1.
You sit on your stoop
And you listen.
You sit on your stoop
And you breathe.
You sit on your stoop
And you take in.
You sit on your stoop
You don't leave.

2.
A car comes down the block and you fill it with ambivalence
There are artifacts of previous tenants in your walls.
Whatever you do you can't stop the faint buzz of the sun
Or the rattling of your morning coffee.
One on one.

3.
One on one you lie back to the marble.
You drift off to sleep in the end.
You can't help you don't look you're unable,
You throw the frog away in the end.
The croak drove you crazy and the tongue made you cringe
But there was something of value...
You don't think, I can't think, in the end.

4.
You squeeze and you pry
You don't listen.
You drag and you moan
You don't breathe.
You curl and you sigh
You don't take in.
You plot and you play
You just leave.

5.
You have anxieties like pop rocks
Once they fizzle down you accept another
Handful.
In the end.
The frogs in the bin but it's ribbit breaks through
And the spread of its tongue still reaches me.

The fingernail moon illuminates the inky black evening
while barren tree branches scratch and poke at the windowpanes.
The letter he wrote for you neatly sealed in its envelope in the dark
of your room, in the corner mostly, where wind
and spooky spirits congregate and flow
in grand swirls like the divine milk (it tells things to you) in your teacup.

It would seem that the whimsy and love letters that appear in your teacup
are insufficient in relaying your message, instead your voice gets lost in the evening.
You try to stutter out how you haven’t opened it, how words don’t just flow
from your pen like they flow from his, how the paper-airplanes he’s tossed you just clunk on the windowpanes
and they do not enter inside, although you sort of wish they did, but the wind
is not strong enough to compel you to throw him a paper-airplane response in the dark.

It is too much to talk to him, too much to throw your worries into his dark
heart and have them go from vibrant to stone cold in his grasp, and the prospect of it all makes your teacup
shake and tremble in your pale weak hands, pale like paper, paper that can just blow away in the wind
like it was nothing. You reminisce of warmer days in the summer, with the sunset in the evening
and his hand clasped around yours in the lavender field, like you were a flower to treasure and display along the kitchen windowpanes,
And you would beam and spill yourself everywhere and your leaves would flow

onto the countertop, because you are this all-pervasive and growing creature in tune with the flow
of the universe. You are bigger than the secrets and things that stay in the dark,
and it’s perfectly okay that the windowpanes
have shutters, the okayness of it all was shocking when you first realized it, when the trembling of the teacup
finally ceased. The warm brushstrokes of evening
align themselves and coat you in secret invisible paint so that you can blend in with the wind



and let it carry you somewhere fresh and clean and terrible, where the wind
sweeps through alleyways like a madman chasing you down with a dagger in hand, chasing you with the flow
and the torrent of words you refuse to hear. When you finally found your resting place, it was evening
and you were in your grandmother’s rocking chair, the old creaking thing; you were wrapped in a blanket of dark
and comfortable, the whispers of undesired contact spinning in your head, swirling in your teacup.
But you’ve come to the conclusion that you can just leave it alone, leave him out of view, because your windowpanes

are frosted over, and you haven’t had much interest lately in clean glass, much less clean windowpanes.
You reach for his letter, not to break the seal, but instead to toss it to the wind.
You pour a brew of uncried tears and a sprinkle of cinnamon into your teacup,
and your thoughts flow
like the gutter outside that’s gushing with heavenly rain, but they’re all pure and good and dark
just how you like them. This has become your evening.

You have no interest in the world beyond the windowpanes. Your pen was not meant to flow

with godly ink, all those thoughts were best left to fly in the wind with the birds and the crawling things that might care to listen to his sermon in the dark.

Fill his glass with holy red wine and lamb’s blood (pick your poison), sure, but not for you and the china teacup….the tranquility of unsealed letters pairs well with your brew in the evening.

