What tastes salty?
Obviously potato chips.
Obviously a Californa girls hips.
Your lips after your tears
What tastes sweet?
Obviously the candy shop
Obviously an affair with a cop.
Your kisses in the morning
What tastes refreshing?
Obviously a cup of water.
Obviously a spring from the Alps.
Your skin in the shower.
Move me like the music and the rhythm.
Mold me like the sculptor and the ceramics.
My mistakes I have always shown on the surface,
But yours you have hidden deep beneath the sea.
These little black submarines,
They show in the shallows.
From encased in the hands of the small bird
that sits on your brain stem all day;
a little hope comes of me.
Or at least I muse it would.
I dream of you the whole night through,
and when winter comes I still dream of you.
And when age comes I still dream of you.
And when death comes to you, I still dream of you.
And in death I will come to meet the true you.
Don't take that the wrong way,
no one is behind me to back me up on this,
but you always say I don't know you,
believe me I really try too.
If you ever flew,
I would go with you
and the little birds would carry me through.

And Californa's trees
Burned
Before Colorado's
But summer ended
By October
And with
Autumn
Rain came
To cool the trees
And drop fog
On forest
And outside of Texas
Window panes
Wrapping around shrub
Branches
In yellowed
Thickened
Air.

Dear mom

Mom I reamemer all the memories, you told me when you saw me the first time you said I was beautiful. You smile so bright, like I was an angle. Mom you and dad fought alot and I was so young I didn't know what was going on. Mom now I know, now I see the pain and the tears you have cried. Mom I reamemer sitting there looking at my dad and saking him if he is coming back, and him smiling/loughing he looked at me said " I have to go to work" I remember him leaving and feeling scared, feeling like maybe that will be our goodbye. When I woke up he came up and I huged him, I huged him tight. I was so scared. A few years later you became sad, you weren't happy anymore. You would be sick and you though dad didn't care. Mom i'm sorry I never saw your pain. Mom i'm sorry that I could't be the girl you want me to be.

Mom, I was bullied, I was hurt, I was done with life, I was ready to give up. But mom I didn't, you know why because I knew I wasn't ready, I was not leaving the people who need me the most.

Mom, My farther might not text me or call me since I moved in with you across country, going from californa to a small town. I knew he wasn't happy. I couldn't sand hearing him cry because it made me feel worst about myself.

Mom, I love you and never forget that.

And mom I know, I know that we are happy now, we have no worries in the world, you want me to have everything.

But mom I have everything I could ever ask for.

Mom, I am happy were I am.

P.S Dear Mom, I love you, I will not give up, not now, not ever.

And that is a promise

my dreams are
marzipan
almond paste and
powdered sugar
egg whites beaten
kneaded
wrapped in
cling film and frozen
i took them out
to thaw last month

my dreams are
chickens
unhatched
i’ve counted
done the math and put
all of my eggs
into a single
provincial french basket

my dreams are
castles
in the air
or castles
in spain
depending on how
far back you want
to take the saying

either way
their spires are
dark toned
bordeaux bottles
narrow and
full of deep
burgundy
nero d'avola
and beaujolais nouveau
those fit into the
hamper with
my eggs

pinotage
zinfindel
shiraz
malbec
cab franc
take me around
the world
and back again

swooping past
the buttresses
i built of
carmenere
monastrell
grenache

deep and
treacherous moats
filled with every
kind of filler
red that pads out
your favorite blend

(some day i hope
to go to spain
to see my ambitions
in person)

my dreams are
highly breakable
when dropped
on concrete
and notoriously difficult
to clean up

my dreams are
clouds of
small batch
irish cream
swirling around
in espresso ***

my dreams are
right in front of me
and yet i can’t quite
reach them unless i
lean forward
knock over some
neatly arranged plans
spill out school
let it pool and
run off the edge
of the table
and onto the floor

my dreams
are spite
shards of
broken glass
a fallen shelf
astringent
eighty dollar whiskey
wafting through the air

my dreams
are for the future
but are somehow
impossibly
inseparable from
the past

(i always tell myself
if i could live through
a pandemic i can
do anything
including making this
phone call)

my dreams are
motivational
hobby lobby signs
strung up with
fairy lights in my head
“the difference between
a dream and a goal
is a plan”
“just busy building
my empire”
“hustle and heart
will set you apart”
but the signs don’t mention
the heavy feeling of
dread in my gut

don’t tell me
what it’s like to carry
a dream
tell me what it’s like
to carry
aspirations of
something
better for myself
while schlepping
along an intense
fear of failure and
the itching dread
that i’m making the
wrong decision

my dreams are
olive drab and
dried out californa
soundstage brown
a younger me
who could never
foresee who i
am today

my dreams are
the skeleton
hanging in the corner
of henry blake’s office

my dreams are
99 cent
shots of blue liqueur
on my 21st birthday
burning
the back of my throat

my dreams are
lit candles
on the cluttered
coffee table
greenery and
light florals
wafting
into the night

my dreams are
chronic
the thing my parents
warned me about
a genetic predisposition
to addiction

my dream is not
to be rich
my dream is to
afford therapy