I have always believed that it is possible to see through the defenses of those who keep secrets tucked into their back pockets like wallets with a little more cash than they are comfortable with, if one is willing to look closely enough. It is apparent in their heavy eyelids, as though the weight of what they are carrying is resting on their eyelashes. It is apparent in the curve of their lips, and the way they are not able to smile to their fullest potential. It is apparent in their hands, and the way they are not able to hold anything, as though their fingers are already full. However, I never realized that it was also possible to notice leaves clutching secrets to their chests like keepsake necklaces passed down by their great-grandmothers until one afternoon when I was walking between two bushes. My feet were carrying me lackadaisically down the sidewalk toward my dormitory when something to my right caught my eye. Among a congregation of green leaves, I noticed one blushing sinner. She sat in the center, as though she was attempting to blend in, but her pink cheeks made her stand out from the rest. When everyone stood in unison, she followed a few seconds behind. When everyone clutched hymns and bibles in their hands, she tied her fingers in knots to appear busy. When everyone partook in communion, she bit her lip quietly. But there was something about the way she held her hands in her lap, with her palms pressed together and her fingers interlocked, and the way she wore her hair behind her shoulders in curls that made me want to get to know her and every secret she kept tucked beneath the belt of her summer dress. But we don’t always get the pleasure of conversing with sinners, and we often are not even willing to have those conversations with ourselves.

so i sit here
with a hole in my foot
with a hole in my head
with a hole in this book
with the hole in her eyes
when she gave me that look
with the hole in my face
when i saw what he took
the hole in my heart
i still don't know the crook
paper is just too easy to tear
and you think i'm easy
when you see i've been shook
i think i need a hook

now there's a hole in my stomach
and it's feeling tight and queezy as she ties
me up in knots of my poor esophagus
her knuckles white from squeezing
i breathing like a snake trying to shed
the desert sun is hot so
please lift this mask up off my head
i try to offer a white flag
but she kills me instead
cause she doesn't like the things
that she can't understand

and so she holds her fists like
they have holes in them
holds me like there are holes in me
cavities of ample opportunity
for punishment and further tearing, no tears,
none of this teething willful jeer
i'll split and rewire, i don't need old fears

i am only tired at best
the pieces did not defy gravity
they fell right out of my ****** chest
but landing is a skill you see
tear me apart for free and be my guest
ripping down the wallpaper
wrestling with the messes of stresses
no one will unremember
looking for the emotions
you desperately want to render
but while i'm still soft
i'm no longer tender
so remember when you enter that
no matter what the temper of the sender
or persuasion of the vendor
i will not surrender
to all these social mind benders

there is a hole in my flag
my blood is an involuntary badge
no more flags, white stains
too easily

to be honest i never knew how to write about a boy i'd never met
and i also didn't know how to write about meetings
and i didn't know how to write about boys
but i remember seventeen years ago today, in a past i wasn't a part of and that i could never imagine, a boy I'd never met was born

but he grew up and up and up and his sandpaper heart was replaced by pints of lukewarm whiskey in the red cup left on the steps that morning and his threaded thoughts pieced together not-so-carefully were replaced by cigarette smoke lingering around his mind and out of his nose like smoke creeping through a burning building with no hope of escape for the one that broke in just to leave the gasoline by the furnace and his twisted insides were replaced by infinite spacetime and universes, bending and breaking and breathing stardust and misplaced trust and alcoholic aftertaste and burning paper

to be honest i never knew how to write about a boy who was replaced by cigarettes and whiskey and outer space and music and reasoning and tshirts and sarcasm and modernity  
but i did know how to write about someone who mattered
and i did know how to write about being entirely made of little something elses and being replaced
and he knew how to be the muse

I never suspected I had OCD
Until I replayed your voicemail
On the answering machine
A total of twelve times
Every evening
Just to hear your voice again
Or until I opened your dresser drawer
Thirty times
Before I went to bed
Just so I could smell
Your leftover scent
Wafting into the air
Or until I rearranged my shoes
In the closet four times
Before I left the house
Because you hated tripping over them
On your way out
But I knew I didn't have OCD
When I finally locked the door
And turned off the light
And made the bed on your side
For the very last time.