I feel as though I would follow you,
At least until you were better
Just until the okayness and normality began to swallow up your pain
Until the morning sun didn’t cue your tears and whisky didn’t taste just like survival
Until you could look at your reflection and smile, or at least not frown
I believe I would walk behind you
Until my quiet overtook your noise
Until your hands would just stop shaking and your lips could quit their quiver
Until your time stopped slowing and you could walk with others once again
Until you ceased to beg the earth for its consuming and heavens comfort seemed a bit less inviting
I understand that I might replace your sinews
Until standing didn’t hurt so much and breathing took far less effort
Until the darkness of your room stopped singing such sweet hymns and the blankets of your bed were not your only lovers
I resolve that I would stay beside you
Until the search for all the pieces lost had halted and the shards were all or mostly accounted for
Until hope was not such a sin and desire didn't taste so bitter
Until every face with maple eyes didn’t beckon your distain
Until greetings and goodbyes were less like journeys deserving rest
Until time passed had set your bones and fading remembrance began to soothe your mortal wounds  
I just dont want you be sad anymore

Today, missiles and bombs fall
before my closed
eyes, exploding into stories of
politics and economics,
corruption and destruction, and
the ringing in my ears
doesn't go away
after I open my eyes
to the morning sun.
I sit on the floor;
my face soaking up the bright
blue light and I think about
beauty because
why not.
Today, as my sweat drips
down my rough, porous nose,
and touching my
chapped lips,
it tastes like surrender; like,
relinquishing myself
to the "okayness" of life,
and remembering
that it is.

May I be infected
with a sureness
of your love

May it spread within me
like an IV flowing confidence
in my okayness

In the face of fear
and desperation may
I be a cove of calm presence

May you be well
whole and robust
in every cell

In this time of solitude
may I encounter
the awesome power of now

My heart breaks in seventeen different directions.
The white realm between my eyes glares back at me
Initially, I think he’s trying to hurt me
Forcing me to stay
But then hope effervesces in 1 new direction
Up, out.
Stay and feel he says
You need to heal he says
He's just a mar stapled upon a pure surface
He's just blank and broken
Clean and vast and warm and open
And can’t I be this wall
And can’t I just be free
From all this pain that's hindering me
“Stay” he says
“You'll never be the same” he says
And so he holds me
Compelling me to stay in the most rugged of places
Shifting when its time for me to move forward
He wasn't trying to hurt me
He just wanted to help me
Relieve the scar I painted for myself
When I cast my burdens upon the shelf
And never bothered to look
Never bothered to feel
And chose to reject what was so devastatingly real
I’m enamored by this blank space
I’m mesmerized by my own old pain
I want to leave but I finally listen and stay
The white wall becomes me
We hold each other’s gaze
And we stay and feel and then move away
To a new pose where the false okayness
Is really okay.

Broken wings , she cannot fly
Closed lungs she can't not breathe
Her crown slipped off
Her magic lost , drained completely dry
The demon in her heart broke from its cage
Tore apart her heart and soul
She tried screaming, but her voice was gone
all that's left inside her mind is an empty space
With ice cold flames burning holes through her veins ,casting wicked imagery in the back of her head
Ruins carved in to her porcelain skin.
Product of the demons evil forcefully inflicted trance
Back pressed against the stone wall
Still somewhat in a trippy daze
Trying to find some hidden strength
To clean the blood of her dress
Trying to reach her mask of feigned okayness
But her energy has vanished , as she lays passed out on the floor.

Like a briefcase
My words are ordered
In neat dividers.
Your file is to the back.

The form I pull out
Looks official and has
A FINAL NOTICE stamp.
Dear Mr....reads.

I don't know if they're
Hammers on your heart
Or if they'll cut strings
And let you go free.

I have something to tell you.

I don't know if your eyes
Will glisten or narrow or
Fein "okayness"
They are just words to me.

I am a postman
I have to deliver these
Words.

I have something to tell you.

I'm sorry.

Please don't remember me
Continue your lives
Be happy
I want you to know
It was never your fault
It was nobody's fault
But mine
And who was I kidding, really?
With my little facade of okayness
Like all things, my life
was temporary

Like you my muse has been lacking; distant
Like you
My muse went from lover to friend
Upbruptly and unexpected
Like you my muse is becoming less and less of someone I know very well and very fondly and more of a tense acquaintance I pass in the grocery store with heavy eyes and a forced smile
Grocery stores are the worst though
We're always forced to meet up in a different isle
And we continue this ruse of feigned "okayness"
And you take your handfull of items and emotions to self-checkout
While I'm drowning in a cart full of ingredients I can't feasibly make a meal out of
And check out with a clerk I pay a hundred dollars every visit
And meet a nutritionist to help me shop
And you
You just get on with your life

April, I swore I'd be done,
Swore I'd nix this
addiction to not-okayness.

As hard as I try, as many bridges as I manage to
burn,
memories of the winter that tore me up come

(creeping back)