I like to think of my palms as poems
or perhaps, my poems as palms
as I hold them both, hands up,
in offering.
begging for you to take them by the handfuls
grasping them with your own,
poems, palms,
palms, poems
I blow them in kisses
so another may hold them grippless
letting them slip to the sky
fingerpainting the framework
that pillars the planet
presented in feather light
poems, palms,
palms, poems
I breathe them in doses
healing myself in the powdered pressure of
poems, palms
palms, poems
to my wounds, cleansing and mending
in the touch of words, these
poems, palms
palms, poems
in offering, as I hold them both
for you to kiss and breathe and mend
as well

You are nothing now,
but if I had the chance to wish one thing of you,
it is this:
(may your past rest in parenthesis)
only an aside in the monologue of life
a soliloquy to the fourth wall of dramatic irony
a bracketed prologue to your story  
interjecting an understanding of now and everything from now
in a seemingly never-ending pattern
as present becomes past and enters the parentheses

when your death came and your last words and thoughts slipped behind you
death was the only thing left unsheltered
as your brackets came to a close
but may you rest in every moment and memory you contained in interjection thus far,
(may you rest in parenthesis)

The last times I wore a french braid:

17, laying on my stomach in the psychiatric intensive care unit, (adolescent)
I reach for my hair, and let them grow tired,
tirelessly overlapping the strands until the entire mass is taken care of.
I stay on my stomach,
I try not to move too much or the orderlies will think I'm at it again.
A few days later, in the unit common room, my new roomate has me sit in front of her.
She runs fingers through, twists and playfully tugs she says if we hadn't met here she'd be in love.
I agree.
Still braided by her delicate hands my hair flicks as we giggle together into the early hours of my 18th birthday,
sipping at ***** dipped pepsi she had her sister sneak in.
The nurses chant "this isn't a sleepover! Get back to your beds!"
But we are kids,
So we feast on the cookies and crackers I'd been shoving down my pants at mealtimes then she waits patiently as I purge them.
We make blood sister bonds in our skin with razorblades and she braids my hair one last time before they move me to the adult ward. Because I was no longer a kid.
So the next day I cut it off.
I cut it off the next year too.
And half way through the next I cut it again,
keeping my hair just out of braiding reach,
Just out of length of fingers running through,
twisting and playfully tugging,
I like it a mess, so they won't fall in love with me anymore.
Braidless, I can stay distant, unattached like the feeble, overdyed locks matting on my head, but I can feel it growing every second

20, I lay on my stomach, hospital bedsheets unruffled in starch allegiance,
Reach behind my head and see if it's long enough, and I braid.

You slithered away and
a shadow slipped out of my skin.
What I had collected of you
disappeared, leaving
a rift in my chest and
arrested, held hostage
the hopes
pinned into my heart
that I kept of you and I.

I can feel that
you left
in my bones,
in my muscles
in my skin
every memory sends shivers
If only I could tear it all open
to let out the vibrations
free myself from these
sensations of loss
and convulsions
of emptiness
without you.

Once
you made everything
better but now you’ve gone
and torn away the happy.
You made it all hurt.
You ripped me apart
from the bottom up.
You left a rift in my chest
as your shadow
slipped out of my skin
and you slithered away.

― I wish you could hear my heart as it skips the beats you once filled.

I kissed the boy who tasted like cigarettes
I held his hand and felt like fire
and in my recklessness
I was pleased with myself like I was the one
who smoked instead of
breathing second hand kisses
I was pleased like I was the one he
put to his mouth and lit
he sheltered from the wind
and let burn so close to him

it felt familiar like home,
where smoke dusted the walls
and the inside of my family's lungs
where smoke left its imprint in that
same scent on his lips
and in my nostalgia I found myself
comfortable like I was the one
who smoked instead of
stealing second hand kisses
I was safe like I was the one he
packed away tight
took care to light
and held as long as he could

I put out fires by drowning them
in my demons but this one won't be
so easily extinguished since my demons
started burning out themselves
and in my recovery I found myself peaceful
like I was the one who smoked instead of
wishing for second hand kisses
I was still like I was the one he
handled like glass
craved in the night
and ****** dry

I kissed the boy who tasted like cigarettes
and he set me on fire.
I tasted the boy who kissed cigarettes
and he took me by surprise
but all along I was only borrowing
his second hand kisses.

