Brown, wrinkled
and bound to fall off
I didn't yet realize
that I was more saddened
by the loss of time
than the loss
of my leather belt bracelet.

So worn
your edges crackled,
my skin tanned
around your braided
familiarity.

Senior year was over,
a bittersweet ending,
and yet
all I could think about
was that emptied
tan line
that I never wanted to
fill in.

Two years
passed
I kept
you wrapped
into
my skin.

My wrists were thin
with the bones
making corners
in my body
more slender
in your embrace,
I felt elegance
weightless
adorned
by your character
matching mine.

Built into my skin
I wore you
through sweat drips
and steamed showers.


I saw your layers
begin to lift
you hadn't left me,
not
yet.

Snapped in half
I held your carcass
in my left hand.

The metal notches
shone through
their scratches.

I stared down
your years
in my hand.

The cold classrooms
locked their doors
switched their lights,
and it was summer.

A picture image
engrained in my mind;
Your bracelet body
blurring my red spandex
sitting just beneath.


My locker lotion
under the sun
sparkled on my skin.

My body
whole
and young.

Change
gradually
came.

Home still sat
five minutes away,
and my friends
responded to nick names.

Memories sat
pressed in the palm
of my hand
pieces of the past
setting a precedent
for the future.

It’s cold out,
But I want to lean over the side of my bed, grab my blue flannel pajama pants from last years Christmas, And slip them up my skinny legs for a drive.

I would pass up the dim, street-lit highways to arrive at the airport.
I would leave a note on the granite counter top for ma, to explain that it was desperate times escorting my desperate measures.

I would arrive at the gate with my flannel pants, my mobile diary, and my heavy hanging shoulders with my puffy tired eyes.
I would board my plane, eat my peanuts, and since it's Thursday and Thanksgiving is a weeks past, spread myself out across the row of emptied seats.
I would get two hours of rest to wake up with frost on my side window, and the snow of Denver to keep my chilled company.

There I would board my bus for my fourtyfive minute adventure to Boulder.
Thats where we would meet, you with your Audrey Hepburn hair and perfect pearl smile,
A cup of coffee in your left hand and a cup of cocoa in your right.
Me with my flannel pajamas and oversized jacket
With nothing else to offer--except for my presence.

We wouldn’t say much
Just giggle and give some hugs in the dead of Colorado’s bitter beautiful nights,
Before heading to where you call home to cuddle and hide from the rest of winter.

In the mornings I stayed in the blue, carpeted room.
My Cello played the best friend, while I played upon its bare back.
The halls sat silent there.
The walls, bear aside from the occasional music note half sticky-tacked to the white cement, only emphasized my isolation.
They hung yellowed from UV light, and their own forgotten presence.

After the day slipped by,
Through Stephen King book pages
And colored comics,
Through love notes scraped into wooden tables,
And the ring of my own repose draped upon me by scrambled, and passing conversation
I would make my way to the baseball field.

5’4” and nearing  200 pounds
My ardor was never withheld even in the face of exclusion.
I tried for the team
But when the roster ruffled in the fading sun behind the bleachers
I made myself a part of where I was not welcome.

I loved the team
Even as snide comments slithered
Through the teeth of passing players,
Even as the coach spat not a centimeter above the toe of my white, worn tennis shoes
I came day in and day out
If not to catch the practice ***** then the occasional smile of young girl—a pitying young girl, but a smile nonetheless.

The life bodes loneliness,
But to me it presents possibility.
Never doubt the adequacy of introversion.
The quiet mouth begets the much more boisterous mind.

There is something that has been bothering me almost all summer and I didn't really know what it was until I spent the day with Claire, the girl who has been my neighbor for the past six years of our lives.
It wasn't even until after the fact that I realized what it was. We talked about a lot of things as we went to hit the town.
She told me about how she would be leaving and headed off for college. Then she told me about every friend she had, and how excited they were to get as far away as New York City.
All of these people that I had known, but not really KNOWN, were pushing and packing to fit every last thing they could into some bags, and onto a plane where they could FINALLY sit down in a seat, release a sigh--because the day is here, and get as far away as they possibly can.
They are droning on about the here and dying to get to the the there, wherever there is, insistent that life is better and brighter somewhere else.
At first I felt so left in the dust, but I realized that wasn't what it was.
I felt offended. I love Austin, every spec of it.
I love it's grasses both green and yellow that smell like cinnamon when you breathe in deep on a hot day.
I love it's hills, it's plains, it's rivers, it's lakes, I love the puddles that pile up in downtown's pottholes on a beautifully rainy day.
I love it's trails, it's sunset, and it's moonshine.
I love every race runner lizard and every single summer night.
I love the subtle breeze, and the slow moving trickle that comes with a Texas creek.
So I just keep on asking,
is the grass really greener anywhere else?

