey, dandelion mouth
you know wishes are better left alone”

i cried so much that year
2009, the rolling snowball
i, dandelion mouth, became the blockade
i became to stoppage

and sometimes i had trouble running so every now and again someone said,
“you ought to just let the sky hit you and call it a day because
we’re all made of rain anyway”

from then on I realized
i’m not the softest girl you’ll ever get to touch
but we both knew that from the get go

i’m just hoping to treat you gentle enough to make you want to stay
for a while
sit down
have some coffee
cream & sugar
we aren’t all made of rose petals and hallmark cards
you know that better than i
the concept of perfection isn’t an entirely insane idea
but it’s sure close

you might meet the rain the same way you do me
with open arms and a cold shoulder
try to catch the words on your tongue
it won’t always be sunny
sometimes the rain will rust the things you treasure most
but it’s okay
we’re all made of it anyway

one day you might show up laughing
and i’ll remind myself not to let the leaks show through
because after all
it’s just time slipping through the cracks
a reminder of all the blown out candles
of all the unsigned hallmark cards

it’s just the rain
and besides
we’re all made of it anyway

let’s talk about momentum and lack thereof,
about how i never understood the concept of impact
until you kissed me

i am convinced that touching you
is the closest one could get
to touching god
and i’ve never prayed harder
than the night you told me
you loved me all that time

and i am asking you
to hold onto this
as tight as we held each other
back in august,
surrounded by bayside air and moonlight

feel all the way back
to the first month,
your head on my chest,
the ups and downs of my breathing
i remember you said
“your heartbeat sounds like music”

think fireworks,
think fourth of july -
we’re slow dancing in someone’s living room
there’s no music
but our hearts are beating
and that is enough

don’t let this go -
this momentum and impact,
this barefoot swaying in the summer breeze,
this grand orchestra.
this moment.
don’t let this go.

do you feel the god in this room / can you feel jesus watching us / from the piece around your neck / your cologne tangled in the air / breathe / can a body ever be more than just that / can we ever be more than just this / god says not now / a prayer i used to know so well hanging from your teeth / you monster you wolf with a smile you sinner / you ripped the holy parts from my body / left a god shaped hole in my chest / i close my eyes and pray / do you feel the god in this room / this cathedral burning / our bodies covered in ash and cologne / breathe / we never have to be more than just this

I'm lying in an empty bed that seems to get emptier with every moment I stay lying there. I do not dare get up because I feel lost in my own sheets and so I pass the time by talking to my ceiling. The walls start to sweat and my floorboards form fault lines because every story I've ever told them starts with an "I feel so ******* empty" like an abandoned apartment building that no one wants to live in and ends with an "I don't know if I'll ever stop". Will I ever stop? Sometimes I watch the moonlight pour in through my blinds and it binds my hands together and my lungs start to freeze and I miss you. It's hard for me to look in the mirror now because I don't recognize the eyes staring back. It's hard for me to hold someone now because everything I love is everything I lack. You left, you didn't die. But it feels like a part of me did when you slammed the door and didn't look back. And whenever I look at the cracks in my ceiling I remember how you told me you wanted to fix mine. I hear the sounds of distant car engines and I still feel the walls sweating and I miss you I miss you I really do miss you. I'm all alone and this doesn't feel like home and maybe it never was but maybe you were. I guess maybe you might not have been. There.

i've gone to war with my own skin.
-
i'm sorry i never bloomed. leave all the things i wish i was on top of here.
-
i never grew wings.
-
you will not find me here.
-
i never could find myself.
-
my bed might still smell like me.
-
please, whatever you do, burn that notebook.
-
i wanted someone to read it.
-
i never had a someone.
-
my heart lies over the delmarva.

