She's wearing these long, bright red rainboots
On the sunniest of days
As if she's afraid that if she doesn't
She'll fade away and disappear forever
"You won't!" I want to shout to her
"You'll never fade away
Because you are the most beautiful thing
That has ever been permitted to stay in this world
To pass before my eyes
To smile... perhaps in my general direction..."
But she doesn't hear me
She is lost in her own analysis
Of the shifting clouds
The little whisps of whimsical water vapors
I see her spin slightly
Gazing up at their shapeless shapes
Her lips mouthing words that I cannot hear
For I am a coward and do not approach
O, What I would give to speak with her
For even the most slight of seconds
About even the most trivial thing in the universe
But alas, it was not meant to be
I walk slowly down the street
Past the cacophonous roaring of
The motor cars
As unflattering as they are to the ear
So she is beautiful
I arrive at the corner
The smell of tar and gasoline rise
From the steaming asphalt
I turn
And she is there
She is there and she is sitting
She is sitting on her bike right there
She is on her bike and I see her as I turn
"Hello" she says
She smiles as she says hello
I search for the words
To tell her how
She has owned my heart
Since the moment I laid eyes on her
"Ayeii" I say as the light changes
She giggles and rides away
"Hello I love you"
But it's too late
She can't hear me
I walk across the intersection
And continue my long walk back home
Filled with the hope that maybe it will happen again
Maybe I'll see her again
Maybe...

I get the hunch that the ashes of kindergarten,
Lunchboxes, the national anthem
Are floating from the edge of us
So many sophomore stars from a cigarette’s tip,

Somewhere down the mountain we lost our winter coats
And bicycle summers, and plastic sailboats,
No puddles and rainboots, or slick soft dogs
And paper flowers, captured fish and frogs

We try to jump in puddles, and we float

Deep-bright and hissing in the city chill
Childhood traded for strange soft skin
Grumpy cats and boardgames for mixed drinks and casual ***
And the cicadas gaily chirping fall away like

Fishbowl-helmet astronauts, lost without gravity
Mercury, Venus, Youth,
Maturity, Jupiter, Saturn

We are never kids again,
Nor adults until we die

wait until the phone rings
and the teacher goes inside,
under the slide at Recess:
you can put your lips on mine

I never think of you.
Your face never crosses my mind.
Your dark eyes
Are quite forgotten,
And I cannot remember that they are
The shade of a puddle
Waiting for rainboots.

I never think of you,
And I do not care.
It does not bother me
That I cannot hear your laughter
Behind me,
Or the whispers for my ear.
I do not even recall your absence
Until I look around me for an answer
And realize that you are not there.

I never think of you,
And there is no love lost.
You were never even a dandelion seed for me,
Not ever even a wisp of a wish
To pin everything on,
And now that you are gone,
My dreams have not floated away
With you.
On the wind,
Off to some new ground.

I never think of you,
And your name does not escape my lips
Softly when I am not dreaming of you,
When no one is listening,
Not even I.

I never think of you,
My love,
And there will be no poetry
Written for you,
Nor the smallest word spoken for
The love of you
Or the loss of you,
For no love was lost.

She was beautiful
She reminded me of the sun
I knew she always were near
Even though the clouds
had taken over the sky
she shined brighter than
a million stars combined
she always stayed positive
she told me this
“when it’s raining, don’t be upset
but take your rainboots on,
and dance till it stops,
when there is thunder,
don’t be scared, don’t hide
but instead find a safe spot
and admire the beautiful lightning
when it’s windy outside,
don’t be irritated,
find your dragon
and see it fly through the clouds”
she wasn’t afraid of being herself
she did what she wanted to do
she did wear the most colorful clothes
and she loved when people stopped
and looked at her like she was crazy
because she knew
what she was doing
and she knew
what they were missing out on
she wasn’t living her life,
she was alive.
Her favorite color was yellow.

