if simplicity was what you'd wanted
     i'd have adorned myself in complexities
and have finally learned to dance

Body

i dreamt of bathing
in the condensation pools
left spilling onto car-door handles
by words we half-whispered so many moons ago

i imagine it felt an awful lot
like the way you felt
when you were eight years old
and your mother's minister
lowered your head into that stream

     something you'd thought you'd wanted
until the moment showed it's teeth

she'd weave secrets the size of osiris
into her honey-dripping locks
while watering the lawn
     beer and juice in the same glass that i first drank from

who'd have guessed
that all "growing up" meant
     was accepting the fact
that our parents made masterpieces in their sleep

i'm never entirely sure
where my bruises come from
but their presence is strangely pleasant
     like a voice message left by a moment
     so very long-forgotten

i've gotten awful far by going nowhere

just look how i glisten
listening to secrets sliding
through the near silence of no place private
slightly derranged and completely distant
     lovely
and removed from social soliloquies
     to the self appointed throne of thoughtful longing

belonging's just such a bore
     when you're built to scream to existence
     like a super-nova through a telescope's lense

i once dated a boy who found it "adorable" that i know how to change my headlights
     fill my radiator
     change the oil
     and notice every stopsign as i'm halfway through it
he dumped me via text

before that
there was a boy who loved my lack of first person capitalization
     my over-use of metaphores and similies
     the way i personify the night
     and practice preforming poetry in the shower
he took off into the sunset with my journal in his shoulder-sack

and somewhere in between
i stopped asking myself what it means
threw up my hands
     and learned to enjoy the ride

somewhere within you
i had once noted a celestial gleam
          you bought me a pair of dime-store shades in reply
     and i wept
     my entire walk home
for the sincerity present in your lack of articulation

i used to cradle her bleach-cracked hands in mine
and decode the stardust resting within her fingerprints
     up until the day that i lost touch with the art of reading braille
     and she stopped slinging tall-tales for me to fetch
and rest the plot-twist at her feet

often in the post-script
i'd find my train of thought highjacked by the sunlight illuminating the rainbow of earth-tones ablaze
in her frizz-ridden curls
as if she'd been washing her hair with the damaged case of beer
she'd gotten for half-price at liqour depot
     she never did quit drinking
          but neither did i

at least we tried

though sometimes
in the middle of the night when nothing was alright
and we'd barely survived another fight
her face would catch my glance
cast aglow by a flood of lava-lamp light
    
     the sea of freckles resting at the crest of her cheeks
     rose lips perma-pursed in half tilt
     her resting heart-rate so high that i could almost see it
          pirouetting within her chest

it was then that i'd love her best
     amidst the ruins of who we were
     just moments before