Yesterday was a little more close to comfortable.
There was one wispy white cloud, three black birds placed in a triangle just beneath it, and a cool breeze on top of a beaming sun.
I only got slightly sunburned.

After getting angry over dropping my pocket-filled distraction into the pool
I let the day take what it wanted;
dismissing it as something that was supposed to happen.

I leaned back
dipped my pink toes into the luke warm water: the kind that feels like it's been filled up by a faucet and cooled off with just a few ice cubes--
and read The Decameron

I only paid attention to the giggles of the blonde girls in bright bathing suits for a moment
before letting my mind drift as I made secret travel plans for tomorrow.

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.

The boy walking in front of me
With a slight limp on his left leg
A backwards astro hat
And dark skin underneath darker clothes
Smelled of coffee
And the humid breeze lifted axe from his neck
Backwards and up my nose

He smelled of trouble
Of seventh grade solitude
And looked as if  he walked out of my fifth grade memories

Still I thought of you

***** and dark
Dope across your tee shirt
Freckles spotting your smile that press into your dimples
Lifting the corners of my mouth

I'd like to lick cologne from your neck
Made of sweat and ****** solitude

You made none of my memories
Smelled and looked of nothing familiar
Only past daydreams

Maybe I'm just tired

I was up all night thinking of Ma
She has always smelled of Ck perfume
No matter how much money we had

She looks like all of my memories

Her short boy haircut
Her androgynous women's work suit
I remember her younger

Still loving women

Made of muscle, teaching me how to run
After soccer and before the gym

At night
She went out in slinky tank tops
Made of sparkles or silk, and sometimes both

Leaving, she'd kiss my forehead as she left me with father and my 101 Dalmatians sippy cup
I'd hug around her neck
And breathe in her Ck perfume

Right beside me
Small little bird
Tucked beneath my wing
I waited months
To get this call
But not this time
Right after fall
You'd been so warm
A week ago
Your smile clean
Your spirit shown
But somehow you lost
Those warm eyes of brown
Baby bird,
What made it all wrong?
I just wish I'd been there
To hold you
Until you were gone

It would be vivid orange because that is her favorite color.
The color of her; Always bold and sometimes jubilant with laughter.
I'd make my baby sister a blanket to lay on her bed and keep her warm throughout winter.

Her room is always coldest.

On the ends their would be tassels.
Some black, bright blues, vivid greens and pinks. Everything to represent her many sides.
She can be anywhere from caring baby blue
to frank and
unsparing

Black.

I am always the cold one in the family.

Yet, even when she doesn't show it, she is the one who always needs a hug and something--
or someone
to hold her.

When I am off to college the orange blanket can keep her company at night, like I have so many times before.

I'd leave it on her bed,
folded,
with a note that told her to call when the blanket wasn't enough.

Sometimes she would still feel alone,

But I hope it could hold at least the representation
of
     a
         friend.

When she hurts, it's soft sides can hug her.
When she is happy, almost unknowingly,
It can still rest upon her unweighted shoulders.

I hate to run into you
Because then your face sticks in my head
A good three days after I was done
Almost forgetting you

At least the eyes do
Brown, and impatient like a puppy
I was right
At least the lips do
That I hang from
Every word,
Breath,
Silence they partake in
And conversation they refrain from

The way you lean back casually
And your button up opens to your chest
More manly than what I've ever been with
Soft hair
And a bit less worn than my fathers, but just as warm

You called me a friend
As I saw the only tattoos
That you couldn't hide

Everything means so much more now
Even a stamp pressed perfectly by your once-fingertips
If pressed imperfectly - with the right corner lifted and protruding
The spot where your finger missed means even more
There you are left
Anything but encased
There sits the reality of human character
(Perfectly) flawed

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

14 and so naïve
I could have sworn
you were the one
made for me.

