skyscraper man on seattle time
looms in the corner of swan lake and fry
untouchable denim untouchable blueblack plaid jacket
     he's put together with clothespins
     he's put together with stipends
     he's crammed between taxi cab book ends
skyscraper man on seattle time
stoic as the jet engines roar by
all his friends are magazines all his friends currentbrief
     he's got a little future
     he's got a few dimes
     he's got no father to call out the lies
skyscraper man on seattle time
watches smog children kick ***** on concrete
vulnerable under trees writes his novels in purpleink
     he's married once before
     he's read crucifixion lore
     he's returned his money to the store
skyscraper man on seattle time
looking through spectacles of ***** and brine
the rain falls hard the breeze sweet on the leaves
     he's emptying the soul of modern rock n' roll
     he's emptying the tray of ashed thought
     he's emptying the bank account cold
skyscraper man on seattle time
sheds crinkled skinmemory like the cicada
a twin-sized deathbed deathbed in apt. 203
     he's nothing.
     he's ever.
     he's happened.
skyscraper man on seattle time
carbon copied and eternal as saltwater as rust
invisible and tapping at the runrain window
     he's nothing.
     he's ever.
     he's happened.
skyscraper man on seattle time
climbs himself to the cosmos lightheaded perfection
ethereal visions of fullbloom love and legacy with measure
     he's nothing.
     he's ever.
     he's happened.

It was also my violent heart that broke,
falling down the front hall stairs.
It was also a message I never spoke,
calling, riser after riser, who cares

about you, who cares, splintering up
the hip that was merely made of crystal,
the post of it and also the cup.
I exploded in the hallway like a pistol.

So I fell apart. So I came all undone.
Yes. I was like a box of dog bones.
But now they've wrapped me in like a nun.
Burst like firecrackers! Held like stones!

What a feat sailing queerly like Icarus
until the tempest undid me and I broke.
The ambulance drivers made such a fuss.
But when I cried, "Wait for my courage!" they smoked

and then they placed me, tied me up on their plate,
and wheeled me out to their coffin, my nest.
Slowly the siren slowly the hearse, sedate
as a dowager. At the E. W. they cut off my dress.

I cried, "Oh Jesus, help me! Oh Jesus Christ!"
and the nurse replied, "Wrong name. My name
is Barbara," and hung me in an odd device,
a buck's extension and a Balkan overhead frame.

The orthopedic man declared,
"You'll be down for a year." His scoop. His news.
He opened the skin. He scraped. He pared
and drilled through bone for his four-inch screws.

That takes brute strength like pushing a cow
up hill. I tell you, it takes skill
and bedside charm and all that know how.
The body is a **** hard thing to ****.

But please don't touch or jiggle my bed.
I'm Ethan Frome's wife. I'll move when I'm able.
The T. V. hangs from the wall like a moose head.
I hide a pint of bourbon in my bedside table.

A bird full of bones, now I'm held by a sand bag.
The fracture was twice. The fracture was double.
The days are horizontal. The days are a drag.
All of the skeleton in me is in trouble.

Across the hall is the bedpan station.
The ***** and stools pass hourly by my head
in silver bowls. They flush in unison
in the autoclave. My one dozen roses are dead.

The have ceased to *******. They hang
there like little dried up blood clots.
And the heart too, that *******, how it sang
once. How it thought it could call the shots!

Understand what happened the day I fell.
My heart had stammered and hungered at
a marriage feast until the angel of hell
turned me into the punisher, the acrobat.

My bones are loose as clothespins,
as abandoned as dolls in a toy shop
and my heart, old hunger motor, with its sins
revved up like an engine that would not stop.

And now I spend all day taking care
of my body, that baby. Its cargo is scarred.
I anoint the bedpan. I brush my hair,
waiting in the pain machine for my bones to get hard,

for the soft, soft bones that were laid apart
and were ******* together. They will knit.
And the other corpse, the fractured heart,
I feed it piecemeal, little chalice. I'm good to it.

Yet lie a fire alarm it waits to be known.
It is wired. In it many colors are stored.
While my body's in prison, heart cells alone
have multiplied. My bones are merely bored

with all this waiting around. But the heart,
this child of myself that resides in the flesh,
this ultimate signature of the me, the start
of my blindness and sleep, builds a death creche.

