loving someone that you cannot have
is one of life’s most tragic things

because when you drive me home
and i listen to you ramble about
your passions and dreams
i stay quiet because i am afraid
that if i open my mouth
“i love you” will fly out
and i will not have the chance
to reach out, grab it,
and put it back away,
hidden,
where it belongs.

you will live your life and i, mine.
but in my dreams, awake or asleep,
we will be together, side by side,
living.

you wake up
his hair is spilled across the pillow,
the sun slants across his cheekbone
and his breath is slow and even.
he smells like an open field
and his body is wrapped around yours
so he keeps you warm.
you think,
there is no moment better than this,
that he is too perfect to exist.
but you wake up gasping,
skin soaked in sweat.
you lie there for a long time,
in your completely empty bed.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the ****** and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to ***** up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
i won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
i won't blame you,
instead
i will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no
knife. the knife is
mine and i won't use it
yet.

She sits rather still, stitching her loom
shackled and bound to the whispering room
While the walls shutter speeches
she slouches then reaches,
her stitching resumed.

Threads of silk pool in spools
cast to the floor
Hushing the voices
as they pour

the voices repeat their crippling phrase
dancing the space
bound to their maze

she fell in love that night
8:12 PM, March 4th 2017
with a latin woman
her curves illuminating
in the ultraviolet lights
of her bedroom

she tasted paradise,
fingers tracing the outline
of her *******
their bodies interlocked in the heat between them
whisperings of 'i love you'
was all each of them could promise that night of
March 4th 2017