this is the land where everything is coated in dust
here, lips go dry waiting for something to taste
travel north, wander to meet the aurora
and if you go
won't you return to tell me
what it was like to have so much water
it spilled over every rooftop
and made atlantis out of suburbia

I have often dreamt in liquid color
lurid with motion, I’ve woken up dizzy

******* the tear 
in lullaby time

tempted to test it’s fragility

wiping the sleep from my eyes

to find them sealed shut

I’d extend one arm, brushing the greyscale
unable to escape what I couldn’t see

“this is blindness”, I thought

as the world shrunk to a sliver of sense

all crunch-sounds and sandpaper jaws



I fashioned myself armor made of the transparent melodies

chanted by nameless birds, unidentifiably perched 

on the other side of my window

it didn’t fit right

I had misinterpreted my body

the fabric clung too tightly to my skin and then jutted out

like a Christmas parade

I can’t remember if it was only a story, but north of here

they fastened wheels to their feet, to roll over pavement
what would it be like, to glide over miles

or grow gills, and escape this
stale air
I could live a dream, in the north
I could make a hero
of the river

I can still hear your lisp
the way it covered every "r" you sounded
bare skin under mist, your eyes
matched your hair
the first, all blue raspberry stained lips
the second, pure spring sky

Never before, had I loved the rain,
as much as when we ran through it
we let the downpour soak our clothes
and congruent, thunder couldn't scare us
we felt naked, or I did,
but I didn't mind it
to be naked with you
was all that I wanted

Never before, had I looked at a girl,
and wanted to hold her, the way I held you
suddenly, the laws I believed in felt
paperclip thin, and completely untrue
it didn't take much strength
to twist every one of them
into a shapeless and easily
ignorable pile of waste

You knew the flags of every country
as if your allegiance was to the entire world
I wanted it to be to me
only
and I think I knew that it was,
but that doesn't mean
I didn't want you to say it

just like that, july
finale curtain fall,
and fog-laced everything
and future forever-question
less fear, less failure
more numb

we've been forewarned
the lake has risen
the tide, eternally arrived
and rain-frothed earth
that clings to cloth

I was born *****,
wiped fresh, and expected
to remain so
"Stay golden", no,
stay lily-white,
and mom and dad
I tried

we are told, from the beginning
over and over
a mantra of non-ending-knowing
"something is different about eighteen"
and in thirteen days
will I be
different

I look to nature
I look to strangers
I look anywhere but inward
for the last-piece-of

something there
is stirring, I think
something is certain
inherent in me
but I don't need to be certain,
no,
not immediately

it was an ambivalent orchestra
every sound I heard through winter's gossamer veil
the frost and my window, two shatterproof layers
between me and the outside world
but time forces everything to crack, even the river
who broke fissures in her icy armour, working slowly,
understanding patience was perhaps her greatest ally
her only accomplice in escape

now she is incandescent with sunlight
still muddy brown, but at night, when I pass her
she is unforgettable luminance
and those who used to carve their journeys into her back
with the blades of their skates
don't dare touch her, now that she's free.
I have noticed I still don't have answers
but I think I trust myself enough now
to turn all this fear into something
so ridiculously triumphant
that you'll have to stop and listen

I used to pray endlessly
for some enchantment to carry me upward
but I am learning to be earthbound
and from here
the sky is a different kind of beautiful
seeming closer now
like an eventual promise,
all destiny and syncopated light

I was playing La Vie en Rose for you
my fingers straining over the keys
"I want out of this noise," you said
and left to get some air
or smoke a cigarette.
Without you, the notes grew cumbersome
and before I knew it, I had stopped playing.
Removing myself from the bench
I went to close the windows but

fumbled with the blinds, and the strings
snapped, the daylight pouring in
carrying with it, your shadow
like a seashell, typical, but still somehow treasure,
important enough to hold on to, to some people,
to me.

Curious, I stretched my body, became
the finishing piece of an inordinate mosaic by
some anonymous Catholic, all stained in glass.

I fit there perfectly, in your outline
never before had the answer to
the question of what to be
been so clear
you were a jar and I was a liquid
for a moment, my only obligation was to follow your rules.

But my lungs itched.
Another world away, back in the sunlight
La Vie en Rose hung in the air
unfinished

a year later, I still want to reclaim
our violet and jagged forever catastrophe
and return to our attempt to name
the space between the moon and wherever this is

I want to know if they were right about you, fully
they said you were arrogant, but to me
you were almost entirely sewn by parasitical magic
and powerful, you had fingers that held all the answers and sometimes,
held me

you could roar deception but you could only
bring yourself to whisper the truth
lightyears away, you told me I was all you belonged to
lightyears away

after you left, the space was
flat like the floor of a jetway
and sharp like the pop of my ears on the way down to home

we expected too much of each other in different ways
you wanting closeness, and me, just wanting
trying to understand and live in the space
the space between the moon and wherever this is

I don’t know when four years from now turned into tomorrow
or when I first became afraid
everyone that matters, poised to run in all directions
and I have been running less
but when I do
leaves I used to reach for
now slap me in the face

the last time I walked these halls I wanted nothing more than
to leave I was convinced that outside would complete me but
here, I've studied the rules until winning became second nature
I've been around the board twice and back again
I can survive here
in this limbo

but I’m not turning my clocks back over and over
and I’m not hiding clues to remind those who stay of my former presence
I’m not letting the sun set on my back again
I was in love with the idea of tomorrow when it wasn't skinning me alive
peeling me back layer by layer digging its nails in crudely, leaving me surrounded by light my eyes hadn't adapted to see

when I am inattentive, the optimism
bubbles upward, but another voice, underwater says
what if you're wrong wrong wrong

I thought these four years were supposed to fade away, effortless
that I was the one that got to leave
but time is up, and kicking me out