In her room, she looked out the window
Seeing the evergreen tree swinging in the wind
The raindrops pelting the window
A few birds, swooping for cover
A little girl standing out in all the gray
Brown hair pulled into pigtails
Wearing bright yellow and red
With a blue polka-dot umbrella
Jumping in puddles
Not even using the umbrella
Unless she was trying to collect rain

Driving to a new state
A new home
Leaving friends
She watched as they drove through a puddle
The water collecting on her window
She imagined that little girl
Her pigtails drooping
Her umbrella dragging
As she walked through the muddy puddles

At school, daydreaming blankly
Looking out the window
As the teacher droned on
About fractions, and decimals
Equations and graphs
She imagined seeing herself
Jumping out the window
Into the puddle on the ground
Splashing water onto the grass and plants
She saw herself
Wearing her favorite yellow raincoat
With her shiny red boots
Her blue polka-dot umbrella
Filled with holes
That the water just ran through
Her hair up in pigtails
With her favorite pink bows

She saw herself as she used to be
Before school was hard
Before she moved
Before she got older
She wished she really could jump out that window
And relive those moments
Before she could dream any further
The teacher called her name
Yanking her out of her red rainboots
Leaving her pink bows laying in the mud
Sadness pulling at her eyes
As she was taken from her happy memories

Ah, to be a little frog.

Allow me to hide amongst 'your' belongings.

Under the cushions of your swing set, upon your screen door, mayhaps even in your outside rainboots.

You may shoo me away at once, if you must. I will be back.

Ah, to be a little frog.

I think i shall hop away now.

Toodaloo.

Until next time.

how many ways must i give you up?
grief is just a sport for lucid and the lame.
how many boughs till i break this falling-
to the mossy hill below?
where grief is just a shallow pool
with reflections of me beautifully crying
We ugly mourners live to talk.
selfish shallow pool of grief-
my yellow rainboots fall madly
upon my mirrored head.
i am just a puddle
and i wear it like a man because
sometimes...
grief is just a tailored suit
all dressed up in pawpaws best
neatly pressed.
the seams of your life sewn in a straight line.
it's easy to compartmentalize the times you weren't your greatest you.
in death you leave the lovely
behind
and take away the rest.
in life you leave the death
behind and take away the lovely such a wasted irony.
grief is valentine.
wont you be mine pinks and whites? sugared promises of time.
grief is a lovers candy heart. sentiments on marble etch the total of our time.
grief of mine, such weather beaten blanket. when did she become my lover?
cast aside your sadness.
grief is a friend of mine, grief is a friend of mine.

Sahn 4/22/2014

I’ve become more aware lately

Of the preciousness

Of time

The way my little brother smiles when I walk in the door

The wasp that kept circling around my Grandma and I today,

When we were sitting outside eating lunch.

The way the streetlight looked through the trees

My silhouette on the pavement,

Reminding me

How much I’ve been wounded and yet

I’m still here.

The little girl that stood in the middle of a puddle,

Stomping and laughing

In her pink rainboots.

“Gotta have fun on a rainy day somehow!” Her mother said to me

As I stood there smiling,

Noticing the beauty

In the simplicity of that moment.

Time is precious and life

Is a gift

And it’s completely irrelevant

If anyone would disagree.

our lives, a series of events. it is as if two small apples had fallen from the same tree.
and there they lie, their guts spilled out onto the lawn. birds making holes to take what is left
before winter comes and goes again.

and what is,
what has been and what could be
mean nothing.


i held your hand like it was my last day on earth. but you'd never have known. walking through the forest,
the trails winding and branches breaking around us, i felt content for a fraction of a second.
the sun's beams like a halo above you. every freckle on your shoulder knowing it's place, it's purpose.
and here was i, standing lowly in your presence.
all of the times i had tripped over my own two feet
or my words, every time i had been late for the train,
the time i ruined your sweaters in the wash, or
the many hours i'd spent writing books i never finished
when i could have spent the time with you,

the light painted over me, and your eyes saw something clean.



