i'm sorry you find it necessary
to put other people's body parts
inside your mouth
like you're some teething mental infant,
or maybe you're trying to take the place
of the baby we're pretending never happened…
…****.  i need a moment. .. …. …


ok.
anyway,
******* got you into this
so you think ******* will get you out?
it's ******* funny i have to flee the ******* country
to get free from your fingers' guilty grip
on a sad mind that can't ******* forgive himself,
on a mind muddied with so many mistakes
i get light-headed every ******* morning trying to decide
which regret to let ruin my day today,
but thank god you've always been there to remind me.
i thank that great guy in the sky
that you're always there
willing & ready
to rub it in.
maybe i just loved you too much,
i guess,
& you loved me just enough
so i'd still do favors for you
& god isn't that what Shakespeare was talking about?
we were rarely a well-written romance
but we ******* NAILED tragedy.
& i told you that first night
as we talked over
some movie i didn't care about
in some language i'll never learn,
that i ******* hated musicals….well
you must've read my subtitles
because you still sing inside my head sometimes.

When we see each other again, if
the skies and waters should allow

I will not let you go for a second

learned as we think we are, only
let me take you in once more

as you jiggle
nervously
in your seat
during therapy
i can only imagine what
is eating at you haley

no that’s not true
i know a little bit about it
for instance your mother
drains the medicine cabinets
instead of sink
the last months’ worth of dishes are still *****
she takes her pills with *****
because they are her water
rubbing her stomach clean with alcohol
yet she has never picked a rag up
to scrub the sickness from her house
red stains on your blouse
haley does she even know
what grades you got this year?
haley did she ever notice
when you dyed your hair?
to feel like you fit in somewhere
when you didn’t fit in her lap anymore

you come home from school
with scratches on your arms
and she never asks where they come from
so you tell her:
you feel like in a past life
you were a dartboard
because at school your peers play bullseye
with your forehead
and sometimes when they break your glasses
and you skip classes to do lines on your skin in the bathroom
with your walmart scissors
you just tell her you tried to kiss a stray cat
on the way home
and she actually accepts that because
she’s the one who taught you to play dumb

and at thirteen you’re still
suckin o  your thumb when you think that no ones looking
and though you don’t know it
the reason you do that
is because you’ve been drinking from a bottle
since you were a baby
and she never even attempted
to breastfeed

haley doesn’t understand
when i read her stories about the buddha
she just knows my voice
is comforting
haley doesn’t know
she has this inner peace
and all i want to do is
gather up her gashes
and put the pieces back together
haley doesn’t think she is lonely
but she thinks that i’m pretty
and she subconsciously wants
to make a mother of me

so at the end of the hallway
when she’s crying in the corner
because she misses freedom and light
i ignore hospital rules
and rush past the nurses
to hold her tight
and i teach her to breathe with her nose
close to our open window
and tuck her in when the bars
make shadows on the floor
in the moonlight

we sleep in beds of ashes but i know
that someday haley
will rise from this and grow
out of suicide
because in her sleep
she still hears me in her periphery
whispering of siddhartha cross legged under the bodhi tree
and how he discovered
life and death are not separate
and they each come accordingly
and right now she should just
focus on her breathing

and before i close the book
i also add that she’s beautiful
because it’s an important footnote
hermann hesse would want her to know

when i left she hugged me tight
with a tearful mumble goodbye
and when i walked into the sunlight
the two of us had dreamed about together
haley was still just a patch of phoenix ash
an egg hatching but i know her
and it’ll happen fast
but someday suddenly
she will realize she is
full of fire

The ******* took the beauty, and it wasn't
because he's handsomer, wealthier, or more caffeinated--
as you supposed, Christopher.

It was timing.

She was lonely.
He was there.

Chris, you were typing an email.

they used to tell me that i try too hard to be grown up.
i'm always questioning, calculating, planning.
walking in shoes too big for my feet,
and then wondering why i trip.
sometimes i feel like i can't help it when i
fall
so
hard,
but then i remembered that i forgot to tie the laces.
i remember that i live in metaphors.
making excuses and avoiding the present.
i try so hard to prepare for the future
that i forget to fix what's happening now,
or even to be happy with it.
i don't remember to feed my cat because
i'm too stressed trying to figure out
how to pay for her next bag.
i forgot my "see you later"
because i'm choking on "goodbye."
i need you to help me grip onto
what's here and what's now.
i need you to hold my hand.
please don't forget that i need you,
even when i don't know how to say it.

maybe I'm filled to the
brim like cupped hands under
the bathroom faucet

maybe the words that scorch this
tenderness in my mind with lonely
potency are yellow children of
a summer sun and its flower bride

maybe laughter is a dance

maybe when we get down to it, we
never really go anywhere, remain
hand-in-hand across state lines

and this heart snuggles up with
that one and the two grow stronger
out of their freedom heat

maybe I'm thinking too often, but
these thoughts orbit you like stars,
keeping me company until morning

Letters in the mail
pieces of me freed by words
keep them with your heart

off to the space where how
small we are becomes apparent, you
won't hear from me for a while but
I am alive and well, more-so than
previously, I assure you

off to the space where strings protest
the fallen angels we have allowed into
our homes, weathered giants aware of
each slice all the while supporting
greedy feet

we are the devil.
we are god.

anything but the in-between, that's
where things get lost