I’ll kiss you still
On your way out the door
I’ll let this love **** me
If it’s all I’m living for

Were you ever mine?
Or just a figment, a dream:
A promise of goodness and freedom
In the empty echoes of me

Can I still touch you
In the bright candlelight?
And better still in the darkness
When I peer into the night

I think I’m breaking
I think I’m your mistake:
The piece to the wrong puzzle,
The thing you have to break

Can you ever love me
The way I need you to?
Or you could just hold me
Until I melt into you

Don’t make me beg
For you to just stay,
Though I know you
And you’ll just leave anyway

i miss pieces of you that you never let me see,
the parts that you buried inside your graveyard chest
all bone and lost feelings and mourning

your mouth tastes like ash, though you swear you never lit a cigarette
i am foolish enough to go grave robbing
in the absence of your love,
in the no man's land plagued with pictures of us

in the valley of despair and up the mountain of missing you
tumultuous thunder claps that bring angels to their knees,
death laughing every time I look at you
and you turn the other way

the funeral procession is long over but i cannot get my feet
to stop dragging
i cannot look up from the ground we are buried in

it's as if when your love died, i died of a collapsed lung,
of suffocating under the weight of what we could have been
but never were
they took me to the hospital but no doctor could figure out what was wrong with me
neither could i.

the collapsing in my chest, the way i gripped the sterile sheets and said
god take me home,
god take me to him,
god if you exist make him love me again

god if you exist raise me like lazarus and make him come running to me

the dizziness, the flowers they laid  in my ribcage, the graves that look the same

god, if you exist, take me home

Forgive me for my retreat,      forgive me for how quick       I find
myself      lying slow on the bedroom floor.      More nights     than not      I pretend myself into a poet     even though I haven’t entirely      found the right words.     Did I tell you yet   that I am more wreckage     than warfare?   I couldn’t tell you     the last time     my tongue was a grenade    but surely these hands     have held the carnage.    Surely you understand    I am no poet     but     neither are you.   Then again,    who is?    Aren’t we all just    writing ourselves into     existence?    This language cannot hold    another me.    This language was not intended    to be misconstrued     between stanzas.   But,    how else can we study    each other?    How else could you know    that these words aren’t really mine   but I hold claim to them     anyway.   How else could you know   that this is not a real poem   but I bring it to war   anyway.

There’s a strong sense of intoxication in every conversation I waste on lost translations,
and every word you speak floats in to the air without consolation for all the love it lacks,
and the lackluster thieves that stole your love from me began to latch onto dreams and all I tried to do was to believe that nothing was so broken.
No one was cut open and bleeding out the wounds we’d caused,
and I was just a piece of mindless emotion and you were devotion.
A simple notion to keep holding a loose grip on reality
and to keep trying to keep something with all finality
that it was lost in the normality and brutality of it all.
And I wrestled with my god to help me forgive those, for they know not what they do.
But I’m sorry I did when I kept lying to and hurting you.
It’s not about what we saw but what we knew, and we knew the end was coming soon
and tried to run from it but tripped on our tongues
and resisted the temptation to pray for compensation.
An empty sense of motivation to find a definite destination
of which windows weren’t shattered and the faucet didn’t leak.
But with every word you speak I hear a distant gunshot and my God did I bleed.
But after procrastinating the act of purification and without a clear manifestation we referred to suffer the damage of the storm.
And the roof caved in during a torrential downpour.
So this is how a forever withers, and how a love slips through shaky fingers.
And I still don’t know any sense of realness or a piece of sanity,
but I found amity within the stitches of our tragedy.
I hope that’s enough for now, or I guess until another window breaks.
Whichever comes first.

two years ago my body was anything but. i built bridges
into my heart and burnt them down
just so all the memories couldn’t pass

this is an apology for all the good things i left stranded,
for the massacre inside me,
for the worst parts that survived the war

i never intended to grow outward instead of up –
just wanted to be a part of the needed,
of the appreciated and loved

i stopped playing the piano when i was nine years old
because i hated the emptiness that filled the air
in between each note

one night my dad slammed the door so hard my mother
shook for days, i made her coffee in the mornings
because she couldn't bear to sleep in a half empty bed

those were the first nights i spent writing
rather than sleeping. this an acknowledgement for the words
that never made their way onto paper

to all the bridged dreams and deserted soldiers -
i am coming back for you, all of you,
and i will tell your story