hurrying along on the street, rain falling into the spaces between your legs
and rainboots.
once we made it inside, i realized
i had held the umbrella only a half an inch too far from you and your ear was cold and wet.
but you never said a word.



everyone says i cannot freeze you there like that in my mind. that the bad must outweigh the good.
that you must be a demon who was sent disguised as clouds and lovely things. but if you were then it stuck.
and whoever sent you did a **** good job.
everyone says that i need to go back to the day i first saw you and stop there
and just
remember
the times before i knew you.
but your words are too strong to forget and every time i walk by the flower stand on the street
i see your favorite colors and i see the crown that you made and
placed in your hair the day that we were both so sure we wanted this.
this, together.


my brain splits you up into all of these pieces and i can't gather
the ones that have been spread by the summer's breeze, or the ocean's waves
or the ones carried away on the wings of night's fireflies.
if i could only capture them all
like a still life photograph stuck in a jar
maybe i could come unstuck from you
and piece you together in an entirely new fashion,
painting you like the devil that you are
(or must be).


even just this morning i made a point to be on time for the train
because i knew that you would be so proud.
and like some unspoken prayer or a letter written but never sent
i wished so long and hopelessly that you could know.
but the day is over now and you won't
you won't leave the note on my door that i've longed to read
you won't call. you won't ask a friend how i've been.
so i've bought these brushes and pens and paints and ink
to try so hard to draw what i could never see

as i stand here looking at the last picture i have left of you
i hear these words so clear in my head
"take a picture before i paint over her. she is beautiful, she was everything."

and i wish that i could but i can't. because you're not here and my hands are too broken
to fix the old camera i used to photograph you standing in the rosebush by the lake,
thorns in your knees and red petals in your hair.

every time it rains
I'm reminded
I need an umbrella

You slowly cracked my cynical shell
And melted my frozen heart

You were the secret that I wanted to tell,
But I didn’t know where to start

You were the rainboots to my puddle,
You were the sun on a gray day

My feelings you did befuddle,
But I couldn’t stay away

You became my addiction,
I got in over my head

Too bad our love was fiction,
Because these words remained unsaid

Maya was murdered behind
Union station while beggars held out their
Rainboots for change and while the
Diner workers made food until fully
Exhausted and hobos hung out along the stair
Rails smoking cigars

She was once beautiful until
He took it away and left bruises in her
Eyes which were a dusk fall evening gray

While her mother paced the porch and dad
Racing home their baby never returned
Only her memory had burned deep into
Their minds and hardened their souls
Everyone hurt when Maya didn't say no

under slime that sticks
between hairs and fingers
you felt stuck between
the Pontiac
and my duvet
so with a trudge
through oceans of time
and cracks on the pavemnt
leading the apartment and my hand
to your rainboots
and wet smile and bright pink umbrella
with too much vitality
for this neighborhood
to handle you were scooped
up by my arms
and with raindrop pellets
landing awkwardly
between nostrils
and between eyebrows
and through the sticky weight
of break-up politics
I took you back to our bed.

There isn't that much ''new'' left. Poems, songs, paintings, sonnets etc. It's all the same idea. They're all about the one that got away or the hurricane of emotions left behind. Or maybe that childhood kiss that was sweeter than the strawberry jam mom would pack for lunch. Maybe it's about those days you'd run out in the storm in rainboots, waiting to feel those droplets on our face because there was nothing that a little rain couldn't wash away...right? Those tormented nights when the big bad wolf known as life, reminded you that not everyone thought you were a "superstar".
And in those moments, mom or dad, aunt or uncle would say "Life happens, honey". Those words never felt like comfort. They were more of a reminder that they had already experienced it and more was coming. Which brings me back to: there isn't that much new left. Although the canvas might be different or the medium could be thicker, there is still the same picture.

