Some nights I wake up and your face is the only thing I can see.
Light cheeks freckled with a soft beard
And ice blue eyes more piercing than my own.

I'm not the best at remembering my dreams so when this happens I just assume I've been having bad ones.

To appease myself asleep again
I envision your pig body back on top of my princess one,
But this time
When you raise my ankles over your shoulders
With a half smirk of self loving
I lean my knee back towards my face
(It almost feels ****)
Before shoving the heel of my foot forward and into yours.

No matter how many times I replay this I never get to see in your face how it hurts you.
So I get up,
Throw my clothes back on,
And leave.
This is my only lullaby back to sleep.

Life is much more comfortable
On campus.
I don't mind the heat of this
Oven life-style
In fact
I quite enjoy
That digging sun
And the emptied space where there are less faces to run into.

Not that they are nagging
And familiar
But August is when I start to get the swats
I seem to annoy the passers by more than they annoy me.

Why, this was my home first anyhow.

Is it such a crime
To be drawn close
By the smell of flower perfume wafting from some young gals neck?
Or by some mans sweetened, soy milk coffee?

Sure,
I might have gotten into your personal bubble,
Just as you in mine,
And yes maybe when you were walking to class I tickled at your leg
Or in your ear,
But I didn't have the gall to try and **** you,
Or even send a sting.

Why,
It seems the only friend I can make
Is this girl with paper and a pen.
Hey, she even grabbed her camera and took a photo of Me!
Me! Just a busy, annoying, and pesky little Bee.

And Californa's trees
Burned
Before Colorado's
But summer ended
By October
And with
Autumn
Rain came
To cool the trees
And drop fog
On forest
And outside of Texas
Window panes
Wrapping around shrub
Branches
In yellowed
Thickened
Air.

My mother was my first coach
With blonde hair
Boy cut

And big arms
Mama arms
That held the whole world once

Teaching me fast pace
Before baby steps, baby steps
Until you catch your breath.

Then Medina
With deep laughter
He made us tell jokes
To get out of push ups

He stuck out his hand
At the end of the chain link fence
Where I spat my blue gum out
Into his dark, and rounded palms

That led up to his yellow
Menger Cheetah  
Cut off t-shirt
In the form of a tank top now

Insisting that I don't choke
While I
Breathe deep

In through your nose and
Out through your mouth.

Berkopes was bald
Like a military man

The boys said
From action movies

He smiled wide
As deep as he pushed

Toes
Toes
Toes

Up the hills
Behind the middle school
In the cool of
White morning
Over dew dropped grass.

Wingfield had short,
Dark hair
And my favorite
Green
For eyes

She had soft cheeks
Freckled
With a heavy stare

Eyes up
Knees up
Shoulders back and down.

Carter came easy
With t-shirts
And bike handles

Pushing up one hill
16X100
In mid September
He said
You're a natural

Teach your muscles to work when they're tired
Three steps faster and hold that pace.

The fastest kid I ever knew
With hair longer than my own
And a pink head band

He'd run six miles before he met me for our five

Dropping back to pace
He said it was all about staying relaxed

Potato chips
Between fingertips

Breathe deep

Because
It's all about
Staying relaxed.

Letting her black, velvet cloak
Embroidered with red flowers
Slip down her right shoulder
And even open up to a thigh
Tempting a cool breeze to touch
Her skin
Your skin

Then throwing it back on
As she walks nonchalantly out the bedroom door
She never even touched the sheets
Didn't look back either

Wait.

Maybe next month

She replies.

Is on Her way.

Over hot runs
She lifts off the back of a River
and kisses at salt-water-skin
She pours down Summer showers
Tapped on the shoulder by the breeze of Fall
like orange Leaves
lifting
and settling back down to their Earth
their Dirt
their ground
She slips through October doors
announcing Her soft presence with Wind
and reaffirming Her position through Thunder.

My Dad has tough hands
Hard working and honest
Blue collar hands
He has scars
On the backs of his thumbs
And rips through his palms
He has rugged hands
Loving hands
Warm and worn
Heavy hands
Stories between the base of his fingers
The hands of a simple man
Who sees no point in pessimism
He has real-man hands
That will carry any weight
He could lift cars if he wanted to
I know it
He has hands with a background
Never truly scrubbed clean
Dirt and oil
Fossilized beneath his fingernails
My father has kind hands
The kind of hands
I hope my husband has