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.

I wonder how I got here, secluded in a grimy apartment filled with smoke. We drink gin and tonics with mint like it’s the ‘20s; we sit and talk pop culture because we know. Taj has somehow become the effective authority on all of these things, paid to social network and connected to Hollywood; he’s very skilled at playing to people’s wants. My Cadillac sits intent next to me markering in a recent drawing for his newest class. He’s already famous for his graffiti, one day I’ll bet you this extra credit project will be worth money. He drew me a fox for Christmas. Valentines day is coming up. He never tells me he loves me. Jack is watching me watch him out of the corner of his eye while putting on a new remix of an old song. He leans over and asks if I like it and I nod. I feel bubbled up with *** smoke, frozen in time and vaguely uncomfortable. I’d guess this is what it’s like to be “too high.” I want Caddy to notice, but it’s Jack that’s pushing my hair back and telling me to drink more water. It’s sweet. Despite his need to be seen as a womanizer, Jack respects Caddy too much to even try with me, he looks but he doesn’t put on any faces for me. Everyone thinks so hard about how they’re seen.
Jack says his New Year’s resolution is to do less *******, even though no one asked. Everyone hears but no one reacts. I try to keep moving my toes and stop shivering. Across from me Ky and Nate are reading the encyclopedia in open-mouthed awe. In a room full of intellectual up and comers I feel like Hemmingway did when he was my age, how all the minds gravitate to each other and sit in a ***** room by the beach and let the creativity go. Like Mary Shelly and the whole gang writing Frankenstein and Dracula in the same trip.  After a while I think Taj is going to make it, Jack will be a politician and Caddy will be lost and with another woman. Ky and Nate will still be smoking and reading the encyclopedia, all the way down to ‘z’. I am like my mother: attracting the company of smart successful men who pay her selective attention.
The door burst open and the cold air stayed in my pores after it was closed. Rodger invited himself over. It would have been all right but when Rodger is wasted he forgets his manners. In his animated state he managed to kick over Caddy’s favorite smoking piece, insult Jack and look at me a little too hard. His girlfriend had immediately passed out on the couch, but she never smiled or spoke to me anyway. Her head was cradled in the lap of a girl I hadn’t noticed. Her hair was perfect and her eyes shadowed, the liner and mascara smudging its way slowly onto her high cheekbones. She stared at me but didn’t speak. I tried to smile, but didn’t want to give away the champagne sensation covering my skin, still too up to speak. She had already formed her opinion of me, some young ******* the arm of an older boy. She was once in my position, I’m sure of it, we are the same kind of beautiful and empty eyed. That doesn’t stop her from judging, in the total of 15 seconds she looked at me. Her self is tamed and mine is wild still. Unintroduced and unnoticed by the men in the room, we have an understanding and a mutual dislike of each other, only to defend ourselves.
The room takes time to settle, a bowl has been packed for an entitled Rodger, and now that everyone is calm, Cad sits back down and puts his arm around me again. I lean into him, protected and anchored, whereas I had been floating or about to puke a minute ago. I don’t know what I said but Caddy seemed annoyed when he said “Just let it happen, embrace the feeling,” and so I kept quiet for ten minutes or so. The high was infected with guilt. Next time he looked at me-- it could have been an hour—I whispered, “I can’t” and finally he heard me, and stood up.
Cad came back into my vision with a glass of water and turned on Drive, prompting Rodger, Mrs. Rodger and my pretty enemy to leave. Ky and Nate had gone long before I could focus on noticing. Taj left for trivia night down at the bar and no doubt some girl; wrapped up in a cashmere scarf and cardigan he kissed my cheek before he went. Jack also took his graceful leave with the Rodger group to woo some girl who knew exactly what she was doing to herself. He did have a straight nosed charm, Jack. I could not blame this girl, one of many (I am embarrassed for her; I have been like this ******* many occasions).  
Taj had been sent the advanced copy of Drive in blu-ray, so we snuck it from his room and watched it that way (the only way Taj would see movies now, it is the future (for now)). Kavinsky came through Cad’s new speakers the boys had spent half an hour trying to wire earlier in the night. “They’re taking about you boy/but you’re still the same” crooned Lovefoxxx as Ryan Gosling cruised down a street, ****** intense in driving gloves. Gears shifting and motors growling are very ****, I tell Cadillac so into his ear, as he pulls me into his arms and covers me up with a blanket.
The movie was perfect, maybe because it made me feel less dizzy and sickguilty (Cad knew it would) and maybe because Ryan Gosling can wear a white satin jacket. I loved it, hardly noticing when the absent roommate Travis strolled in with Taj and tacos somewhere around 2am.  Colder as Caddy got up for a burrito, left me alone on the couch for the kitchen table. Registering Taj taking his place, playing with my curls and talking Hollywood to me. I’m staring over at Cad in his chair, he makes eye contact once or twice and I blow him a kiss before Taj repositions my head toward the television and my ear back where he can speak into it.
Eventually Cadillac taps Taj on the shoulder and motions for him to get up. With Cad back I can relax and I fall into sleep just as the movie ends. Taj and Trav have gone to their own beds and Cad leans over me, picks me up and takes me to bed knocking my elbow on the doorframe along the way. He apologizes and kisses my head but I am too tired to care. He lays me down on the bed with crimson sheets and takes off my boots but then sternly says, “Mimi, you are not a child.” and so I must get up and undress myself. He wraps me in a duvet missing its cover and his arms. I trust him long enough to fall asleep.

