this is a series of brief letters to the pieces of my body

dear body,
we don't always work together very well,
but i swear i am trying.

dear hands,
the callouses and crescent moons in your palms
will not be for nothing.

dear knuckles,
aren't you tired of painting yourselves black & blue
every time words fall short of the fire burning behind my sternum?

dear feet,
you know better than to follow roads that lead to dead ends.
there are better places for us to go.

dear eyes,
you have sunken so far into my skull
it shocks me you see anything at all anymore.
you're fixated on shades of gray
but i promise the world will regain its color soon.

dear knees,
stop crawling.
this broken glass is from his bottles.
get up. no more blood.

dear shoulders,
it was never your burden to carry. let it fall,
and try your hardest not to feel guilty.

dear neck,
his hands will never make a home here,
and you are worth more than one night of empty bruises.

dear spine,
stop waiting to be warmed by fingers
that would reach for another body if they could.

dear tears,
do not waste yourselves.

dear ears,
you have been filled with ghost songs for too long.
stop listening for things no one is saying -
it will make life much simpler.

dear mouth,
i know these secrets have been threatening to break my teeth
but please do not open your gates. i am not ready.

dear skin,
we have never been close friends.
i am sorry for the scars.
i am trying to learn how to be comfortable in you.

dear mind,
if i could wish you into an etch-a-sketch
and shake you clean of these bad memories i would.

dear heart,
i hope you can forgive me for being so careless.
i feel how tired you are. rest is on its way.  

dear body,
you will one day see a grave,
but it must not be by your own hands.

- m.f.

if you only could taste me
now,
my lips would say to yours,
the poetry of
"pancakes with too much butter
slipping off like young men's
clothing"
and
"frigid air before the sun has woken
latched on my teeth like drowning men
holding onto rocks"

you'd ******* dreams
of sneaking out midsummer,
(always my favorite, when nights were merely darker echoes of
the day)
of running down roads with black
feet,
in the disguise of a naked crow.
flying in the heat with a pistol in her black fingers.
that was the first
                      time
                            id
                              ever
                                   dreamed
                                              of
                                                 a
                                                  gun.
i'd swear you'd taste the blood-like twang of fired bullets like shards of metal on my lips, too.

We drink to make each other more tolerable.
Whiskey washes over the painful memories of broken trust and promises.
I don’t remember the last time we didn’t fight.
It’s like I love you too much to care anymore.

I’d give you the world if I could,
but that’s easier said than done.
You don’t want me to be so kind to you;
and that’s something I’ll never understand.

Don’t forget who I was before you tore me apart.
I was a pieced together puzzle;
until deconstruction became your hobby.
You became my demise.

Tears trickled down my wrinkled shirt the day you left.
In our life wine rhymed with love
and water tasted like sacrifice.
There are only so many wounds liquor can heal.

New stains painted my shirts,
not tears or wine.
Red cuffs covered up memories of you.
Blood washed down the drain just before you came back.

Now it’s too late to save us.
Maybe we were doomed from the start.
But I’ll refuse to believe we weren’t perfect for each other.
Not until God tells me otherwise.

I suppose I’ll see him soon and ask for His opinion.
Your embrace has never felt more soothing
as my vision blurs to black.
You whisper sweet thoughts you should’ve said before.

We drank to make each other more tolerable.
I couldn’t think of someone I’d rather tolerate.
When I embark from dark to light I’ll remember you.
I love you too much to care anymore.

My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
     universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
     reach my hands and play with pebbles of
     destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
     reading "Keep Off."

My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
     in the universe.

