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

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

will i steam like
naked earth beneath
the tepid rain
raw?

earlier today
i was alone up
on skyline reading
a book by haruki
murakami for
four hours and
the rain came and
went twice with
a rainbow that
would move paces
out against the town
and people moved up and
down the mountain
pausing for a smoke
and leaving with
their windows rolled
up, I cried a couple
times without knowing
why.

Long division, twelve red balloons
in the wind, I'm heavy with thoughts
that always keep me grounded,
a heartbeat driving home against
rubber-bands, swelling in paper skin
disintegrating beneath drops of gravity,
people who sound like piano notes
silvery, sustained harmonics
and smell like peaches
feel like home

at the top of the stairs,
shadowed, but fringed
in sunlight, bent down
to rub my ankle, stopped
to wipe your lips, stopped
to turn and smile, traveling
up your arm in the snow
curled fingers around my
toes after soaked boots
a hundred mugs of
apple cider and the
click of your eyelids
taking photographs.

Almond Roca in the winter
the trees smell like sun and
the floors are heated, maybe
the swell of ******* under a
red plaid robe, we both have
tear dimpled faces but cider
the cider smells good in this
house, in these mugs on the
table, this morning is like

syrup

My first love was not a first love
because the first thing he was interested in
was being around me with his shirt off so
I could admire how toned he was for a
freshman.

He chose my best friend over me first
and I let him in anyway, he called me a
**** fiend and I took that as a compliment
even though i had no idea what I was doing.

He told me, Brooke, when people love each other
they have ***, and I knew that part of that was true
that I wanted to equate love with making love because
why else would it be called that? But he wasn't my first love
and the first thing he was interested in was eating me out.

Fifteen year olds are too dumb to make any rational decisions
when they have overbearing honey-tongued devils in their lives.
I was so scared but I did want to, so he planned it out and he had
me on bare mattress in his room in broad daylight, no sheets, no blankets
and my socks were still on, I wasn't even sweaty and my hair stayed perfect.
He wasn't my first love because the first thing he thought of was grabbing my
breast under the elementary school awning.

We had no ****, no privacy, no rules. And I gave it to him willingly even though
I was paralyzed right down to my toenails, a cold highway of veins in my jar of
jelly muscle, the mornings were hot and every time he laid on me I felt like a
shower was the only cure to feeling this *****, should I FEEL this d i r t y?

My morals were rupturing like aneurisms, and everyone thought it was
so ridiculous that I was breaking down under their sunlight, burning up
under their words? It shouldn't matter, this much, brooke. It SHOULD NOT
matter this much. His dad, drove me to the jiu jitsu tournament and told me
he didn't understand why my dad thought it was so necessary to keep me
safe why he shouldn't be buying his son condoms because this is
what
teenagers
do.

My incessant nagging drove him away and I have thought this to be my
fault. This was not my fault.  

My second love may have been my first love.
because the first thing he was interested in was waiting
till our friendship bloomed and then I could come over to his house.

He didn't write off his feelings for me when I said I needed time. And maybe
he did go back to his ex, but I needed time and he gave me time. I wasn't sure
if I loved him but I kissed him and the first time he touched me he told me
to ask him to, to make sure it was okay.

I remember what I was wearing, acid wash shorts and a tanktop
that apparently saved darfur.  His breath was warm and the evening was dim
but his desk-light shone over our legs and his worn skinny jeans.

He told me, Brooke, all I want to do is make you breakfast. And I read
that in his diary. And my second love was my first love because the first
thing he wanted to do was draw me while I slept. He did.

Seventeen year olds are swept away easily and refuse to work
on old feelings. They are damaged because of their first loves who
weren't first loves and are afraid to let go because there will never
be anyone better than this.  My second love was my first
love because he never held *** over my head like a trophy
and we rolled over each other in the sheets and my parents
were never worried.

We had no ****, we had privacy, we had rules. I was not scared
after I realized there were no threats. I thawed and was sweet like
a ripe strawberry. He said he loved me and I felt clean, sweaty but
there was no need for a shower, my hair was always frizzy and he
laughed about it.

my morals were tall mortar walls. And I told him there were rules
for wanting to be with me, and my walls loomed over him. He tried and promised
but we were both fools.  I made mistakes twice over and took advantage of his love.

my incessant nagging, indecision, and rudeness drove him away. This was my fault.
This was all of our faults.

It's that smell of last
cigarette
on your clothes
the hole burned through your white cotton
tshirt, pink lipgloss on the cuff of your sleeve
where has she been kissing?
I shouldn't care.
You're sixteen, seventeen
eighteen?
You're too old, you're too young
i'm the little sister, aren't you suppose to be
worried
about me?

It's a lullaby now, a song of return a
scent i associate with family
smoke
sweat and
sugar.

Yeah, I remember you
cherries popping in your mouth, my
cherries, fireworks, pop rocks in your cheek
citrus cream on your tongue, vaseline
on mine and the way the electrical outlet
looked up close next to my sweaty palms
with bobby pins embedded in my knees
fresh out of the shower, pear extract clinging desperately
trying to keep me clean

Her hair is
molasses on
the table

we the daughters of sliced sunbeams
and those who chase gales in between
the pasture gates and barbed fences behind
the silo--

who think there's nothing softer than the way
honey sounds drizzled on toast or daisy petals at the supermarket
the women of ferocious silences, standing before
dozens with trimmed smiles and deafening inner beauty

squeezing our fingers down barley stalks and sewing
the roots into our dresses, we've tried six ways to sunday
the rules, the book on being wanted, before realizing that anything
born out of self-indulgence wilts away
all the work we did to grow and plait our hair with vanilla,
dipped in sweet almond oil we had no idea
that pretending
could only get us
so


far.

Around that time is when  you told me
I prefer pale skinned women
as opposed to me, I'm a little bit too olive for
your tastes, atlas shrugged and geometric circle
tattoos
I would get a heart, right below my thumb
how juvenile, you're thinking

and you described your father's death behind your house,
how Wendy's voice broke your silence, but you
were so calm and that night you made Basil Palmiers, a little
too flaky, with a cigar amidst the coroner who spoke
hush hush

as if you couldn't take the news, a devastated son cooking dinner,
the wine,
magnificent.

I only just realized
what joy can be—
It is a small thing,
I think,

In the back office
at the bank,
If you leave the chair canted
towards the south window,
the sun will warm the small
blue seat around 11:45

It has always been
such an inconsequential thing to me
always out of reach—

But it’s there,
A quarter before noon
every day.

I use to hope that you'd keep that
photo of me tacked by your bedside
but you took it down, (vengefully)
I know this because you tore out the portraits
of me from your sketchbook the first time around

so I hope you find bobby pins still within your clothes
catch whiffs of my old perfume on the streets and feel your
spine cinch softly, I hope a single earring rolls forward in the
desk drawer, but I really cannot hope these things anymore.

so i hope the earring stays lodged in the crack, that all stray bobby
pins find their way back and that my perfume is never worn, never worn
never worn. I hope that my perfume is never worn
around
you.