The figures are placed at the grave of my bones.
All figures knowing it is the other death
they came for. Each figure standing alone.
The heart burst with love and lost its breath.

This little town, this little country is real
and thus it is so of the post and the cup
and thus of the violent heart. The zeal
of my house doth eat me up.

Burnt toast and
a spot of blood.

Father dresses for work
and leaves with a wave,
his gabardine suit
the exact same shade
as the storm cloud blooming
on the back of his left hand.

After breakfast, mother pins
his undershirts to the wash line,
clothespins clenched
between broken teeth.

From my upstairs window,
I watch his shirts stiffening
in the flinty December air,
a chorus of white flags,
obsequious and clean.

Mother recovers in the laundry room,
where the floor is dusted with feeble
grains of spilled detergent.

I spend the afternoon
preparing for the sound
of tires crunching on gravel,
for the sweep of headlights
across the lawn.

There are plans
and maneuvers
to arrange.

Counterattacks.

Even now, the snow
on the side of the road

has turned to the color
of my childhood.

tiny wrists made up of clothespins

sharp hips made up of awkward wingspans

held my smile like a knife made up of coffee stained teeth

walked me home like a dance with the broken sidewalk
kissed my scared hands with a scarred mouth

my life is on the line,
at least my clothes
are being dried

he steps forward to bless us with song
benediction’s serenade
binder clips and clothespins weaken wind
as sheet music tries to take flight
with each strum he was fighting it
emoting with sad lips and blue eyebrows
taking deep breaths let out with heavy sighs
but holding steady
singing and crying come from the same place
as he sang the sun sneaked out
shadows surrendered their stronghold
a moment of warmth shown upon our gathering
near the pine tree at our father’s grave
Terence’s ashes to be interred with dad
a musician, an artist, a writer of songs and poems
a technician, an electrician, a wood worker
his many gifts now only spoken of in past tense
a son to two, a brother to eight
an uncle to many
a father to one daughter
his passion relived in his writings and works
his essence reflected in her eyes

The wind blows, while I wind my clock,
It blew the clothespins off, hurting me, leaving a wound, while I wound my clock.
Tears trickled down, falling onto the wound; tear the contract!
They left it behind, in the desert. Deserted.
They said the had agape love, and that left me with my mouth agape.
Aye! They said they had for aye.
Bless them, the blessed. Blessed they are.
The wind continued to blow, the sands to buffet me, I could only think back the the grand buffet.
What to do? Could I sing? From do?
I opened my mouth, then spotted a dove, a dove in the desert? Then it dove down into the sand.
Will it? Can it? Lead me out of this desert? But my feet were feeling as heavy as lead.
A market… Where to get some fresh produce… Who will produce them? In a desert.
And I presented myself with a map and compass, a present from me to me. Happy birthday, I wished myself.
In that minute, I had learned so much. I was a learned man, in a giant desert. I was minute.

After a neat little bite
She slid his sandwich into its baggie
And smiled,
Never tiring of her little joke.

“See, it’s alright. Im here with you, having a little fun!”

After the bell he peered into the bag.
And there it was
And a note:
“I love you, Aaron. “

This morning’s mixture of boredom and fear punctuated by her love

Then he daydreamed of helping with the clothespins,

Sheets snapping in the wind

HANDMADE CHRISTMAS

Do you remember back when
Christmas was making things
Out of stiff colored paper
Like chains of slim paper rings
That were so long we took them
And wrapped the a few times
Around the tree as pretty trim?

We made angels and snowflakes
From something called shirt boards;
Cutouts covered with aluminum foil.
They didn’t need extension cords.
And Mom showed us how to starch
String we dyed. We wrapped it
Around some inflated balloons.
When each dried, we popped it.

We made reindeers and Santas
Our of wooden clothespins
With pipe cleaner antlers or
Cotton beards for Santa’s chin.
Mom dyed an old sheet green
For under the Christmas tree.
Prettier than the store-bought kind
It has always seemed to me.

