but then you left me
(after all that we went through)
the same day he did
if I dared
I know the answer
see it there, in the curve of your neck
as it leans away from me
an expanse of want stretching up to the sky
the clouds around you, thick with my gaze
touch skin I could never reach from here
and the rain, I wonder
what would it look like, feel like
if I let it fall?
don’t tell me
you did let me down
but it didn’t matter then
so why does it now?
finally
a written word cannot be undone;
instead it becomes
carved in, in shape, in sound
the chiseled point of a knife into stone
the truth black ink staining
lips that don’t speak.
a word, once written
becomes real:
real flesh ripping as I
dig my fingertips into my arms
holding myself as you
pound on the door of the closet against my
back as I cry;
real bones breaking as I
slam my head again
and again
against the bedroom floor;
real blood seeping from your eyes
the hurt in them a weeping wound as I
wield my weapon not for us but
against you.
was it fake then, when it happened?
it could have been
wisps of folded paper acting out
scenes too absurd to believe
(I don’t, do you?)
we don’t have to
look
there they go, already gone
dissipating, insubstantial, into the air
ghosts of paper dolls fleeing
through cracks in the front door, gone
to haunt somewhere more alive
too cold here even for them.
I shiver
turn on the heater, slip on my gloves
wrap a robe around my body
climb back into the dark of the bed
switch on the heating pad
turn it up, pull gently
the thoughts from the thicket
tiny slugs caught in tangles
of fur once freed
they lift their faceless eyes
and peer blindly at the unseen world, inch
across skin in a cold wet trail
from the terra-cotta pot to hot cotton
curl against it
cold warming to numb, they forget
themselves, and
so do I.
I dream of running down stairs, out of houses, through gates
it’ll be fine if I can escape
and I do, in the dreams
I dash through doorways into the open
life beyond, a green expanse
wet grass in the moonlit night
clusters of people that pay me no mind
my body, crawling alive
from a hardened skin, the mud
crafted of ashes and dark old blood.
when I wake, it’s quiet.
from my bed I look out the door
through the hallway
into the room with the bed that was
ours
up until I wrote that it
wasn’t.
the writing of the word is what
makes it real—
or was it real before? was any of it?
remember, the paper ghosts have fled—
or did they burn?
did I set them alight one by one
so as to not see them huddled
in every corner of
every room we were ever in
together, staring at me with their coal dead eyes?
was it their ashes I crawled out of in my dreams?
was it my blood?
I don’t know
but the words do
and they dig themselves into my
skin, hot like a brand, soft like a
promise.
I could get up and
shut the door
stop looking into the room that was
ours
until I wrote that it
wasn’t
but I don’t.
it’s cold, too cold over there and
here, I am finally growing
warm.
you tried
oddly comforting
knowing I’m not the only
one you didn’t fool
promise?
you’re eating a hotdog in the sun
I’m walking rocket in his blue snow coat
past chain link fences
with teeth
with flowers
with a bark named Samantha
behind one, a cluster of bees pollinates
patchy purple ground-cover flowers
behind another, a pair of men ask if I’m
enjoying the weather
I say yes, my eyes squinted shut
fallen flowers litter my path
you’re in a big green park playing fetch
one-eyed dogs running
one-eyed smiles sunning
I’m in a land without lawns
window bars casting shadows on the page
(I like the bars, they keep me safe, they hold me in, they cage me, I put them there myself, aren’t they pretty? look! the curlicues, the twisted rods, I painted them white, aren’t they nice? through them I can even see the sky!)
ultimately, everything will be fine.
but please don’t
it’s okay, really
you’re allowed to let me down
in moderation
six years
held up like a shield between stay
and go
objects hurtling from both sides
those objects: sharp and dull and barbed and flaming and
soft and sad and constant
constant
constant
and then it stops.
and I see it’s not a shield at all; it’s a quilt
jaggedly sewn, haphazard stitching
gaps in the seams
holes where the good parts got
rubbed raw
bits thrown together to make sense of later
but later came and went
wishes gathering dust
fingers slipping through puncture wounds
we made
believing it to be thicker than it was.
