Miss Cleves
(she dropped
the Mrs. when
her husband left)

stood by the doorframe
of the lounge,
dressed
in a flowery kimono,

which revealed more
than it concealed.
***** wants some milk,
she said.

Benedict looked around
at her from the sofa.
Percy will oblige
after his drink is drunk,

he said. Chopin’s
concerto no 2 oozed
from the hifi. He drained
his drink and followed her

into her bedroom.
Once Percy had obliged
and ***** been fed,
they lay abed.

She criticizing
his Marxism,
he her Scottish
conservatism;

she talked
of her husband’s betrayal
and ***
with air hostess

trollops,
Benedict half-listened
taking in
the ending

of the Chopin.
She talked of the poor
and the slums saying:
you can take

the poor out
of the slums,
but you can’t always take
the slums out

of the poor.
He raved
about the rich,
she scorned

the poor;
he talked revolution,
he pointed out Stalin
and Mao and the altars

of blood they brought.
Another drink? she asked.
He said yes
and she went off

to pour. He lay naked
on her bed wondering
what the priest would think
of him lying there

**** naked. He heard
the Chopin begin again;
she had thought of that.
Time to prepare, he thought,
once more to feed the cat.

I ran away w/ renegade, detached
                       minds as madness poured from lively veins
                       just around the next corner
                                          the next sunrise is coming back
& probably won’t fit in this doorframe –
windows will have to be thrown in these famously anti-famine
atomic streets:
                                    embrace strange days
                                    erase mechanical raised hands &
                                    photographs will be imprinted on our fingertips
                                    at the touch of
                                                            a
                                                                 button..

I’m spinning: these planetary, capillary eyes are rising & singing & reaching
              for a voice w/ a face for this moment as  I'm standing on these stargazing rooftops

never to be heard from again..

It leaves on a midnight search and seizure
to rehab in Arapahoe, Wyoming.
It leaves with grimy charcoal high top Converse
and a distasteful orange hunter-green flannel.
              Bloodshot eyed and strung out on residual
******* hidden in the inner brims of his precious nose,
It leaves fingers torn from the doorframe and without
saying a word to her for years.

It arrives a forgotten promise
clean-sobered with a rough pair of brimstone arms
and scarlett-feathered lips.
It arrives gently holding a wooden ring
dark carved in detox and an “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
              Apologizing thumbs nip tightly down the hem of her hips,
It arrives delicious and inviting like the scent of
fresh pasta on a hot alabaster plate.

It leaves, again,
high and full-bellied satisfied with the final use
of an old habit.
It leaves without a word of those whispered childhood
embraces on young October nights.
              Leather jacket in hand and Oxford shoes out the door,
It leaves — between the scent of
                                         laundried cotton and lavender sage candles —
It leaves
carrying in its dark pockets all her untreated, distasteful addictions too.


September 22, 2014 // 7:04 AM

A ruby suitcase emits egotism to a wicked one
who rests upon it like a vault of accomplishment.
Small snowdrops freckle a crows beak in December.
Autumn calls for keepsakes like a doll's dress
(A repressed memory)
Gifted to you by the Serendipitous Psychologist
who holds a Venetian mask to Her eye

(The forest retaining it's Summer form behind bare branched truth)

Jesus Christ is a child spotting the
street corner behind you
on the public transit.
He can create gold out of anything!
Including a shy abuse feeding off the heart of those we pass by.

Nothing is really estranged except for our perceptions.

A Monk inflates a BLACK BALLOON to float around
in an apartment with aged paint and
THIRTY TALL MIRRORS circling each side of the DOORFRAME.
Nobody knows why,
but he does this every day at 6 even when he's feeling
under the weather.

Laundromats are the most romantic place to meet somebody who shares the same infliction as you.

The drunk on the corner of Government St was here yesterday
and has vanished
(Their place to be is a match-strike away in any direction they hear it first)

I like to imagine the woman who lives across the hall from me has named her favorite potted plant or painting or
associated an object with a positive memory
(Perhaps a time she was in love)

The M O O N appeared the hue of harvest
yesterday, and I'm still burning.

Hummingbirds give advice to those who are open to listen.

Allen Ginsberg ate at my favorite restaurant,
one day I'll be placed where he sat,
writing poems and continuing a
legacy of sorts.
For those who are crazy enough to write their monsters down
so anyone can see.

Nothing but a straw man is itching the flesh of every false King and Politician.
I need a pungent flower to make them sneeze out the ******* of this
Nation
(We have amputated enough as is)

Another rural goddess steps off the bus and
some nights after an encounter like that
I watch the circus, wrapped in blankets,
laughing at the hypnotists until they laugh at me.
Arriving back home bewildered and confused.

Don't listen to ME, I haven't slept in WEEKS!
I suppose in some ways that makes me happier and more miserable
than you all.

Why can't people dream as vividly as dogs?

Do you think God can control the waterfall?
Can he stop it from rolling over that cliff and shattering into millions of pieces on the rocks below?
Everything's moving so fast
That push it needed
Can't be taken back

But then again God created the waterfall
I didn't create this
Maybe that means I have even less of control

God didn't create factories
Plastic

God is blissful
Possibly because he doesn't try to control the dying nebulas
He could do it
He just doesn't feel the need to
For some reason
The tsunamis crashed
They just had to
It had it's reasons
Or He did
Anyway

Maybe I could be blissful
Just let go
My heart tells me
And I want to
I resent every having grabbed it

Mother, Father
Why am I whipped
I can't lose anymore blood
I won't
I refuse to anymore
If I let you
I won't survive
And I'll hate you for it
Why do you want me to inherit your scars?