In school we made Gifts too
Things knitted or made of clay
To give to Mom wrapped up
With great pride on Christmas Day.
And that wrapping paper was
Was all Christmas color tissue.
It was inexpensive to buy, so
Using a lot was not an issue.

Some gifts were appreciated
Some maybe not as much
But in every case, we were
For the most part very touched.
You knew for sure just by looking
What care and love went into
The handmade presents that were
Made totally and especially for you.

Brent Kincaid
12/12/2015

Nothing gets crossed out -

A collection of the worst jokes you ever told (something about LSD and shellfish) rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls into dust bunnies (whispering my secrets) snatched up and molded with vegan butter until a collective comet increase, increases, IGNITES into flames and is suddenly the rising sun you rose up underneath from six times in my bed where the butterflies in my stomach shivered and shook and made their way to the walls at eye level with your tiny ears

-
Tie a tin-can telephone to the door of your own personal world from my mailbox and I'll leave a message on your carrier pigeon (answering machine?)

I'm confused.

"Jennifer wants you to know that she wants you and her to move into a postage-stamp house in a postcard of Italy - she says to make sure you know that the house has no walls and lots of ladybugs."

-
I think we're breaking up - "What do you mean, you know what I look like without my face? Jesus, Jenny, you're ******* nuts."

-
It's okay though, I got like, ten cents for recycling those cans. Anyways

CRASH! From behind a junkyard ~

Sounds that I will drown out with my erectile-dysfunction pills.

-
There's a candle from something called (Ireland?) here and I can't ******* blow it out, there's like twenty, or twelve years probably, you are repeated here doing sunrise stretches in fluttering orange flames

Green slime oozes from the cracks in your shower tiles and I try to pin it back up with clothespins; just in case it helps you save the world. By the way - I will write my name in the unethical fog left behind an Indian-ocean's worth of water and say I fell asleep, wasn't me, astral projection did it (!!)

-
(Are you still with me?)

-
The last chapter - the Queen of England will buy your burial site under a fake name and I will fingers crossed decompose into one looooong-winded aperçu.

Start by caaaaarefully removing your outermost layer of flesh - lather generously; rinse passionately; re-evaluate your life with a fine-toothed comb and carefully remove the parasites of your predetermined partiality
- String them up with clothespins to wither and flake in a badly scorched sky

- Acquire an ice pick of high quality, frosted on memories of all your ex-lovers and their numbing tongues. Begin to chisel at your own very delicate bone structure. Cease action only when the jawbone resembles the claws you disregarded in your 3 AM awakening punctured with crrreeeeaks and hazy in a soft red fog

- Dust your eyelid with arsenic until they're heavy enough to crush a small child. Tell a good joke, or two - which part of a vegetable are you not supposed to eat again? Might as well eat all of it, him, her, them - but not the wheelchair. In retrospect, pull all of your eyelashes out as well - no sense in prolonging the sought-after blackness

- Tie your lover's ruptured spleen around your waist to add a few pounds - god forbid you get too twiggy and crackle and fall into an inevitable pit of self-loathing. Stick straws through puke green nostrils and **** maggots out of gaping eye sockets. Line your lips in borrowed blood.

- Embroider your initials onto my skin and never forget where you came from.

in Ohio, Mother
hung our laundry humming,
clothespins in her mouth

in Texas, she made my father
buy a dryer after angry wet sheets whopped her face
more than one blustery afternoon  

scarcely a score before
Panhandle winds were often roiling clouds,
black as charcoal, laying waste to everything
that grew and breathed

old men at the feed store talked
about the dusters from back then
and about every drop of rain,
every white flake that fell

I missed going barefoot
and fast learned to hate goat heads,
and all thorny things that thrived
in that flat land

Mother despised the hot winds almost as much
as the cool stares she got from the church women
whenever she opened her mouth, revealing
she wasn't one of them

Mother ended words
with “ing,” the extra consonant considered
superfluous at best, blasphemous
to some

men and women both
sounded to me like they had grist
from the silos in their mouths

my father had lived there
as a boy, swore he would never return
the dreaded dust still clinging to his clothes
when he left for the war

oil money brought him back
but only long enough for his skull
to be cracked dead by hard pipe

his insurance settlement
bought us a place in the Buckeye State
as quick as the lid flapped shut
on our mailbox