in the silence between attacks
I take the quilt and curl up in the snow,
tuck six years around me like shelter
and tell myself I’m warm.
hard to believe
we boiled down to
a cookie on a doorknob
neither of us turned
(it was also the no)
it wasn’t the no
but the way you would say it
words dripping with want
or am I?
placing my finger
on the pulse of an answer
that won’t beat for me
where it belongs
it played itself out
‘cause it had to, ‘cause it could
red rose left behind
trust me on this
from experience
I’ve learned that too much nothing
is never enough
is it?
the hike and the hill and the rock and the dusk
the stories that weren’t and were about us
the catch you made on the way down, like the easiest thing in the world
tell me, is it not allowed to be easy?
the little things
my dear fridge cricket
I thank you, at least, for not
choosing my bedroom
not fondly
my dental hygienist chatted to me about
narcissists
last wednesday while she cleaned my teeth.
I nnnged and ahhhed and huhuhed and
thought about you.
thank you, that’ll be all
wine had no answers
but it stopped me from asking
so it did its job
until further notice
how am I, you ask?
I’m humbly deferring all
questions to the wine
believe me
the sun is never better never wetter never right
I have one love, one only
and it’s night
shrug
soulmates finding soulmates
in the dark
under rocks
he’s not blind and
she’s not blonde
but it’s been two years, so hey
maybe next time
control showed up on my doorstep
broke the door down, knocked me over
ran up the stairs and sat in my chair
finished my book and sold it too
handed me what I wanted
as I reached out to take it
it took it right back
and it laughed
and it left
left me trampled in the empty entryway
shut up, bed
I haven’t slept at all tonight
it could be the tickle in my head
or it could be the bed I’ve slept in
for fifteen years it feels the same
but tonight it whispers
“really, has anything changed?”
I was too late
appealing to your selfish side
when you’d already strung him up
tied him to the wall and said you’re welcome
as he screamed for me
and oh how he would sing for me
and all the words he’d string for me
but arms in chains cannot hold anything
all I wanted
was to be as important
as you were to me
gray
my cheekbone is tender from lying
on concrete, lying
in shallow wounds
lying
not lying.
I can’t offer you a smile
from across a room
can’t lie at the feet of your emptiness
and offer myself as food
for I am too large and too far
and too good at not lying
and I wish
for a moment
that I wasn’t.
and my hair is darker now
and the smiles, when they come
are different
but I see it
clear as a skeleton wearing skin
I see your clouds
and I sit beneath a shallow lake
and watch for rain.
only one
you’re the only one
who can still knock me down with
the touch of a thought
big
it’s a big thing
monumental
and big things like this require
a certain amount
of gentleness
that isn’t hard for me
I can be gentle
in fact
I can be so gentle
with the things that I am holding
they don’t even know
they’re being held
so the question isn’t
can I do it
can I hold this thing
this monumental thing
can I hold it gently
and right?
of course I can
the question is
will it know?
will it feel my touch
my hands on its skin
its thick leathery indestructible
fragile delicate breakable skin
and will it break
with or without my touch?
my gentleness?
my anything?
with or without knowing
it was ever being held
together
ever being held by me
at all?
maybe I do
I wish I knew someone
whose mind danced like mine does
I wish I knew someone
who set me alight
I wish I knew someone
who knew how to know me
I wish I knew someone like you.