you feel like a long time coming,
look like a faded photograph
soft and smiling

you remind me of something from long ago
like a mirror ten years back
like my mother's smile

i want to believe in you,
please
i need to believe in something

you feel like staying
you feel like a long time coming

if the body is a vessel
i carry you with me everywhere
through the rain and across the oceans
i carry you
because you are all this vessel has to keep
from drowning

let your hands pull me up from the holy water
kiss me in spite of sunday
kiss me in spite of everything
breathe life back into this body
breathe into this sail i hold
take me anywhere but up

kiss me in spite of heaven
kiss me to find it
let this love hit your jawbone and crack
the stained glass
blue and red and gold reflecting
on our uncovered bodies vessels
two lights burning despite the rain
despite the storm brewing in the distance
i carry you

send me to sea
send me to see more
than this brown-gray confessional

i carry you with me everywhere
through the church and up the aisle
i carry you
because you are all this vessel has to keep
from sinking

in this poem I remember how it happened
how the sky broke over our backs and
how we kissed the rain instead of each other

we live in this story
because I know of no other place to put us
except fiction

we belong here

in this poem all the pieces come back together the way they got undone
in this poem you and I become whole again

I'm keeping this promise to you
even if you forgot about it
and I know you did

and I know you also forgot my birthday
or my number
whichever hurts less when I have to explain that you didn't call on my 18th

in this poem I finally understand
you cannot fill a body riddled with holes
you cannot love a heart that beats for another

in this poem I lie about the way we touched each other
in this poem I tell myself it went deeper than skin

I did not know how to fix you
and in this poem I apologize for it

in this poem I pretend you loved me back
but only in this poem

in time, everyone
forgets. & maybe that
is not as bad as it sounds.
what if we sing
a song into the void
& something
shouts back.
consider
your worst wound bleeding
anything but red & rest
easy, child,
nothing’s burning yet.
imagine a city
knee deep in
promises & pink light.
in time, I will
forget. & maybe that
is comforting.
if one day I wake & cannot
remember your
name, I will be glad
to meet you
again
& again.
in a city alight,
in a wound-colored
rapture,
in time, you may
forget me. & maybe
you should.

the first boy i ever loved had a freckle under his eye
and i swore
i'd never forget how that looked
and now, i have forgotten which eye it was under
and what color they were

but this, this is not a sad realization
this is not justification
this is an explanation of a simple thing:
i was not in love
but for the life of me, i could've been

and for reasons that i can't quite explain
we drifted apart
and truthfully, this may have been because he called me names i cannot repeat
and he broke me in ways that i'll never be able to fix
as ****** as it is, i stayed for a while longer
even though i knew i shouldn't
because
god, i thought i was in love
i swore i'd never forget that

but i did and i have
and sometimes these "goods" and "bads" come to pass
and all that's left is a fading memory
a fleeting feeling
not of love, but of longing
to be in love again

and this freckle under his eye, well i haven't seen it in seven months
and i don't really care to
because i've seen other beautiful things
things that would make that freckle seem
ugly
things that would make that freckle seem
insignificant
things that i swear
i will never forget

and this, i know
is not forever
i am not in love with the world yet
but for the life of me,
i could be

dusk, mid-august
the bayside air hangs in the moonlight,
broken street lamps scattered around the neighborhood drive
only one is lit as we walk to the dock.

the light at the very edge of the beach looks inviting,
looks like it's saying "come home",
looks like it wants us to hold each other there

we walk carelessly up the winding sidewalk,
nearly tripping over rocks lodged in the cracks
we stop as we reach the glow of the lamp

i remember the way it felt to hold him as the sun went down
and came back up
suddenly my feet are resting against his
and
we are swaying.

he cannot dance. neither can i.
but we are doing our best and we are swaying
and there is no music
but i know we are perfectly in tune with something.
and we are laughing,
we are dancing.

all we have to separate the mind from the body
is light and dark: the reaching of god’s hands

over the world. i imagine that even the sun
asks be tucked in at night. & how could god refuse

another bed time story. a chance to be heard,
a chance to say “I know exactly why you exist,

why you need to be touched just to make sure
that you are still here.” we are not all light.

i know a boy so empty his father’s fists
       pass right through him as if punching the dust

from his ribcage. his broken breath a reminder
       that he still has something to lose in this world.