Mother wept little
until our first night back
in Ohio, when a blizzard knocked out
the lights, and our two candles burned flat
in the cold

my uncle brought bread, butter
and warm soup, which we ate in the gloom
while Mother told my father's favorite brother
how much we loved the Texas sun

When I was a child, Monday was ‘Wash Day’.  Not Laundry Day - that was fancy talk. In our house, it was wash day.
On the back porch of our tiny house in a little town in Washington State, was a wringer washing machine. That’s not a brand name, it describes the two rubber rollers that squeeze water out of clothes fed between them when turning.  In the back yard was a weathered wooden bench, turned gray with age and water.  Stored in the garage out beyond that were two big galvanized tubs, one round and one square, with handles on the sides.  This was the necessary equipment to do the washing.

On Mondays, the wash machine came in first.  It was positioned in the center of the little kitchen’s linoleum floor and filled with very hot water from the kitchen sink via a rubber hose that fitted over the hot water faucet.  

Next came the heavy wooden bench, placed between the wash machine and the sink.  Both of the wash tubs were brought in and placed on it and also filled with hot water from the sink.

Into the water in the square tub, Mom swirled Mrs Stewarts bluing, until the water was bluer than the sky.  This helped make the white things whiter and colors brighter.  
Into the round tub went Purex bleach, enough to scent the water and your hands.

Then came the first load of clothes.  With three kids who played outside all day, the pile was big. A measure of White King laundry soap let the clothes be agitated in hot soapy water for 15 minutes.  Then the wringer that topped the electric washing machine would be swiveled to the round tub and the clothes dipped out of the hot water with tongs and fed through it into the bleach water.  clothes with grass stains would get a session on the good old fashioned wash board; scrubbed up and down across those galvanized ridges with Fels Naptha bar soap.  The toughest stains soon gave way, and that item joined the others in the bleach water.

After all the clothes were in the bleach water, the next load went into the wash machine.  After another 15 minutes, the wringer would swivel and the clothes in the bleach would be fed through the wringer into the bluing.

Then with another swivel of the wringer, the clothes in the wash machine would be fed into the bleach, and another load of ***** clothes started their journey.

All the tubs were full now and it became an assembly line.
When the next 15 min were up, the line went in reverse and the wringer swiveled back and forth as needed.  The clothes in the bluing went through the wringer into a large oval wicker basket with handles on each end, ready to be hung with clothes pins on the lines out in the back yard.

The clothes in the bleach went into the bluing and the clothes in the wash machine went into the bleach. Then the washer was loaded again and the process began anew.
This process took most of the day, with the only breaks occurring while the washer did its thing and the two tubs soaked.

Mom used a metal dish pan to make a solution of Argo Starch and water. Things that needed body went into that for a quick dip before being hung up outside, where they became somewhat stiff as they dried.  They would need to be sprinkled with warm water and rolled up to dampen evenly before ironing. Most things washed in those days before Perm Press would need to be ironed.

The clotheslines were thin wire cable, strung up in the back yard.  One set of four lines were attached to the crossbars of 2 sturdy metal poles, sunk into the ground by the Rhubarb bushes and the hen house (we raised a few chickens) and the other two lines ran from the back porch to the garage wall. Before using them, Mom would wrap a damp rag around the wire and wipe each one from one end to the other to be sure they were clean.

Clothes would then be hung up with spring-type wooden clothes pins, taken from a home made cloth bag sewn over a wire coat hanger, so it could hang on the clothesline and slide along as the clothes were being hung up. There was a certain skill in knowing which clothes hung right-side-up and which went upside-down, as there was no fabric softener in those days and clothes tended to take the shape they hung in.

When all the clothes were hung up, the rubber hose was used in reverse to empty the two tubs and the wash machine into the sink. Then the tubs and bench were taken back to their spots in the garage and the wash machine rolled back onto the back porch.  When everything was put away, the wet kitchen floor was mopped dry with a rag mop.

All the neighbors said Mom hung out the cleanest, whitest wash on the block. She was proud of that, though she’d never admit it.