Everything has already been done before. Someone already felt it.

dear you
before you take my mother out after work
keep her for three and a half more hours
than she would usually be
please remind her
that she isn’t like you
and has a family at home
waiting for her
with hungry bellies
and open arms

please remind her
that she has a son
that has literally not seen her
for three days
he needs her
and he wants to know
why she can’t even look at him
he needs to know
where his mother went
the one that used to
let him wear his favorite purple
footie pajamas and rainboots
as they walked down to the store
for ice cream bars
and held him
when the nightmares got too bad

dear you
before you take my mother out after work
and send her home
in your bright orange jacket
reeking of you and liquor
please remind her
that she has a husband
who has loved her
for seven years
even though she continually drove him away
she has a husband
whose eyes light up when he sees her
she has a husband
who broke down his barriers
so he could hug her
and hold her close
without that ever-present fear of
her slipping away
again

please remind her
how happy he makes her
how happy she makes him
and the house that he lived in alone
for so long
is finally more than just a shelter
against the elements
it is a home
but it can’t be that without her
  
dear you
before you take my mother out after work
please remind her to at least
call her son or her husband
to tell them that she won’t be home
to make dinner
and that her son will get to eat
a store bought dinner
for the second night in a row
and then it just sits there
and stares at him
screaming that she isn’t at home

please remind her
that she has people to
come home to
a husband
a daughter
and a son

please remind her
that she has a family ******
and we need her

please remind her
that even though
she can’t look her son in the eye
anymore
he will always need his mother

please remind her
that even though the liquor is
warm in her she has a son at home
that is so
sick and tired
of raising himself

For a long time there has been a storm cloud over me.
It is always raining,
no matter what,
sometimes when I'm with people it just drizzles,
but other times it pours.
And I'm drowning in the constant raincloud.
And I always seclude my because I don't want to get other people wet with my downfall.
And I often try to cope with it by holding an umbrella,
but that never works
because it's hard to stay dry when you're standing in a puddle.
But when someone comes along with their own umbrella
and an extra pair of rainboots,
it's really nice
because you can almost see a sun beam shine through you cloud
and start to break it up,
in hopes that there's a clear forecast in your future.

This is the land of the lost,
with the rain soaked ground sinking beneath my feet.
This is the land of cracked leather swings,
dogs on ropes,
Daisy Catherine
in her rainboots.

This is a place of the past.
The hill slopes inward,
broken shards of plastic littering its sides
and piercing its surface like teeth.
This is the land of the lost,
and of memories floating in on mist,
shimmering and warm, reminding me of a time before here.

This is a land with no rules.
Daisy Catherine
can swing all the way to the sky
and never have to come back down.

Traditions are cast aside
expectations are lowered
and we get lost.

this is the land of the lost,
of silent canyons
molded by weeks gone by.
no longer caked in ice,
no longer frozen in time.

This is the place I always come back to.
This is the land of the lost.

Sadness held me when no one else would. I was afraid, and alone, and a mess, but sadness selfishly let me crawl into its lap, and curl up into a size of myself that I could tolerate but no one could love. Sadness held me when you didn't. It held me when my heartbeat was a hurricane, and when the apologies rolled out of my throat like tidal waves. Sadness threw on its rainboots and marched through the storm to bring the moon back to me when you couldn't even march outside. Running its cloudy fingers through my hair like strands of spider webs, careful not to skip a single inch, sadness pulled me against its hollow chest and whispered venomous conciliatory reminders of who we are into my broken head. Sadness shook me like a seizure until I finally fell asleep.
And when I woke up to the soft grey light of this existence, sadness held me because my heart slipped through the greedy fingers of everyone who tried, shattering on the floor as you walked away from the mess you hadn't seen before. Sadness held me because no one else could. And I deserved to be held.