& i know a father broken and praying to a god
       he cannot recognize as his own,

holding the darkness in his church-shaped hands
        which soften in daylight

he kisses the blood off his stained glass knuckles
        & prays for morning. his god is heavy with

the weight of history, with the burden we know
as genesis. but how could the body, light and vulnerable

refuse to touch darkness. how could the body refuse
        to know that it is still here.

this morning I woke
and for a short, tender
moment
I swore I could feel your breath
against my back.
I remembered once again
that someone else
with rose petal lips and
piano piece hands
was waking up to your heartbeat.
I wondered
if you ever had moments
where you believed I was still
under your skin
and if it ever felt alien
when her piano hands played
stripped back versions of songs,
even though her rose petal lips
couldn't kiss the most vulnerable parts
of you.

we are the very last
to understand
a dying language,
a vernacular shared only
by the space between us

I hold out my hand and
wait
for a sound
to spill out from my fingertips,
like an unhinged jaw
yearning to speak –
a tangible silence swallowing the words
I do not remember how to say

the first light of the morning
pervades the air around us;
it begs me to speak –
and still, nothing

nothing:
a noiseless surrender;
I give myself to the air surrounding me
and pray you might find a way
to translate my breathing

in this room,
in this early morning light,
I am losing myself
in translation
and we are losing touch
altogether

we are holding out our hands and waiting,
like an unhinged jaw
trying to speak a lost language;
it is evident that this is a silence
that refuses to be
broken

car engines. headlights. traffic. the way home.
not home, just somewhere i live.
we sit in the back of your mother's old mercedes,
"the ugliest tan color that ever existed" according to you.
it's a stick shift, and it skids and skips and sputters quite often.
i won't tell you, but i like when you tell me you want me to put on the seatbelt.
your head rests against the window,
and every knick in the road
makes you bump your forehead against the glass.
you're too tired to give a **** about it.
"i wish it was a better night, it's too cloudy,"
your breath visible on the window.
i can still see Vega, i don't think you can.
i nod my head and move my hand into yours.
i silently beg you to look at me.
maybe it's not a bad thing there aren't many stars out.
maybe it's the sky's way of telling us we should pay attention to each other.
maybe we hit every red light because the universe just wants to give us more time.
maybe the reason the light from the passing cars moves so fast is because it can't wait to touch your skin and
maybe the sound of car horns moves so slow because it loves the way your heart beats in the silence.
i mean ****, maybe i just want you to touch me again.
maybe it's just that i still need you and you're too tired to give a **** about it.

Mom says I entered the world blue     unmoving like a cracked starling egg     I entered the world without a sound     though Mom says she saw the noise    

Each time we drive past the hospital    I am reminded of how much it cost     to keep me here     I think     my parents want their money back     I think     I want to stop being blue
    
Last summer Mom cried when she saw it:     a baby robin     fallen from its nest,     still pink and fleshy — not blue, still moving — and it cried for her   I could barely hear it     but Mom saw the noise     She listened for a moment more     then smiled    
Something inside me went cold     as we walked away to the sound of eggshells     cracking

you were a perfect ten on the richter scale
there were no warnings about
the destruction you'd cause
no one was ever ready for you,
especially me.

loving you was like
kissing along the san andreas fault line
and praying i don't strike a nerve
loving you was like pretending
the splitting earth was only opening itself up to me
and not trying to bury me.

notice how the world shutters when it thinks of you
notice how there's cracks in everything you touched
notice how there's still parts of me buried beneath the rubble

somebody told me i needed to assess the damage
and all i could think about
was all those shattered picture frames.

the aftershock hits hardest in the places
that remind me of you

i still believe there's something beautiful about nature,
just not human nature -
just not your nature.

