I don't have time for these water regrets
and I've troubled those seas with my weary
old nets

A little girl
inside of me
cannot make
friends and
she still hides
now and then

I want to
taste that
kind of
happiness

I see
angry people
everywhere

Drives a part of me mad
thinking about that bunk
bed soaked in my perfume
how you ******* her, midst
my hairbands

I hate you because
I meekly sought
your comfort in
the theater, telling
you I still loved him
and you went and
fell in love with him
too

Dreamed about you
last night, I hid in the
sunflowers against an
old white house and
you came to find me

A stone foot down
and there I was,
In the dust

I would burst for you
effloresce on the spot
a kingfisher at heart
honest as the morning
pick any tree for me
I will be that sunbeam
phenomena in between
the pistachio branches

Little things
my dad does,
today he put
a new tooth
brush by my
sink after I
carelessly
mentioned
wanting new
things

Occasionally they
ask me why we
are so different

I want to help
the ones who
hurt

I wish someone
would sketch
me in, a sienna
thought with
cornflower blue
edges, during
coffee, chai tea
and bagels.

Would you believe it
if I told you I used to
watch him sleep, and
in the mornings I would
rub the tile outside the
door so it would be warm
and although I felt sick
I cradled his head in my
lap on the way home
I actually felt better after
we slept on the air mattress
but am I to assume that
that was a false happiness?

I once thought
I could be clean
by scrubbing,too

I cannot get rid of
the things people
have said anymore

I do not know
how to forgive
them, though

I'm too caught up in
piano notes, a crescendo
that pulls my spirit out
I was told what he says
gives life to the logos
so I'm inclined to seek
the water and dive

somewhere in my dreams
last night I swam in a lake
that glittered as a hundred
thistle prisms, I ran through
schools of fish, hallways that
whistled, stairwells that were
no feat at all, everyone was
somehow impressed by me
I held faces between palms
and kissed so many people.

Please consider
my wishes no
one else does

Indian brave, treetop advantage
apple juice lips, palm to palm on
the swings as we breathe in bold
letters and speak in a five point
font, quietly because we're older
the kids should not know about
the lemon tea ways of age and
wisdom, so we muffle our voices
in damp scarves and admire the
way we used to be

There's a narrow speckled gate
here, that bakes in the afternoon,
sunlight streaks nakedly through
crimps in the iron, fortified metal
lips, curled like payot. Air thick
with lime, daisy, daisy, daisy
sometimes I stand under the
arch, reaching back and forth
between worlds.

I have not been happy in a while
and I cry a lot, but I will not tell
anyone because I do not want the
reputation for being a cry baby.

I am afraid to tell
people that I have
no friends, because
I am afraid to lose
them too.

I sometimes wave
little flags in their
faces and tell them
that I am still

here

Do you always
see the moon
as a whole?

Through the twigs and savory green,
dry yellow sun bits. A wet vanilla perfume
lingering in sweat droplets, staining
that white tank-top too busy being
baked in, dead grass fastened to your
thighs a bit like tassels. I am sometimes
positive that you grew from the thirsty
dirt like a

cactus

Maybe if I were a
hummingbird. Wine-throated
in Guatemala, would that be
far enough away, or is it such
a romantic notion to want to
to be fast enough to escape but
beautiful enough to be noticed

You were a mandarin experience
jets of white ribbon, the things you
said were quarters, flat and chucked
sometimes you reached all the way
into me with your ideas, with your
with your, with your, with your



did you even ask?

Do you remember the splinters
from the tanbark, your whole
body burned

When we were kids
they taught the raspberry things
dyed lips blue and rubbed honey
on before kisses, everything was
stale sugar, your breath warm
lemonade and red ochre arms
chilled in the goldenrod shadow

Once, I told him that I was not hysterical and he could call me
he answered what's up kid as if his voice had dropped, but it
hadn't. I replied submissively and he told me that it would not
work even though I did not truly want it to in the first place. It
was so silent on the other end I could hear his car running. Here
to stop on the hill to talk, the cul-de-sac with no cars where I once
sat between his legs and did unspeakable things on the porch of
someone's summer house. He wasn't sorry even though he said
it twice, I made sure to count. I could probably account for all his
apologies on one hand, the entirety of our two year relationship
was one. They say you lose them the way you gain them, so I
must have fought too hard both ways coming. He said goodbye
twice and meant it, where my mom found me curled up on the
swing by our old house. Drenched in sweat, it must of been 80
outside, I smelled like paint, we were redoing my room. Summer

is so hard now, Maroon 5 on a Chelan boat. The memories are messy.
What was that, three years ago, now? I am still startled by your name
in my phone, by the notes I still find in boxes. I've kissed a few since you
anyway, but I still remember the way your neck felt.