i used to lay on the snowed-in flowerbeds
of nan's backyard. once it snowed enough,
you couldn't tell that a ****** of perrenials
slept peacefully there: all crushed
and crooked beneath
dirt and ice.

some days she'd come and join me
if the ground was soft enough:
we'd stargaze up into the cosmos
of pine trees overhead and listen
for the stillness of winter - the hush
of silence that lingered in the air.

ivy and henbit writhed
gingerly underfoot:
a quiet dogfight
of frozen earth
that begged a
sluggish spring
to come out of
hiding.

motherless
this must be just another test
utter less
stuck on the ****** to **** on the other breast
silken milk of the real deal and i feel like an udder mess

motherless

cover this
mist is sick with twisted, i discover less
it's colorless
put with the other gases to suffer and to smother this

motherless

I thought leaving I would finally be happy
Free of responsibilities
yet
I still feel trapped

Ice burns my chest
As I scramble to find a heartbeat
Frozen bones against cold skin
I feel my pulse echo into me
I know I'm still alive
But inside it's only emptiness
Fires raged within me once
Leaving behind nothing but ash
My heart, my soul
Blown away in the wind
I am lost and alone
Free, but still the same
My body aches at the memory
Of shackles holding me down
I never knew my escape
Could cause this much pain
Simply trapped in new binds
I don't know what freedom is
Life is a sick and twisted game
Where I get to choose my path
But what good is a decision
When it all leads to death
I cannot picture my future
But my past is loud and clear
How can I keep moving forward
When I'm barely a part of the present
I know I have to build my own life
But all of the tools are breaking
What a privilege it is
To pick my own poison

I see you so often in my dreams,
working magic by being close it seems. It's hard to believe you've gone away, that I'll never get to see you, with my hair all grey. But I'll never have to decide for you which treatment you may need or have to put you in a home because your mind had seized. I always worried that someday I'd explain that I need to take away your keys, and that you'd look at me in pain. Those are the only positives I can muster with your loss, I can list those with a half smile because I'd feel uncomfortable being boss. Love for me in this world, went down dramatically when you left, for who loves unconditionally and who knows best? I can only weep and mourn you just like I had with mom and hope to god I'll see you both, in the ever after beyond. I am so very thankful, been lucky enough to have had such a loving and awesome dad.

there was a tenderness reserved for me in her. like an eager extra setting at a table, still empty, as she yearned for my presence with dinner time inching impossibly closer. it was like she was playing house and she was smushing our two dolls together. she’d smile at me to pass her the salt and add a wink, because she can. building our own little sinkhole world in the middle of her parents’ dining room. i couldn’t hear her mother ask me what i do for a living.

her family would be delightfully curious of the kind of person who could hold their precious girl’s love and attention. i’d tell them who i was in a nutshell, but she giggled at what was purposefully left unsaid.

they knew the her before me, and the her after me was beaming light to land planes. before, they said, maybe she could just power a small town. the spark in her eyes was threatening to jump the slight curb of her waterline and light everything aflame. she would laugh as we tried to put it out and she’d pull me away running like accidental arsonists.

afterwards, hand in hand, we’d sit on her back patio and laugh a belly laugh. nothing was really funny, just life was electric and it made a sound.

~
Weddings and honeycombs.
Why do they give us the hives?
The keeper knows.

There's a buzz in the air.
It belongs to
the rudimentary happinesses:
The minor miracle of father's smile,
a morning breath of honey,
painting toy lips with
blood from mother's finger.

Deathless protagonists,
Mom and Dad,
our propolis.
They love us from afar.
They love us with what they are.

There's a buzz in the air.
There must bee!
They can't help loving
us little monsters,
who sting
and then say goodbye,
sting and say goodbye.

A linn begins to form
in the corner of their eye,
as wheat fields sway in the wind.

The innocent
and the beautiful
have no enemy, but time.
~

In the days of seafaring yore, in a candied littoral time, my parents shared a love for wingsails; propelling their craft on the surface of gentle waters.

It was here my father navigated me into existence, by taking my mother for a long enchanted boat ride.

And like a hook and eye, they so clasped and rowed into the boundless deep. The tender rhythm of their waves stirring a rivulet that would come to be called me.

Floating in this colostrum bed underneath the heart's thicket, I settled to sleep; dreaming of cradle song and breastmilk.

My unborn hands and feet routinely practiced swimming toward the open shore; until that day when a familial voice called.

And there in the dilation of a growing current, I sprang forth; thirsting for their love from my very first cry.