I have been standing here along the shoreline,
still as sea rock, arms outstretched and palms skyward,
trying to feel the weight of the moon.
I know not of how light the light can be but instead, how heavy the absence thereof.
In my body, composed of want and water, I have not found moon nor sun.
In my body, where my veins heavy themselves with night sky purple, I find you flowing.
I walk eyes closed into deep blue and squish
my toes into the belly of the ocean floor. Here, I am more salt
than salvation.
Here, I do not know you
anymore. With my eyes closed, I cannot tell dark from day.
The ebb and flow of things carries me
back and forth, towards and away, heavy and light.
Here, I am more human than anything else.

i am laying on a bed once familiar to me
i feel empty
in a strange, acquainted kind of way
i am clutching fistfuls of sheets and broken dreams
and the storm rolls in
i am under a roof but
i swear i can feel the rain
it has been like this for a while now
but i have not grown accustomed to
the hollowness in my chest
and every breath feels like
blood is pumping through my body
and it is not my own
i am laying on a bed once familiar to me
and i wonder if I will ever feel whole
again
i am whispering secrets to my walls
and my floorboards start to sweat
because every story ends with "i still
feel like this"
and i do not know
if i will ever stop

I’m measuring heartbeats and gauging miles across torn atlases and
each space between the intakes of breath while saying I miss you
feels like my lungs are freezing over or decaying or burning

I’ve been pacing around my room for so long that I think
my floorboards are starting to form fault lines
and some nights I miss you with the magnitude of an earthquake

I’m digging trenches in my chest because
my heart holds more use as a graveyard
and I’m burying your memories there

It’s midnight on the first day of autumn and I don’t know
if the thunder cracked again or it’s just my voice
begging and screaming at God to bring you back to me

except no one can hear prayers over the silence
that’s fallen over me since you left so I keep missing you
until heartbeats can keep up with distance

My hands are pressed gently into his palms. His fingers are running over the gaps between my knuckles and are folding down and along each crease like a little boy bent over a desk in the back of the classroom concentrating on making a paper airplane out of yesterday’s homework. I half-expect someone to tap my shoulder and say, “Are you paying attention?” No, not really. I am focused on the way his lips are moving a fraction of a second out of time with the faint country song we hear playing from outside. I begin to sing too. Half way into the second verse, his eyes meet mine again. He takes my aircraft hands and leads me to the middle of the living room. The overhead fan gazes at us. I feel the paper airplanes inside of my chest swirl. We are swaying. My arms are draped over his tired shoulders and his are encircling my lower back. I see that his shoelace is untied. I am leaning my weight against his chest, balancing on my tiptoes. I do not tell him I can feel his heart beating. I look up at him again. He is already staring. I notice a subtle pink in his cheeks. I do not realize until now that my lips are only inches from his, the gap between them begging to be closed. So we close it. I fold into him like creased paper waiting to be flown. Someone opens the door. She says, “The song stopped playing. Are you even paying attention?” I speak up and say, “No, not really.”

sometimes i trick my body into becoming something else    something unrecognizable
i tell it to sleep peacefully or   to remember the embrace of a friend long gone

often the body becomes a symbol of what was lost
a friend a childhood a reason   i tell myself the bruises are just autographs or love notes   they never stay but i convince my body to feel them   still  
is this desperation or just another species of grief?

i have discovered so many that i’ve run out of names
“crying on the side of the highway overpass”
or “a sound i did not recognize as my own until months later”
or “a dream i had once but wish for still every night”
or “picturing his broken hands folded over a lifeless belly covered by a worn football sweatshirt”

sometimes i believe in ghosts   i was taught to fear the sacrilegious  but i lost faith since    

january has been ten months long    the chill follows me no matter how far i run

sometimes i trick my body into becoming something else    but mostly i trick it into becoming an unremarkable hollow thing

Night time becomes a hymn in itself,
sleep a prayer I have long forgotten.
My hands clenched in a fist,
crinkling the prayer card until
his smile folds in half
like that miserable metal frame.

I un-crinkle and smooth quickly,
taking his face in the palm of my hand
and look again to his sleeping body.
I weep. Silently. My prayers
are just a string of vowels:
no god or heaven ever mentioned.
There is only sleep and
please wake.