It was like happy was bursting upwards
and pushing on the inside of my cheeks--
a smile.
Not hardly forced

Cleaning up the mess of past years from the carpets
In my Hawaiian themed bedroom
half lime green, half baby blue
and all Haley.

I sent you a simple apology
for kicking your feelings
and hurting your heart

A part of me knew we weren't through
the day we had finished.
When your best friend kissed me
at the top of a closed in stairwell

I guess I'd missed that feeling
where your fingertips tingle
at the tiniest touch.

You wrote back
with open arms
even with that stomped up heart

You asked what my favorite day of summer had been
foolishly,
I'd responded “this one”

Back when we knew everything.
When parents taught us nothing
and schooling,
even less

I'd missed you
the brown eyes I'd been in love with,
more so--
infatuated with.

I didn't plan
just played games
that felt sincere.
Toyed with hearts
that felt like home.

I don't know how you did,
or why,
but I sent you an apology
and you replied.

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.

Until your birthday
January kept it's cold claws in Texas until May
Sometimes I wonder if it's you
Who makes it shine or makes it gray
I wonder if those days you are missing us too
Cold holds your shoulders
I hope not
I wonder
If the cold felt refreshing and you thought I'd like it too
You were one for winter
Who hated the heat
And saw beauty
I didn't
In colorless December
Maybe it should have been my birthday in June
And you'd have November
But you were too warm
Don't worry I will always remember
Summer nights with you
Like yesterday
When we first met that May
It was five years past then you left one day
I wrote you
With guilt on my fingers
Like Poe
Dread pulled me from my bed
I didn't know you were leaving
I'd have hugged you longer
Told you twice I loved you
Believed in you
Was proud of you
At least you could read my letters then
Now it's June and there's no sign of you
Just your birth day sitting clouded in the future
I wonder
How that day will feel
Not so lost like January
Maybe isolating like a frozen TV dinner meal
5 months passed since your passing
Life has never felt so long
After witnessing how brief it can be
The days were slow
And January still has it's breeze in me

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.

When summer made its final touches
On our far-from-senior-souls
We packed bags and stuffed away memories

We folded away track t-shirts
And cheer leading skirts
We tucked away trumpets
And color guard uniforms
Pressed against the back walls of our closets
Underneath a teal box
Of all-but-blue memories

We reopened our backpacks
Our boxes
And our trunks
To fill a room with newfound youth
With untouched purpose

We created laughs
Where there had not even been empty echoes
Bound by immaturity
Searching for our selves
On a journey we had yet to even recognize

And it was about to be summer again
When sunshine would spin our spirits

So we made some tears
Over lost grades
And missing friends
Over newfound hope
And uncertain tomorrow.

Yoga instructed that I must think of the best thing that happened to me today

And of course I thought of you.

Then what was the worst?
And your face came quickly back to the eye of my subconscious

Now let this wash away
As you exhale into downward dog

One little window
in
my tiny dorm
room.
To watch the sun rise
and then
sleep

Makes me miss my tree house windows
untoasted bagels
for breakfast
And a textbook
for a friend--
Thomas's 12th edition

One little
Window.
That keeps me sleeping
Until
noon.

One little window.
That keeps me
so concealed.

One little window
That makes me miss home.

I'd rather the flavor of warm whiskey

Soaking between the edges of my pink lips

Words that I often don't even remember
I wonder if these of teal ink and hot April hold anything
If only to a distant me that time will someday pass too
Or if they are stories told and forgotten
Sitting on pages with scribbled dates
At the beggining of my book
At the back of my memory
Buried by their own epic poem

Isn’t it funny,
How the seasons warp us the way they do the trees.
The way winter brings gray and spring brings blue.
Some of us returning smiles to the sun,
But a sorrow comes with the edge of winter.

And then the coin turns

Where a glimpse of relief comes with the frigid cold that bites at your begging breath.
But the heat brings on a longing for night times faded favors.

