There's a lump
in my throat
from swallowing
rivers of silver
rivers of metallic
frost
and nocturnes

shattered glass
in pebbled streets
where mirrors mean nothing
and you're always looking
outwards

There's a lump in my throat
from holding onto
love that does
not exist
anywhere within
my dimension or
the next

Where your touch is so far
lost, a
sunken ship,

a river flowing past
another "tell tale"
heart

where you've been
washed away,
swept away,
called away
by the waves of
nothingness.

you're so far gone.

Faded trees
and foggy hills
of misty blue
and morning pills

and pastel soap
in a broken bowl
my splattered mirror
who eats my soul

an empty fridge
a broken lamp
moldy, mildew,
Northwestern damp

wrists against
my seam-ripped sleeve
this is what it's
like to grieve.

Put your coat on, love
it's raining hard again today.

A rain like the day my uncle died.
and I couldn't see the road as
I sped through the December night.
and I wouldn't talk to my sister
because I had nothing I could
say.

Put your coat on, darling
the streets are full of ice again.

ice like the fear as I drove through the hills
my tank almost on empty.
No street lights no city in sight.
And I couldn't talk to anyone
this forest has never seen a cell
tower.

Put your coat on, dear
it's cold again today.

It's freezing and a coat won't warm the cold in me.

There's so much light
pouring through
a window pane
when the rain
fell down
like it did
today

and like how I
climbed
the butte with
you
and how you made
the tea

settle in
with me
when we go
home
after our legs
have been worked
in

and you'll stir the
soup
and yell at the
whistling kettle
for singing its song
too loudly

it's when the sun
is filling the room
and my legs are
dangling on you
that the light
wins,
and wins again.

There's a green
line in the sky
and you're looking
in the
rear-view mirror,
gucci shades
and tales of
foreign days

you're silver.
You're gold,
hell,
you're a band
of shining diamonds

you're so
far out of
reach.

but I love you
you don't know
how much I love you
and I can guess
how much you
love me too.

I keep meaning to give you
all the letters that I
wrote
and to
resist
this restraint, my hand holding onto
the paper
of the words
I almost told you,
felt the need to tell you,
in the silhouette of
candle flame and
sitting alone.

I'm so courageous when I'm
by myself,
and when I know what my lungs
feel like
what my fingers feel like, pinching a
pen to tell you, wholeheartedly,
the things I
will not say

I keep meaning to give you the letters
I wrote you,
I wrote you my secret and

a secret is a loss
that feels like an
ephemeral
victory

You're trauma.
Memories, flooding
into places that
usually do not
fill, have not been
full before
You're my pain
my hope
my little faith who is-
n't so small, ignored
at all

You're a warped record,
a broken pew-
a longing to be held
in the coldest of
nights by the
history of arms in
me

You're my religion
and you could hear it
if you opened your
wings,
lay your sorrows down,
your bible down,
the holy ashes of
Wednesday
down

You're my country- my baptism,
so let the waters flood you
too

How tree trunks hold
a sturdy limb who's
reaching towards the
light is how
I am always
holding
you
and love to
bear the
weight.

I'm afraid that you are
hiding

that you don't mean the things
you say

it's because of a history I have with you
that can't be wiped away

I'm afraid that you are
lonely

that I don't fill your lover's
wounds

that even when I sit with you,
you're in an empty room

I'm afraid that these are parts
we play

that this is all a grand old
stunt

and that I don't love you, nor you love me
and that might be just what I want.

As I'm
sitting in the balcony
and the gallery lights start
    to dim,
and you walk on
stage, ready to fill
a room with
songs

You don't know how you
fill me with music
you fill everyone
with song
-and when they leave,
when I leave,
your melodies
linger and
God if you only knew that
I am your song

I think this
could be easy,
and I think that
I could be yours

So darling,
play me, play me, play me
play me in a sea of bows,
but don't string me
along

There aren't enough hours in the day
to watch your
hands

the way they serve me
whiskey
or dance on a
baby grand

Look at you.

I've finally found
something living
in the waters-
a brush against
my leg and
I know that
you're
unfolding and
I'm here

standing in the
water,
a lukewarm way of
holding
me
in the touch of
a
November.

Look at you,
darling

there's so much
beauty
in the depths
you've opened
up to me
and I'm here:

I'm not scared
of who
you are,
my world wonder,
my 8th sea.

I dug through
shelves
and rows
of tapes

cassette tapes
that made
me think
of you
and of myself
and of summer in
the ballet
studio
dancing
until
I
  could
not
  breathe

5 for 99 cents
where I can
take a moment
take a breath
take some time
while they
rewind

everything
changes
and nobody takes any
time
in an instant
tapes are gone

just like
the
day
you died.

You woke me
in the dead
of night
with a tired
moan

so,
of course I
ran to
your bedside
and heard
the rattle in
your tone

I told you
that you
must breathe
deep
you must
feel it
in your
bones

and you nodded
your
exhausted
head
and then
I felt you
go.