-

Standing in front of the stove it was hot, but I am easily overheated. He came up behind me and said in my ear, “you’re lovely” watching me put the last piece of French toast on the large stack, getting ready to scramble eggs. He kissed my cheek. Then my neck and then my lips, taking me away from my cooking to be pulled against him, for a sweet short minute and went back to the living room with his friends. Jack had mysteriously reappeared in the night; he said he locked himself out of his apartment after leaving to see one of his girls. Taj just sat and blasted Radiohead over the new speakers, shouting something relevant at me. I scramble the eggs and make up plates, two pieces of toast each and a nice healthy pile of eggs. It is gone very quickly and no one says thank you, except for a smile from Caddy and a kiss on the forehead. It’s usually enough for me, knowing he likes to show me off to his friends. I sit down with my cup of coffee and plate, within a few minutes Cad suggests he takes me home. I resentfully take time to finish my coffee. But we are both busy and he is right, so I say goodbye to the boys and gather my things. We drive with the “best MC on the game these days” (so I am told) over the weak speakers of the car. Cad drives with his arm around me always. Cruising into my building’s parking lot I lean over for a kiss on my forehead, nose, lips. He says go, but his hand still sits on my shoulder so I stay for a little longer. “You’ll probably have to let go of me if it’s time for me to go Cad,” I say quietly, with a tentative smile on my face. He grins back and lifts his arm. I slide out of the suicide seat and smile at him, but he’s looking at the radio dials. Then my face. His eyes give him away, softened around the edges with affection. Maybe love, but he’d never say it and I refuse to say it until he does. I try not to think about it much as he drives away to smoke up again with his friends. I wonder if this is how it will always be, but then I realize our kind of “always” is only the next few months. I turned unsteadily and walked up the stairs to my empty room—dark and overheated smelling heavily of sugar and spice candles-- with the geese outside my window for company. I haven’t slept here for days.

I've been painted pink the instant the doctors
Wiped me of red.
I looked like the boys I knew - our differences a
Color palette provided by Mommy and Daddy.
I was their little girl, their princess who wished
Her hair would stop growing,
Lest she be locked in a stone tower.
I didn't mind the dress so much then,
Not when it was the only difference between me
And them.

Magic mirror before me, is wrong all I'll ever be?
I shut my eyes, unable to stand my body bare.
My knight, your skin simply is not right.
I've read the mirror never lies.