Why can’t you see
the you that I see?
The smiles and dimples
And pretty teeth
Go along perfectly
with your voice and words
but you can’t see
the you that I see
and I can’t see
the you that you see.

Maybe someday we could have a picnic together.
Sunlight always makes your eyes shimmer like public swimming pools
with a little too much chlorine, and I’d love to see you dance
nervously when you discover a line of ants marching up your leg.
I’d like to kiss you with the taste of potato salad fresh on your lips
with a twist of lukewarm lemonade; you’d probably push me away
self consciously, but the fact of the matter is that your mouth
would excite me even after eating ten pounds of garlic.
The red checkered blanket would bring out the creamy tones
in your skin and I’d soon find myself devouring your beauty rather than
the pre-made peanut butter and jam sandwiches.
Your voice and its stories are sweeter than any strawberries
I’ve ever tasted, anyhow.
I could plan our lunches together for the rest of our lives,
but you’re not the kind of girl to settle down for a lunch
with someone like me, let alone for a lifetime.
So for some inexplicable reason I imagine myself at your door,
wicker basket in hand, with no answer.
As it would seem, picnics aren’t really your scene.
And neither am I.

painting the pain away
using water based colours
and my face as a canvas

Coffee, what a word
gliding down the throat with heat
burning away sleep.

Writer's block is my *****,
I think as I stick a pencil to paper
producing more nothing on the page
than was there before.
Well this is going no where.*
Perhaps I'll drink some tea
and come back to this later -
or perhaps I'll just give up writing
forever.

For what it is worth,
I have been drunk on self-loathing and
halitosis since our separation
for the sole reason that
brushing my teeth
is only necessary if
kissing is mandatory
which is quite often the case
at least in well built relationships.
Actually, we did not
have one of those, I suppose
because you obviously
never brushed your teeth.

From here on out
I swear to hook up with
only those in the field of dentistry,
and only if they believe
it is ***** to do ***
in lab coats
surrounded by extracted pediatric teeth.

I was altered in the placenta
by the dead brother before me
who built a place in the womb
knowing I was coming:
he wrote words on the walls of flesh
painting a woman inside a woman
whispering a faint lullaby
that sings in my blind heart still

The others were lumberjacks
backwoods wrestlers and farmers
their women were meek and mild
nothing of them survives
but an image inside an image
of a cookstove and the kettle boiling
— how else explain myself to myself
where does the song come from?

Now on my wanderings:
at the Alhambra's lyric dazzle
where the Moors built stone poems
a wan white face peering out
— and the shadow in Plato's cave
remembers the small dead one
— at Samarkand in pale blue light
the words came slowly from him
— I recall the music of blood
on the Street of the Silversmiths

Sleep softly spirit of earth
as the days and nights join hands
when everything becomes one thing
wait softly brother
but do not expect it to happen
that great whoop announcing resurrection
expect only a small whisper
of birds nesting and green things growing
and a brief saying of them
and know where the words came from

I cannot stand foot tattoos;
those things are just plain grody.
How could anybody choose
the most awkward part of the body
to mark with permanent inky
decision making?
But that’s just my opinion.

It's been years since you were whole;
you're missing pieces like a second-hand puzzle
and I wish more than anything to fill in your cracks,
but I understand that task is yours
and yours alone.
No, I can't fix you
but I'll stand by your side with my tool belt,
ready to handcraft any means of helping you fix yourself.

She did not crack perfectly;
Never the less, she was like an egg
because when she shattered, her insides poured out in a silent heap.
They made no sound but were as vibrant as the Sun to those who were blessed with the gift of sight.
Only it was not a controlled demolition, there was no hand to snap her over a bowl; her destruction was a silent kind of violent.
Her shell broke into a million pieces and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men never even bothered to try putting her back together again.
And so while everyone else continued in their deceived senses, she was left in her imperfect and cracked mess, insideless.

From the hands of greats,
Bukowski and Cummings
or perhaps the hands of amateurs,
tired souls left typing late
into the moonlight
as if the words spilling across their screens
could ever truly spill out their hearts
with any sincerity.
None the less, to save my sanity,
I save a poem.
A poem by any hand;
big or small or aged or new,
their hands hold me through
their creations, embracing me
and keeping me planted
firmly in this world.

