She lands,
leaving only dampened hands--
Evidence of her stay

Spending her most memorable time
urging a  barefooted girl to rip off
the itchy black dress stained
with sweat and graveyard soil.

Such a sour cliché
introducing me to
June, my only
heartbreak.

Tomato plants bent in half
weighted with ripened fruit,
swollen large enough to
split its skin,
steaming in the overgrown garden.
She laughs like warm rain at the way the fruit
and I hang--

suspended. Growing heavier
in the humid heat of yet
another smeared dusk.
Eerie breezes slide through the leaves,
my messy hair collecting her
featherweight secrets--

bringing still faced realizations that
it's easier to hear June whisper
"There is only one thing you can be sure of,"
than to empty the shallow oxygen stream
from my tributary mouth
back into her swallowing sea.

Tides rolling in and rolling out.
"Only one thing to which everyone agrees."

The thing about June is,
you can’t decline the annual walk.
The thing she’s hiding is
a tall ledge in a pink haze
through a field of wild strawberries.
Letting me fall with silent excuses,
I am too heavy, and she
too light--

*"The thing is, everyone will die."

People die and marriages fail
and sometime you will know what panic feels like
Bank accounts go negative
and sometimes you get lonely

I won't be staying

You may come to a halt in the middle of doing something casual,
grocery shopping or driving,
because your wondering eyes danced over strangers' faces
Suddenly remembering the ignored fragility
we all store in the yawning pools of our hearts
Knowing you could never love everyone
good enough

I'll be far gone soon

They will be given a conveniently odd shaped frame of bones
surrounded by organs, one of which will be stretched over the frame,
containing their pulsing crimson rivers
They will be told that is who they are

I won't be there to cringe as they believe it

Sometimes I get blissfully lost in the fields of sunshine
and tall swaying grass, feeling both careless and careful
An emotion that  if posed as a question would be asked,
"How could such a horrible place be so gracefully beautiful?"
And vice versa

These are temporary wonders

Hearts, limbs, and first date napkins will be twisted up in the company
of someone who's memorized face
will most likely be a struggle to recall in following years that pass like the flipping calendars in movies

I will forever forget the south side of those people

You may become so sure of yourself,
you doubt everyone else
So swaddled in your surroundings,
you lose your spirit
So invested in this journey,
you forget you are on your way

I am on mine

They will not know how to see with their eyes closed,
only sure of visible things
Falling more in and out of love with themselves every day
Suffering worthless anxieties and drowning in the sea of never surfacing
They will not see the exhausted circles in which they swim
Certain only of their unhappiness that fuels the strides

But I will outlive this life
and you will too

"Your only flaw: you are flawless
and I just can't wait for love to destroy us."*

It's like moving underwater.
Motions tracing leisurely behind a rapid mind.
The heart bursts.
Contents dilatorily ejecting. Sharp shards of ruby splayed
in a resplendent eruption of primitivity, the pieces suspended
in seconds that last years and years, and years-
fleeting in seconds. It tastes like sunlight
and stage fright, painting the mouth a wet pink.
The eyes never truly knowing stillness
until the two gazes collide, melting into one, stuck in syrup
the flavor of searching. Teaching how to feel both
trapped and free, together in a romantic roll of quandary.  
Plains of silky naked skin, burning in lazy lines
softly remembering where fingertips grazed, caressing.
Love, I'm afraid,
is too often the beginning
of sad stories.
Stories about how the shattered pieces of bursting hearts, ruptured
by filling too quickly, too completely with the fluttering heartbeat
of another, did eventually drop.
Embedding their points in a too soft spirit.
Leaving a hot mangled meat,
the size of a fist. Damp, bleeding, raw, and barely beating.
Gushing, gushing, July to June.

Shreds of wondering flit about like shavings of curled kindling
inside my patient breath.

Glowing red from fiery curiosity.

A picture is worth a thousand words. A question is worth a thousand pictures.
All tucked inside buried answers,

like interchangeable files filled with

tattered sepia photos of remembrance and murals outlined in
penciled wisdom and painted through imagination strokes.

Colored brilliantly by fervent feeling.

Never to be displayed in museums. Only occasionally shared with an
unfitting casualty encased in careful words,

snatched out of your thought hurricane.