and I never will
I never knew which
was worse – the falling apart
or the wanting to
much, much
I just realized
that I’ve been pretending like
I care for so long
I had forgotten
how much harder it is to
pretend that I don’t
Liberdade
a shallow impression
made on a surface both more and less pliable
than it used to be
than it should have been
smooth until the first crack of sunlight
other tools, they hammer, they bruise
but this shallow pool remains
the only indentation, sole crater on the moon
visible only to the touch and
never in the dark
an elbow on my leg
green eyes looking up
his skin is warm from a sun somewhere
and mine is cool from the sea
shaking with inevitability and the thought of altering course
a sticky thought, dipped in the rum
we found in the dinghy
the bright morning light dripping into the cracks, widening, deepening
The Who on a loop, seeking, seeking
a small indentation, salt water rushing in
too deep to stand in but not enough to sink
if only I knew how to float
there I am
lying in the rocking waves
with nothing but a boat
and a shallow impression filled with the sea
this little something
this little something
just sailed away; anything
meant to be will stay
now, to
forget and stay sane
or to remember and ache
that is the question
warm skin
sometimes I forget
what it feels like
not that it matters at this point
my skin is slick with coats of you
coats of lacquer coats of liquor
some layers blacker some layers thicker
coats of you that don’t make me bigger
they make me small, so small I can’t see
would you find me
if you looked?
I can’t remember which layers of you
you gave me and which ones I took
pinky promise
it won’t matter soon
I say (to help fall asleep)
unclenching my jaw
she and I
I’m made up of every me
that
I have ever been
including the one who once thought
she loved you
I hold her memories
I hold her heart
I know her sorrow, her unfiltered pain
I know the why behind every single choice
she ever made
and I see her foolishness
her stubborn trust
how she looked at you
the way she pictured us
and I can still feel
through the thrum of her heart
what it used to be like
to need you
we were once one
but we aren’t the same
so don’t be a fool and mistake my strength
for weakness
not you
if no one was dishonest
then everyone would cry
right in the bright sunlight because
there’d be no place to hide
and who wants that?
blind
to all the things that i can’t see
that i can’t know
that i’m not shown
lines and dots and spaces
endless spaces
curves and edges
all the shapes are forming words
that i can’t make out
that i don’t know how
and i hear the sounds
(the few you gave me)
turning into echoes fast
then all the echoes turning back
their sources lost then found again
(i can’t keep track)
and all the thinks and all the knows
flowing and curling and diving and rolling
shifting around all the pebbles of me
that make up the sand
that cradles the sea
so big and so deep
this unknown invisible ocean made of
you
lines
you have nice lines
he said as he traced them
his body next to mine
she said nothing
tracing them with her eyes
as I twirled a few feet or
a couple worlds away
glow
so if he offered to light up your skin
to shock your bones and make them glow
to turn you to fire and
paint you red and
rip you from cold clinging hands of the dead
and worship you in a palace of flesh
don’t tell me you wouldn’t say yes.
I mean it
It was a smile that ended the world
yours, your eyes, and the look in mine
your hand on my neck, a few spoken words
the fuse was lit and
we saw it ignite in
a blast that no one else heard.
The whole thing aflame from a glance and a touch
you fled as it burned while
I stood there and watched the wreckage, entranced
the flames as they danced
the beautiful chaos, the burning expanse
I stood right there and watched the world shake
and all I could see was a giant, heaping
mess of a non-mistake.
what have I done?
you tried to burn it and
burn it you did but
it didn’t disappear
it only dissipated
fire to ash, fell to the earth
but smoke to air, now it’s everywhere
you thought this was better
you thought this would work
fire to ash and smoke to air
but now it’s everywhere you look
and you can’t even see it.
win-win
timing is everything
deception
it suited you so well I never knew if it was something you chose to put on or something you couldn’t take off
I tried
you gave me a toothbrush and I promised I’d be back
it wasn’t a lie; I thought I might this time
but then I got my way
and he got in the way
and then time got away
and everything was gone and so was I
but you still check in now and then
to see if I’ll keep my promise
to hear some more of my silence
and you’ve never mentioned the toothbrush
but I wonder if it’s still there
I wonder if it’s still wet, still waiting
still dripping tiny beads of guilt, the drops
not big enough to hear from here
not loud enough, really, to make any sound at all
consumed
such a large amount
of me I’ve spent on something
as tiny as you
how much easier it is
to rightly fall for
someone wrong than to wrongly
fall for someone right
the simplicity
of having something
before you realize just
how much you want it
freckles for breakfast 