i grew spines
when one was never enough.

You created a shallow place
Where memories should pool deep
But none are kept to admire

You created love
That was a fleeting feeling
A dream to burn my eyes when I woke

You created a thing grown
That still occasionally stings
As it explains
Who was my mother's daughter

She loves his body
The way it fits just right
against her lips
And she kisses each rib
As a thank you
For holding him in it

when the end comes
if we have an after
promise we will
spend it together

If love can be a habit
I can be the nail
that you bite
with an absent mind

the mess inside my head
is as tangled as my hair
on your monday morning pillow

May even your shadows burn bright so I can find them always
Or let your light be so shadowed that I may sleep in the glory
I will leave the shallow summer and wade into your deep winter
live in the seasons that keep in your favor
All I ask is that years take on forever
for time to keep us anchored
Yes all that I ask is that I shall ask at all and should you listen
anything can be rewritten

pull up your bootstraps
wipe off your chins
our mouths may bleed
but these hearts
are iron armored
lets keep them out
just like we practiced

Is this what they meant
when they told her love was a hurricane?


                     (it destroyed her cities
                      making her a refugee
                      inside of someone else's body)


If so,
she might have done without.


                     (and she was never any good
                      at building homes in new places)

She echoes in his room
In the way only the empty ones can

Long after she's gone

You said jump in
And my bare skin burned
In the front seat

You said almost beautiful
And I watched every mirror
To find what was missing

You said use your words
And I used them all
Until my tongue was numb

You said straighten up
And my kinks were flat
against that hardwood floor

You said I liked make believe
And I knew
To go along with the story

When I was fifteen
They said I was young
And I felt younger still

morning light
cuts my soul
gently divides
lost from whole

I want to lick
Your disappointment

Taste your bitter

I wonder,
If I were born to walk the moon,
Would you shoot for me?

The halves that made me
Left me only pieces
To make my whole

They made her like a star
destroyer--

And never forgave her when she fired.

You’re Peg Tooth,
I’m Sticky Fingers.

Lets run until we hit the sun
hoping for matching freckles.

.  
                                                    l           ­       
                                                      
i looked at the sky     l
and                               a
wondered how to f

when everyone else
knew to fly

Let me

                     (Breathe myself into wind.

                            Sink until I’m water.

                                    Lay, for to dust I will return.

                                                  Then I can)

stretch myself into your bones.

My ghost is pressed
Between pages of black ink;
Haunting bookshelves neatly labeled.
Fingers running down bound spines
vertebrae by paper vertebrae.
Memories that are trapped in fiction,
Lost by a to z organization,
Misfiled.

I can be,
Just by myself.


And yet;

If I could breathe a dream,
It would be the one on your passenger side window.
I traced the veins of my heart
And found you tangled.