Mommy and Daddy are yelling
About my butch haircut.
Our little girl the ****, they say.
I did it myself.
Mommy still buys me dresses,
Daddy tells her to spend the money on
Therapy instead.
Daddy asks about boyfriends,
Mommy tells him I don't have any because I
Hide my *******.
I tell them I'm all wrong.
They agree.
We're talking about two different things.

I don't change for gym anymore.
The girls are secretly relieved I won't be there
To cast a wandering eye in their soft bodies.
I'm relieved I won't be in the wrong locker room.

Mommy and Daddy don't like me
Telling them who I am.
I've finally found my way out of the tower and
The king and queen are upset because their
Princess never made it home, just the knight.
My little girl, Mommy cries.
I follow the point of Daddy's finger to the door
Until I'm on a bus bound for somewhere else.

I shift from Pangea into separate pieces.
Finally I have space to breathe.
Needles, knives, pills bend my body to my will -
It took Michelangelo three years to build David.

Mommy and Daddy believe me to be
A delivery man. They are expecting to sign off
On a television set, yet when they see me
Idle in the doorframe there is a hesitance, a hope.
But most of all there is silence.
Mommy cannot speak, her hand curls like a gasp
Around her mouth.
Daddy begins to cry, his eyes pale and blue.
I am hugged.
They don't say sorry, but I hear then whisper.
My little boy, they say. My little boy.

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."

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.

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.

“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.

Cracks in cover let
Sun in hits like
Bullets

Unwrapped window
Gives solar epiphany
To cocooned child

Flee fluorescent,
Flee faux verve
Doorframe: portal
Extra-terrestrial
World through eaves
Like bug zappers
See-through walls
Most envious glass
****** passage

Cold shoulder, concrete, masonry
Phosphenes gleaming, staggering
Hotfoot, addled eyes
Inverted wavelengths
Gravel clinging, unwise
Scrutinized steps to grass
Great big sigh
Saluting sky
With micro pupils
Torrid shell
Swollen locks
Rejoice

Westside: Central Avenue
Pack up, load up
Truckpower to State Street
Beer, veggie dogs
Corn-on-cob
Bag-of-fruit
Checkout scandal

Three-in-the-front
State to thirty-three
Thirty-three to thirteen
Chauncey, Jacksonville,
Trimble, Glouster,
Bonnie’s Home Cooking
Opposite British Petroleum
Exhausted loan office
Opposite Coal Miner Emeritus

Burr Oak: closed
Margin parking
Bathroom clothes
Tasteful vest
Bathroom tissue to brim
Feet welcome
Pass up close up camp spots
I feel a pull to the valley
Clearing: stop, rest
Crack, chug, more wood
Fire, crack, chug, more wood
Chat, crack, chug

Copper detuned chime
Of that ephemeral vibrato
Drone of nine-volt synth
Into kaput tape deck
& we sing & chant & cackle

Campfire chatter:
Bitter pill
Naïve philosophy
Crack, chug
Empathy
More wood

“So when I was seventeen still going to church there were these events they were called “lock-ins” we stayed the night at the church they took our cells our watches took down every clock & covered the windows so we wouldn’t be aware of anything only God & so there would be lectures & guest speakers & bible readings and discussions & also these ******* bizarre activities like they would turn off all the lights light a **** ton of candles & they would blindfold us and give us a little piece of paper and a little pencil and they’d tell us in a omniscient little voice to write down one sin we’ve committed on the little piece of paper fold it & nail it (still blindfolded) to this huge wooden cross with this little hammer & I guarantee every one of us wrote down *******.  

Now that I think of it the whole thing was about ******* every speaker had some story of how they used to ******* all the time and how they were released of the devils hold and that ******* is a sin and will send you to hell and all of us kids were boys and every single adult was a woman they all looked at us like they read our paper like we were sinners like we would always be sinners just slimy ******* who would always ******* (like we would ever understand what it felt to be a woman or what a woman felt like) & their eyes were gleaming with such shallow sympathy that you knew they were true god fearing Christians”

(All at once)
Stab, chug, crack, chug
Stab, chug, crack, chug
Stab, chug, crack, chug

Bliss

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.