By dusk, it was time to bring all the clothes back in to the house. Sheets and towels were folded and put into dresser drawers. There was no such thing as a linen closet.  Pillow cases would later be ironed, but in my family sheets never were.  Since perm press didn’t exist yet, the cotton got a bit of a rough feel to it from the wind.  I loved crawling in between those rough sheets that smelled of the sun and wind.  Over them were 2 quilts.  One made by my Grandma and  the other by my Mom.  They weren’t showpiece designs, just  functional and warm with designs that used up bits of fabric left over from past sewing projects.

Towels were also a bit rough and got us dry and massaged at the same time

Living in Southwest Washington, legendary for it rainfall and drizzle, there was many a washday when it was all-hands-on-deck to race out and grab things off the lines as the rain began to fall.  On those days lines were attached to built-in hooks back and froth across the kitchen and things were re-hung there. There was also a folding wooden rack that went into the Front Room, which is what we called the Living Room  On those rainy days you threaded your way through rows of damp clothes to get to the sink to get a drink of water. No bottled water in those days, but our little town had very good tasting tap water.

Mom’s hands were always red and shiny by the end of the day from reaching into the various waters to fish things out to put through the wringer into the next tub.  Everything washed went through that wringer 3 different times.

There was a whole mystique about starched clothing. With no Permanent-Press in the 40’s, and the only way to make a cotton shirt or dress look smart was to starch it.  There was skill in knowing the ratio of starch powder to water so the clothes didn’t come out limp when dry or stiff as a board.

Starched clothing needed to be dampened first in order to iron properly.  It was called “sprinkling” the clothes.  A commonly used sprinkler was a tall soda bottle with a cork-stemmed metal cap with holes in it.  You could buy the sprinkler caps at the dime store. This is what Mom used.  

We kids were fascinated by the neighbor who took a mouthful of water, pursed her lips and created a misty spray onto the clothes.  We practiced it but we never figured out how she did  it. Another just dipped her hand into a bowl of water and shook it over the clothes. Pump spray bottles were years away back then. Sprinkled clothes were usually rolled up and left a while to dampen evenly. There was excitement when word got around that rolling up the sprinkled clothes and putting them in the refrigerator for an hour or two produced more even dampening, and you didn’t have to leave them overnight or risk forgetting and finding things dried into a hard ball the next day.

Even more exciting was the advent of the steam iron, which revolutionized the chore.  As a kid I used to earn dimes and nickels for ironing hankies (remember handkerchiefs?) and pillowcases for a neighbor. Kleenex didn’t totally replace cloth handkerchiefs until well into the 1950s. I still enjoy ironing today and hate the wrinkled look currently in fashion. I also have a stack of lace trimmed hankies that are now considered vintage.

I still have a soda bottle sprinkler, a clothespin bag on a hanger full of clothespins.  I also have an unopened bottle of Mrs. Wright’s Bluing, which hasn’t been on the market in years.   It reminds me of other times and other places and  how I would love to slip between those sweet smelling, wind-blown sheets one more time.
ljm

i'm warmly lost in the absence of that aspiring red light,
as your heartbeat is still a stabbing pain in the side of my gelatin femurs,
losing visions of the rigidity necessary to live this life of ambivalent autonomy.

--

steel strings and fibers of teeth eating this flesh like a false promise of love,
i am a windowsill covered by a nebulous, translucent shade,
clothespins existing simply to taper my eyes from the pain.

the stars take no mention of this cynical cycle of self-doubt,
for they're lighting our hearts long after they've burnt out.

and your hazel kitchen recipes are hanging over the paint-chipped railing,
giving meaning to this heart,
a blood-stained peach in constant mourning.

break this furtive glass,
there is no light pointing home,
**directionless map

It seems you've prepared a room in your heart for me
I guess I will stay awhile
I will unpack my things
There's a big window
Where I can watch the sunrise
and feel the light tickle my face in the morning
the same way your lips do

There's a room in your heart for me
I think I'd like to stay awhile
I'll put up posters of our favourite bands
and tape the pictures on the wall
hang postcards from you on a string with clothespins
Make a fort of every book we own
Don't forget your Bible.

