last january
was colder

instead of morning dew
you woke up with snowflakes in
your tear ducts and
the icicles trickling off your fingers
looked so pretty bleeding rain;

do you remember how your
bones shook like avalanche heartbeats
and how all those broken paintbrushes were
sharper than they looked
at five am with only fireplace
ashes for charcoal and old prose
to keep yourself warm

you have forgotten again -
ice is only cold when
it's crawling up your spine,
ice is only cold when
it's all you'll ever hold,
ice is only cold
when you do not want to breathe
the dawn again

the icicles did not hurt -
these frostbitten nerve endings make
breathing through the numbness almost
as natural as the selfish
sun and the reds and the yellows and the warmth
that will melt the terror in my lungs
into shaking palms
dripping red on tablecloth poetry

the sadness was locked away,
frozen behind my shivering ribcage
and I miss the way this ice felt in
my veins,
almost as if I'd never have to
feel again


how could I forget?
this rain is colder than any
winter I've ever known

god, please
i just want to breathe
in the written and the unsaid
again

teach me
to speak in ink and lines
teach me to
string songs in the silence of the mind
and paint colors in strokes of black
i recognize

i miss tracing rain on paper with the tip of a fountain
pen
i miss painting red at 4 am
i miss hearing thunder at the turn
of a page
i miss screaming truth in margin space

and i miss how these demons are a little
beautiful
when caged between spiral spines
and pretty poetry

i can't muffle this sadness
in pretty words anymore
it screams too loud and
tears apart
all these red-inked pages
with a vengeance of the forgotten
demons don't like to be
denied
and it's january again already
as if rubbing my hands warmer
will melt the icicles lining
my spine
inching up to my collarbone
every day a little colder
god
how am i still alive

there is no beauty in dying this way

you never know where
you're going

if it's your hands on the steering
wheel,
then I'm the one driving you
home

but lately you've been holding me
too close
and you think you can whisper
your smiles in my ear until
I'm wearing my own

but, baby
get your hands off me
and keep your eyes on the road

because my fingers have been shaking
and the map's forgotten under the bed
home isn't the light because
you're not the tunnel
and if I could just stop the car and
pull over -

keep the car
I'll jump off the cliff myself.

i hold myself together with
black stitching stained red
looping in and out of the spaces between fingers
and eyelids shut
and at times,
this needle is not sharp enough;
i cannot sew my shadows into
the background
this tapestry of my sanity
comes undone after dark
it's alright if i unravel,
these demons only play with
yarn and
memories and words strung together in a line
and it's alright if my
hands are suddenly tied behind my back
with twisting thread like blades digging
into flesh
my palms are patterned with rich lovely
red,

please don't
hold my hands so tight

it's alright
i am together
i am whole


and you wonder why it hurts

i. if he is sunshine,
you will flinch when he gets too close
the winter in your bones has never felt
this warmth

ii. four am and your fears will not tear open
your sealed lips like ordered prose; you are
a poem best left bro
                                   ken
into half lines and fading metaphors of rain
on windowpanes and the fire in your
veins

iii. he will not understand a word
you say

iv. but when the rain in your lungs is
bleeding tear stains down his shirt
again,
you forget he is aching to kiss your apologies
away, aching to cage your shaking bones in the light
of his own, to whisper 'i love you' over your skin
again and again as if those words alone
will feed this emptiness inside;
he will never understand

v. sunshine holds you close
and you will wonder if he can hear
your phantom pulse -

*'darling, you're only in love with a
ghost'

fingers clench around
nothing
at all

if only
there was breath to be
caught in my throat

please,
i'm begging these shadows painting tar
in my lungs
won't you let me
breathe?