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

I never really thought I’d see you again, to be honest.

I feel a little underdressed for the occasion.

There you are, wearing the same Hypocrisy you have worn for years and have seriously outgrown, but you wear it still.

Then here I am, in nothing but a worn out grudge, but hey, I tried to dress it up a little with some bitterness.

I think you and I were a little too similar, actually. Maybe that’s why we fell apart, because we were just too alike. That’s one of my scarier thoughts, but definitely not the scariest.

It isn’t an impossible theory, I guess. Though I think maybe it was more like we were two different sides of the same coin, but even if that’s true, we were a coin spinning out of control, cast off, and tossed, but not away, we were tossed into a wishing well, in the hopes that maybe the water could wash away the damage. I look through the waters we wished on every day, wondering if I’ll see you through the distorted, but transparent fluid that runs through our veins like poison because even if the ink of our promises that we wrote out on flesh, as  a binding contract found its way into those dark waters of our wishing well, even it could not be as toxic as that deadly liquid we doused our loyalty in, because it was made out of wishes, and though water shouldn’t be considered equivalent to venom, never underestimate just how lethal it is, because nothing is more poisonous than something that appears pure, but is just the opposite, and truthfully, that is all you proved yourself to be.

I look through those poisoned waters made of liquid wishes and tears, but I never see you there.

Your black eyeliner was quite a change from last time I saw you, because the last year, all you did was line your eyes with Pride and Pettiness, well I’ll watch you fade off into the shadows until you become one because I don’t care anymore.

I’ll raise my hand and spread my fingers to bid you farewell so I don’t need to speak because I can’t, I’m busy choking on fire, and the smoke is leaving its trail so that if you ever want to find me, you will just need to follow the trail of ashes so that I may slam the door in your face, facing up to the fact that sometimes, even if you don’t let it go, you can stop getting involved with the burden of the past, because it’s been passed on far too many generations of different versions of myself each year.

I’m starting a new chapter, and you just don’t deserve a role in it, so when I spread those fingers, maybe the cobwebs I couldn’t bring myself to sweep away will finally blow away in the wind. The wind that is nothing but a draft coming in through the door you left open when you left just to linger in my doorway for months, well I hope I slammed your fingers in the doorframe when I finally shut it on you. You’re still waiting in the window though, naturally.

Well, my Pain and yours are a couple shades off, and I’m sort of sick of matching you anyway, so I’ll draw the curtains too, because that’s the only way to let in natural light, when the artificial lamps are outside and the candles and burning suns are indoors, away from you, after all, how could anything bright exist near someone who exudes so much forced darkness such as you?

Well, I don’t match you anymore, and thank God for that, because I certainly would look even worse than you already do dressed in that color of Hypocrisy, and just keep in mind, even though I’m wearing these grudges trimmed with bitterness, and even though that might be a pretty unflattering look for someone like me, whose very skin is woven out of Broken shards, it’s only an accessory to remind me not to forget. I wear Memories, even though you gave them to me, even though we made the together, I still like them so sure I’ll wear them, but that doesn’t really matter, because with the burdens on my wrist, I can still wear Hope.

And you never, ever will.

So maybe I’m not underdressed for this little occasion, I’m just wearing something a little out of fashion, but Hope is comfy, and I like it so that’s fine by me.

She said
When you're done slaying dragons
and fighting for thrones
will you come back and stay for a while?