//winter//
the frost that clings to your bones -
like it lives there -
makes such a home under your skin
in the way that I wish I could
burry myself – deep within,
the warmth of your breath
ghosting the air,
rose tinting on your cheeks -
the snowflakes upon your hair

it is in this season
that your love is a blanket

//spring//
The flowers bloom in your hair,
the pollen dancing to your eyelashes
how can spring sit here
with you?
spend a day aside from the world -
spend a day away from me,
living within your own beauty,
this charm that you share
it’s almost unfair (to us mere mortals)

it is in this season
that your love is beautiful

//summer//
The sunlight in your eyes is a searchlight
calling me through those lazy days
like burning, the kiss of your skin
makes the shiver underneath my own
seem so unlike the season,
you step around
the heat in me
like it’s nothing
like it’s just incandescent

it is in this season
that your love is on fire

//autumn//
leaves fall around you – like a crown
a king of the season
and death doesn’t matter
when you hold so much life,
and drop not a single ounce of care
for the wilt in the flowers stem,
and the lightning, the clouds, the breeze
are side effects
of your touch

it is in my favourite season
that your love is more powerful than I

I don't know what it is
about bringing god into the most intimate times of your life,
but I couldn't ignore the bible that was spread open
on your nightstand that night.
During the space between
whenever you rolled off of me
and rolled back on,
I was granted time to think about how I ended up
in this dreadfully exposed position
(literally, you told me not to put my clothes back on).
So I thought about how I had convinced myself
that you were as religious as you claimed to be,
and that this would be nothing more than
a simple movie date with a little cuddling.
But whenever you removed your arm from around me
and stood from the couch beside me,
I knew this was going to be far from it.
So I crawled into bed beside you
and felt your hands search my body in the dark
as though you were in a temple on a quest to find a golden cross.
And you found it,
radiating warmth between two stone pillars
that you couldn't resist digging your nails into.
And soon enough,
the walls came crumbling down
and you begged me not to make a sound
as you sank your teeth into my neck
as though you were taking a bite of the forbidden fruit
for the very first time.
And I must have tasted sweet
because your tongue shortly followed
to lap up all the salty juices.
But you were determined to tear the temple down
because you knew how sacrilegious it would be to leave it standing,
so you asserted your strength to the already crumbling pillars
and walls and heard and watched them fall around you
in all their holy glory.
But it wasn't until I was lying beneath you
in a pile of dust
that the bible beside me spoke.
The pages parted like the red sea
and the letters lept from the page like the egyptians
and I was shaking as though Moses himself
was standing before me.
But you didn't notice when you returned,
because your goal wasn't to build the temple walls.
So you climbed back on top of me,
rolled over,
and went to sleep.

1.
he left me by cemetery road
with no money and no place to go
because he had to go back home

you've never really felt bitterness until
someone you've done everything for
walks away from you across an empty parking lot
in a town you do not know
and doesn't look back

2.
next, in an empty elevator
and he went for a drive
because some people just can't stand
blood that's not their own

it's fine
i'll fix it myself
it's fine
i clean up nice
it's fine
i understand

3.
he never had any guarantees
mostly i'm sorry's which
might as well be free
the way we shell them out
mornings at his house
are no less lonely than mine

but lonely is not a problem anymore
lonely is just normal
lonely shows up most often
with a crowd of friends
or with a boy who says
he thinks you're fascinating
than it does in your own
asphyxiated skin

you tried to shed it like a snake
but the delicately fake chords
of romantic language
are wrapped around your neck

4.
maybe you will understand
i'm not interested in infatuation
because it wanes faster than the moon
and burns itself into your DNA like the sun
breaks your nerves like twigs
and sprinkles your scalp with ash

until everything good you've ever had
feels like
a sin

but i don't
think
you do understand

5.
he swept me out the front door
disappeared with his cell phone for twenty minutes
to brag to his famous friends
and came back to hand me a couple bucks
as the bus pulled up

at the time i didn't quite know
why i felt so sick to my stomach
so i said it was the beer
and then i said it was the money

but now i know it was
the significance
of how much our encounter
was quantitatively worth
in his eyes

6.
to him i am not me
my interests are "cute"
i tried right? i'm just too much of a female
to ever understand you
and yet that's all you allow me to be
because denial is so much easier
than seeing other humans
for the first time

7.
i am commodity
i am a nice figure
i am innocent eyes
i am a checklist of angles
and sweet little gestures
and the same words
the same words
the same words
the same words
the same ******* words

i am simple, right?
and sweet, correct?
and so charming
and ****.
Girl

8.
last time i checked
i was a person
not a categorized priority
that didn't quite make
the top five list

and you wonder why i get angry
about not having a voice
about being talked to like a child
when you can send me off to take care of myself
but you cannot respect me as a self sufficient being

when you can dump me in a cab like your ***** laundry
that you're just taking care of before work
and yet you are afraid of my blood
disgusted by your own ******* stains

9.
i think you treat me just about as much Woman
as you feel Man
i am not a rib
to be shucked away
from your heart
i am not a snake in your garden
i am not a scab waiting to be ripped off
i am not a breast, or ****, or thigh
because i am not ******* poultry
i am not made for consumption

and i have to tell you
Girl is not here.
and Woman bleeds red
and so do you.