I didn't start it
It's not my fault
I tried
I really did
You never did, though
I won't ever feel guilty for that again
You brought this upon yourselves
But that wasn't enough
You felt that we should lose ourselves too

The ship's sinking
I'm leaving
Don't ever doubt that I would give my life for you
But what good would it be if you plan to set the house on fire, anyway?

I love you
Both
I'll miss you
But the sun's up there
Above the trees
I might even have to go scale the mountains
Head straight to the ocean
Someone else will probably be heading the same way too
I'll ask her to come with me
She'll say yes
When we get there
We'll wait for you

I'll tell her about both of you
The house where I lived
My heights are marked along the doorframe
My teeth lost in jars, somewhere
Our smiles caught on film
One day if we ever find it
I'll show them to her

The path we long ago made from the forest
Hasn't been crossed in years
The dust and dirt that formed it
Have been grown over by grass

I talked to the bears
You'll pass peacefully

The monkeys
Will show you the way

The wolves
They'll take you food for the long journey

They tell me there's nothing out of the usual with the forest
No one coming this way
It's a shame
I miss the both of you

Her and I
We're building our own family
We gave them unused names
They deserve to be themselves

We talk about you quite a bit
I even tell them stories, somtimes

In the morning
We eat
At noon
We swim
In the afternoon
We walk down the beach
And in the evening
We eat again and play hide-and-go-seek
Then we put them to bed
And me and her walk down the beach
It's beautiful, I wish you could see it
There's one point where the water's still
And the moon reflects perfectly on it
Then we go back
We fall asleep

And we happen to wake up
Usually when the sun's rising
The way the sky is yellow
It reminds me of you waking me up
Mother

And at times
When we go to bed
Early
The sun'll be setting
And the way the sky is a bit purple
It reminds me of you putting me into bed
Father

The other day I was thinking about why I liked both of them so much
And I figured I'd write it down
Then, if you ever got here someday
I'd remember to show you what makes me cry
It's something only she knows about

Don't worry
Though
I'll see you soon
Someday

The woman in the chair is not my mother.
Her eyes the same shade of blue, but sunken too far in;
Her skin too big for her bones and hangs like a sheet
             draped across her shoulders.
Her hair is sparse and scattered across her skull as though one puff of the wind might blow it all away,
her smile - weak, her lips dry and cracked
             stretched thin across her teeth.
The sound of her voice is familiar but soft, a whisper
echoing from somewhere deep in her hollow lungs
             as she calls my name.


This woman is not my mother.
Tubes snake out from beneath her oversized flannel shirt;
            I count six from where I stand stagnant in the doorway.
Pumping toxins from her body,
Draining life from her core
Stealing the woman I used to know, used to cling to.
She sits somber now, engulfed by the chair and the room and the noise
and the tears that flow silent from my eyes
As I sink to my knees against the doorframe
        and curse a god that I don’t believe in,
        in a life I no longer want.

I'll never be the best for you
I can't love you how I want to
I'm to afraid

Afraid of what I'm not sure..
Maybe I'm scared you'll hurt me
Or maybe
Maybe it's just intimacy that terrifies me

I've never felt more vulnerable
Than when I'm in your arms

Maybe I'm scared
Scared that I'll do it wrong
Am I enough to please you?
What if I'm no good?

I want to be your first
Your last
The best you'll ever have

The new intimacy will grow on me
You've seen inside my soul
I'm more open with you than a doorframe missing it's door
I've never been like this before
If I can open up to you
Why can't I explore
Our bodies too?

What makes me afraid?
Tell me you'll always be here
Permanent and strong
Like a great oak in the green forest

Promise me I'm safe here
Under your leaves of protection
Hide me from the world

Maybe it's society that makes me so scared
The standards if the world so strict

Hide me in your forest green
Keep me safe
This intimacy is new
I'm afraid
But not of you

What if I'm no good?
Can I be enough to please you

Will you be my first?
My last
The best I'll ever have

The Bronte Manor is for the timid possum of this world.
Not the classic women its name invokes,
A hotel for those who play dead.
Men cast out from homes or never reeled into them, in the first place.
At night, the marquee flashes  r nt  Ma o  

Empty beer bottles collect outside the front door,
A crystal chandelier lays heavy on the carpet of the foyer.
The concierge long ago replaced by a night-keeper,  
Who makes his living crossing out the days of men and
Keeping his blinders on to miss the man slumped over

On a couch of cotton candy purple, once the color of royalty.
With its back turned towards the plate glass window,
Cracked,
Split,
Covered in spit.

A lanky old man slinks sidelong through the crooked doorframe,
eyes heavy, unfocused.
He misses the wraith of his nameless neighbor, shadow by.
A body that has nested in the room next to his
for three thread-bare years.

They rent by the week,
but monthly at a discount, when they have it.
The silence lingers
broken only by the rattling of solitary doorknobs
and dead-bolts.

This is the poem where she stays.
This is the poem where her hand grazes
the doorknob, turns 45 degrees
then stops.
She stands still staring at a spot
just above the doorframe.
(What is that—a water stain?)
She bites her lip and waits;
listens
to your apologies stuck
like a lump in your throat.
And you watch her hand twitch
and you pray
that she doesn’t turn the doorknob
any further.