But there are not enough puddles
Not enough dirt

He is the king of the living room
when the carpet is lava

Don't come out of the kitchen
The carpet is lava mommy

She says okay
and watches as he jumps from couch cushion to chair to tile
to save her

There will never be a man in her life who can save her like he can
No man who knows the exact distance from doorframe to bedframe
so the hands underneath will not get them
if they jump right

No one's ever thought to save her
From the things she cannot see

I wish I were old enough to use a saw

He is stomping a tin trashcan lid flat
Cuts kite string with his teeth

Discovery says its duck season
If I have armored wings
and get hit by a shotgun
I'll still be able to fly home

I wish I were a shark
I wish I were the wind
I wish I was a lost boy but didn't have to be lost
Can I be a boy forever
and still get homesick?

If peter pan came and offered to whisk him away to neverland
The hardest thing would be for her to let him go

Maybe he can be a boy like ten more years
she thinks

With fistfulls of crayons
and constant pleads for one more of everything

Just one more night as a boy
Just one more day as a dragon
Just one more day as a bird with steel wings
One more day as the wind

But she knows he'll be a man
And he'll visit
and call
talk about
The damsel in distress he met in college
When he saved her at a party
How she spent the whole night laying on his chest
While sleeping on the grass
And for some reason
The cold biting air smelled like home

She knows mothers raise the best men
Because they know what they want in a man

It's not always okay to be your father's son

She says,
When you're done with dragons
and steel winged flights
and being emperor of the living room

Be honest
Women love men who are honest
Smile about everything
Smiling is attractive
and sometimes it's all you need to make yourself feel good

Call me now and then
Or I'll call you every five minutes

Now go
*The wind is calling you home

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 brought this couch here
with new hopes for a
changed room
and it won't fit through
the door
and I brought this couch here

but nothing is right
about it's existence here
because I realized
I can't have nice things;
I destroy the change;
I put out the fire
                before it ignites;

and her first marriage
wasn't right
her second wasn't
either
but that didn't stop her
from proposing to nature
(Trust me, there were men
there
too)

and I wanted this couch here;
wanted to hire the men
and bring it up the stairs
and I did it because
I wanted it
and I can do things
myself
and I
am not hers
I'm not her baby--
I don't want to be
like her

but my new life won't fit
through the door
and I can't sit down
on the plush
in my own world
because it won't budge
pushed up against the doorframe

and so I am crying;
all hope is lost.

I dream of you
A stranger with your face, like a mask, in front of mine
He has your strong jaw line, your brown eyes
Walks with your confident stride
But the emptiness I feel as he kisses me goodbye brings me to reality every time
A jolt like a ligatured body cascading to a halt…
A brutal surprise

Days do not pass, uneclipsed by need for rationalization
Teeter tottering from acceptance to dissent
Memories like worn film,
Played and replayed
Longing for the ending to change

I was crying in answer to subjugation  
Unable to watch your mouth move as it formed syllables
Strung eloquently into carefully chosen words
Ultimately to assert our relationships Goodbye
I held my breath as you lingered at my doorframe
Felt the warmth of tear stained salty lips once last occupying yours
I watched you drive away
I waited knowing your headlights would soon fade

I dream of you
Infinite minutes of fantasy or fallacy
Made to blur factuality  
Reverie in which no matter of the stories distortion
You stayed

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

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.

We met outside of a dingy doorframe
of a hotel room and automatically blurted out
introductions at the same time,
pinking our cheeks and
slowing
us
down.

The way you breathed out your name
as if it was the lingering smoke
from the last drag of your cigarette
captured my attention and
kept me hungry
for more.

Three days passed
and we were caught wrapped
in the white sheets of Room 243,
whispering compliments of the craft
of my soft lips on your bare skin
in between green apple
Smirnoff-soaked kisses.

You didn’t mind
when I desperately needed to find
my best friend wrapped in the arms
of a half-naked frat boy
by the bonfire flames,
just to tell her she was
the best friend I have ever had.

I didn’t mind when we ran
through the hotel hallways
to find your best friend
on the brink of arrest,
barefoot and broke,
giving the shuttle drivers a hard time.

