a satellite dish on the roof
of my grandfather's shed
sings to the stars

who will provide the countermelody?

i took you to a place on the beach
that my dad took me as a boy
to share these sweet things with you

it all means something.

there is a waterfall in the woods
in northwest indiana
where once the river ran so dry
you could look down into the riverbed
and see the roots of trees
gasping, begging for the water's return

we stood in the rain the next day
as the wind whipped petals
off the branches of the maple trees
and in the downburst
i fell so deeply love with you

will you sing with me?

there is no use in weeping
over things left unsaid
if they were better off
on the radio waves
bouncing down to the satellite
into the screen inside your head
to replay the crescendo to failure
in the moments before collapse

2/5/09 - The day I lost my best friend (Grandpa)
7/?/12 - Moved in with dad
12/11/16 - Tried to KMS
9/16/17 - The day my dad and stepmom got married
4/3/18 - Started dating my boyfriend
6/19/18 - The day my dad gave me up and kicked me out
6/23/19 - Day my uncle died. He never gave up on me
10/3/19 - My best friend died(Grandma)
12/9/19 - The day I broke up with my boyfriend

New: 3/13/20 - Moved states
New: 7/21/20- Moved schools

the stitches in my thigh are
healing so now we can all shake hands
and watch the money
poor in. the bombs are not coming,
please come out from
under your desks, you are safe
now and if im being honest
the desks wouldn’t protect you
from the shrieks of a
war plane. they sound
like nothing you’ve
ever heard
a frequency you unlocked
just for this
particular pain. you can almost see
the sound pour into your ear drums
like a bartender mixing
the ***** and the cranberry.
it sounds like 6am
it sounds like the same song
over and over.

As the crow flies south from capital city
With soaring moonshine he coasts into synchronicity
Highways below dissolve into forgotten whispers
Like a rear view mirror sees only memories in its disappearing

Visual ****** initiates and fills this polychromatic cruise
Starting with a quiet historic ruse
Contesting over which of the two
echo shadows for optical repeal

the many leaves of kaleidoscope hues
That keep a running legacy since time before our time
and / or
Buried horizon from endless layers of skyward hills
Hills that have been storing a primitive foundation for the growing of substructure foliage in order to be able to drop its petals and leaves

Resolve is left with the one true and unbiased impartial decider...
the wind
to form a fair measure of mediation

From the human view
All are merely a preview for the impromptu quest
In an attempt to catalyze foreshadow and paint memory for the drive out west

To approach from afar
The destination appears to be a resting
shape of an antiquated location

splashed with opaque aromas,

sensory weaving visuals,

and

Melodic tones of nostalgic definition

Emitting vibrations of soothing tremolo that quiver throughout the body

this multi-strip string of singular select shops
Is the alignment initiative in the countryside
forecasting a manifest
for the hazy occasion
Anointing inspiration over the heartland’s artland
That nearly only hope,
could create

Invisible snows sprinkle over roads like a magic red carpet of threaded tranquility in its coat
Enticing, Welcoming, and Lighting up this neck of the west
And opening into the
Woodland Hills of Little Nashville

———-—————————————-——————————

My boyhood pocketknife
Sits in the bottom of my bedside table
My skin is healing
But I still feel a little cut
I thank God every time I leave
Say goodbye to flat land
the long stretches of road
I forget the peonies
but they still bloom in me
My old backyard is littered
with noise and ***** snow
Cold trickles into the lungs
Slowly, like it's afraid to let go
Each exhale is proof we're alive
A cloud of condensation
curling away from mouths
Small, sleeping dragons
in an even smaller city
where all the jewels are gone

You were a beautiful
Fix
To an unknown problem.

You liked me so much
I had to end it.
Because we are not looking
For each other.

You want someone to love you.
I want...
Someone to fill the silence.

Maybe you're too young,
Maybe I'm too ******* bored
Of sad, beautiful girls.

Either way,
I couldn't keep kissing you
And thinking of her.

You were like
An Indiana summer:
Hot
And miserable.

I knew
I was too
Emotionally unavailable
For you.

Pretending to be jealous
When I just
Didn't give a ****
Anymore.

I was tired
Of complacency.
And you were tired
Of waiting for me
To commit.

So I ripped the band-aid off
After a month of messing with the edges.
Somehow my skin
Is still sticky.

I feel bad,
But I resent you
For being the prettiest girl
Who's ever wanted me...
And still being wrong for me.

And I resent myself
For my good intentions,
But bad timing.

You may hate it,
But I want to say that
There's no one I'd rather
Have wasted my summer with.

Pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek,
this is who I am. This is my story.
It is only coincidence that I sing it
to you,
but sing, nonetheless, I do. One morning
amidst the restlessness of my top-bunk sheets
I heard a whispering and thought it might be God it was
me. My unconsciousness begging me
for nourishment, silently loudly attacking
my awareness with questions: it asked why
I neglect it. Pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek,
is this, too, why your body vibrates
when your thoughts are feelings? Because you too
have recognized feeling as thought? That that
faculty of wonder you hush about as if a
***** secret of forgotten childhood memory
is something that is as real as
the metaphysical pores of a skin you cannot touch,
but know is not some foreign, distant, effacing
thing, but is thick, is thick, thick as words
creaking like old wood in a library filled
with students who read so much ******* to get into
college but never venture forth for such skin
in the skin of those unconscious voices in the
shelves? Selves: we call them books but they breathe.
The ideas wriggle in your veins like
a worm. They block your blood yet move
your soul. The stillness of your speechlessness
is some movement in itself. So I suspect of you,
pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek.
                                                So I suspect of myself.

I do not understand how else I could have been born
without eyes which we call eyes. I cannot see
why else.
                I cannot.
                                 You cannot.

There is light over there in that darkness.
               A glimpse of it- a sliver of silver
has shocked you into your paleness. Into my
blackness. It is the same difference. A different
same.
            
Line break:

A mirror tells me things with my eyeless eyes.
My brownness ***** me into journeys with
tunnels so deep that we call them pupils.
In the distance that I gaze into I find
myself gazing into a distance I gaze into. Fathom
it. Do not. Will not will it will it will not
willed. Touching it will wilt it without touching:
this is the soul you said does not exist.
              
             It is not there. It is.

In Indiana.

Where's that? asks my blood.

In Indiana.

Over there? my finger points out the window.

No. It is.

It is. Not.

Suddenly I smell something and it is myself.
It is not Indiana or freckles or pale-skin.
I ask you where it is.
Suddenly you smell something and it is yourself.
It is not Gaborone or curly-haired or black.
You ask me where I think it is.

What the **** do we know?

I'm running from darkness
She is avoiding the light
She is closing her blinds
I'm escaping the night
I can never fall asleep
She can never know
She's not broken like I am
If I give in I go
Sometimes the black lasts hours
Sometimes it lasts for days
She wishes she was asleep
To get over all the pain
She is ultraviolet
Keeping me awake
She is everything
The victim of every mistake I make
She always drives me crazy
But I need her all the same
She seems to really love me
But can't make the claim
I'll want her forever
Love her til my walls are blue
She is where my mind wanders
Her eyes are the best Indiana view.