This is the poem where she turns around.
This is the poem where she gives
you an icy stare
but she stays; sits
in her favorite chair.
She crosses her legs and she waits;
listens
to your frantic explanations
about why you did what you did and
how you’ll never do it again.
And she wonders
if you really mean it.

This is the poem where you kiss her.
This is the poem where she doesn’t resist,
but doesn’t quite reciprocate.
She takes her bag back
to the bedroom to unpack
and you stand there and wait;
listening
to see if she starts putting her stuff away
where it belongs, or if instead
she puts the packed bag by the bed
incase she changes her mind.

This is the poem where you come home late
from work the next day.
This is the poem where she pushes you away.
She screams and makes threats
about the bag by the bed.
She’ll leave you—she swears it.
Just give her a reason.
You calm her down with words
like “I love you,” and “Trust me.”
****** forth your phone
“Call the office, if you must, babe.”
She walks towards the bedroom
and you stand there and wait;
listening
to see if you can hear the exact moment
when she stops loving you.

This is the poem where she leaves, anyway.
This is the poem where she doesn’t look back
as you beg and you plead
and grovel on your knees.
You paint a picture with your words
of your life before this.
How you wish it never happened!
“What if it never happened?”
She stops and she drops
her bag on the floor
She turns and she stares
at you in the door.
“You can’t change the past.
You can’t wish it away.
It’s just not that kind of poem, babe.
This is not the poem where I stay.”

I've been here before
I've knocked on this door
And now that it's open again I can't get it closed.
As I walk through the doorframe
of saddness and shame
I walk into a place that seems full of hate
This place is so dark, so lifeless and black,
it's an ongoing tunnel that makes me feel sad.
As I walk on and try to find a way out,
All the faces around me are full of judging thoughts and doubt.
This place is so cold.
I feel like I'm at the bottom of a well.
I've fallen into hell.
But when I turn for the door,
it is not that which I find.
It's the realization
that I'm inside my own mind.

we are monsters
from the boutique to the
embroidered throw pillows the
pen dashed around the neck
stage 5 bone cut
sawing ossification to the
hollow core

we are monsters
hooting in tunnels lined
with bats coming out to feast
creation
to scrape the streets
shimmy the walls
bust the coffin and
succckk

we are monsters
who can't enter under the
doorframe
fearful of being burned by
the sun silver stake
rat poison holy water sickle
and windmill ash

we are monsters
sewed stapled dead meat
skin hair plugs ceramic
teeth tested and tasted by
rats

we are monsters
jumping high over white
fences frenzied explosion
running through corn
angrily bled in a field shot and
hunted like embarrassing
waterfowl in the jaws of
mammalia

we are monsters
of flaming brilliance flashing
in your inbox
read us and gnaw
braised
roasted
grilled limbs
watch
as we watch you
be scared and
stab
I promise we don't die.

the sky over i-95 is violet, the color of the deepest bruise
like the one you actually remember getting, that eclipsed
all the little gray-green ones from
tripping over belgian blocks, and mismeasuring the distance
to the doorframe.
the sky over i-95 cannot hold water very long
and soon it doesn’t.

you look out the new-car window
silent windshield wipers and you remember
the other times it’s rained on your occasion
(with stinging peroxide sometimes, and
sometimes gasoline, when you had a match
in the glovebox,
but mostly water).

you never stopped liking the way the big trees swayed
in the not-quite-hurricane
or the deafening of the drops on the car’s aluminum backbone.
you used to trust they’d never fall, they’d never flood
the crashes you passed rubbernecking were never fatal
traffic would always clear
you’d never be late.

as you watch the oversized leaves support the waterweight today
you think how every bit of that is gone from you now
siphoned slowly and quietly but
unmistakably gone from you now
you think in matter-of-fact sentences because you are a grown-up:
“I do not trust the trees. I do not trust the raindrops.”

quieter you think
“I do not trust the future. I do not trust an empty building.
I do not trust the movie theater. I do not trust the ocean,
or the river. I do not trust water
when I can’t see the bottom.”

you get a little philosophical as you get hungry and the exit numbers get high
“I do not trust the highway. I do not trust me. I do not trust the curtains
to keep me safe when I sleep, and I do not trust waking to bring me morning.”

you think in matter-of-fact sentences because you are a grown-up,
but also because that’s how the thoughts come.
there’s something that you do trust
that’s enough to warm you as this unseasonable may
comes to a close.
you never stopped liking the way the big trees swayed
and you think how they might fall
but they haven’t yet.
you think how it’s kind of okay not to trust them:
you trust something else.

                                                   (pain is lucrative.
                                                   so is smiling.)

                 a female cardinal perches outside the window of
                 the room, just as you arrive to leave again
                 and you think how she's just as pretty as the
                 candy-apple-red male, though she's dark against the tree trunk

and when you’re back to celebrate the years since leaving
you might even trust that tree trunk
and the girlcardinal you have to squint to see

                                                   you might also trust morning, then,
                                                   and night.

meantime, the sky lightens:
sundrops while the rain comes loudly still.

The Lady Grace smiles down at me.
It's loving smile like no other
Brighter than stars and sun's
Beaming rays upon a child's face
As I smile back.
The smile of the lady grace lights my world.
Lady Grace lights her cigarette.