All she sees are unfamiliar belt
buckles and bottom row shelves
Seeking something I'm frightened
for her darting dark eyes to find
Wandering the maze of mundane
isles in the busy super store

A sunflower of panic blooming in
her small chest, pressing against her
fluttering heart as the clicking of her
tiny boots increases in tempo
She is Gretal, leaving glimpses of the
swishing pink tail of her oversized
nightgown to guide me as
she dashes around corners and legs

My strides double hers and a smile plays on my lips as
I match her pace with ease
Letting the shelves between us guard her fragile security
"Are you lost sweetie?"
My calm voice beckoning her teary eyed glance She nods
two times, certain

Her warm hand fits into mine
Together they swing like a pendulum
"I can do tricks!" she giggles
letting her feet hang Too thin I think
carrying her effortlessly
I say that her dress is very pretty Disney
princesses beam, frozen that way
I meant to say that she is much lovelier
than any fictional character

She smiles anyway

The route to the shoe department
fails to sustain its urgency
Her soft lisped chattering
ushers my foolish grin

that falls quickly when I realize
we are being watched
A stout woman wearing a malicious
mask over a face that
was once fetching before the poison
that fed her addiction

My heart drops and I pray
silently that this is not who
it inevitably will be
Her mother, to ****** her
from my strange hand
with an unyielding grip
on the little girl's upper arm

Greeting the child with a raspy
"I'm going to bust your *** when we get home"

My jaw falls open, empty
My hand falls to my side, empty
I want to fill my mouth with
chastising words towards the mother
and comforting words for the angel faced girl
I want to fill my hand with
my fingers, a fist, delivered to the woman
and take the little girls hand once again

I watch the purple hearted girl
be escorted away without
another word

Purple for her favorite color, but purple because she's been
wounded while serving her God given, God ****** mother

She smiles anyway

All I see are faces blending together
and torment
Seeking something that I'm frightened
I'll never find
Wandering the maze of mundane isles
in the busy super store

I practiced my sassing in the bathroom mirror
in all seriousness until a grin and a giggle escaped in spurts.
Watching unfiltered laughter chase after
the string of bad words exiting my ****** mouth.
Lethal darts trailed by curls of silk ribbon.

Insulting my reflection wasn't nearly as satisfying as racing around on my bike
letting filthy words fly into wind that tangled my hair.
As far as I was concerned there were too many things to curse at
outside, where I belonged.
Less spankings, more freedom.

It's fair to say I was an active *******,
never waiting around for reactions.

This was my first time trying on the four letter word sweater.
I certainly didn't know how to wear it. Felt funny,
the way your stomach feels when it drops.
I liked this swearing business.
I liked it a lot.

My days were rich with aimless curses
tasting of cotton candy and I fancied myself quite the sass master.
Telling chattering squirrels that they were "stupid *****"
as they spryly leapt limb to limb.  I was filled to the brim with
pleasure found in profanity.
I rode on towards the frosty haired couple driving my way.
I considered ditching the bike to run laps around the snail paced Pinto
while chanting all of my favoritest swears.
But they were "old *****" so I left them to that.

I continued to grace cats, curbs, and cars with cross words,
smiling all the while.
It felt good
Real good.

I told off every ****** thing on my block
several times a day.
My seat melded to heinous purple bike's.
Handle bar tassels whipping my wrists, shaming me.
Beads on my spokes telling me they were sick
with the click and clack of my wheels turning, covering every inch
of that dead end street.

One day I rode swiftly down a retired grassy path behind my little house
towards the majestic tree that had cradled me in its branches many times.
It's massive leaves had raised the hair on my slender arms
as I hung with my crown
upside down, legs halved over steady limbs.

It had met my mother as well.
Her gentle voice coaxing me from its arms for supper,
sitting pretty on our back porch,
petting our fat grey cat and pondering things beyond the tree and I
in the early evening glow.
Upon my approach I can only assume that the tree was pleased to see me
despite my new found nastiness.
Wise enough to know that it wasn't a "dumb *******"
and that it wasn't going to "go to hell"

and neither was I.

So it moved from an ancient position and proceeded
to lace its twiggy paws into my hair,
yanking me and my deep seated smugness
promptly off the old bike.
Contrary to my prior endeavors mastering the casual cuss,
I opened my mouth finding curses replaced with crying
for my mother, who couldn't hear me,
resting 40 miles away through 6 feet of still soft soil.

Rooted in the same dirt, both my mother and the tree.
Silently vowing to love me well. Keeping each other company
in sediment whispers, echoing.