There are days when
my mind is clear
and I can see the
edge of love

I see the cliff
I'm holding to
and I knowingly
watch my step

the sun seems higher
and the clouds seem
full
and every quiet moment
doesn't hurt so bad

and then there are the
days ahead
where love does not
exist anywhere
near where I was or
am

There's no step to
watch
no intention
no facade
or "one, two, three."

and the sunset's
brighter here.

The crickets sing
louder here.  

the birds have a
song that I don't
recognize here
and it seduces me,
all the same

Here there's so much pain
and depth
to feeling everything
and all

What do you do when it's
unending love?
When it's everything you've ever
dreamed that it
was

and the romance
is growing
the loneliness
slowing
and a glance is completely
enough?

What do you do when it's
downright desire
and you're held in the line
of your lover's hot fire

and the passion's
invading
seclusion is
fading
each birdsong is a
lover's choir?

How do I tell him that
he is above
that he's sweet and he's darling
and more than enough

without
offending
that my worship's
unending
and that I'm so
helplessly
in love.

If only India weren't
so far away
so I could touch
the yellow streets
the orange, the red
the muddy water
(the print of
an elephant)
where I could hide
in tall grasses
by deadly snakes
and wait to be
pinned by a
tiger
the orange, the red.

A temple where i can't
even remember your
name
because all I
hear is Hindi.

where all my problems
would be solved, alas,

a cup of tea
my feet stained brown
the orange, the red.
I'd never wash the jungle
off my hands.

Count down from 11,
and I'm leaving the
region

I'm heading East
like I'm searching for
freedom

away from the forests
away from the rain
away from the constant
coverage of grey

Count down from 11,
and I'm going with
you

I'm heading East
I'm hoping for something
new

Nearer to deserts
& nearer to heaven
from this moment on it's
countdown from eleven.

So this is the requiem of
comfort
part II of
my play
it's the funeral of
ease and rest and stagnant
lazy
days

It's the eye of the hurricane
and I'm afraid of
the other side
of falling so
deep in dark grey rain
I can't be roused from
where I hide

this is the finale
the grandiose hurrah
where I am
leaving one life
to storm with
everything you are

theatre or hurricane
applause or nature's rage
you're act three,
act four,
act five, my love
you're the
endless
stage.

Lines inside of trees
around my eyes
at my finger tips
around you as you dance in

candlelight

and lines of wax in veins of wood
and lines, lines of unread scripts
in lines of books in my book case.

Lines,
lines I told myself.
Lines I tricked myself into believing.
Lines I tricked you into thinking too.

I feel like it
was yesterday
that you told me
you hate my
wig on
Halloween
and you gave a
flashing basket
to a little
girl who
won't even
recall
the things you did
the ins and outs
of every ounce of
love, you are
it will feel like
yesterday
tomorrow
and the next
and in ten years from now
when I can't
quite recall
your voice,
I'll think to how
you said my name
on the last
voicemail you
left me.

Pigeons sitting in
a row
on the edge
the ledge of a
building
make me think of endless
orange skies
and cumulus clouds
so near to
fields where
the sunflowers are
ever growing.
You're the only one
I would have left it for,
and I did,
and I will
never regret it.

The Christmas lights
are burning
by six
candles
lit for you

and my
cloche hat
is hung to dry
because it
rained so hard
last night

and at the end of the night
I'm taking off gold jewelry
my silver too
and I am putting them in an
old nickel jar
with the face of a cat
that you gave me

The Christmas tree
is glowing
and the tea kettle
is heating

and the cat
is slowly
lapping
off the
dirt of
other days

and it's the end of the night
where I'm
reading a poem
where you told me
that you wished that
you could fly
and that I
was so much more
than my porcelain
frame

At the end of the night
I believe you
and I miss you just
the same.

I found a
cassette tape
at a
vintage
store
while you
hovered over your piano

and later realized
inside
there was
an autograph-
Roy Orbison that read
"Hugs & Kisses - Roy"

I could get it checked
get it appraised
get the papers to
prove it's
true

or I could keep it
on my
dashboard
let the tape spin out
its days and
smile to think that
it's signed,
touched by the
artist who
made it.

In that same way
I could force out
how you feel for
me
make you rise from
your piano,
focus on me
tell me that I bother you
or maybe,
even that you love me

but instead,
I'll let you
spin out your days- be a
friend to
you as you rise
to the top
(I'll always be yours
in candor, I'll be more)
& I'll smile to think that
I've been touched
by an artist
who made it.

I can feel
the warmth of
a new
blaze,
a small flame
that's been
lit
between us.

Not you, nor I,
not a fire with
out the other
dissolving, slowly,
the wick

if a small fire that needs nurtured is
what love is,
then call my hands
a governess to
always nurse
the burn
of new love's
flush

as long as you're
reddened in the smoke-
path, then my darling,
this is fine
by me.

