Upward and wayward with
shaky plans,
I lifted my glass and drank to a
simple
song of leaving

I've been watching myself change
in the mirror
a restless heart, I can't stand it,

Look out! I'm coming
and one day, you will see
The way I move
makes you
want to confess to
me

I hear a lot about Christians. I hear a lot
about God

but holy light makes my eyes hurt,
Mother Mary makes me cry

And everyone always says that
Heaven
takes its time,

but I can't. I've got shaky plans and
a restless heart
Douse me in water, second time
fire, third time
I'm Holy

Because down in the valley,
down in the swamp filled with ash groves,
and the ditches of mud,
the dregs of society
who have always shone like
gold
to me

You are my holy gate,
my heaven,
my sacred entrance to
the promised land
where
we don't have time
for the privilege of
waiting
on
prayer

I almost forgot our
mosquito love
song
buzzing at the Oregon
sky
in laughter
in mud, in splinters and
hay
We used to be giants
too big for small
spaces
untouched by grace and
light
But we've heard it, grace, exists
somewhere
outside of us
outside of fear
outside of the unknown
outside of stamps and
welfare and the place we
call home
I almost forgot our
mosquito love
song

I am not the harnesser of energy,
  I'm more like a train station where
good things and
bad things
come and go with
time, that carry me,
fleeting,
and are gone with a
whistle blow

Sometimes I dream about you, but
it's not like you would
think

I'm standing in a public
place and
in,
I watch you
slink

And it just sort of happens,
like I've never
been aware

that you could step into a
space
and maybe
find me
there

and I keep running
from you, but
your face is all
I see

Every street and corner's like
you're coming
after
me

Sometimes, I dream about you,
and I always
meet your
stare

before we vanish
like a ghost - I
wish
I weren't so
scared

There are dark places, empty containers housing "rock
bottoms" that I've put lids
over.
Vessels, that live with or without you
cabinets that hold things I forgot I even put inside,
rarely-used possessions that
I've gathered over time -
sometimes by demand, but most
by no ask,
at all.

I forget about what lives in my curio
cabinet
until I'm where the case was
filled
Until I'm where that intangible
entree consumed me
where I was burdened with your
leftovers

A lid that opens up a little when I'm standing at the edge of the driving range -
and the single swing of a stranger,
a stroke,
blows the cupboard open
- a small yellow ball being hit by
a 5-iron releases a
feeling I'd forgotten to index, but I somehow
still placed inside

What else is inside of me?

There are really dark places I
can't find my way back to,
no lock, no key, no entry card or subscription
Just places in my collection, improperly
categorized,
- I can't find what's in there
No signs, no arrows, no naming systems or classifications
It's all too much

I can only see what's in my cabinet of artifacts
when I go back to a
place that held out a token to hand to me
- a bauble, a gimcrack to take
and
to place in the archives, the vault of
forgotten things.

I forgot to tell you
the last time I was there

when I kept my hand from reaching you
from brushing through your
hair

and that way you looked
at me, detached
and unaware

How'd we end up here?

I forgot to tell you,
it just made us seem so small

defining us to simple words
while running through them all

and the way I said I needed you
love, paper,
ink, and
scrawl

How come I left you in the fall?

Ugly girls don’t get hurt,

Too strong
and rough
with hardened
edges likes
Shells &
Barnacles

They're
always stuck
between pages or
interests too strong for
people like flowers

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.

It's 1991, community-based drug treatments
are on the rise. People, on the mend, bending over each other to fix addiction

It's 1991, my mother is holding her
low belly, watching TV in the basement
Shared housing, bending over her arm, grip,
friction

It's 1991, have you heard of social feminism? Have you heard how
they do it in Sweden?
Inequality.
Household labor.
This is America. It's a "man's world"
Hold her belly, water, it's a girl.

It's 1991, rise economy,
rise homelessness,
rise, her chest
her ribs
her lungs
her body
expand,
rise, push,
rise, fall, rise, fall
pushing
household labor.

I'm sure it's predictable by now, the starts
& stops, the usual way of speaking
like ink is coming out of my eyes,
your eyes,
every opening

     let's close them.

Too much velvet, too much smoke - too much love, it's love, it's always love. It's too much, we get it!!

I can't stop writing about flowers
   but I never go deep? Too
clever. Too witty. Too descriptive. too pretty.

I won't do it and wild roses will stay
a simple vision in passing, with nothing else thought to be said
in our
absence.