There is no waking for me or for him.
There is only the wrinkled prayer card
and one last glance before I turn away
and resume the journey home.

riverboy swears he’s got bees in his throat,
says the cure’s in his bottles
so he’s been tossing back anything that might drown them
and copious amounts of pills he can’t pronounce
just waiting for the buzz to stop

he’s been pacing around the bus stops just thinking of a place to go
smiles softly at anyone who asks
says, “i’m just waiting for a thought to come”
he’s just holding on to the time
trying not to let the bees hum inside him

and riverboy’s eyes could make the rain jealous
even god stops just to hear him laugh
though that’s rare these days
riverboy says his voice’s just
too scratchy

too angry, too demanding
too much of the world living inside him
but riverboy swears he knows the cure
so he breaks himself a little more
as the bees hum inside him

this must be the way light bends –
around you & all
your Gravity

the concept of momentum eludes me
until our lips meet
in the silence created by it all

//

and in that nothingness I say

“say something that holds weight

say love or lack thereof
say anything as long as you’re smiling”

say you’ll stay

//

this time i can feel the words
leaving my hands

what if you caught the sky
as it was falling
and ended up holding me
instead

//

facedown on the carpet
covered in Gravity
i can feel the sunlight
on your lips

say you’ll stay

//

okay.
just this once,
i want you to think
back and down and up and left
and remember
right where we left off.
remember the way it was,
the way it could've been.
it sounds like a john mayer song
playing from an iphone underneath a ceiling fan,
sounds like a shower turning on and
two bodies getting to know each other.
it feels like this could be it.
okay.
i just want you to believe that
we could be in love somehow,
someway maybe one day
you'll understand that
i was just trying to touch you
in the softest ways possible.
i just wanted to hear
the sound of your laughter
falling down from your bedroom
and sitting next to me on the couch.
remember the way you kissed me
in that hallmark parking lot,
surrounded by the glow of
your brothers old pickup truck,
remember that. remember how
it was all new and so was i
and so were we and you felt like something
i could get used to.
it was all ****** radio stations and
green lakes and soggy leaves and
remember when you held my hand there,
remember that? you've got to remember that.
think back and
tell me how that felt.
felt like soft rain and
intertwining feet under a snowy white blanket.
i just wanted you to believe i was soft,
wanted you to think i could be good for you
or for anything. okay.
confession. i listen to piano man by billy joel
way more than i should because
i remember you told me
you could play that entire song
on the harmonica.
i'm just jealous i haven't heard it.
okay. remember how i said i loved you too,
well of course i still mean it.
i've never been so honest
in life and in a poem.
you've got this way of making
every moment my favorite.
okay.
i just want you to think back
whenever you need to
and know
that this is it.

tell me back,
make me miss the things that never were,
make me wish for something that already was.
bring me back to where it all started,
to the time when we began.
tell me about the ways the horizon line bends
and that you still think it looks like the crease in your elbow when the right light hits it,
how the memories are current and we, together, are right now.
make me know i am here.
give me the only lines you can remember from the only book you’ve ever liked,
make me feel the first time you laughed with me and how the house shook
every day for a year after.
make me remember the way you touched my skin when we danced under the streetlight,
where we were far from the dock but the waves still crashed into us.
tell me about the way our love was a straight shot to the stars,
where we were bent but only slightly,
where missing you was only used in the context of “I’ll see you soon”
and not “you haven’t looked at me in months”.
tell me back,
make me believe promises are still whole
and that we are too.

the simplicity of the silence,
the holy matrimony of the moon and emptiness,
the unforgiving nature of all the broken pieces -
the noiseless abandonment.
do you feel it?

my mother tells me to stop believing so much in the things i cannot see,
so i ask why she believes in my father
and she is silent.
she stopped believing long ago but hasn’t found the strength to claim the brokenness inside her.
the sadness hangs in the air.
do you feel it?

my teacher asks me about fiction and fact and i say
no one is safe either way,
fairytales don’t always have happy endings.
the disappointment lingers in the room for a long while.
can you feel it?

the way things whither away with the passage of time,
the gradual but constant erosion of once important things
like memory and bank accounts and love.
the theory of decay.
do you feel it?
of course not.

