Sometimes as I lie in bed sound asleep
I feel him
He wraps his arms around my plush body
placing his face on the back of my neck
sending a electric jolt down my spine

I gasp in resistance determined not to respond to his plea
I place one foot on top of the other braiding my toes
locking my knees
becoming a crooked abstract painting
Rubbing my hips he outlines the shape of my thighs lifting me
against the hard places of his body  and like
a skilled locksmith he presses fingerprints
unlocking my legs once strong bones
are now silk ribbon for his waist.

I hereby dedicate
me to you,
old to new,
one to two.
From this moment on
I give all my love,
two turtle doves,
and my Sunday afternoons.
I'll giftwrap my life
and my mind and my soul
but my heart I cannot,
for 'tis something you stole.
You, my sweet dear,
make darkness seem light
turn black into white
change morning from night
and you're something I can't be without.

take pictures. walk to the drug store on a crisp summer night
and buy one of those old cheap cameras. carry it like you would a child.
when you smile, genuinely, take a photo. when you feel that warm touch of the sun on your face
and the wind tangling your hair into knots, take a photo. every moment
is so precious. keep these pictures until you are seventy three
and barely remember the names of the faces you once pressed your lips to.
keep them until "film" is an unknown word.

when love is coarsing fast through your veins,
wrap your hands around the source. squeeze tighter, don't stifle your breath. don't let
your words drop like anchors down your throat. don't let the world tell you
that you're not enough. love is love. it is not a hand on your thighs or the shaking afterwards.
it is not purchased in pink giftwrap. it is whatever you make it. and even though
it may not last forever, you can only pretend that
this will be the last time you ever touch. love infinitely and exhaustively.

never let anyone's opinions or decisions
put a halt to the pursuit of your own happiness. you
are the creator of this life that you own. you were born with so much potential and so much passion
that it floods out of you like rainwater. destroy the drought. you are free to be anything
you could ever dream of, and more. there are always second chances; every moment
you feel is a failiure is only a lesson in a perilous disguise. if you are sad,
do not drown yourself in your own despair. do not douse yourself
in liquor. do not keep secrets packed away in dimly lit corners. someone loves you.
I love you. there is hope in even the places that seem forlorn.

above all else, live every day as if it is your only.
take chances.
take chances.
take chances.
never pass up on an opprotunity due to fear. you may
slip up and make a faulty choice. but in the end, your heaviest regrets
will be not getting into that car. not kissing the girl with the beautiful blonde hair.
not hugging someone goodbye, or calling them to tell them you love them in the peak of morning.
every second is more precious than money can label.
stop dragging yourself from the grasp of your sheets when you wake with a sigh- rise even earlier
to see the lavender sky and smile because you're alive and every single **** day
is a novel anxiously awaiting to be scribbled down. grab his hand
and squeeze it tighter. hold her hips and memorize their shape. never let go. ask questions.
push yourself. live.

I am in love with a man who bleeds sunlight
and whose eyes wash tsunamis against
the harsh shadows of his lashes on his cheeks.
He hides an untamed storm inside of him,
waves crashing into rocky shores while the sky
drowns in blue; and I drowned in him.

He is not a robin, but he carried my heart
through bleeding skies and fireworks.
He is gone now, chasing after new dreams
while I bury what he’s decided has died
and choke on the secrets I never realised
he kept from me, hanging on my wall in
a morbid display of blindness and loss.

My heartache is a war cry in the darkest night,
shattering the windows of my soul until
tears leak out to grow a new Atlantic,
now that I cannot look in his eyes again.
I drown in the knowledge that he has
covered me with scars from wounds that
never were mine, but that I bled from still.

I hope one day he can learn to love
something without making it bleed, and
maybe I can learn to remake my heart
out of something that isn’t glass, and
not to giftwrap it every time I feel warmth,
and to stay far away from the shore.

- He is a hurricane, and I have always loved storms. c.s.

It’s fifteen below
And a fat buck lurches,
Spindle legged, four pointed,
And cardinal -
Fishtail and brake.

I don’t trust this road.
I don’t trust these tires.
I don’t trust these ditches,
Smoothed and driven with snow.

I’m a six-layered pig at the wheel -
Unsleek unchic -
But I’m warm, **** I’m warm,
And the road slides like pinstripe
On white gabardine.

And the waning moon,
The waning moon,
Low in the rise,
Gibbous and garish,
Scabbing a cloud,
Spills the whole thing blue.

I don’t trust the red eyes of mailboxes,
Always willing to dive the grill.
I don’t trust the farmer
That lives on the hill,
Behind the blue spruce line,
Behind the blue flickered window,
Counting on futures,
Clumsy as mittens,
Still as the finger drift
Thudding the glide
Like dull scissors
Snagged in gridded giftwrap guides.

I still taste the coffee
Down under the tar.

I trust my smokes.
Yes, I trust my smokes.
I trust my hat. I trust my boots.
I trust I’ll never find my roots.
I trust the jumpers, there in the trunk.
I trust every single roadkill thunk.
I trust every knuckled ill-advised ride
To tell me yes, oh yes, I'm alive, I’m alive.

the man whose blindfold I touched

I said his name
in the dark

he carried me once
on his shoulders
to a cemetery
where as a boy
he’d seen
a turtle

most kids see a mother’s
UFO, a stone

is god’s
giftwrap

padlocks giftwrap

antiquated keyholes.

turn/turn/turn.

click.

the kernel of a

Russian Doll

crackles heady--

underfoot.