The Lady Grace smiles at me.
It's a loving smile like no other
Brighter than stars and sun's
Beaming upon her proud grandsons face
As I beam back.
I'm making strides in the world.
And she strides with me.
At her own pace.
The beam of the lady grace lights my world.
Lady Grace lights her cigarette.

The Lady Grace opened her eyes
She dragged herself off her side and propped herself up with her arm
She gasped for air.
She trained her eyes on me
Desperate and loving
Wishing to speak.
I look back.
Glazed to her pain.
She searches through.
I'm here for her.
Lady Grace lights her cigarette.

My eyes squint on the doorframe.
I drag myself to consciousness from dreams.
'your grandma is dead'.

Lady Grace left me today.
Her love and guidance vanished in the wind.
I light a cigarette.
And cry.

Sometimes the laughter rolls in waves up the spiral staircase, spilling through the cracks in the floorboards, the cracks in the doorframe, the cracks lining the edges of the ceiling. Someone once told me they imagined, as the years came and went through the house and each new tenant pasted and painted his nest in new shades of home, the rooms gradually getting smaller, closing in on their inhabitants. Sometimes I imagine the room getting smaller around me and sometimes it is my own body shrinking into the room, into the cloud of smoke that sometimes pools on my books and throws my mind back at me from their pages.

They are dying, she is dying,
I pray that she does, but I don't want to watch.

The door was barred, perhaps from letting life in,
or maybe letting death out.

Down the hall all the doors are open, and decomposition hits you,
in all its stages like a film reel.

Her room was by the dying one, my ears perched along the doorframe
and listened.

She was like a prophet, and upon her altar she screeched,
"DIE...DIE...DIIIIIIE!" I think she is right.

The passage continues and all around the images are swept,
left under soiled carpets and linens, hundreds of them.
They carry the dead away, but the scent lingers like cheap perfume,
a priceless perfume.

There's that silence again, the one I like you know? Yes, it covers your head like the goodbye sheets.
Objects get wider and clearer, life is ****** into a needles eye,
the view is breathtaking.

It's simple; breathing is simple, even on that machine its oh so simple.
That's how you live and tell your stories to the people on the television show because they have the time to listen.

There is no one else here. Except me, watching you and waiting.
I can't stay here with you. I have to share my visit with those running out on their clocks.

I know you see me when they give you your medicine,
somewhere between awake and asleep.
I'm glad you don't turn away, so many of you turn away.

Mildred two doors down said goodbye, she was a hard case.
I came and she cried, she cried some more and then she gurgled.
She heard me collect her memories and she said she understood.
A smile before her eyes rolled back forever.

Today is special for you Tom, you and I have gotten to know each other.
I am going to miss the way you welcomed me in, just like a star.
You are one of the bright ones, and you faded slow.
Those silly screens are messing up our act, Tom.

The ladies are running past me, they don't even see.
They are trying to keep you going with life you don't need.

I saved you til' the end, and right along the breeze,
I hear you thanking me.

The hum of a wistful soul reverberates
Like a voice full of fading
Memories and forbidden times,
Set upon the backdrop of this
Familiar building that’s been
Reclaimed, stolen and scuffed
By the rage of change like a solemn
Plea from God that begs not to be
Forgotten.

Leaves of orange atop its roof,
Spindles of spider’s silk scaling
Its dents and cracks that have
Been painted, glossed over to
Hide from the sky what I took
From it, to shield from
The world what it gave
To me, to block from view how
It's aged with me, to
Cast away how it stood by me
And my swollen red eyes, beside
My ****** shins and stinging wet
Tears, next to my little arms
And glistening pupils that now have
Broken the once-kept promise
That I’d stay with it forever.

I remember the sunny spring days,
Lying upon the bright green grass
Littered with transparent droplets
Of rain, the pitch-black nights lined with
Glistening stars above the roof littered
With mahogany-brown shingles, the
Peace-laden ecstasy of nothing
Happening, the sky weeping, the
Sweet scent of flowers and fresh
Leaves fluttering across the clear
Blue sky reflected in the white-washed
Windows, and the crimson rose buds
That, for some reason, wanted
To keep wilting.

The sun now reflects brightly off
The blood-red doorframe and illuminates
The lively yellow walls painted corpse
Gray, brightens the unwashed greenhouse
Filled with brown, forgotten plants I used
To water, makes incandescent the
Rusty bicycles that sit within the
Musty white garage that was once
Where I stored my water guns
And leather baseball mitts
And aspirations I swore I wouldn’t
Relinquish.

Now the booming of metal hammers
Echoes toward the thick forest behind its
Ivy-green fence, and the bark soaks up
The sound like a love-deprived
Black hole yearning for purpose,
Begging to be filled by something
Other than the ever-present stains of
Pollen and neglect adorning the face
Of the ink-stained shutters.

I often wonder if time can be turned
Back, if grandfather clocks can swing
Their gleaming silver pendulums
Toward what’s gone, wonder if I can
See once again my mitten-clad hands
Gliding across the snow-kissed
Backyard, beside the pockmarked trees
That have since collapsed and
Crawled toward the ground and broken
Into the soil, and I often wonder if,
Just once more, I can see my tiny
Footprints atop the sun-drenched patio,
And that I’ll be able to say,

This home was, is, will be my resting place,
Shielded by the trees so high above . . .