the silence forgets that it knows how to speak
so it doesn’t.
my father forgets that he knows how to love
so he doesn’t.
the author forgets how to rewrite the narrative
and so she doesn’t.

the theory of decay.
do you feel it?
because I do.

i stand, self-aware, and watch the upward curve of his smile
his hands fiddle with the lint in his pockets and suddenly,
my cheeks flush rosy and i feel the need to remind myself
there is nothing beautiful about wasting time
he laughs slightly and something in me starts running and
i fight the urge to catch it
he steps forward, just so much that i become acutely aware
of the shared air between us - of which i forgot to breathe
i inhale & exhale, trying to remember
what it is that scares me the most
about this moment
i can feel the suspense arounds us
and it lingers there for a long while
it begs me to do something daring, but i wait a moment more
before closing the space that separates us
i am now within one blink of his smile
and i blink and he
kisses me
slowly, like he knows
there will be plenty of traffic on the way home
like he’s just trying to learn something new before he leaves
i slowly come undone and feel the curve of his smile,
my own beaming up at him
and i take a deep breath and remind myself
there is something beautiful about this moment

we are flickering lights,
passing thoughts.
we are not boundless.

we are finite beings,
centered now only
by the laws of gravity.

there is no magic here.
however,
if you stay still long enough
you may mistake the silence
as something close.

this is no apology.
this is no redemption,
for we are already made of stardust,
among other fallen things.

the universe may move within us
but we do not move within it.

this life is only as wonderful
as we force ourselves to believe.
my dear,
you cannot cheat fate.

try as you might,
there is no breaking the fourth wall.
not here, not now.

but all of this is no excuse
not to love.
without it,
we are mere wanderers
and occupied space.

this is the secret to life:
only let go
if holding on hurts worse.

time places limits upon us.
take advantage of the moment
while you are still in it.

we are only flickering lights,
passing thoughts.
we are not boundless.

so let love move you.
let it draw your boundaries
with the most permanent of inks.

love makes us vulnerable.
the secret of life is to let it.

all of these letters I write. all of these thoughts I think. all of these feelings I feel. all of these dreams I dream. all of these things you can't find it in you to care about. all my hopes for the future. all yours that never included me. all of these songs that skip on the word “stay”. all of the lyrics that should have reminded you of me. the tv that's never going to have the right channel. the bed that’s never going to be made. the heart that’s never getting the chance to be loved. the sky that's never going to stop raining. the rain that never fell on you. the way everything fell on me. all at once. just like the way an avalanche slides down a mountain. just like the way the fan is still spinning in mid december. the way I'm still trying. the way you don't want me to. the way forgetting feels like leaving. the way you wouldn't know the difference. the hands on the clock. they keep ticking. my hands. they keep shaking. you're not here to hold them. I bury my memories under flat pillows. you bury yours in the backyard. this sinking feeling. this dream. this nightmare. this game. the way I lose you. the way you never wanted me to win. the batting cages. the batter. the home run. the base. none of it being me. the way this feels too beginning to be an end. the way you don't care either way.

Not to sound blunt or anything but
You felt like a car crash

Looking at you was like
Watching tragedy unfold,
Like watching the car tailspin or
Hydroplane and wrap itself
Around a telephone pole
Or bridge
Or person.

It's like you knew this wasn't going to end well
For either of us
I was just trying to get somewhere and
You were just trying to get in the way

Like a barrier between everything,
You were a traffic jam on the way home from church,
A Sunday morning plagued with grief and guilt and all the glamor.

It must have been nice
To talk to all those emergency medics
Whose side of the story did you tell?

The truth or the other truth?
How dare you choose dare.
This isn't a game fit for liars or lovers.
This isn't a game at all.

Something about sterile sheets in a hospital room
And someone waiting outside the door.
Something about screaming
"let me in and let me see."
Something about crying and
"you're not just a body to me."

Why was that all I ever was to you?
Bones and bad lighting and
Holding a hand that doesn't want to be held.
The doctor comes in and tells me
It's time to let go.

