I’m in your empty apartment
My heart two sizes too big
For this security deposit
Landlord said no smoking
You’re burning me up inside
You asked me why I came
Darling this is just where the wind blew me
I’ll be here until it picks up again
For now the sound of the water
Against the shore
Lulls me into a sinless sleep
Lately I’ve been dreaming
In black and gray again
It reminds me of you
When there was no color
To see in the world around me
It doesn’t matter where you go
Only why you’re leaving
There is only people, places
This thing we measure called time
I won’t find myself
Until I lose you
We’ve never played fair
I craved you
Like a mother’s love
You are a cigarette
Sweet on the tongue
Burning quickly
To a bitter end
I wondered for years
Why the birds flew south
Now I know why
They come back
To the north every spring
When she is ready
Waiting
Warming
Home

I attempt again
To swallow
The words lining the inside of my throat
It has been there
Since before I knew what letters were
Spiraling down
Into the pit of my stomach
It does not go down easy
It does not settle well
And when it tries to come back up
It sits again
In the back of my throat
Like the taste of a hollow cry

It was a long drive
I fell into the last sleep
On the way home
Shortly after the sun went down
I felt the bumps
In the road
I knew
We were almost home
You knew
When you buckled me in
That I was slowing down
Your gentle turns
Lulled me to sleep
I went out with the light
Will you carry my body inside
Wrap my arms around your neck
Lay her to rest
In a midnight coffin
Heavens sheets tucked
Around my chest
I feel like a child

Has the sun set yet
We have so little time
To make peace with the day
After your soft touch
I will never feel whole
I am bleeding out
Where your fingers reached
Inside my soul
Where does the time go
When I am dreaming next to you

I knock on your chest
Asking you
To open up your ribs
So I can climb inside
It is warm here
Next to your beating heart
And the rhythm
Lulls me to sleep

I tell my mother I am tired
She looks at me
She knows
How women always do
Two backless mirrors
Lost in the others reflection
One will swallow the other
Birth her
And thus the cycle continues
Russian nesting dolls of pain
Full only of each others dreams
How foreign
How familiar

Do not tell me my father is trying
I do not know this man
I can only wonder
Why did he wait
I begged him
To look at me
Not even to love
Just to see
How could you not know
One day I would be a woman
I thought I would be
Everything you were not
When I look in the mirror
I am your reflection
Everything you are
Your anger burned into my voice
Your strength in my fist
You gave me this fire
It burns me up from the inside
I hear you
Echo in my head
Do not tell me
You are trying
Because when I tried
Begged, pleaded, asked
You turned me away
For 25 years I waited
For you to do better
For me to be enough
To separate myself from the desire
To make you proud
Of that, I will never be worthy
This is not my deepest wound
It is one that will scab over
I will pick at again and again
To watch it bleed
It is your blood in my veins