There's a room in your heart for me.
It's beginning to feel like a home.

We arrive at the motel I sat next to the window
Soon he closes the drapes with clothespins in tow

I know what's about to come
I hurry and slam two shots of ***

At a split second I get a fist right on my face
I knew it was coming but I didn't get myself braced

He yells b---h you know what your supposed to be doing
As I **** in the tears I pick myself up off the ground stooping

I opened my bag the last pieces of items I own
I'd wish I'd gone and found a comfort zone

I change into my clothes mini skirt , tight shirt, no bra and high heels
I'm afraid to squeal

While I'm leaving, you know what to do or your family will be black and blue

I stroll down the long road a car rolls up
I get in and guide him to the stump

I go back to the motel
Hand over  the cash, and I get hit, kicked and told to go resale

Realizing that I'm just a minnow
swimming  in a fish tank
With no way out cause  I'm out ranked

Thunder grumbles in my stomach
almost louder, certainly
more insistent
than clouds gathering
across the yielding sky.

I pretend God hung them there with clothespins.

Kneading ashes into the days dough
I treat it as a tithe
though I've not pinched any off.

The pennies in a jar by the door
catch my eye.

So many little disks.

So many little lies that we become
and twist about to believe because the believing
is easier that way. We are not dying.

Or so I whisper to the ash
as it succumbs to my hands
and forgets the oven.

© Amber Dawn

Imagine an idea
That is screaming and golden
Growing special
Each day

The weight of my existence was harder to handle
A clean grace that remained
Through the night
I started to run for some reason
And the sensation was strange
But no one noticed
I closed my eyes
And painted the canvas that sits
On the backs of my eyelids
With bright hues
Of all of my favorite colors
Swirls of red, blue, pink, yellow, purple and green
The colors are calming and only
Propel me forward
Now the streets are changing colors
And my breath is getting heavier

In the middle,
The streets become wider
Turning in circles
And I want to blame
Someone
Or something
But I am done being bitter
And beating myself up all the time
I am smiling now
At all of the beautiful and colorful things
Manifesting right in front of my eyes

There is a ***** bliss
And my mind is more attentive
I do not feel as though I need to continue searching,
Letting all of the aching wondering swirl up and around me
Invading my pure and unconscious thoughts
Making me feel like an evil little mess
And then I remind myself that I am my own worst critic

There are frequent,
But completely unknown,
Voices that exist inside of my thoughts
They're not always nice to each other either
They all talk at the same time
And it gets really confusing
They're rarely quiet
But when they are,
The hollowness is not comfortable

As I run,
The voices seem to be talking faster and louder
And I want it all to stop

It feels like my loneliness is spurting out of me in colorful hues like warm gurgling blood  
And I belong to a precious experience
Possessing a knowledge and a passion that was released into my innocence as a youth
Now that my innocence has diminished,
The passion and the knowledge have changed shape
But they are more prominent
Stronger and more powerful than ever before

There are flames on the mountaintops as I stand below them
A stranger laughs and the sunshine glints perfectly atop my twisted and stained fingertips
My wounds have been shed
The rage that was once poison has transformed
Despite the depths of the secret monster that lives inside of me
Hanging despair up by clothespins
I know that the void is fading

Tender wisdom as the greatest killing machine and strings like puppets with no imagination
Respect as a season
That is stuck and stained
Higher
Reaching the horizon
Understanding the changing stream of colors and voices alike

Courage as thunder
Rough weather,
But a beautiful outcome
Kissing the smoothing madness
That swims inside of me daily
Travelling strangers repeating humanity
The mystery is painful
The company is invisible
She'll perfectly fade and disappear and though you will be sad,
You must not forget that it will all be beautiful
And perfect

The ****** ancient curse
And the hidden nasty beast
Have conversations that rhyme
But the gods shine down speaking infinitely
Begging for me to destroy the shell
And fill the holes
Brush off the dirt
And swallow the moonlight

Delicate fields of flying pink petals surround me
The chaos is twice as intense
But never forget that one must
Have chaos burning within them
To give birth to a shining star

