I kiss like
a thunderstorm,
crashing into your lips
with the force of a
hurricane, I haven't felt
the rain in far too long

There is a promise
sealed to your mouth,
a record you can feel
beneath your tongue

reminding you that
I'll stay forever
locked in your eyes --
I won't move until
you break your gaze

I kiss like
I'm dying, the candle
flickering down to
the wax, no amount of
kindling can revive me
from a death like this

And when your breath
unfolds from the back
of your throat, you'll
kiss me back to life,
falling back into step
with everything
I knew before,

your bricklayer's tongue
chiseled between
my teeth --
we fit
like rungs on a ladder,
pulling me back to the surface

I kiss
like a firestorm,
knowing that
one day
something
will ******* away

my mother's strength
could rustle tree branches,
knock down houses and
push through walls.

and her hope,
that feminine aching
for things to be better,
she shows the rest of us
what it's like to be warm
even through her shivers,

my mother knows
the soreness in my knuckles,
she asks me every time,
my mother strikes a chord in me
tender and careful, she carries
the child i will continue to be
even as i move on from her

the way she holds us,
her arms are temples to me
i've never known another
shelter so holy,

and every time she cries
i want to open up a wound
within myself, so i can cry
along with her, i walk beside her
so she'll never be alone,

my mother
never deserves
to feel alone.

this forest heart
will go on longing
for my mother's open skies.

Sometimes it's just a conch shell
I am tired of holding
to my ear.

The birdsong outside my window
fills me more than your affection
ever could. When I say I am in love
with the entire ******* planet,
I mean it is impossible
for me to settle down.

I am not the type to sink
in the river, I want to float
on my back through the bloodstream
of the Earth and let the moon tell me
when it is too dangerous to go
swimming.

I never learned how
to swim. I am far too cautious
when I talk. My body is self-conscious
about letting the chlorine of
a summer pool touch me, fill me
like you used to.

I guess that's why I'm leaving,
love. The open air is a much better lover
than the sea. I would rather burn
inside the marrow of a far-off star
than feel alone at the bottom of the ocean,
only fish to guarantee I'm still alive.

Love is Pluto,
drifting in space searching
for something to hold onto
never knowing it is in orbit
circling something it will
never get to touch.

I wish I'd never touched you.
Never felt the sandpapered scars
that fold inside the creases in
your wrists. Never let you think
I had fallen from heaven, I wish
I'd told you I'm searching
for a way to float on top of clouds
without needing a God to tell me
I'm happy.

Maybe I only loved you
when you were unhappy.
Maybe your shoulder blades
never contained the wings I thought
I could see when the lights were out.

Baby, you were the ink
pouring from Shakespeare's
****** quill. You were the barnacle
in the sand waiting to take in
the blood and screaming disbelief
of a child, you were the whales
beaching themselves in one sorry attempt
to taste the grass.

You were the one
to always keep sinking.
It was your sandpaper
I held under my tongue
hoping it would rasp
long enough for someone
to tell me I was bleeding.

You were always
bleeding, especially when
I was gone. Now,
you breathe smoke
and still tell me it's me
who needs you.

i want to become the rain
so that i can fall
from the greatest height
only for you to catch me
with every inch of you,
so that i fall into every
corner, so that i caress
every pocket of doubt
you carry within your bones

i want you to open your mouth
so that you can taste
my desperation, my vivid dreams
and the blood that flows
within my visions

i want you to leave
your hood down, so that
i can soak into every follicle
of your hair, so you can keep me
close to your teeming mind
full of its passions
and its wild dreaming

i want to be absorbed, to
disappear and become a part
of something deeper
all at once

to become a part of you
would be the greatest purpose
i could imagine

i couldn't carry my heart
into the cold of the emergency room.
it was crumbling between my fingers
into pieces they picked up
from the floor, placing them back
into my too-small hands.

