Close the window,
it's cold out
and start the fire,
I'm freezing

It's December
& I'm wrapped in you
before I learned
you're leaving

It's before I learned
the tender truth
that's leaning towards
forgiveness

When I would watch
the snowflakes fall
& you were mine
at Christmas

By this time, it's been a few years
mulled wine on the stove
and songs of reindeer

And lights in the windows
of homes I held dear,

I wanted to keep you here

Some things keep me up at night
like standing at a crowded bar
ribcage kissing every inch of the
counter
a gin & tonic from falling apart,

My pink fingers pressing neon lights,
warming me from snowy weather,
Like your pockets used to do,
Wrist deep in smoke-stained leather

Why can't I keep you off of my mind?
I drink cities from where you are
I picture:
what if just you walked
in here
what if I hadn't gone so far?

Some things keep me up at night
Like what I said that September
and now leaving drunk, all by
myself
just to feel like we're together.

There’s something about me
you should know
and it’s kind of
hard to
share
There are years
I was a
liar
and there were years
I was not fair

There were years
where I went out to
school
with nothing I could
wear
and years where I
ran to the
woods
to find my own
“somewhere”

There’s something you ought
to know about
me
and it feels like the right
time to
share
I grew up in a
rat-filled house,
without money
or
health care

And there were years
I tried to skip
these thoughts,
and it felt like
repair
like if I lied
about myself
It would all
just
disappear

But there’s something you need to
know about
me,
I got silence
with each prayer
There are years
that made me
hard as stone
to
get me
out
of
there

I can’t bear to look at
trees
not any kind of trees, but
evergreens

there’s a skeletal
finality
to the way their
bark is breaking
while
somehow
growth
prevails

and it’s such a simple
thing,
getting through
heartbreak
  miles from home
  why does it always feel like
I’m miles from home?

but I make do,
somehow

I just can’t bear to look at
trees,
evergreens,
an entire ecosystem,
temperate rainforest,
aisles and aisles of
patchwork
Pine

So often, I go out to the
desert now
and push my foot into
the red dirt,
and every rock is the
hate of what is lost
and every trail is
a cold-blooded vine

I can’t bear to look at
trees,
evergreens,
douglas, spruce or
pine
I can’t bear to look at
trees

these woods don’t feel
like
   mine

I used to be a shade of blue,
our open desert
sky -
not knowing that
I'd start to
sing
& still not grasping
    why

I don't know where
music lives
or why wind
can hurt and heal
a spark,
But this happens time
and time
again,
I fall into
    red dark

I'm not denying
you're the shade
of smoke I mixed
last summer,
a canyon
filled with streaming light,
one ravine to
another

I was born red-blooded, a
lionhearted fighter
I'm gonna watch the dirt on
both our hands
expand
    like
          wildfire

Sometimes I can hear
the woods at night,
the cascades where
   the shadows turn to      

gold

I'm in the valley in
                        September
before the fire
      and
the

fall

Maybe life can be
just as
simple
as a life
before
everything
has
changed.