Isn’t it funny
How some of us love the rain,
But can’t bear to be alone with lightning.
Where peace of mind comes with thunderstorms to one,
But light blue and open sky’s are what brings the outward stretch of arms and gleaming smile to a neighbor.

Isn’t it funny
How the seasons warp us—
The way they do the wind.

Tomorrow came,
And it kept on raining.

I thought I saw the soft edges of the clouds part
I thought I saw the sun pushing its way to the surface of the sky.
That day it seemed like we had moved forward.
We had pushed past—
We really could be storybook friends,
Hand in hand,
Forever.

Then tomorrow came
And the sun retreated.
The small slice of sunshine reverted back behind the clouds.
Dark,
Unforgiving,
And undercover.

It kept on raining.

The sun came out
With wispy clouds
That tickled at its face.
I wasn’t ignored
I wasn’t acknowledged.
We went from close
To comfortable
To something less
Than acquaintanceship.

The sun battled to keep its face shining,
But the clouds outnumbered the sun;
They turned dark and maroon,
They screamed through thunder
And thrashed through lightning.

The sun gave in
Beaten and defeated.
And the days just kept on raining.

You
With your
Presently
Bending
Curls
Beginning
To grow back
Starting again
To tickle
My fingertips
Your soft hair
Contrasting
Every rough
Outer Edge
That makes up
You
Every Edge
That I have
Only barely
Begun
To soften
Like sharp
Edges
Of my
Childhood
Sea glass
Tumbled
With Sand
I wait
Patiently
To see how
You form

The corners
Of your face
Two
Sharp
Almost
Right Angles
Come together
At your chin
Just below
A blonde
Patch
Of sunlit
Beard
That sits
Beneath
Your
Lower lip
Curling gently
To meet
Its upper
Half
Though rare
To glance
Your direction
And catch
A comet
I call
A smile
Here
is one
of my
Favorite
Pieces
Of you

Your southern
Eyes
Though
Baby blue
Say nothing
Of sympathy
They hold
Cool curiosity
At times
Your gaze
Is softened
Before shifting
Looking past
Me
Settling Shortly
Like you
Then Quickly
Growing
Restless

Your Dimples
Press in
Lifting
The corners
Of your smile
Erasing
Your gruff
Canadian
Edges
Only Briefly
Before exiting
With your
Adorable
British smile
At times
Your little
Crescent moons
Hide
Camouflaged
Into your face
Covered up
By both
Coarse and soft
Red and blonde
Rough and welcoming

Your arms
Hardened
Wrap around
Me
Nothing
Of you
is Forgiving
Your body
Doesn't budge
As I lean
Into yours
With mine
Folding myself
Into your
Chest
Against your
Body
The softest
Part of you
Is me
Like Sandpaper
You rub away
At my skin
Lifted calluses
Of your palm
Take to
Curved Edges
Of my
Rounded corners
All the more
Smooth
in your
Embrace

You
Move
Me
Up
And
Down
You fill
My body
With yours
Pour me
Full
Of curiosity
Of daydreams
Of yesterday
And tomorrow
Emptied
To come back
For More
I want
To keep
My eyes open
While you
Kiss me
I want
To see
You
Like my
Sea glass
Rough
As you
Pull
And
Push
And
Tumble
Away
Softened
Moving
Into me
As the flesh
Of my cheek
Falls
To your chest

The outside edges of my hands are bruised black
From banging at the bathroom door

I've given up, and let my back slide down the wall
And my face fall to my palms-
Taking a seat in my empty dark hallway that leads to the slither of pink light crawling its way through the bottom of the bathroom door

She won't stop crying
It feels like it has been months
Her, in her sunlight bathroom moaning with agony until I feel I just can't take it
Sitting on the other side with the emptied out sun
With the helplessness of a child
I almost feel crazy

Like she is not the woman I love
Like she is not a woman at all;
Just pain at the end of a dark hallway
The sound of lungs gasping for air
clasping for some sort of reasoning
Hunting for it, but never finding

A sound made of memory pressing its echo against the walls

It drives me lonely

But she lay on the other side against the cold gray tile and I can tell she does not even hear my bangs on the door
Nor the hollow cry she pushes up her own wooing throat
All she can feel is the pull on her heart and the pressure on her chest

Her cry drops to a sob
Then eventually a whimper
And topped off by exhaustion she falls silent