By: Evynne Doue

Some things you look back on and it feels like it didn't happen. It all feels like a haze or a dream even though the scarring it's left on your mind is very, very real. I remember seeing his smile, her laugh, the way my friends eyes crinkled in delight when they spoke. The beginning of the summer feels like a haze and sometimes it's all I have to keep me warm when the winter comes.
I as a person don't feel real sometimes. The question if really anything matters at all crosses my mind more frequently than I'd like to admit. Every passing minute turns into a new memory and the future is so uncertain, it's hard to let go of the past and look towards it. When I was a kid I thought I'd have everything figured out by now, you reach adulthood, you get in your own, then you realize how unprepared you actually are. How scary and cruel the world can be no matter who you are. I'm afraid that as I reach the looming hardships of a life on my own, I'll forget what matters, I'll forget how to be happy. Maybe that's why photography means so much to me, these frozen moments in time. Happy days and beautiful things frozen forever so I won't forget. I won't forget the sunsets or the times when things were good between friends.
Memories mean so much in the hardest of times and I find myself in reflection of my past when I'm depressed. Flashbacks of taking him to the hospital. I can hear the clicking of instruments and the color of his hospital gown. The hours spent in a chair next to his bed, the blood in the IV, small details that seem insignificant but stick to my mind like they are covered in glue. I can still hear the raspiness in his voice as he told me he loved me for the first time in that hospital corridor. Fluorescent lights buzzed and reflected in the coolness of his blue eyes and I can still hear the stutters in my reply echo in my head. That is a memory taped to my wall, his disgruntled profile lying in a hospital bed. Memories on clothespins scream of a better time, when everyday was a gentle laugh and not a silent car ride. I can see my lipstick smeared on his cheek as we baked cookies in his kitchen, the smell of cinnamon clinging to our clothes as we lounge with friends in the living room. I carry a photo from that day in my wallet I keep it close to my ID as part of my identity, I won't let these days that meant so much fade away from who I am.
I have files and drawers and boxes and books full of photos, each one a bookmark in my mind of a better time. The brown depths of my best friends eyes in my laptop, the light trail of a man’s cigarette in my drawer, a smile in a box, a laugh in a book, moments trapped forever in film. Memories and stories keep me going, they fuel my drive to survive in the harshest of times. The hope that someday things will be clear and happy again keeps me moving forward with memories tightly clenched in my fists.

But-
Even as memories bring comfort, they can also bring pain. The most sweet of memories can turn into poison when things change. They turn bittersweet and as you reflect on all the sunny mornings spent in his bed, you can feel your heart begin to split and crack. I remember the day he broke my heart, I could hear every word he said but the whole time I had music stuck in my head. The sound of my sobbing and the cracks in his voice accompanied by music, it all felt like a terrible, terrible movie. I remember the snowfall that night when he drove me home and I swear on everything the earth has to offer that my heart was 20 degrees colder. Days pass and turn into weeks and the photos on your wall become like ghosts. Ghosts of a better time, of a sunnier day, and the pain they bring outweighs the assurance they once gave you. Even as they brought you comfort, of hope for the future, you look at those frozen smiles with tired eyes, you look at these pictures of past love and you feel your hands unclench around the memories you once held so tight. It's time to let go of the good times to make room for new ones and the tears you shed as you take down each photo seem to be the most bitter. There is now empty space on your wall, free of painful things, beckoning a new day to fill the void. An empty space free of memories, it  gives you peace. Amidst all the pain and uncertainty, a new hope begins.

you tell me i'm your best friend but sometimes i feel more like a laundry line

you hang your emotions on me like clothes, swinging back and forth from happy to sad and back again like steady wind

i hold you up with clothespins, stretching myself thin, tying myself to cast iron hooks to make sure you don't fall and get yourself soiled in the muddy dirt or the wet grass

you tell me i'm your best friend as if it makes everything clean, as if the things you say hurt you don't hurt me too

i listen to you tell me everything wrong in your life and i feel myself getting heavier, like instead of drying in the breeze, there's a sudden downpour and the clothes are once again dripping wet

you don't understand that i am frightened that every last word you say to me might be the last and if you leave, who will i be? i'll be a line without clothes, like a skeleton of what i could be. i would be a shell of a best friend, someone who once was who might never be again.

i am afraid that someday you will give me a piece of clothes that i cannot handle. you will give me a shirt so drenched and sopping wet that my twisted line of rope and flimsy wooden clips won't be able to hold it and we will both tumble down together with one gust of terrible wind

they say don't bite the hand that feeds you, and yet you run at me like a ravaged animal. you are never direct and yet every bad word you say against me hits in a precise way, like the blow of a punch only five minutes after your fist comes in contact with my face.