My legs carry me mindlessly through the white-washed walls of the intensive care unit. I am stuck in a labyrinth in which there is no end, there is merely alcoves on either side which take you even further into the maze. Nurses with faces as pale as their uniforms pass me like zombies, their minds calculating numbers on charts which directly correlate to a list of symptoms that equate to something less than diagnosable. I am nothing more than a distant shadow in their busied brains.
Unknowingly, I begin counting the rooms after I pass through the double doors, remembering that yours is the ninth on the right. My heart rate steadily increases, no longer in tune with the clicking monitors that surround me like locusts, calling out to those just as alive and lonely.
I rest my hand on the doorframe of room number ninety-four as I attempt to collect myself. Just as I inhale a deep breath, my vision blurs and every emotion I have (until now) successfully shoved into the deep recesses of my chest now rises up my stomach and into my mouth. I press my lips together, holding back the bile that has taken up unwanted residence on my tongue. Warm tears squeeze their way out from behind my eyes as I swallow it back down, suppressing it once more. I attempt another deep breath, and another, until I realize I am unable to procrastinate any longer.
I hear the rustling of stiff sheets and the slight give of a hard mattress. You're awake.
I clear my throat softly, wanting you to be aware of my presence, although I am certain that the heartbeat that reverberates my eardrums must have given me away miles ago.
A white curtain hangs from the tiled ceiling, held up by metal clamps looped around a pole for easy accessibility and I can't help but wonder if that pole would be strong enough to hold me. But just as I begin planning what sheet and what knot I would use around the pole, I step into view of you.
My hand is pulled to my lips like a magnetic force that is out of my control as I take in the sight of you. Your left eye, which once shone a more brilliant blue than the clear waters of the Caribbean, is now bloodshot and swollen. The left side of your head is bandaged and half of your pale blonde hair is shaved down to your bruised scalp. Your lips, which were once so thin and precious, are now bloodied and blown-up like red balloons. Your bones jut out from beneath your skin, as though your collarbone is rejecting you and begging to be freed. Down your arms I notice the scabs and scars and marks from unsuccessful attempts to hook you to an IV. But there is more than just one bag hanging beside you, and I realize that the other is Morphine.
I take a step closer to you, waiting for your eyes to flutter open like they did so many mornings when I'd wake you with your favorite breakfast (two plain pancakes and a cigarette). Your head tilts slightly to the right but your eyes remain closed. I take another small step, and another, until my waist is just inches from the seemingly disjointed hand hanging limply from the edge of the bed. I reach out and press my shaking fingertips to the hard palm that faces me, hoping for your hand to turn and clasp around mine, silently accepting my every apology.
But your hand remains stiff against my touch.
I memorize the new lines on your hand, the crescent-shaped bruises on your palm and the shallow scratches on the back of your hand where I pressed my lips more times than I could ever possibly count. I trace my way up your arm, my fingertips traveling over the hills of your veins, a familiar territory, and the streams of tubes filled with fluid, an uncharted area. Just as my hand begins the climb up your forearm and into the crease of your elbow, I feel your arm move. But rather than moving towards me, an invitation to venture even closer, it is pulled away from me, a protest.
I take a step back and inhale a deep breath, feeling the rush behind my eyes again, as I notice your right eye is now looking right at me, into me. I search the depths of your gaze in the hope that I will resurface with a strand of hope or affection that I can hold on to for the rest of the day, but I come up empty-handed. All that I can find in your eyes is a direct reflection of the pain that both your heart and body are enduring.  
"I'm so, so, so-"
But before I can even begin to utter my sincerest of apologies, your hand is held inches above the mattress, silencing me. I dive into your eyes again, deeper and deeper, realizing that if I can't find any form of redemption, then I'd rather just drown in them. But you **** me back to reality with only two words.
"Please leave."
I feel the tidal wave crash into my chest as I take another step back.
My worst fear has been realized - you don't want me here.
Suddenly every argument, every fight, every "I'm sorry," every "you don't mean that," every "I love you," every "don't say that," was another wave throwing my helpless body against the cliffs and coral reefs. I am lifeless, my body thrashed beyond recognition, my heart ripped to shreds.
Tears gather behind my eyes and burst through, falling upon my cheeks as though the depths that I have drowned in have finally consumed me.
I reach out once more, my shaking hand yearning for the touch of your skin.
But you pull your head from me, wanting nothing to do with me.
An earthquake shakes my chest and threatens to pull me in half as I backpedal out of the room, temporarily getting wrapped up in the white curtain that I had admired just minutes before.
The rush returns to my head and I can no longer see anything but frothy waves that continue to pull me under, and I can no longer hear anything but the sound of water filling my ears.
My shoulder connects with a sturdy boulder and I fall to the ground, collapsing into nothing more than a puddle, the aftermath of the hurricane that has wrecked my body, and you are no longer able or willing to save me.

I.
I lift my eyelids.
plipliplip.
The rain invites me to play.
Her cold fingers curl around the doorframe,
"Come on, come sing again! Sing, just like you used to!"
She burbles gleefully.
"Come on, old friend.
We used to be ballerinas, whirling and laughing.
We used to be one
one and the same."
Her fingertips inch through my solid oak door.
I frown and shove the door closed
throw down the lock
yank my curtains closed
Closed to the scent of moss
to the wail of the wind
to the percussion of the weather.
(I prefer the smell of coffee
the sound of silence
of security.)
"I used to be a lot of things," I call.
"But then I grew up."