there were too many pieces
for me to comprehend the too-bright lights
and the quiet that allowed me to hear
moans and cries of the woman next to me
telling the doctor that she took too many pills
to forget the fact that all her kids are gone.

she had her stomach pumped. i needed
my heart pumped back into place
so it could feel the answers to the questions
the doctors asked me, so i could have told them
when i said i didn't want to die, i meant i was
too scared to propel myself into the unknown
like that. but i was too scared of propelling myself
into the horror of the next day week month not to try.

i wish i could have told them why my pulse ached
when it pounded through my bones. i wish
i could explain that it burst like that because
someone touched the seams that were holding
my skin together, someone poked their fingers
into the soul of me where they didn't belong
and it pierced my heart straight through,

maybe then they would have listened when i said
i needed help beyond what medicines could fix,
there was a place where i could heal and it wasn't
in the suicide room of the hospital
where i could count how many instruments
hanging on the walls i could stab myself with
despite the signs that said this room was harmless,

their concern was so misplaced
that they told me they had no beds for me, that
there was nowhere inside this building i could learn
to pick myself up off the tiled floor, they couldn't teach me
how to walk if i couldn't remember where my bones
were supposed to go. they told me i wasn't unsafe enough
to take me to the psych ward because i wasn't standing
with my toes on the edge.

i wanted to tell them, i would if only i could find it,
could locate the place where my pulse echoed
through my wrist so i could stop it from beating,
so i could keep it from punching straight through
to the ache pounding in my bones.

i wanted to tell them, if they would listen,
that i couldn't breathe in the middle of the night
and if i didn't feel safe then, how could i be safe enough
to let me into the dark of that night alone
without any bandages to repair the stitching
that had come undone while i was breaking.

Your presence is tangible
Across the vast expanse
Yet, I hear not your voice
I feel not your longing
Mine, is the only heart I hear
Alone, for the first time in eternity
Alone, wrapped in your essence
Just a whisper of warmth
A choice all your own
To be alone
A choice that you have forgotten
Includes me
For we flow throughout each other
Still, here we are
I feel you trying not to feel me
And I close my eyes
Praying death over a life that begins here
And ends without you
'tis not a choice could I make
'tis not a life...alone

The universe,
it does not end
so much as it curves
downward, angles
brushing into cloudy
strokes across the sky

There is no
horizon here --
everything extends
so beautifully, a
twilit landscape
falling away
into the
blackness
beyond

The end of
my life, it will be
an encore
I will fall below
the curtain only to
appear on stage
once more,

I've never been
the kind of girl
who could let go
of something so holy,
who could give up
when she knows
it's time

These stretch marks
across my body,
they might fade
but the ties
I held onto --
they'll continue
snaking across
my frame,

and I know,
you would take
my hand, and between
the sunset and the dawn,
you would hold me
to your chest,
an agony of echoes
passing between
our lips

This end, I don't think
it will hurt --
I think it will fade
as easily as falling,
an endless high dive
where there is no pool
to catch me far below

I will never sink
so much as I will float
in the in between,
waiting for your hand
to catch mine as we fall

My dear, we will burn
like shooting stars
across that sky,
and I know, that
unforgiving moon,
he'll give us the chance
to join him someday

And when we
disappear
into the black,
I want to know
the last word
on your lips
will be my name.

There is a mineshaft
in my chest -- my heart
scales down the lines,
dropping into my stomach
graceful, a trapeze artist
descending from above

There is a tranquility
here, a blinded heaven
scarring across my eyelids

This ghostly skin
shakes me awake,
screaming ripping
like paper between
the sheets, I am stuck
with a glue I never spilled

The lotus unfolding
back and forth, a
sick dance twisting
in front of me,
the memories in my
head convulsing
like they're trying to
restart my heart,

I always knew
the end would be
brighter
than the beginning,
the candlelight
of my birth
painting pictures
I'll never get to see

because this heart,
it weighs me down
a death I never felt
roaring in my chest --

And this waterfall
will never
reach
the pond.