I pull myself from the wooden floors with the help of the cool steel handle of the water heater door
I walk through to the bedroom
and stand mindlessly sifting through my own junk of the dresser drawers before pulling a bobby pin from her neatly organized section to the left of mine
I walk back to the bathroom
I feel my eyes droop as I press my forehead to the white painted wood
I hear her almost silent, but heavy, breath
Creeping with orange sun beneath the edges of the door

I sink to my knees and play with the lock and the bobby pin
Until the door gives way
It slowly opens to her
Her left arm sprawled behind it
Her head curled into her right
Her legs, stacked right ontop of left, push backwards and up against the long backyard window

I lower myself down next to her with the assistance of the porcelin sink
Her face is still wet and red
Her eyes closed and her breathing labored
I curl what I can of her up into my arms
I take a folded beach towel from the brown wicker basket and lay it underneath my head
Propping hers onto my chest
I grab another and unravel it across us

I don't want to wake her
I will give her, her "petite death"
A small escape
But her eyes flutter
To meet mine for a second
She opens her mouth
Letting her head hang back a little
As if to begin crying once more
Like a newborn awakened from its sleep
Confused and in a darkening room

Exhausted:
She pleads no more
She lays her head back on my chest
I feel a few warm drops of salt water
A pull at the rib cage of my black tee
As if to say "I give in"
And then I pull her in closer
To listen to her heavy begging breathe

We both let our heads fall back to the towel
or into my chest
We fall asleep in the darkening room of the fading red sunlight, with the cold tile floor at our backs, with nothing but a black hallway behind us

I never felt good about having slept with you

Until the next time

When I didn't have the chance to make a choice

I quit picking my feet up
And crossing my fingers over rail road tracks
The day I lost a close friend at the age of 20
"Close friend"
Gives me that sick cliche feeling
Its guttural attempt to bottle what I had for her
Into those few words
To bottle anyone into words
Though I see now, that is what I do best

I work for mason jars
To portray personalities
Like shapeless liquid souls

I don't know why I quit;
Quit picking my feet up and crossing my fingers
Losing her was no matter of luck
But maybe it's the vulnerability of wishing
Of hoping
Having hope
The feeling I get with my own luck-trapping-routine

I cross the brassy tracks a few times a day
I see them in the distance and lift my feet a second before reaching their metal edge
Crossing my fingers just after I lift my legs from the seat beneath me
Holding my luck-trap until the last moment
It's a close call
I almost don't make it in time
I hold my breath in my chest
As the front wheels pass over before the back
Pitter-Pat
There it is,
Sitting in my chest: Myhope
My hope I was always so afraid of losing

Until that morning
Cool with wind and warm with early spring
Gray-blue-white clouds
With sunshine peeping through
It was January
Where years started clutching onto months

I still left for class that morning
The windows down
I could see my own reddened baby face in the side view mirror
As my room mate sat almost awkwardly beside me
No one would know what to say
It made me feel sorry I put her there
I slid my sun glasses down my nose
As we headed East
We crossed the railroad tracks
With the fields to my right
With the river and the morning sun
Still early enough for a thin shade of pink in that child like cotton candy sky
Almost suggesting a good day

Pitter-Pat
Brass beneath me
I hung my head
Deciding then
Hope was good as dead

A little less
Than a year ago
I picture you:
Your leg wrapped
Around my torso
And propped up
By my hand;
I have a purse,
a drink, and you
adorning my body
Hanging onto me
I am small
You are smaller
A cigarette
Dangles
From your
Left fingertips
Coffee and
Champagne
On your lips
We both wear crowns
Atop
Our seemingly
Stubborn smiles
Happiness
Will not
Relent
I have known
You
For so long
Now
Almost half
Our little lives
Tonight,
I am proud
Of you
It is New Years
You haven’t drank
Too much
You know
This year
Will be a good one
Enough
To tell me so
Enough
For me
To believe
In you
Again
Already
Making changes,
Setting promises
Nothing is the same
Since you
Came home
Two Augusts
Ago
Tonight,
Had never before
Fulfilled
Its cliché promises
But as of tomorrow
We have our chalkboard
Of rainbow colored erase marks
At midnight,
We get to Start
Anew

I hope that I don't become one of those poets

That only writes lost-love sonnets

Just because
After sleeping in your bed

I can't get you
Out
Of
My head.