II.
She knocks at my door.
Again. (memories are persistent.)
Teasing me with her calm voice
whispering lofty and cool.
I sigh
begrudgingly I follow
sliding into my raincoat
tugging up the hood
drawing the string tight around my jaw.
She dances in watery windchimes
sluicing across the slick sidewalk,
she pirouettes
leaps
beckons for me to follow.
My galoshes are not as forgiving as toe shoes; I trip.
I reach out my hand tentatively
curiously
feel a cold ***** of water slide down my index finger.
Icy. Biting.
I gasp and flick it off.
The world is a box of watercolors
but all smeared together in shades of earth.
Shadow, cornflower, lilac, mud
muddy colors I identify straight away.
They bring a smudgy comfort
a hesitant nostalgia.
I feel a note catch in my throat
like trapping a dragonfly in a glass jar.
It flits violently to escape,
but I dare not let it out.
It is sunny under my umbrella.

III.
Late late night
midnight and a half (to be exact.)
I hear her call
frosting my windows with condensation.
I etch into my foggy breath,
feeling the panes hard against my pale skin.
"Come." says her voice.
"Listen--" I protest.
"Live." urges her whisper.
So I fling back the door
let the coolness trickle down my head.
Silver bullets sparkle in the moonlight
I tilt my face towards the crystal beads,
watch them pour across my face.
I shake my flimsy nightgown
sodden with tears never shed.
I twirl, laughing across the yard.
"Old friend, how I have missed you!"
The rain calls to me.
My tears melt with hers
tumbling down my neck.
My words burst forth, a crescendoing horn
swelling across the rooftops
resounding to the deepest roots of the trees.
"I don't want to grow up."

The other night you reached up to the sky for me
And pulled down a handful of stars
To keep in my pocket
You gave me the North star on a silver band
To always show me the way home
To remind me that home is wherever I’m with you
You gave me the key your dead-bolted heart
And I will carry it with me everywhere I go
On a string around my neck
Or in my pocket full of stars
So as not to let it slip through the
Sidewalk cracks of my hands.

I used to see the stars from my window every night
And send my thoughts across the reservoir to you
Like the winds that blow water into waves
Tears welling up over the spillway
Pouring over onto cold cement
Pounding like my beating heart
A storm in a teacup
A tempest inside this body of water
Inside this body of mine
And with each ebb and flow it swells
Knowing so well this whirlwind of feeling
Spinning tipsy through my soul
A gentle hurricane, a familiar flooding
Of safety and contentment and longing and warmth
Rocking me to sleep when I can’t
Curl up in your arms.

They say that all the bodies of water on this earth are blue
Because they reflects off the color of the sky
So I went down to the reservoir
With my pocket full of stars,
The ones you picked out just for me, and
Set them free, one by one,
On the waters’ edge with
Wishes tied to their backs in the hopes
That they’d make their way
To the night sky above our wondering heads
In the hopes that they’ll shine beyond
The milky light of the moon
That creates a film across the darkness
With the promise that I’ll carry your heart with me
When we part ways for the night.

These days when I lay down to sleep
My ceiling’s full of holes from fallen stars
That I’ve wished back into place
But didn’t give enough time to grow
Their roots back into the sky.
I wake up with stardust in my sheets,
Empty space where your body should be
And the water from the tap just isn’t as blue
As the reservoir’s on a clear day
And the city lights stay on too long
Keeping me from seeing the stars
When I look out my window at night.
But I still keep the key to your heart
On a string around my neck,
Resting just above my own beating vessel.
And I still wear the North star on my ring finger
To lead me home again.

For now I am your latchkey kid
Sitting on your front steps
With the key to your heart slowly
Growing warmer in my grasp
Knuckles white from mid-October wind
Rushing through my jacket.  Here I sit
Watching dusk stretch it’s hands across the sky
Looking for the pocket full stars that I set free
Waiting patiently for you to come back
And show me the little tricks to
Unlocking the door to your heart,
The way you have to turn it just a hair to the right
And push against the doorframe
An un-exact science I haven’t mastered yet.

I can picture you now, behind your counter
Selling liquid stardust in pretty little bottles
Packaged painkiller in a clever disguise
I imbibe in the hopes that stars will fall
At my feet to grant me one last wish.
And at night when you return from the closing shift
Smelling like hard work and strangers’ *****
Find me on your front steps, shaking in the cold
You take my hand in yours, guide the key
Watch it do its job, the hardest worker
Letting me into your tired arms
Where I can feel your beating heart
Crash into mine like waves.
We’ll sit here on your front steps for awhile
Watching the stars slowly float away from each other

In the reservoir of the sky.

god-like fingers
I could kiss you
twice in a lifetime

god-like feature
I want to see you
in my doorframe
4 am

god-like lips
I can hear you
almost say
what I wish for

god-like eyeballs
saturn ringing
bells on my own
holy chapel

god-like flavour
can I taste it?
just a sip of
you perfect soul

turn the weather
turn me over
turn the table
make me stutter

you're everybody and everyworld to me

“hey” is the only thing you say
pressing your hand against the doorframe 
and leaning in
looking past me as if you would see anything different, but it's all the same
nothing has changed except maybe you and me
and whoever decides to fill my body next
the chain on the door covers your eyes
 and i can't help think about how different you look
like a stranger; one i wouldn't expect to meet me 
at my threshold with groceries in a brown paper bag
now, of course, you only bring me a heart 
and say it's nothing