The rain splatters on stained sidewalks
and polishes pebbles on the
slick, gray road packed with cars
and hustling people caught up
in traffic jams,
the sky above is stormy gray
yet calm; there's a settled beauty
within a dreary, wet day
I'm walking amidst the busy street,
rainboots, high heels and
dress shoes all alike flowing
along from offices and
buildings and schools
and whatever places of importance
to get home, where it's nice and dry
and there's someone warm
waiting inside,
There's the coffee shop and bookstore
I always go to on
rainy days like this one
to watch the flurry of movement
outside as I sit contentedly
sipping my steaming mug of
dark coffee and turning the pages
of a worn book to greet my small
friends on every page,
But today I am one of the
paper folks out on the street,
weighed down by heavy coats and hats
and dress shoes
walking hurriedly against the blowing wind,
I board the subway, with its mix
of gray-blue seats filled with
lost faced people glancing out
the clear windows
and the isles are held by standing people
glancing at their watches,
the moment reminds me of
Daniel Powter's song, Bad Day
where the woman sits down
not far from a settled love
of two people leaning on each other
and she brushes away the distant thought
that she is alone,
and the fluorescent light
preserves the moment in my head
and I glance around wondering
if there would happen to be
a moment like that for me to take,
and I see a guy
with tangled hair and jade green eyes
standing a short distance away
watching me, and he smiles
before turning back to the girl
beside him
and that moment reminds me of
James Blunt's song, You're Beautiful
because I feel a twinge of curious sadness
as he puts his arm around her
and for an instant
I pretend the girl is me before
turning away,
I look up and the sky is still
stormy yet bright, and everything is
going by in a blur;
the trees a mash
of brown and evergreen
red and blue houses blending into
their pink and white shutters,
I catch a glimpse of a man and a woman
engulfed in each other's arms
kissing, standing on the porch
of their white two story house
with yellow shutters
and in that moment I feel like
the ******* the train,
dazed from a strange fantasy in my head
happening to play out on the screen
of a reality that never really
turns out right,
I close my eyes the rest of the way
and let myself drift apart
before joining the stream of paper people
stepping out of the train
and walking off into the distance.

She stared with glassy eyes, out glassy windows at the grey
Reaching from inside, but not a crack to show her pain
An empty glance she gave, trying to forget the lies
And it began to rain, not a drop the sky to save
Not a drop to save

Pitter patter on the roof broke through her apathy
Gliding down her velvet cheeks her sadness was set free
And by and by her shattered heart stabbed through her fragile chest
Shaky moments, shaky hands matched every shaky breath
Every shaky breath

Crumpling like a paper rose, she collapsed onto the floor
And there she stayed until she couldn’t feel it anymore
Again to her uncaring face her empty eyes were filled
With echoes of the pain once felt, again denied and killed
Again denied and killed

Sticky skin and puffy eyes, an empty house to wander
Far too little, far too many hours for her to ponder
Away, away, and back again to places long forgot
She discovered who she was and knew that she was not
Knew that she was not

Red rainboots splashed in puddles, where machines once did reside
Red noses, muddy feet, finding things that used to hide
And she covered her ears, too much to hear nostalgia call
She brushed away her fears, too gone to even stand at all
To even stand at all

Curled like a child, she fell into a deep blue sleep
Drowning all the while, in greyness still for her to keep
Silent tock ticks lulled, her to a state of harsh relief
In silence, dark, and cold, she woke again to heavy grief
To silent, heavy grief

An eye to turn her way, to hold her fractured, fragile soul
To find the strength to stay, to tell her she was beautiful
Though time could heal her wounds, the scars will never disappear
Chained by hopelessness she watched, as her life became her fear
Her life became her fear

And on and on it rained

remember
a girl with a bloodstream filled with her brother's laugh
with seaside sand and bottled up ships on the shore
wind and rain, puddles for rainboots to stomp in
her tears taste like family vacations and disney movies
like memories not quite lost but fading
tree roots dig into her mother's backyard, saplings from an earlier life
leaves changing color, brain synapses disconnecting
the months will still move on through years, but time gets smaller
calendars move, people move, feelings move
life feels lonely and her paperbacks are ripping
all she wants is a glimpse of the past and to keep moving into the future
knitted scarves and mittens, snowdrifts and car crashes
piano scores and swimming pools and banana pudding
move through her system, let her remember, let her heal
talking trees and lord of the rings
mermaid tails and dog kisses
fairy wings and sunburn
baseball bats and runny noses
remember

*(a.m.c.)