It's like a thin-strung rope
Came and pulled out the lungs in my chest
But only for just a second
Before I'm let to rest.

It's like a plan gone broken
Corrup, Erupt, and destroyed.
It's the squeeze of a heart unspoken
A plot without a ploy.

Excused by my drinking, and his gentle manning
Loving is something I mean not to waste
But I found myself hoping
When you gave only a taste.

A friend said god did us ***** at the same time he did us good
But after the other night
I only saw empty from where I stood.

Three times yet
And the one who makes me feel
Makes me regret

I was looking to escape lonely and you were looking to only get laid
Oh how unfortunate that the butterflies always fade.

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.

I aim for the puddles at just the right depth

The half gray water rolling downhill to meet the river
Will splash up over the edge of my purple-blue ghost sneakers
And soak the toe of my mismatch tyedye socks

It makes the humid Texas run
Seem all the more adventurous

It's been a long while
but I've no trace of time.

I'm covered in brown mud,
piled over with rusty
red and orange leaves.

I lay at the foot
of what now,
is an old friend.

It's not easy
to get much sunshine
the large Oak's roots
are what both isolate
and keep my company.

I'd been loved
a long while
but that story
is an old life lived
a memory
that became a fantasy
time stretched
until it's bonds broke.

They tried
to recover me,
for a short while
for something
that mirrored
commitment
at such a young
and impressionable
age.

They hunted
in and out
of trunks
of the large Oak's home
never to find
where I lay.

Embedded
in October's leaves.

Yet,
distance
didn't make
the heart grow
fonder.

I'd been lost
and long forgotten
at the brink of dusk,
at the ring
of a more warming
love.

They came back,
once or twice,
to test
the shaded wood,
the darkened dirt.

They came back
until leaves
covered me
eye-high.

If they were still yelling
for the track of my presence
I could no longer hear them.

Even if
they were still scouring
built-down woods,
I could no longer
see them
allow them
to catch my eye.

Even if they still loved me
I could no longer feel them
covered
by cracked dirt,
and crumpled leaves.

The roots
had become my lover
now
grown to hug
my rounded hips
my heaping
dirt-covered
smile.

The wind
doesn't play with me
much
only to allow
a sweeping
kiss of leaves,
or to pick
the dirt coat
from my back
and donate
to a better cause
the warming
of a seed
that tiny
Christmas Rose.

I quit
listening
long after
I quit
looking,
looking for the boys
that had once
loved me.

Only then
did he come
sticky handed,
dressed in metal,
and armed
to save
a princess.

Engrossed
in his enactment,
poking swords
at my Oak
demanding
emptied branches
release
his Rapunzel,
I saw him
catch glimpse
of my rounded edges.

I
didn't notice
until
I looked up
into those
adventurous
eyes.

He knelt,
gigantic
in young age,
he plucked me
easily
from my big
Oak roots.

He wiped
dirt
from my body
slowly
and softly
like I was
new-found
treasure
Like I was
the gold
every child
hunts for
in their own
back yard.

He ran
his rough thumbs
on my edges
never lifting
his eyes
from his fingers
on that short
walk home.

He rinsed me clean
under
warmed water,
wondered
about my stories
then dusk came.

I was tucked
warm
under his protection
under that imaginative
mind,
and the boy
made me his own.

The distant sounds of silent screams
Echo through my soul
A nightmare filled with broken dreams
That time cannot console

My helpless mind will not yield
To these voices that I hear
My captive thoughts have not revealed
The purpose of my fear

Loneliness mocks my very being
As time comes screeching to a halt
Blame still hides my eyes from seeing
Insisting it's not my fault

They say I'm mad, mad indeed
They know nothing of my pain
There's no one here to intercede
So this madness must remain

My soul cries out in sad remorse
But I fear it's already too late
I cannot alter this dreadful course
That somehow holds my fate

They call me a poet, poet indeed
How is it they do not know?
Can't they see the words I bleed?
I'm Edgar Allan Poe

I decided I didn't like the word
Suicide
After Intermittently interrupting my thoughts
It echoed
And then was too hard to swallow