“hey” is the only thing i say, 
unlatching the chain, and letting you inside
 like i'm letting you drip down my throat
i busy my hands with the locks,
 the locks i put there, at first, to keep you in, and then, eventually, to keep you out
but now it seems, to anybody watching this exchange between our worlds,
like i put them there 
to keep my back turned to you, 
to avoid you while you spread out on the couch 
and let all your dead-eyed visions collect on the coffee table

“hey” is the only thing you say
when you notice the missing ash tray,
the one you used to use as a church,
where each burnt shell was an empty prayer,
and each smoke tendril was a hand to send it up to heaven
now it's just a black spot engrained in the wood
now you're just a black spot engrained in the wood
some things did change, i guess, but nothing as much as the two of us.
i remember when our old bodies fit together so well,
and how they rested so easily right where you’re sitting
i remember when i shared that smoke with you and helped you send it up to wherever you wanted it to go
i want to talk to you about that smoke, now, among other stupid, half-symbolic things that i'm not entirely sure you’d understand or even remember,
but i don't. instead i finish with the locks, which are also stupid and symbolic, and spread out next to you on the couch
i wish i had my own dead-eyes visions to unload next to yours, but then i remember that i left all of mine
somewhere inside of you

“hey” is the only thing i say, and sometimes, its the only thing i can say.

hurry up and get here
fill my doorframe
with your big frame
and i'll jump up with a little squeal
to let you fill me

When I told my therapist I was doing better, she asked what was working
"It helps to focus on the future," I said.
"And the Benadryl. The Benadryl helps a lot."
And turning the fan on too high, and leaving all the lights on until seconds before I fall asleep
In high school, I performed a poem about a girl telling her therapist about a vision
This doesn't feel like that
When I said somebody else's words, I always felt the anticipation, and the relief,
And the words being held back because you don't want the person who knows you're crazy to think you're crazy
This doctor mirrors me
Echoes the disappointment I feel in myself
I went home and called my mom:
She said it will take awhile to find someone I feel I can trust, and I said
"Yeah, I know,"
As I sat alone in my bedroom in my silent apartment with no friends to call
It's getting late, and I remember what my therapist said about the Benadryl
You can't drown things out by sleeping through them
The side effects shoot through my skull like walking into the same doorframe every morning
I don't usually stay up this late
They sell two brands at my small town drug store
The pharmacist knows me by the way I know exactly what I'm looking for
She said she was worried about me when I came less often
But I had just stopped taking antidepressants
I "didn't need to anymore."
I "had my life planned out."
Now, it's been three days since I did any dishes and three weeks since I've washed my clothes
I've been wearing the same workout shorts and Doctor Who tshirt on all of my little outings for days
I'm drinking lukewarm water from a mug and I'm fascinated by the little rings made by the oil in my chapstick
Some people call it agoraphobic but I call it safe
My therapist asked me if running was helping and I said
"Yes. While I'm sill running."
I learned as a kid that you can't run forever, but God I tried
I once ran until I fell over at the end of a road and had to call my parents for help
(I showed her the bruises)
I only just learned to sleep with my window open
I used to send my friend terrified messages at two in the morning
I don't think he was thoroughly convinced of the utter horror I felt when all he saw was the word "crickets"
But I am an expert Jeopardy player.
My therapist asked if trivia games make me feel better and I said
"No. Because sometimes I get a question wrong and I realize I haven't been working hard enough."
"The only thing I'm really confident of is that I'm not working hard enough"
I wrote that in my diary, after eight hours of classes and six hours of studying
I got dressed up for a dance I didn't go to
I ran out of Benadryl yesterday
So I'm still up a three thirty in the morning but that's alright
My therapist promised I'd be better off without it.

Pattern the ice with
your collarbones.
Showers of lavender
hidden in your hiking boots.
Hang stamps from your doorframe,
the snow will melt someday.
The taste of words
bounced out of your mouth
last Sunday evening.
Shrugging off the sun
from the duck pond
to the sand
caught between your sock
and shoe.
I’ve been memorizing
deep breaths
and the way hair curls.
The keyboard knows your
v-neck and
the cocoa powder park.

Strong perfume can’t
be appreciated
under the milky way.
I fixed blue green eyes
on New Year’s,
one side of the
collared shirt turned in,
steam rolling hair and
too much straw.

Old shoes
filled with cinnamon
sit on 4:17pm
with an unmade bed
of sour green vertebrae.
The city at night,
a crescendo,
explodes in silence,
hot tea and warm mugs
tuning campfires
built from matches.
Thursday sunrises
balancing on wool sweaters
and the smell of fabric softener.
The early morning
hurricane over worn wood and
wet pavement
sounds of winter.
The snow’s just trying
to be human.

Sometimes I just want to close my eyes
feel the sun, bathe in the moonlight

I thought I saw you on the freeway
Looked back to see a stranger's eyes
staring back at mine

I feel your heat in the morning
I press my palm to your back again
If only you were breathing
I wish I could stop this sneezing

Cover your body with the comforter
wash the linens, empty the dishwasher
It's easier cooking for two
Ceramic bowls for me and you

It's so cold when the wind blows
over the clumps of ice and soft, heavy snow
packed hard around the doorframe now
not much reason for me to get out

I still see you looking back at me
when the screen goes black on TV
I don't recognize myself

I pulled the carpet up out of the floor today
exposed the stained, cracked wooden boards
and I thought about how we'd roll around
to the sounds of old records on the ground

The walls are bare and my hands are numb
I tiptoe around thoughts of my old gun
to these charred, heavy logs I'll succumb

Leave me to the ashes, bring me back to you
Let the fire exhale and breathe me life anew.