We said goodbye outside the dented door
of the shuttle we coincidentally took
together the morning after,
leaving behind our two a.m. talks
of improvisations and dances
to stupid songs by the DJ
in the other world that is
Lake Havasu.

*May 5, 2014 4:17:28 PM

it was not quite morning when i woke in my bed
in the doorway there was darkness and a black figure i read
standing in the doorway in silence, not a word, nothing said
i could just make out its eyes: yellow, and black with a hue almost red
it was staring at me. filling me full with dread
i saw it's hands rested on the doorframe with fingers wide-spread
i tried not to scream but an airy hiss left my head
just as all of my courage and sanity fled
i swear this figure, back into the darkness it bled
until i could no longer tell it from the shadows at the foot of my bed

Aged twelve i lost my faith in the world. Opened my eyes to my own demise and what followed was a sadness with seemingly no explanation. I looked at the world and how shallow it is and I drowned in it. Where being kind and considerate seemed to get you nowhere.

Where we were getting taught to accept all that was unfair and unjust made me feel if you care you can't trust. And most of this was from our education system, I could see that hidden curriculum. So being the most unlikely rebel I dropped out of school, point blank refused to go, dragged kicking and screaming literally grabbing onto the doorframe until they gave up, and though I was relieved it should be believed that you never really get over someone giving up on you.

So I was left , set adrift. Sit in my pyjamas though I never slept, stay inside and limit my contact with it. Protect myself from it, I wanted no part of it. But the effects of isolation should not be underestimated, it just added to it, introspective perspective, curse of the sensitive proved deadly to my spirit.  I'd Watch my friends play out from my window and wonder how can they be happy, don't they know? Don't they see the worse it gets the more you grow ? It seemed not, so maybe I was just crazy.

Self awareness too early made me wary, it was scary and I didn't understand so I surrendered to that white coat "helping hand" Your child's withdrawn, depressed and suffering from social anxiety, but was that really me? Could they not see?! They asked so many questions but never asked themselves why? Not that I could express what was going on in my mind at the time.

So I took it for gospel as I could no longer hear GODS call. (My faith in him died slowly as I'd pray every night hoping he'd show me the way but he never did) Traded it in for the words of professionals and specialists, cause they must know right? Little did I know it would shape my life for a long time.

Give an obedient child a label and they will stick to it, give an overwhelmed and confused child a label and they will thank you for it! Unlucky for me I was both. Any opportunity to make sense of the world I now saw I took willingly. Turned out mentally ill is what it would be.

The effects of isolation on an already overactive mind cannot be overstated. The battle I fought was with thought. This is why I had no time to speak to or see anybody. It was all consuming in my tiny anatomy.

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

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.

You and I were introduced as the wheels left the ground
And we angled towards the heavens.
Hundreds of miles per hour,
South bound, towards the Florida Keys
And you mentioned the  unusual serenity
That lies at forty thousand feet.
I memorized a trusting face while turbulence
Interrupted our peaceful flight
And you found your first opportunity
As you played in on my fear of heights.
You ended up following me, something I never expected
And like an unwelcome pest,
Like a moth or a spider,
You took up residency in the cold dark corners I neglected.
You so intricately spun your web of lies outside my home
And when you introduced your bait,
You let it dangle above my doorframe,
And I didn't hesitate.
I sunk my teeth into your tragedy and you wove me in
Leaving me tangled in the silk you manufactured,
All along that's how I let you win.
I let you tear open my stitched up wounds
And peel back my flesh and expose my interior
I let you examine how my brain functions during REM sleep
I let you study my neurological system,
And I gave you a private screening of my dreams.
While I was busy over analyzing your past
You were rerouting my neurons
And creating malfunctions within the synapse.
You rewired my entire nervous system
While I let you research the functions of my cells.
You're nothing more than the insects and the pests
With too many legs that crawl along my cellar walls.
Like a daddy long leg spider, I never saw you as a threat
Until you tangled me in false intentions
And left me for dead.
I learned the daddy long leg spider
Has a poisonous venom, lethal if injected
But it was cursed with a mouth and teeth too small
To leave any human the slightest bit affected.
But I was the one who allowed you
To shrink me down and make us the same
So your tiny teeth could penetrate my skin
And leave venom in my veins.
And it was only in that moment, finally standing eye to eye
That I noticed the lack of conscience in your irises
For the first time in my life.