"difficult," was the word you used. "you are so difficult." was what you said to me when you knew it hurt, when you knew i couldn't cope with the thought of being a burden to even the flies. you called me difficult when i had every right to be as difficult as i wanted to be because this was my story, my secret, my reason for fear and yet you made it sound so simple, so easy, and so yours.

it was not yours to tell. it will never be yours to tell but you still act as if you will. you won't purposefully, but still sometimes i am afraid the wrong choice of words will come out of your mouth at the wrong volume and every human being in the world will know what i so desperately want to stay mine.

you tell me i'm your best friend but i feel more like your laundry line.

i think i have shed myself of you.
for years i felt you stirring inside of me like a caged animal,
spitting on stale bread to make it soft again, hanging up your underwear with clothespins on my small intestine,
so innocent and sweet and painful like
how a cavity forms.
i sat slow and bleeding like a ball jointed doll,
i wanted to press my thoughts into your skin like thumbtacks.
i wanted to feel your breath on my skin just once,
just once,
maybe once again just to be sure of the smell im destined to avoid and i
will never, ever, never not ever ever let you hurt me again because
some things can’t be forgiven and
some things will always be forgotten
whether you have a choice in the matter or not

I wrote a poem for you the other day
but ill never give it to you
just like i wrote you a letter everyday that i felt your memory swipe at my brain stem that month of june

you left foot prints when you walked out unknowing that i could follow you
but as time wore on the foot prints began to fade and you began to as well

Nevermind that

I have a thing for the tops of mountains
I like to stand on the hood of my car and let the wind chill my spine as i wait for the next thing to happen
we are always waiting for the next thing to happen

arriving like students on the first day of school
arriving like 1 a.m.
arriving like you never did

and at first I thought i could fix you  

I thought i could fix you when he threw me into that car
I thought i could fix you when he called me a ****
I thought i could fix you

and then i began to think that you were fixing me

but i dont think the grunting acknowledgement i got everytime i told you something from the darkest pit on the left side of my body is really considered fixing

it was just nice to say the nightmares out loud

I dissolved into a ****** wrapper in a landfill
cracked my ribs open and invited you in

sharks cant live in the air and we cant breathe in water

but i

i breathe you

And you touched me like i was acid
like i would burn your skin if your finger tips lingered too long

I wish, baby

cause then maybe we wouldnt have dragged it out this long
maybe then you would have run away like i did every time i closed my eyes

we were not human we were clothespins airing out our cloaks of emotions on the line

We were strung up like telephone wires fleeing one city for the next in hopes of a fresh start

I wrote yes on my forearm and no on my hand

I live in a dug-out hollow
I ride on a worked-out groove
Corpore hominibus alterorum
Dropping giant Clothespins

Hae res manuum
Little flowers
Balloons, sized instruments
Living in The Shire

It's so nice in the summer

We built a cute little habitat

Shame on us for being anything
But quaint, happy beings!

by the wind
sending whispers
under my dress
standing *****
the hairs on my skin

I wish I was untouched
by the needle’s eye
I can walk through now
that I'm not sewn blind

I wish I was untouched
by the grains of sand
the pendulum swinging
the two moving hands

I wish I was untouched
by the papers, I’ve seen
in the darkroom
how the red light burned
how they’re turned in the trays
hung by a clothespins
put on display

The mundane has become the new strange while the old strange is just a page ripped out of a journal burned years ago;
The ashes of which trace lines in a face it's taken years of one-sided mirror conversations to come to recognize as your own.
The past is a blanket that's been ripped off its clothespins by winds that blow across some place you can't remember living in.

It was never all that comfortable to begin with anyway.