I happen to like counting.
Mama used to say,
how many yellow flowers are there, baby?
then in middle school I counted all of my friends and
in high school I counted calories and now
now I count the beats that my heart takes to keep me alive each day
breathing in, out,
one, two.

there is more than meets they eye when it comes to you
a thick-skinned woman, loved by only a few
I hear the song that you sing and I sing it too.

If my eyes meet yours a fire will ignite
and try as I might, the urge to fight you will definitely be there.
A mother, they tell me, is supposed to care.

And I suppose you did, but all in your own way.
Now there's nothing to say as I lay here
writing this poem, to speak of my feelings when it comes to you.

You were crazy in your youth.
*****- drunk sitting in a booth
at a restaurant with your friends, ordering a burger.

Later that night, they say you hung from the balcony by your feet.
all of your friends from prior gathered and took a seat, yelling
"That Bonnie has absolutely lost it!"
But in reality, I think you found exactly what you were looking for.

I want to walk
and keep walking until I see something other than these faces and the places that are engraved in my mind

*******, the lot of you
wish I could say it would hurt to say goodbye

I cup my hand to my face
and think of a better place to be
than here

my bones feel old, soul feels old and I'm sick of being told what's right

I just want to know
I just want to know.

It feels like I'm sinking in this deep water
grabbing onto my memories and searching for
you
who knew that I would like the taste
of water in my lungs

it tastes like things not said,
a cigarette shared on a porch and a book given back to me
before it had the chance to even be read

if I drop your name like a whisper on a cold morning, full of dew on the grass and at long last
gone
will you come and pick it up?
I promise I won't tear it in two, if you only knew how much effort it takes for me to keep these promises.

my love for you looks like my parents marbled counter.
beer soaked and falling off of one of its hinges
but it still manages to stay up
strong.

there's more than meets the eye
and no matter how hard I try,
I want to love you in the ugliest way possible.

ugly like going to bed and forgetting to brush your teeth because we're too busy with other matters.
Mind is strong but my heart is feeble baby,
I am craving your steeple and the taste of unrequited love
and to hear the birds sing
like only they know how to.

Feel the light on my skin and know my love is akin to those dreams you have
when you're falling and before you hit the ground
you wake up.

there was once a man
who loved painting
he could create worlds of his own with the flick of his fingers and
every time he created something he made love to it
as only a creator getting lost in his own world can.

he painted a woman
with strong features
unlike anyone he had ever seen
eyes that held secrets he would never know,
hands that touched things he couldn't imagine,
lips that whispered to him in his dreams,
"I am as real as you make me to be."

he often would get lost in fits of drunken rage,
wondering where she was.
he knew nothing about this woman,
as he only painted the surface.

there was so much under the paint
it made him feel a bit faint
if he thought of it for too long
so beautiful, but only
to him.

after a short time, he became obsessed.
there was something so captivating about this woman, something so real
he thought that if he kept painting she could be real
too.

years and years later,
after the paintings spilled out of his home and his soul and his cracking, wrinkled hands
he felt the sun on his cheek and his body naturally awoke.
surprised, he saw that it was still night, and he found the woman from his paintings standing right there
in front of him.

the faint glow of his lamp welcomed her, and his buzzing ears rose as he smiled a crooked, ugly yellow smile.
every cell in his body relaxed
sighing
finally.
I knew it all of these years. she is real.
I know her.

she stared at him,
taking in his words not spoken,
smiled a smile not quite human
and said to him,
"I know you too."

he coughed, spitting up the phlegm of his last cigarette.
"you're all I've wanted, all of these years. I've rejected marriage for you, knowing not even the best wife could make me forget you. I've turned down high paying jobs for you, I've ate only stale bread and old beer for months for you,
I have given up so much to devote my life to making you."

she exhaled a cold and sharp breathe, and he tightened the blanket around his body.
after the room felt like it was going to break in two,
she spoke.

"yes, but was it worth it?"

he closed his eyes in a bright acrylic daze
and died
before he had the chance to tell her that yes,
yes.
it was.

I want to know where the wild ones are
the ones that have eaten gravel for all three meals of the day
know how to land a punch better than they know what they are feeling
that grin at a skinned knee and know exactly how much alcohol they can drink
before it's their cut off point
with eyes that forgot how to deny from so long of doing so.

the ones that are just a little more human than the rest of us
just a little more versed at life and
loss and
love.

the ones that have hurt before
know they will hurt again
yet still rise from the bed of expectation and
forget to make it
and carry on the only way they have learned
to.