The sun loved the
Moon so much he died every
Night to let her breathe.

To me, hugging is so much more than
A simple embrace
It's a chance for me to connect with you
And share

If you're happy
I'll share in your joy
Let the happiness flit around my being
And soak it it

But not like a sponge,
I don't want to take it
More like a mirror
To let it be a part of me
And the reflect it back again at you
To increase
Always adding to

If you're sad, it's different
This will be a long touch
Me clinging to you, you clinging to me

Now is the time to be a sponge
I soak up all the bad
It's gone
You won't have it anymore
At least not in the same way

And that joy from the other times?
While the hurt flows from you into me
Through my left arm
My right is coursing with
Positivity and bliss
Straight into your soul

So next time we hug
Or even just touch
Know that it wasn't accidental
Or that it didn't mean anything
Because to both of us
It meant so very, very much

Pink blossoms falling,
warriors falling in kind;
Portland in springtime.

Hale, hearty hana
aloft on the vernal winds,
transient beauty.

Cut down in my prime,
someday, I, too, shall fall down,
fading into dirt.

Like my mother did,
and my father before me,
returning to dust.

Until then, I fight;
Until then, I carry on,
a blossom in Spring.

there are nights where your absence chokes out my breath
and the only way i can finally rest
     is to heavy-handedly pull at the tides of my brew
          the way you'd paw at the hips of my skirt
          silently signaling you'd finally had too much to drink

your lack of grace illuminated
in whiskey-breath
and neon jukebox glow

so off we'd go
     leading the liqour-lust parade
     trailing downpours of drink chips in our wake
and you'd take up my hand
in your forklift phalanges

such a prideful little man-cub
with a puffed out chest and a leather vest
     only softening your edges in the sanctity of my lumpy bed
     when you've got the chance to rest your noisy head atop my naked breast

oh you rusted demi-god
though i do miss the struggle
and the snuggles
and the ***
          i'll be just fine with my growler of stout
          and your leftover whiskey in the freezer
forgetting what i'd learn
during our staggered steps home

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

winch sinched grimmace
hung at half mast
in an attempt to hold rebelious bicusbids in their place
     but they still wiggle like a bobble-head jesus glued to the dash
     every time that you laugh
so i guess that's why you're giving it up

your arms look like a road map
     riddled with pin-***** ***-holes
and with routes to hell and back marked
by distressed vasculatory flares
     so you ask to borrow my sweater
     and another fourty bucks
with no explanation why

for once
     you didn't lie to me

if i could
i'd lasso the wyoming wind
and ride it like a wild mare to wherever it is that you now call home

you'd find me pounding on the door
     with a bottle of whiskey in my white-knuckled fist
     and a bubble machine eating the paint off your late model car
     and how far i'd come to find you would instantly become irrelevant when you'd smile
          it's been a while

i still catch myself wondering if you catch yourself wondering about me
and the places i've seen since i last saw you
     lacing up your boots and diving head first into the blue of early evening
you didn't even tell me that you'd be leaving

but you did tell me a thing or two
  about the birds
    and the trees
      and the sea
        and your heart
the way it missed beats like i miss stop signs
and you'd once said that it was scared
     always waking you up in the middle of the night
     and telling you that it's alright to want to run
you sure did seem to be good at running

so i swish scotch between my teeth
and atop my gums
to make my tounge believe in singing
and i climb to the tops of the palisades to slingshot siren songs your way

          "oh won't you stay,
               just a little bit l o  n   g    e     r..."

then the record skips
and i slip from my dreaming
back to a shoreline where the washing machine squeeks
and i can be found grinding my teeth
like a lost little god in the grotto

oh
     where did we go to
     when we left to get old
and brittle
     like a tree no good for climbing

we dissolved our youth within the golden glow of nostalgia
marked on a calander long since dead and torched
     that fall when we learned to feel
     and burried each other beneath the heaps of rotting aspen leaves

"until next time, my darling."

I am 26 letters more empty,
Than I was yesterday.
This world is the constant dripping of a tap,
Drilling into my skull one millimetre at a time.
This world is safely wrapped in bubble wrap,
Beautifully shattered from the inside.
We have thousands of bubbles to pop,
One god ****** pope at a time.
Interfering personal spaces,
Dancing wildly on the edges of dust.
We sit and rust on O2 particles
Kissing dreams of lust as our bones cuss.