Spring is in the air:
the birds, flowers, and lovers
have returned once more.

I love you.
I love you now
forever from now
but weak little words
scribbled anywhere aren't very strong as they are
but weak little words
forever from now
I love you now
I love you.

i never loved you
but you can't hide from the fact
that you believed me

So today I heard your name
and I hold my brain to blame
as it repeats and cheats on the sweet agreement we had
that there would be no more sad
no more bad and only happy and
none of you or your repeated name
none of you or your cheating game.

Oh brain, you ****,
you hurt when you spurt these words
we promised not to say or that name
you swore you'd stay away from.
That name that haunts me still but
will not be rid of; so sit up, listen up,
brain, I will not tell you again:
Just keep out of my head,
I've had enough of this monster beneath my bed.
Just keep out of my heart,
jolting me up at night like the electric jump-start-
Jump-started
by that name, the very same that I'd once gladly take but now I hate,
as hate is all that is left in the hole dug out of doubt in your name
and in who you were, as were is not who you are now,
but what you are now is somehow
who you always were: a liar.
And finally I see this and I finally don't miss
You.

And that's what makes hearing your name a poison
that seeps deep into my chest that I'm bent on dragging on
that I lean on, that will just never be gone
because now it fits amidst these lies.
And I hold my brain to blame
because my heart has given in,
because my heart can't be lived in the same after the way your name left it.
Just a dull ache sits but it fits more than you ever did.
But I'm training this brain not to recognize that horrid name and then it will be the same
as before you ever came,
but

Today I heard your name
and I guess I hold only myself to blame.

Beneath the couch today I found one of your toenails.
It reminded me of the way your toes once scratched against mine
and I was disgusted because I thought those things resembled
rotten carrots mixed with the stuff I've seen come out of my cat.
It reminded me of the way your hand once brushed mine
and I looked down to see those meaty sausage fingers
carrying on in their meaty sausage way
by spreading grease and filth and must and finger dirt
all over my nice white sleeve.
And then it reminded me of the way I couldn't stand your yellowed teeth
because I knew you didn't like coffee and
that your only excuse was not brushing.
So I looked deeply into that aged toenail found
beneath my couch and amongst some dust
beneath my couch where you sat that once
and I thought this toenail was a portrait of you,
hidden below my couch like the Mona Lisa's missing eyebrows.

But I left that toenail beneath my couch where it fell
the night you took your socks off to show me your tattoo,
the night you kissed me with no socks on,
the night I tasted rebellion in a sockless kiss with yellowed teeth
and sausage fingers in my hair.
Because I stuffed that kiss beneath the couch too
and let it break apart from my foot-life like a carrot toenail.
But that toenail leads me to think that your sausage hands were pretty soft;
that you probably would have liked coffee if you knew I drank it
and then that you were always a working man;
those fingers were proof of a hard day's labour.
So the night you took your socks off for me, could be tonight again
and I'd have the guilty happiness in your sweaty palms I missed before,
then I'd be perfectly okay when pieces of you shed onto my carpet.
But I don't regret the toenail beneath the couch
because at least it's there.

"I will feed my lights to the sea"
Said the girl to the plant.

"But I'll miss your skin when you leave"
The plant cried in protest.

"Oh, but I can not love you,  for you are green"
Her whispers hurdled against his stem.

"I would grow a heart and lungs by the Sun's beams,
If it only meant you,
Between my leaves."



She stepped to the sea, "You're too brittle!"
The plant grew after her. "You're too beautiful!"

The seaweed slapped at her toes,
The starfish lapped at her ankles.

"By any other name, you're just a rose."
"Forget the blue world; come to the green, my sweet!"
Her neck twisted skyward, and she froze.



The Sun bent down and kissed her on the face.
"Do not leave your light to the sea," His bright face rang in melancholy.
"He's but a star, to me you are the Sun!" The plant sang in jealousy.

But as the heat beat down and the vines dug into her skin,
She refused.



And so, with the slip and slap of waves her jewels glittered into the sea,

The tears of a single plant too weak to fight the current
And the light of a star too dim to outshine the light.

And so, there with the slip and slap of waves, her jewels were finally free.

I once was surprised to find
Upside-down upside-down cake
Partially over partake my mind
But is it right side up, or left side down?
I once was surprised to find that no answer was found.