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

oh my goodness, this man's hands
are beautifully sad, all thin
and winding themselves into the fence
as he waits for the train
and then he turns, cigarette clenched
between thin lips
and scowls in my direction
and suddenly, those hands
are foul and *****,
becoming part of the chain-link metaphor
for loneliness
all i can think today is
wow, people ****

when i bought you a gift,
i didn't really think about it.
wrapped it in your favorite color and
marked it with your name and
realized
i don't know where you live.
its been three years since i last saw you,
a year since we last talked,
and all my new friends just remind me of you.
i almost called her your name the other day.
you acted like i was special, and i
pretended i didn't need you.
christ.
christ.
you promised that nothing would change.
you swore you would visit
(but then every time it seemed you would,
i found myself hoping
you wouldn't. i guess
it's lucky you never did)
sometimes i go a month without thinking of you (forgetting like i should)
and wake from a dream where we're
sitting on the edge of a wall,
three years younger than we are,
throwing rocks down steep slopes,
talking about
reflections on car doors,
melting in california sun.
i straightened you out
when boys left you tangled.
(i've never been in love)
you listened when i talked about
black cats and spirographs
and the way that we can never really touch anything
(i don't think you understood
even half of what i said but
you listened like i was spurting secrets of the universe in waves like
pay attention,
this one will be on the final)
you laid with me on hot sidewalks and then,
you left.
christ.
i thought i was always supposed to be the one who went south,
left someone behind,
wondering about me,
but here we are and still, still, even now
everyone i care about is just like you.
i went north but still even now,
i walk barefoot like the ground is hot and dry,
like it was back home,
like it's not wet from last night's rain.
i think you'd like it here, you liked fog better than i did,
you liked rain, you thought it was
poetic,
you thought colors looked better in the cold.
you liked the way your hair looked wet but hated the way your makeup would run.
you tried to grow closer but instead i would talk
about things that don't matter,
and honestly,
you shouldn't have expected any better from me.
didn't realize till you left that codependence
isn't something i
can avoid, i can only prevent you
from becoming as attached
as me.
can red threads work for friendships too?
sometimes i feel like it wrapped around my torso a thousand times over,
pinching the skin,
and only draped over your hand.
sometimes i feel like a dog with her leash tied to a pole.
i thought i was the one who was supposed to leave,
but christ,
i've always been bound by the border, i've
never been as transient as
i seemed.
that never stopped you.
nothing stops you.
(do i ever come to mind?
do you mention me to your new friends, am i
in any of the stories you tell them?
i don't tell my friends about you.
i'd just be ashamed
of still keeping your laugh in my mind.
i'd just be  jealous
that they know how to say your name)
i remember sitting with you on a wall,
watching heat mirages,
listening to the way you talk
and thinking of telling you things like
the way my parents don't kiss anymore,
the time my mom left in the middle of the night,
and i waited on the stairs under stars for three hours
while my dad told me to come inside,
and orion sat above,
and the driveway stayed empty,
and you turned to me and i made a joke about
nihilism.
you were so honest with me.
(i was honest too,
it's not lying
if you make jokes about how you really feel
it's not lying, it's just a comedy routine)
i think i'm a few years older than i'm supposed to be.
i should be able to move on from a  friend
that left me behind,
i think my mind
is a few years behind my body,
maybe when you left
you borrowed a few of my years for the road,
and now i'm a child in body that's been rotting for 18 years,
crying over a friend that has
better things to do.
laughing over injuries to seem strong.
your gift is still on my desk, and it's been
55 days;
almost two months.
i guess i'll leave this one in my closet too.

happy birthday.
thinking of you.

doves drowning
in the storms wicked air
watch with empathy as they struggle in the
thrashing tides of the rainswept sky
watch as the fall from grace
in the warm tears of rain

bernie was waiting on
doomsdays last train
he kept his lunch in a sack
along with the face he gonna wear
when he comes up fore the good lord
but what worried him was if the other fella
had his ticket
he would toss his coin on
the hand he was dealt
a good man misunderstood
a simple man living a complex life

contortionist of the fable
she wrote her own storied life
on the back of a matchbook cover
after all its the flame of her heart
that set ablaze many a mans inner pervert
she is waiting on that last train too
with a devilish certainty of her destination
but she aint too worried
she knows hell is just like miami in july

doves nestled in the hands of time
make a soft sound that stirs the heart
sounds like a love affair
sounds like free flight on a summer breeze
feels like home