I told her
That she wasn't enough
If you tell a pretty kitty
That she is ****
It will start to think
That that's her name
Her name
Was in fact
Beauty
Love
Grace
Loyalty
Thoughtfulness
PERFECT
Her name was
A mix of all of these words
Named after the water
That falls from the sky
When clouds roll in
Depressing
When thunder and lightning
Strike the ground beneath you
Scary
But spelled differently
So she wasn't
Depressing
Or scary
She was the beauty
In the rain
The drops on glass windows
The sparkles in curled hair
The puddles in the streets
The colorful umbrellas
Rainboots too big for your feet
She was kisses
In the middle of the street
She was sharing an umbrella
She was the start of new love
She was love
She is Love

But does she know that?

We give our weight to the ancient decay of this familial brick building
the blades of our razor shoulders just barely grazing it
all as a part of our clever façade of ice cold leaned back sunglasses on our heads attitude
cool radiating off of the sparse, tattered patches in our jeans
the walls still warm from the sweltering July heat
the moon watching us quietly, red in the face
the night still simmering in seventy degrees
smelling of dust and trash cans and our extra-large cerulean slushies.
She sets down her roller skates to divulge the little treasure she had been hiding in her pocket.
Do you want to try one? My mom let me have a pack.
In this uncertain instance, I decide that cool is greater than safe,
as I chew my lip and dart my head around every corner
to ensure that disapproval isn’t lurking somewhere in the dark.
I gradually slip one out of its snug packet with a shaky embrace
twirl it between my fingers as I watch her light one on fire
uttering and stuttering: are you sure we should be doing this?
attentive to the way the tiny embers glow and dance off the tip each time she flicks it with her chipped nails
the smoke turning pink from the neon sign that flashes above our heads
and I’m not sure if I’m sick with anxiety or sick with chemical vapor
as we cough until our stomachs are empty
and the street in front of our feet become drenched in blue.

We would both end up watering our roots just to see how far they could grow
how many miles they would stretch even from the dry dirt of our little Southern street
then drown them so that they would rot and forgetting would be easier.
She would end up in Washington state
where she would wear out her bright yellow rainboots
and I would end up surfing the wind of the Midwest
and we wondered how we could have gotten here
how our miniscule seeds could have blossomed into trees big enough to cast shadows.
After adulthood had kept us apart at more than an arm’s length for a few weeks
she would call me on the phone at one a.m.:
I think I found the one
her voice fluctuating like the sound waves of a child finding their first Easter egg
I would kick my feet up choking on my laughter and letting my tears have free range like we were twelve again
when we would sing our own rendition of “Chapel of Love” in Mrs. Peters’ class everyday
our biggest worry then would be tying our satin bows in our hair just right.
We would talk until dawn
until we would drift off into the dark of sleep
the white noise of the other end of the line still breathing into our ears
dreaming of pixie sticks.

The sound of her body collapses onto the floor
as if she forgot how to fly
waking both of her parents as one treks the speed of God up the stairs
and she wishes the fall would have snapped her neck
that the flush of death washed over a face didn’t have to look so gruesome.
Before she could re-tie the noose into its perfect donut with slick and hurried fingers
her dad flings the door open and you’d think he left a hole in the wall
or a hole in her chest in the way he says
what the **** do you think you’re doing free-falling along with the thick saliva
foaming from his lips that were swollen with sleep
although he hasn’t slept since.
The first time she did it, she apologized
but this time she was only sorry for unstable ladders.  

At recess that day
I drew lilies on my hand with her sparkly pen and I realized later that I had lost it
as if it had grown shovels for arms and buried itself at the bottom of the sandbox.
I shriveled up my tiny face and spewed tears all over my dress,
I hadn’t known a greater tragedy,
but she said she liked the lilies on my hand better than her pen anyway
as the ink bled and into sweat and faded into something watered-down pink and abstract
she wrapped a medicinal arm around my shoulder and told me it was okay
that everything was going to be okay.