upon arrival
my luminescent eyes savour the landscape
I count the little differences
try to find something as unique as each individual
mole and freckle on your body
that I know so well
I gaze at the sea as if I could just reach out
and embrace it
I climb ancient hills and try not to step
on your haunches
this sheer simplicity overwhelms my being
I return flustered and anxious
I drive home past hideous edifices
with tears in my throat
an explorer longs for her spontaneity
until next time

I don't want to leave you,
But in order to better myself I'm afraid I have to.
Mama told me that it'll be days like this.
Daddy told me to learn from everyone you meet.
Shirt now folded, tucked in a bag beneath the bus.
To much disdain, I have to leave now.
Here on the open road traveling down every thought.
A window seat to the world. Open and vast.                                             First person view.
A introvert paused next to a bag lady whom resembles the woman I found in you.
Not too much to say.
Revisiting these old roads etched in my mind.
The thing about memorization.
You always seem to go back when least expected.
Another birth control pill. A baby trying to survive abortion.
A layered bowl of chili in a old diner across the street of an old country town.
High rise wires always seem the same either direction you go

How would he want you to act?
A small voice whispered in my ear.
Stop obsessing over the simple fact
Yes, you are all alone with no one to love you near
Yes, you're quite afraid
But he knows the strength within you
Apparently better than you do.
He knows your brain cuts like a razor blade
Show the world the strength he sees.
Admire the way the winter leaves freeze.
Just Breath.

Why does it matter I want to scream.
Why does his opinion matter so much?
Because maybe just maybe this one is on your team.
And he doesn't want you to use your fear as a crutch.
Because he makes you proud.
And there is now a longing to do the same.
To show him, and this bustling crowd,
your deep-seated roaring flame.

So I held my head high
and I went where I had never gone before,
With a mental battle cry.
Because I am his lioness hear me roar.

Let's go somewhere far,
Somewhere where I'd hold you tight.
Hand in hand.
Wherever you'd like.
Whether train or plane.
An automobile or an boat.
Either way will be home in justification.
Journeying through each other's eyes, a different aspect of seeing things brand new.
A single step becoming wholesome
Just for the sake of getting up and getting out.
The feelings that dwell within
Escaping out.
Anywhere with you, to be perfectly honest. 
Venturing abroad in living, breathing color.
Heads leaned against each other in excitement,
The comfort of toes covered in warm sand.
Sculpting each and every memory.
The sun becoming a spec in the horizon.
Exploring every wish, every dream we've found within reach.
The feel of every couch cushion.
Misplaced nickels, dimes.
Caressing the weight of weary legs.

A earth tone colored pattern. 
The lobby of every room folded In the brochure of our heart.
All in the autobiography of us.
To live, to breathe in the essence of where the ocean sprays against the gleam of your shades.
The hull of yachts splashing against the oncoming waves.
The ripeness of fresh fruit served at local vendors hidden from the sun harvested by kind hands.
The only thing missing is a good pair of shoes.

Or perhaps lay here with you just a bit longer

Blank...a blank world a blank canvas...its

Time to fill it up and paint a new planet

Blank words called spaces I write them

Down, now I’m space traveling

Illustrations are still scribbled...and

Sketches are still massive.... nothing is

Learned in a frozen room

I call it stilled classes

I'm diving in a dreams slip stream with my slick glasses

Visions of intermissions after the actor perform actions,

Insights and intuitions are known...from the crying actress

Results are all scripted...we attack with flying backflips

Its...like a car in reverse so I hit that backshift quick

Stay away from the snake never kiss those acid lips.

Suddenly I become a target on that hit list

what is he talking about? Why is he such a misfit?

So it continues down the field like I kicked it

I think it's time to make a deal in 5 minutes

And what I say makes no cents like poor pigeons

But I do have a big sense of smell like am Nixon

My minds a broken table it needs fixing

I want love,
I need love,
Where is love....

They tell you love is in family,
But they hate...
They tell you love is in you,
In order to find it,
you have to look in the crevasses of your heart,
But within you ,
It's reenactments of a ****** scene ,

Tell me again ,
Can't you answer my question?
Where is love ?
I'm looking for love ,
Love can you see me ?

You want love from me ,
I'm not earthly ,
I can't give you what you need..
My love can't even nuture me,
When I'm in time of need..
How can I learn to love you,
When I'm half loving me...

I create duplicates of paper hearts,
Made up of broken sea shells ..
Forgive me if I'm distant but loving,
I'm convinced I need help...

you're yelling at me to hurry up because we're going to miss our flight. i'm still standing in the shower at 7:08am, having locked you out of the hotel room we booked with the money we didn't spend on textbooks.

i'm staring out the window as people depart from the terminal. my hair is dripping wet. i focus on the sound of the drops hitting the carpet rather than watching you sit up in anticipation every time the woman on the intercom announces who's leaving and when and where to go.

i bet you wish someone had told you that about me. someone in a uniform with wings pinned to their blazer, assuring i will get where i'm going safely.  i can't tell if you're eager for this thing to get rid of me already, or making sure you know how to respond when it does. either way, it feels like you've decided i'm already more gone than not.

you didn't think about this when we were high school students on the field and in the bleachers. you didn't know that i intentionally didn't have a four-year plan. you didn't know that i didn't have one at all. i wasn't guaranteed the opportunity and burden to sit here as you panic in silence anymore than the next person. but i knew you were going to find new meanings for the words "departure" and "terminal".

the cabin air pressure gives me an excruciating ear ache, and my nose starts bleeding. while you were too busy freaking out, frantically pressing the attendant button,  i pulled a napkin out of my purse, looking away, more embarrassed by you than anything else. i make eye contact with a kid sitting in the middle aisle, and she starts crying. she tugs on her mother's sleeve, yelling, "mommy, she's bleeding! that lady's bleeding!"

her mother glances back at me with an apologetic smile, and eventually calms her daughter down, who seems more panicked about being on the plane with a dead person than my actual well being. i don't blame her. i have the empathetic capacity of a young child as well. being lightheaded and thousands of feet in the air doesn't allow much room for me to care or think about much else either.

a few minutes pass, and i've dozed off, but not so deeply that i don't hear the kid whisper, "is she gonna die?"

the attendant has made her round back to me, and asks me "miss, are you okay?" the tissues stuffed up my nostril are soaked in dark, red blood. i sigh.

"mommy, is she gonna die?" the kid repeats, tugging again.

i nod, more to the girl than the attendant and close my eyes again.

Droplets of sweat flattened on our foreheads under the weight of a mid-August sun—flattened into ovals of sticky sodium, catching specks of stray dirt swept into the air from the passing semi’s and transport trucks, whipping the wind into torrents of chalky highway dust.

Pressed high against the skies curved plain, we used our thumbs to browse the passing cars like pages of an anthology enclosed by a narrow spine of asphalt.

But when one pulled onto the shoulder and we approached the passenger side window, we too were ****** with the expectation and appeal of a library—mutually eager in the labour of conversation for the currency of experience.

For a moment, as the prairie receded in the side mirrors, our car became the baseline of a frantic cardiogram, crowded by the landscape of rising granite walls and low-hanging canyons, and the space between our separate lives closed like parallel lines drawn by gravity to a magnetic core.

We pushed our destination west, as far as it would go, safe on the heels of expectation. In motion the passing towns crackled like neurotransmitters firing signals over axons of black asphalt. But each time the car slowed to release us, one more they faded into a rancid stasis, that, once more, we aimed only to depart.

the mothering love
of letting go

silently keeping
a corner

warm the nest
ready to welcome

anytime me
the wounded bird

a small body
still crossing oceans