I decided I didn't like the word Grieving
When it hung in my head
The word too short for it's worth

Grieeeeeeeving
It droned

And still felt empty
No explanation

I wish the words would come
That I could “ring them out like the rain”
Even this one though
Doesn’t end for me

Degraded to online prompts
With the delusional last-hope
That these words
Will bring mine some solace

Three prompts shallow
The charmed one stares bashfully back at me
“Write about something or someone you lost”

I used to write about sunshine
Tattooed into your wrist

My eyes incapable of reading past;
The other prompts fall backward
Blank and dull--nothing changed

The page blurred
I know that those are the only words I feel
Even these words though
And the feelings they evoke
Are empty

Nothing holds anything
No laughter in your throat
I see your pictures
I want to dig it out
From the cave of your mouth
Frantic; I need to find your smile
The words spoken only to me
I miss you

My spirit hinges between yesterday and tomorrow
The present isolated—anything but lived
With that thought
You feel even more wasted

‘Wasted’
Prompts the image:
Me slapping myself
Popping the unspoken word from out of my mouth
Wasted
Black letters laying on the floor
in a white wall room
Staring back at me

Erase this stanza
Grow back my charisma
Where did I lose my empathy
Replaced with sick sympathy
How could I say this about you

Worse even,
Is my silence
After hearing from cold lips “what a shame”
The lose breath hangs
The words replaced with brief and noncommittal reflection
Followed by the shake of a faceless head
Before turning back to its newspaper

The word Shame
Stabs slowly
Only because you did make all of your choices
You did leave us

Still, I keep my eyes from casting to the ground
I am not left someplace dingy
There is no soot covering where my cheeks should be rosey
You are not shame

The words do not come
They sit muddied and sopping
A rag dismissed to the few-days-grayed sidewalk
Rain falls and attempts to take in space where there is none
Even a sponge becomes too full
I miss you

She's short.
Shorter than me. About 5 feet and one measly inch. Grant it I'm only two measly inches.

But I'd hug her. Wrap my arms up and around her teeny shoulders and back around her small frame.
I'd hug her. Tight and close.

She is the smallest of the three of us. However, she's the oldest. She will be twenty tomorrow.
I'd hug her like the first time I left her as she went to her decorated dorm room for college.
I'd squeeze her. For as long as she would let me hold her.

At that time she had just wanted to be free. A few months later she cried to me about how she wished she was home, back in bed sleeping beside me the way we had spent most of the last two years.

I miss her. Oh, how I'd hug her.

Skipper. Petit and sad. She sometimes hates the hugs I give her.
My mom always says she is lucky. She needs someone as warm and loving as me.

I'd hold her, keep her there until I had to let her go. Or at least until she made me. Yet, I know she cried too as she walked away and we stood and watched.

I wish I spent more of my summer a long side her. I regret it and I'm sorry I didn't.
It may have been her last summer home.
I didn't even drive her to Colorado. She didn't mind. She was excited for her new life.

If I had spent my time with her I would have made her miss me. She would want to visit.

I'd hug her. My arms around her bony back. I'd hold her.

Keep her for my own. No one could touch her. No one could hurt her. Not even herself.

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.

I pressed my left heel down to get it into the strap of my sparkled sandal--bought from the cheap version of the rich girl store; I got them more than half off.
I'm a fraud.

Sliding my foot into the shoe,
the way I've done so many times before,
I lose my balance.

And there goes the first one.
I knew the nails were coming off;
I'm not all that wealthy.

I have to wait until the last minute to cough up fifteen bucks to get these things re-done.
I thought it just popped the nail straight off,
but it throbs and is begging for me to pay it some attention.

I peer down at where the once perfectly manicured nail (baby blue tips and all) had sat upon my index finger.
It has left a ****** mess--jagged and imperfect.

I can see my real nail drawn up next to my cuticle like a smile.
Placed on top is a half moon of hardened acrylic until it breaks off near the soft doughy point of my freshly exposed fingertip.
Edgy.
Almost.

The blood lines the rim and trickles it's way down
curving its way around the smile;
highlighting the crescent of my own fingernail.
It throbs.

“****.”
I say wanting someone to hear me.
“****.”
a little louder.