Sun-dried moss
hangs in clumps
from the eaves trough.
Morning dew glittering
in the dawn.
The floorboards,
covered in peeling
gray-blue paint,
crackle and creak
beneath my bare feet.

My joints feel rusted,
and my eyes don’t see
as far as they did before.
Before all that happened
happened.  
My hand on the doorframe
is alien to me.
But it moves when I ask,
so it will have to do.

I stagger through
the warm porch,
where a soft,
sweet-smelling breeze
drifts in through
torn metal screens
and cracks in the
rickety door.
I open it as quietly
as I can.
There is only me here,
but I like the quiet.

Three wooden steps
down to a gravel drive
that passes side to side
out front.  
Bare feet,
too well-worn to
feel the stones,
tip-toe across
to the rough,
brown-green grass.  
My feet are wet
now, and
when they find
the sand just beyond
the patch of grass,
it clings.
I scrunch up my toes,
digging, until I find
the cool, dry
layer below.

The lake is clear,
and the soft rustle
through the pine trees
along the shore
reminds me again of years
gone by.
Sticky fingers,
covered in sap,
pine needles sticking
between my toes,
and scrapes on my shins
that hurt back then,
but sing sweetly in my memory.

I sit on the little beach
between the trees,
crossing my legs,
and plunge my hands
beneath the sand.
Peace.

And what a joy,
to be here
and feel it
in the coarse sand,
the cool caress of morning breeze,
and the utter
silence of the still lake.  

Have I come so far,
to wish for so little?
Have I lost something
along my way?
The anger has faded,
and in its place
sits a quiet resolve.
The games they play,
I’ve long since lost,
but finding myself here,
I wonder if I’ve not
come out ahead.

The water calls to me.
I may visit her soon,
once I’ve had my fill
of sand.  
The wind grows bolder,
and the pines whistle.
A loon calls out,
somewhere unseen.
I wonder if today I’ll
climb that same tree
from so long ago.
Wonder if it has held
its form better than I,
and which may break
a limb first.

I smile,
because I know
it’s foolish,
and the beach is so
soft beneath me.
Warm and yielding.
But oh,
the sweet,
stinging memories.

I'm just dizzy.
Spinning like a ferris wheel at roller coaster speed I'm spinning faster faster faster and there you are and there you aren't I need you but you aren't here anymore you won't be you never will be were you ever? Swirling tornado shake me up a little more and maybe I'll spin right out of this mess and roll out like a red carpet affair and be ready for you. Be ready like laced shoes at your doorframe or my pillow bed of feathers and love and our scent but no. my load isn't done washing and don't try to set me out to dry because the soap in my pockets of skin will only leave my skin dry to snap crackle pop and blister in these dangerous days of blazing candles over head and new and old lovers hiding in every shaded nestled spot where the wax is still hot but the candle fire doesn't quite reach just like you haven't quite reached me where I'm up here climbing so high limb by branch by twig by peg by hole in the wall that gets me higher and higher but stop spinning me in this silo so I can get down and put my feet on the ground I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't want to fly yet I told you I did but I wasn't finished as a caterpillar down here but then everything seemed so catatonic no shoes by the doorframe no air or candles or paths just swirls and spins and tossing our places we shared and turning our intimate moments paired and twirling it like a ball on my finger tip to show off my talent of controling a situation that not so secretly is controling me puppet your way over here my dear the strings attached and so easily they enjoy the shame and the selfish beast at feeding time where it doesn't matter anything but territory and well you crosed mine so I clawed and bit at yours thrashing like an animal sickly enjoying everything I used to fear and becoming a monster slowly inside. Brewing and boiling up from these candles and spinning too abrupt stop mixing the concoction before it's done don't let me be done don't let my fumes out they're toxic and yet you lock yourself inside the garage of myself and rather suffocate you take me in with each inhale and each exhale I'm no longer. I come in and transfer to dissipate and find nothing but small particles of myself foggy in air too small to do anything like the ant in the treed army of grasslettes. You just don't get it but I don't either. I don't know if I ever will.

I scarred the paintchips on a doorframe,
making my way through,
with wicker baskets of fresh cut
                         wine-white flame;
jutting, into that summer,
ready to empty my pockets
      of the careful pressure
  I'd built up behind ribs,
for a heart:
once in hand,
  beating and dreaming, alive,
like that wind I'd cherished,
   for its consistent transparency.

so, you,
  under the ocean of sheets, engulfed and over it,
and, I, well,
   I was wrong.
   I lost the match, to bled-green stares out of river stone eyes.

I was on your porch, it took seconds,
   a mere shadow, incarnate momentarily,
as
     the world derobed, curtain pulled back,
and bitter realization
           fell, like a single leaf, or a storm.

Left,
to stand by, and watch the feathers drop,
as that
   flock of birds,
    torn wider than the midland prairies,
                                 made patterned migration,
leaving my hands, cupped
and empty, same
  as I had started out,
   when I'd coursed the same mistake of
     letting the rain in,
      when I'd already drowned,
        time after time
          after time,
           before.