I drew it best like a river once,
calm to violent
wasting so much space, un-hoped for, an unpleasant
surprise, and
never treated like I
was

There was a lot of laughter, dirt, loud voice, loud TV,
smoke filled rooms with
strangers
The power's out, the water's off
high again, sad again
off our meds again
but laughing
again

We're joking. We're troubleshooting.
We're running out of gas, looking for
quarters

We're knee deep in a creek & our
teeth are falling out.
Dogs, rabbits, skinny horses, pins, cows, rust, motors,
cars, and cars, and rain. So much rain.

It always poured until it didn't

Summers where the wood
Was rotting,
the humid stench of
 Root rot,
Paint, and pine

Where tv trays were popped
In place,
while
mom & dad
Got high

Winters where home
Was bitter
Muddy dog prints
stained
Linoleum

Someone I trusted
put
Their hands on me
And I
Never
Told
anyone.

In watching light flood
through a window,
there's a sort of
haze
It's sleepier and cloudier
extending
length of
days

I somehow miss the
   orchestra
I want to sit next to a
stranger
Or hold my
sisters' worried hands
and believe that there's
no
danger

I want to step into a
crowded bar
and tip toe to the
counter
Then tipsy, laughing,
saunter back
when all of this
is
over.

For a second I smelled
smoke
the charcoal, burnt ash fog of summer
in
the valley

  in that second,
I felt sunlight
too
that feeling after endless days
of
gray

I've been lasting here
alone
  miles, states, may as well even be
planets far
  from you

Long days
long nights
and long thoughts about
   hot days where we were
together,
and we believed
the

good times
would last
forever

I always thought I'd
  feel the same,
living off of fumes
you can't stop burning

I always thought I'd
  want to stay
Inhaling and
exhaling all our poison

I don't know if through
thick smoke
you can see where this
is going

I'm throwing out our
ashes and pretending that
it's snowing.

I peeked out
from the tomb
that seemed to have
built around me,
trapped inside
and failing to grow

I reached my
hands up like
there's something
stirring within me

after my heart stopped
beating
    months
        ago.

I was already
falling
  when the rain
came down

like checkered
streams of
   tinsel
that make
us into
ornaments - a hook,
an eye

I always fall
  come
wintertime.

One week ago
already today
when I was the
    sunset and you
were the waves
where day closed
its eyes and
the moon & stars
lifted
My hope lies in
you and my soul,
the Pacific.

coffee carafe
unspoken words
clawfoot bath
singing birds

cotton and brass
a pew in church
catholic mass
eternal search

Nothing exists,
that, I'm certain

I want to see
what's
behind the curtain.

I keep thinking about
  San Diego
   and sitting with you
- the oceanside

My blanket's on
my glass is full,
it's all hot wax
   and candlelight

I can read your lips
before I even hear
  goodbye

I'm not ready to
watch this go
& leave
this all
behind.

Sometime then
  I can't quite remember when
we threw
trash
     on the bonfire

it looked ugly,
   and we'd scream
    
- throw crab apples at
one
    another

Sometime then,
  when we were tired and
thin,
  tripping on patches &
holes
in the floor

I took your hand
  our socks filled with sand
and laughed like
poverty
didn't
hurt
any
    more

I thought that
reaching out my hand from
  black coats and layers
that
slipping off a glove to
let my fingers out
to feel you
would
make
you
feel
me
too.

There's a way
in fall that seems
forgotten
a way in
Autumn that
  never fails to own
you

I'm sitting in a
coffee shop,
but my heart's in
Barcelona.

When I was
              considering eternity,
a brooding,
primrose ghost
of who
I was
before December

Before the nights were
long &
the days were
shorter -

I was like a
  swan who sat
still,
brass or porcelain,
until the chill of leaving
    pulled me out
the door
       into the
         hope
  of building a nest
somewhere new.

In orange light,
and October's amber
flood
it's the first time I've felt my pulse, my bones, my hands, my heart,
my blood

In a room
awkwardly shifting in my
chair
I'm noticing my body moving, it's the first time I'm awake and
I'm aware

For years I've lived,
trapped in a haunting
plea
It's the first time I've been pulled out and seen that she's in the room
with me.

When I look at her face,
a small child who is "she"
  and it's clear she has no
idea of stale ideals that block her
path

You are a small angel, and
you're unaware of trails that look like gold

There is truth: they are just gift-wrapped.
hiding "be polite.
"don't sit like that.
"cross your legs.

Here is your truth: You are not small. You are full of magic and there is no path that you don't own.

It has been
3 years since
some
        thing
buried me

3 winters
3 falls
3 summers
3 springs

I've felt so
guilty
  since I left
everything

The people
the places
and most of my
things

It's been 3 long years
and 12 mind-numbing
    seasons

But I think I am back
and that life has
  a reason.