I don't like to
assume,
but I think that
      you're mine.
I think that as
you welcome
Midnight Lovers &
your bedroom door swings
open,
    shut,
      in and out
     with walking veils  of
flowers to
   distract you from
the pain,
          you're mine.
      somewhere, you're mine

   I know you

that in some sort
of way, some sort of
reality, whether it's another
dimension-( I've
learned about
other dimensions),
or another
stretch of time,

Darling, I've always been here
for you
and somehow,
you'll always be mine.

I keep following
every path
with light at the
end
always reaching
out my limber
hands for
hope's desire.

Why is it,
in happiness,
I only want
another song
to move me
from the
embers, where
a fire
raged &
burned me
through
again,

following a light again,

seeing I exist
in human
form
in every
form that
is and
will be
sleeping in
a fire pit
to stop and
start again

It's moving towards
a light
that does
me in.

Like a shadow,
you were
never quite
within my reach

hesitant and
hidden
the sun pushing
you away

I've always seen
the Bayou in
the dimples on
your cheeks

All of
Louisiana in
the blink of
an eye.

I'm so afraid
that you feel nothing.
That your ribs hold
nothing.
That your shadowed
eyes see
nothing.

No love, no fault
no guilt or regret.

I am so afraid
and your
soul looks so fearless.

But they tell me
We're all afraid of losing
something

Looking back to a summer
afternoon,
where I hid behind every table
with my back straight
and my arms held down
a forced gentle on my face,

I felt like a rattlesnake,
waiting.

I've never been tame - and
I wasn't even, then.
I've never been possessed.
     I've never been locked inside a
room in June - your hand pressing on the silver handle
with its cracks and fractures, its creaky breath rattling like tuberculosis
- your black ash streaming lungs
your history of slithering poison where neither you nor I had
legs to crawl away

The longer the days go
between then's dewy porcelain and the now, and the
shadowy sound of your breathing,
the more I simmer and smolder my snake-seethe and fume
your venom never owned me -

I molted when locked in that room.

You were standing,
a silhouette against
the icy blue of
a northwest bay-
the most beautiful
shoreline you've seen,
you said,
and love, do I
agree.

even standing
by this ocean,
in this dew-drop
forest I
call home,
overwhelmed
by Oregon's
beauty once
again-

I'm taken aback because
you're so beautiful.

and all I can possibly
see
is you.

So here I am,
  deep in violet
   fallen into the nucleus
of a flower,
what
have you done
to me
where
I am
possessed by
the subtle stirring of
leaves when a car
drives by,
the wind sways the blade like you
rouse
me

I can't even walk past
a garden of violets
without wishing you
were there to
see it.

Outside,
there's a horror
show,
the night is black
and without you

I am lonely.

I imagine you've
forgotten me
or
decided
to leave me
behind

but even though,
Darling,
this fog is stifling
and the black
silhouette of
night-trees
crowds the
quiet, distant
sky,

inside the doors with you
I've found
safety, the gingered
touch of reticent freedom and
I love,
I love you so.

It's not that I'm not
pretty,
that's beside the
point:

My eyes are seen before my
words
My body before my
contributions
My beauty before my
art

I am more than just an
ornament
and Christmas lights for
eyes.

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

Up a little coiled
street, hardly touching
yards of palms and
cacti-
a street asleep the way
a ribbon lies,
untouched and full of
Christmas
  promise

up the corkscrew street, your hand in mine

and all the sleepy
little
foggy town
is a midnight shade of
red

The Copper Queen Mine
may be haunted
but I'm too in love
to see an ending or
   the dead.

If I were not
me,
I think I'd be a
stained glass window

I saw a picture today
in a magazine
of a reflection, but also a shadow- an echo of
all of this window's
color on the
altar of a church and
God
if I could exist in a way that I could
see
myself and
allow myself to
fade away, into oblivion- an illusion
of all that I am, laid on the floor of a church-
I'd be a stained glass window

Your hands play
my back like a
piano, knuckles
contorting, twisting
pressing symphonies
to life,
pushing music into
me like I've never
heard a
song

you're like a
bird
whose singing in
the wooded
canopy of dreams
who folds
his wings against
the sky becoming
cupid's arrow

you play me
pianoforte
and you love me
like a sparrow.

Before I start my
soul search
I have to tell you
that this self
hunt starts
with you
where inside your
eyes
a lullaby, a
cypress,
reflecting in the moon.
Douse me in your
moon glow
where I can drink your blazing
calm
where I'm floating in your
darkest sky
I've been yours all along.
Before I start my
soul search
and before the
sea foam holds the shores
I'm telling you
I know your soul
because mine's always
lived in yours

I feel myself fading
in the midst of all
I've been told to believe in.
Am I the
only one
who
feels as if
the world wasn't made for me?

The world makes no sense to me.

No logic.

The questions I have that won't be answered.

All I can do is
exhale
"faith..."

What if one day
you awake
in bed,
white linen
grazing
your tattoos,
and you see me
asleep in these
pillows and sheets
and think
that I'm not for you?

What will you say
when time conveys
that I am just a single
season
that I'm cold, that I'm stone
That I chill to the bone
and sometimes
it's easier
when I
am
alone

what if one day
I wake in white sheets
to find that
I'm on my own?