I know.
It's an overdue goodbye.
You and I were always meant to end.

Something tells me the hand I was holding
Wasn't yours.
Something tells me I attended my own funeral
And you didn't bother showing up.

Didn't even leave flowers.
Didn't even cry.
Not even a “Hey, I'm sorry life didn't work out for you this time.”

You left me there on the side of the road
And on the side of life,
Exposed and about to expire.
Something tells me we crashed long ago
But you were always the one
Who could walk away from the wreckage.

You could always walk away from everything.
Including me.

sometimes, when i hear your laugh
it's as if i know this time
we got it right
we got everything right

god is smiling and
we are smiling
and the angels are dancing
and suddenly we are dancing
too

i need you to know
you are the holiest war i ever fought in
you are
the only battle i ever won
the only peaceful resolution
the only eternal ceasefire
the only calm after the storm
the only peace i ever felt

i promise
to love you so soft
that even the angels
become jealous,
to love you so long
that god
will rethink the word "eternal"

december: each night something inside me shatters the same way a plate does in my parents' kitchen. i remind myself it's a time to give & so i give the rest of my body to a boy who never bothered to say thank you.

january: this is not the time to be reborn. everything new dies when the frost comes. if i stay still long enough i can feel the clouds rolling in. my friends cry tears that freeze before anyone can acknowledge them. this is not the time to be reborn.

february: since when did the music stop? my mother sleeps alone on the living room couch while my dad splits both shares of their bed. i can feel their first dance in my ribcage. something trips inside me.

march: he paints my arms the same blackened blue as the leaking sky and dares to call me a sunset. i wait for the light to break through before calling home.

april: i think i can feel the rain inside me. he still asks me to breathe more life into his body as if i decide whether or not he will grow into a man. i tell him this is not a time to be reborn.

may: god, there's so much to see. everything has grown up, yet it seems i've only grown out. of love or lies. he tells me to cover up my body as if all ninety-five pounds of me occupies too much of his share of the sun.

june: i keep indoors most days because i can't handle the way everyone looks in the light. they are all golden brown and my skin is still frequently painted black and blue. this time, the skies don't match my complexion. i feel undeserving of the sun and refuse to let it touch me.

july: he does. without permission or warning. my body becomes a strangled flower and he decides to withhold any water until he rips another petal. one by one. i fall apart without a sound. he loves me. he loves me not.

august: this time it's different. pieces of the sky fall down each night i spend alone. i picture myself cradling the moon in my hands and rocking it back to sleep. my god, this is not the time to be reborn.

september: i still shake sometimes but is not often. my body becomes mine again. i can finally feel the sun & i welcome the coming of the rain. there is no shame in loving both the light and the shade.

october: time flies. i throw out the cards and the rest of the apologies along with all my other memories. that is all he becomes. a memory. i paint my walls everything but the color blue.

november: i am seventeen now and want to remember this feeling. i spend some nights piecing myself back together & dance alone frequently. my dear, this is a time to be reborn.

somewhere we might be beautiful
at the interruptions of light or
the cross sections of earth or
        now

we’re all faded in the sun
dried out and tossed away back into the basket
like someone else’s ***** laundry
        and
someone else is coming to fold us over
        again

we’re barebacked in a black hole resemblance
        just ******* the light out of the laughter
        kissing the nothingness off our skin
try as i might
i can’t get the taste of tragedy out of my mouth

you and all the lullabies in languages i can’t fathom
i have no idea what the hell you’ve been saying all this time but
        it sure sounded nice
like a nocturne for the nobodies,
the forgotten as a body politic

so fall back outta the spaces between us
i’m just trying to warn you of the curves ahead
of the caustic lovers curated by the utter carelessness

the words are falling from your hands in the form of snowballs
chucking away the weight of what you believe about this world
we hurl ourselves at the wind under the precept that

        it’ll hurt less
to think about the things wilting underneath
three inches of a solution
melting away with the rest of us

my physics teacher says
every force on earth has
an equal and opposite reaction

so forgive me for thinking
that if i gave love
i would get the same amount
in return