Miss Billings leaned
against the doorframe
looking at Mr Fredericks
pushing a broom

on the forecourt
of the petrol station
look at the old ****
pushing broom

she said
it’s his way of getting you
to do the job kid
you looked out

the glass front
as Mr Fredericks limped
pushing broom
I didn’t see him

go out there
you said
he probably sneaked out
she said

does it all the time
it makes him feel good
to see you go
creeping out there

she pushed her glasses
up the bridge of her nose
and put her hands
on her hips and did

that Monroe thing
she did quite often
you went out
to the forecourt

and said to Mr Fredericks
I can do that
I can push the broom
he handed you the broom

and limped inside
without a word
you swept along
the edge of the forecourt

Miss Billings moved
outside a bit
and said
told you kid

that’s the way he is
bet he don’t do that
when he beds his wife
or maybe he does

who knows
and she walked off
her backside like
a poor man’s Monroe

swaying side to side
and you watched her go
standing holding
the broom

the red cardigan
the white overalls
the black stockings
and then she had gone

into the back office
through the swing door
time to get on
with sweeping

you thought
but her swaying backside
lingered in your mind
her poor man’s Monroe

right down
to her blonde hair
and the way she stood
you’d be her

Clark Gable
(in miniature)
if you could.

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

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.

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.

9:24 am: i am cleaning my room and singing along to an ed sheeran song. i thought of me, cleaning our house, and you, leaning against the doorframe and smiling at me.

1:24 pm: it has been raining all day and i am wondering if you believe in the beauty and magic of rain like i do and how perfect it would be if our first kiss took place on a rainy afternoon like this one.

1:26 pm: i refuse to entertain the thought that the two thoughts i've had of you were exactly four hours apart means something. but secretly i hope it does.

3:54 pm: will i think of you at 11:11 tonight?

4:19 pm: will i love you even when you make spelling mistakes?

9:24 pm: i wrote a poem today about my high standards and i thought of you and how you won't be afraid of pursuing me, of loving my heart. i thought of your fearless heart and how it will love me the way i am.

9:28 pm: i am thinking of the number 24 and how at the 24 minutes of three different hours you popped into my head. did you think of me today? did the thought of me make you smile? do you wonder about me, the color of my hair, the shape of my face, the song of my heart?

9:32 pm: my heart sometimes wonders if it's pointless to think of you, because maybe there isn't a you. but my soul tells my heart that i think of you, and therefore you are.

10:24 pm: before i close my eyes, i hope to think of you. and after i close them, i know i'll dream of you. and if it happens at the twenty-fourth minute of whatever hour it is, i won't be too surprised.

10:27 pm: i am starting to believe that 24 is a magic number.

hello, sweetheart in the lightbluejeans, what’re you thinking of
whatever happened to gumdrops and thankyou notes and long skirts that say
‘I am a forward thinking woman’

how your eyebrows in self-photograph are the spitting image of your grandma’s
and how she never had a funeral and neither
did
you,
but you’re
****-sure not living anymore, not since the world-bruise and the ankle-bruise
and your protruding soul-bruise (your soul is in your hip bones; it bangs on the doorframe
when you walk into the kitchen every time)

you don’t remember the year but there was one
when you knew it all would be beautiful
for you
how could it not

back up to that long-gone January. that evening in your best friend’s car
when you choked on the phone that it physically hurt to listen to the sharp voices
no matter what, but especially when you knew what you knew and you *******
knew what you knew and you couldn’t
forget
not that January

not that May, when you told him you’d decided to be better
not that December, when you told somebody else
not ever—you were better but you wouldn’t forget
not ever