I just want to complain lately.
I want a little attention for the suffering I put my own self through.
As I wait it throbs more.

I wipe the blood away just to watch it refill.
I walk down the stairs,
and they take care of me.
They give me my oohs and ahhs and owes,
put some ointment on a paper towel because we don't have bandaids,
wrap it with tape,
and I'm off to sew my dress back together for dinner.

My sister's dress;
my sister's dress that she got from a nearby neighbor
who stuffed it in a trash bag and left it there for us to take.

Maybe I will get a discount.

If I ever move I will miss Texas’s grass.
Most people hate it.
But on a hot summer day if you lean in and breathe deep through your nose and into your lungs
you will smell why I love it.
It's like hay sprinkled with sugar and topped off by honey thats been slowly roasted
by the heat of the sun.
It smells like all my summers
all my life.

With my bobby pin, taken from my hair after volleyball practice,
I scrape black resin from a blue bowl
It's a rougher
Dirtier
Hash ball
But it loves on your brain just as much
And my arms are bruised from passing
They could use that numbing forgetfulness
That lurks  like stupidity
In the back of my brain

Always

The *** just emphasizes it
The way gaudy clothes do on a pretty girl

That's me too sometimes

But I have a mother,
Just as you,
And she gave me dreamss
To live up to
A school of science and engineering
So...what do you do?

About a week or so ago,
I fell in love with a man
when I went to sleep
in a boy's bed.

His chest
read "weird"
in black-block ink
his self acceptance
made me smile.

His eyes,
puppy dawg brown,
breathed in every edge
of my body
knowing exactly
where they
were going,
but never fully
meeting mine.

Up my hips
on our dance floor.

Down my tummy
on his bed.

His distant
self assurance
consumingly
relaxing.

His
freckled face
and dimpled smile
only implied
deep sincerity
matching
his overgrown
words.

In adolescence
I'd forced myself
to give up the idea
of being with a boy
whose fingers read "bad."

But
When he came
to me
his hands
over
my body
his silence
over
my mind.

He
enjoyed me

The whole night

The way I did him

He took in
my stories  
grabbed my shoulders
with shaking
enthusiasm
with reaction
to my action
with interest
in the questions
of my own life
I'd barely explored.

He took in
my toes
my ankles
my hips.

He acknowledged
the marks
on the skin
of my backside
i became
self conscious
and uncomfortable

But he noticed.

He tinkered
with the ring
of my belly button
grazed
the edges
of my breast.

He breathed
in my ears
He wanted
badly
for me
to feel good.

He didn't play games
in either his loving
or his company.

They were both
giving
gentle
and distantly
warm.

So much
sincerity
from a man
I accidentally
fell in love
with the briefness
of a boy.

I want to feel like it all fits in the end
But what's the point in feeling
If it doesn't fit until the end
The End

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.

Put everything familiar inside of a red raft,
on smooth mud-covered waters,
And as his heals sunk to the sand
I didn't know the compassion that was coming.

Your vastness encompassed not just my body,
but my mind.
I was encircled in your silence,
Your golden sun that by night was replaced by an even more enormous beauty;
Lost in your curved and jagged love.

Birds of every blue,
water that tickles back as you touch it,
and wheat brims that stretch for miles.

Those Rock edges,
two hundred feet up,
they leaned down.
Leaned down and grabbed around the small of my back
and the Earth hugged me--
warm and familiar

Then released me back to my boat
I lay:
face to the sun - back to the river,
and whispers of wisdom created ripples in the water.

The warmth of the rubber took to the curve of my spine
Feeling like I'd never been let go.
I don't even think I realized how much I love you
Until our eight hours wore down—too quickly.

So as I left my memory,
I leaned my face to the sky,
pressed my chest to the sun,
And tried to let you know
That I was hugging you right back.

I lost you
As the Universe intended it
I shaking there
A lonely poet

In the shower
For a good five minutes
Before moseying over
From the bedroom
Half dressed
To close the door
Slowly behind them
Where they stand for five minutes more
Sending a text message
And messing with soap bottles
And the strings of their clothes
And preparing to get into the
Warmed water
And out of the steamed air

Are the selfish ones

Will always be the lonely

Ones.