This is not the first time
I've died

This is not the last

this is not about
reincarnation
or something from
"the past"

this is not the last time
I rise

This cannot be the last

I'm talking about moving on
and only glimpsing back.

I wore the earrings you
gave me
that used to be
  yours

in the photos I took that
you'd never see

and I had my hair pushed
back
the way that you used to
before you ceased to
be

I leaned against the hills
that night
chilly in the breeze

and thought about
your bony hands
  and all the memories

I've thought often
about
    the eye of the
storm -

the thunderous
  consumption that cold does
to
   warm

The way that the
   dust has a
    longing to fly

when the touching
of temperature
orchestrates
the
sky

I've thought often
about
how two things
come together

be it people
  or colors,

    uncontrollable
weather

The way that what's
   different will
    find its extreme

Pinnacle moments
are the day thoughts
I dream.

There are glimpses of
gold when
your shades are
rose-tinted
and when
the sting
of the past
is a feeling that's
       fading

and the thought of
next winter's
from mildew to
Emerald
and December's
devil
is
no longer
haunting

When there are curtains
of gold to be
draped all around
and suddenly sadness
is a song, not a
sound

and somewhere hums a
hope that
there's more we
can't see

there's a casket of
petals where
grief used to be

I'll be some
              where tomorrow

and the sky will change to
grey

and even if I close my eyes
the thoughts won't go
    away

and even when I
   fall asleep -
at the end of
every
    day

I'll keep waiting for
  tomorrow
and I'll be
  stuck in
         today.

I can't stop
thinking of
the things that
make me happy
like

Portugal and carousels
and
moving on
after
you
    died.

Palm leaves stretching
out their
arms
to reach a sea-blue
sky

I relate to reaching
up
and trying to  
get high

Head back like
a swan or
crane,
I'm done being
complacent

I am ready to
be bigger now

I'm running out of
patience.

After all of the hard
feelings
and after the summer of
fires.
After the forests had fallen
apart
and after I forgot
desire

After the winter in
whiskey
and after the stars
hid from dawn
after 3 years ago when you
died
I think I have finally
moved
    on.

It's like we're back to back
where I cannot see your
face
and I almost can't remember
what it
looks
like

and I reach behind to touch you but my arms don't
bend that way

It's like we're back to back but
you're also fading
into
grey.

I've been filling up
my glass
night and night
again

peering in the opening
my lips pressed to
the rim

I've been swallowing
my pain again
frothing in my
beer

I've been filling up
my glass
too tall and
lying through my
cheers.

Fresh white paint
And I.V. drips
And flat
Flourescent lights
The medicinal
Smell of
"Not quite yet"
And "i thought we still had time."
These are the
Thoughts that
Come to me -
   That winter when you died
You're somewhere
  In the needles
    Of December,
      Spruce and Pine

When I was a child
and I rode in the car
at night in the light of
the moon

I'd watch out the glass
at the fir trees we passed
where the deep woods whispered
and crooned

Abyssal black and
spattered in stars
the sky was suffused
in night

It's one moment where
I was never scared
but reassured by the dark's
gift of light.

I don't know why I'm telling you
this,
but I've grown to
be fine.
And I've found a way to live in
fallen snow.

to let the white, bone cold
of winter light
a fire in me.

I'm painting myself in drops of
spearmint,
writhing &
gladly making
pictures fit for
nightfall and snow
angels made
of stars

Way back when
when the porch was
caving in
and the creek had never been
so empty,

I went back
to the rabbit
hutch
kicked the sick-sweet bags, the
sticky cans of
Pepsi

Way back when,
when our love was
growing thin
and your hand could no longer
be steady,

I went back
to the edge of
Deer Creek -
& threw hay
like poverty
confetti.

After everything.

After the embers finally
cooled.
And I left the rain that caused
the chill.

After I felt the touch of
rage
and the hand of anger
try to

finish me

after I heard the breath of
   dying

and I heard the song of
  hope -

after I felt the tug of
rejection on my
sleeve

and the toxic
black and white dream of days

it's
the bitter taste
of nightfall here.

The sinking pause of abandonment.

The hesitant blossom of
springtime.

I hope that I can
find
peace
with the
blisters that
you left me with.

This is about me

These words.

How I've given
myself
  away time
   and time
       a
        g
            a
              i
               n


the secrets I've
kept
to
protect
  myself.

It is you - it's
not me.
It's not my
vulnerability.

It's not my passion.

It's not for my willingness not to fight
- or because my faith is
dwindling

This poem is about me.
And it's about everything you've

taken
from
me.