you set your course on what you didn’t know—what you didn’t know
would never, never hurt you, and

your best friend said go. he said do what you love he said
no one loved like you and you had
a smile and a way with words and the world deserved you and your
big, big love
you were full of love
you were love

and then he left—your big love wasn’t the kind he needed and you survived,
but a little less wholeheartedly because you were missing a little bit of it
and you saw that sharing the whole thing was
what everyone said it was
after all

you were a little smaller the next time when
somebody else told you what you were—beautiful and big and
worthwhile—so many times that you said what the hell and you
kissed him
and he took that kiss and turned it into red
red
red wine
and you had no heart to tell him you preferred white; he had you already
you had him already
and no one would go un-
bloodied

and what do you love? your best friend that day
assumed you had an answer—so did you
but what the hell was it,
you ask through the *****-fog
what do you love?
do you?

and now
what’re you thinking of, honey
how the next one and the next and the sunglasses future
is cracking summer ice, not stone, and you’ll
kiss but not say
iloveyou
it will be misty and gray for you
you’ll plan on only what you know in sweatshirts and quilts
and you’ll shut the shades

and even this January
not forget

not since the world-bruise
and your own

An arid lantern exhales abrasive hums
It rests in the smothering cloak of humid anticipation

Names of children are scrawled on the nicotene crickets’ lattice backs
The crickets bumble in drunken waltz along the ground
They cannot fly through clouds gasping on the chains of Cerberus’ collar

The sticky smog and shadows scuttle through the low-hanging, lifeless clouds
It’s innocent origins trickle from the hem of God’s garment
To the jaded, cracked doorframe to deliverence

This sympathetic shack of dim-witted yellows and hosiery pink
She lays porcelain petals on the descending steps into indigo overcast

We wrote our names on the beach in animal bones
as a vivisection, on our love.
there, she’s whispering into shells
into their Fibonaccian, trumpeted, dresses
and full-cheeked into a razor clam flute.
I, too, gave my blood to grease our domestica
and hung names on stars over the nighttime sea
always accompanied as I were
with the shark-eye, death, of her looks.

We dressed up the walls of home in black and pinstripe,
filled the place up with lit and lightless places,
Shadowboxed, shadowfucked, and silently argued.
Spent hours inside, laying floorboards
and then laying on them
to stare at the sodium lights
and discuss the inkblots on our eyes.
We vivisected our lives,
and splashed it on the walls
and carved it into the carpets.

We set alight to christmas trees
when the kids were sleeping upstairs.
We dressed in each-other’s reddening horror
and answered the door.
Valentines day was full of bone bouquets,  
the gripper rods grew through the carpet
so on them we danced.
I prayed for the first time in the first year
and every one hit me subesquently
like I was its anvil.

I should have gone to war.
Because it makes forever shorter
things can only happen right now.

I watched everything in our domestica,
like when the static moved off the television
and played on the window
gutting me of my escape.
The smiles hung on our faces like lupus,
We had people round,
we cooked and coughed and choked
And their faces peeked round from the doorframe
and laughed.

The domestica lives
only to be a bit of fun,
but in the very same span of time
that decided to **** the birds on my windowsill
and my children’s love for me
and my dexterity.
We’ve happened to the whole world too
I promise you, my love,
my little hospice fire,
my flat tire at night at nowhere,
the lie you recognise means it’s over,
A field of a thousand three-leaved clovers,
the brightest night when you’re hiding,
your heart attack on holiday,
your bloodstained bed sheet
And sleep, whilst outside
the sleet and snow makes every emergency
harder to get to, and still the morning
much more beautiful.
I, you, we happened.

It must've been a metaphor.
This one person bench,
calling my name,
mocking me.
I'm useless without her.
I'm an intricate doorframe;
beautifully handcrafted,
and carved of rosewood.
But as a door myself,
I'm missing a ****,
I have seeping holes,
and my past left behind
brutally rugged scratches and beats.