Expose yourself to pain,
let it wash over your body like a long awaited sunrise.
Let it cleanse your blood and
coarse through your veins.

Pain was not created to be fought,
the bite love leaves on the way out.
The heart must hurt
before it begins to heal.

My dear when your world begins to fall,
your hands begin to tremble.
Open your heart
and let the hurt begin to heal you.

Today
I felt defeated
yet happy
that I lost a part of me
that somehow
dragged me down
and
honestly
a sense of
peace
overcome me
completely

She took my niece,
Made her, her-daughter.

Two of them sippin' coffee
In yoga clothes,
Watching sun-rising over the bay @
7:00am, on a Sabbath-Saturday.

She took my niece,
Made her, her-daughter.

Life, a puzzle, a jig saw dance,
Just found, right now, the right spot,
As I espied them, this poem,
Product of a momentary glance.

Another poem, another piece,
When,
She took my niece,
Made her into Her-Daughter.


7:02am

August 24th 2013

i.
Eve has hands like a wrecked garden: dirt caked under her fingernails, wild and vicious and thorn-covered; wild and sunstruck and crawling. She presses her palms into the grass underneath the orchards and prays a blasphemy.

ii.
This is how it goes: there is always a boy, or maybe a snake. There is a time before, with the darkness so whole and absolute it chokes, and there is a time after, with burning light and shame so heavy it puts you on your knees.
This is how it goes: your summerborn cheeks flushed but your eyes cold and barren and wintered.
This is how it goes: you are made from bones that never settled into the earth.

iii.
The apples hanging from the trees have gone nearly overripe and heavy, bending from the boughs and flushed red.
Eve has a mouth sticky-sweet and soft, a body like a rosebush in bloom.
Eve has a bird's nest of hair that calls home only vultures.
This is how it goes: there is always a hunger for more.

iv.
Eve presses her palms against the planes of her stomach, against the soft curves the moon has smoothed onto her.
Eve presses her palms into the grass and howls: *"I will not bear you fruit."

Dear 12 year old self,

don't believe him when he says that he'll never leave again.

don't believe him when he says he'll be back in six months.

don't believe him when he says that you didn't love him anyways.

don't even think for a moment, that he is good enough to be apart of your life.

Just don't, never, ever again.
                                                                                                    Love,
                                                                            your 19 year old self

you remember, baby?
summer nights where the cicadas screamed
until they were loved & our heads felt like
eggs they cracked on the asphalt to prove a point.

aspirin & coke.

your body the puzzle I left unfinished
in july.

i.

Baby's got those California dreamin' eyes that
are just two shades left of San Jose and just as sand soft.
He's got those Brooklyn lips
muddling sugar cubes and bourbon and bright red
cherry stems, all shy smiles in a West Side bar this short of
profane, and oh, you burn.

ii.

Flyers and missing posters:
My name, your mouth.
If found, please call.

iii.

He wipes me off the picture frames with
cold water and vinegar.
I leave my fingerprints everywhere:
on wine glasses and cigarette butts,
takeout menus and the window
leading to the fire escape.

this is my way of saying I am still here.
this is my way of desperate you will not forget me,
your hands still know me,
my name still lingers on your tongue --
but he still cleans the frames and
locks the window and
goes to sleep in a bed
I have never spent the night in.