her legs hung seductively
out of a window frame
pouring smoke
and they drank it all in
took what she had to give
her painted lips
her white wrists
and the marrow
that slept inside.
empty girl
empty sighs
abandoned ware house
turned
****** scene
because their
desire,
each time
was like a knife sunk through her

you were afraid of being cut open
the view of doctor gloves
reaching inside
parts you didn't
know could feel
like slicing off
a point of a star
watching it dim
and die inside
of a light bulb
flickering.
these things they spit out of you
you lost them one at a time
fingers down your throat
evacuate what you didn't need;
that day i slept in your stomach
i could feel the urgency of static
pulling me through your lungs
your teeth hit me on the way out
you needed me
but you were your own
doll maker
cutting space
into your heart
substituting
wooden pieces
that held no
memory of
the way
my lashes looked
when it rained

we were never people
but maps
with worlds to explore
an almanac of oceans
body parts cut up into
states.
you were california
always so far away
and i was alaska
in a cold dark place.
one day
our bodies folded
atlas hands
joined together
splitting mountain
ridges
to be with one another.

I slash my skin
into
violent
grins;
welcome
my friends

you
are turpentine
when the world gets too thick
your eyes are oil paint
that watch me
smile
watch me cry
watch me laugh
and die
you are the sacrifices
made for me
you are what i chose
to make me happy
you've made a home
inside my lungs
and i drink in your scent
every square inch
you don't like breakfast very much
but you make me eggs over easy
and you like the way i rub together my
feet when i'm asleep;
you said that way you'll always know
it's me.
you don't like yourself very much
and that's why i wrote this poem
because i know these things-
your a garden of different seeds
i'll love the way you grow forever
and i know you'd never stop
loving me

what is it like to
sit
on laundromat tiles
with fish eyes blank
slack jaw
words coming out
"you're too young"
my porcelain skin
isn't china doll thin;
i've felt things inside that rupture
stitching
that morph into a blazing
hot sun because i feel
it's burn in every molecule
thrown under microscopes and watching
the chemical reaction of knowing
you're in love and being in love and always wanting love
with the one person who gives you love
as amebas you can't
measure the age
"oh yes it's love, no
doubt about that"
scientifically proven.
but when you add a
slight skeleton
skin with cuts and scars
from off balanced racing on concrete
with feet that feel every
material of every terrain
and wide eyes that smile
because
life can truly be beautiful.
when you add all that-
love somehow becomes less potent
as if the inner
bonds of feeling
are taken less
seriously.
tell me this;
my lips curve around his name
and my voice box softens
and slows,
dragging out letters
like they hold a story in each one
and to me they always will
should that change with age, should it lessen?
my heart pumps in the same rhythm that
it will 20 years from now.
love has no age
it exists in timeless capacities
and does not know numbers,
it will not see them
it sees two hands
holding one another
gently like
sacred white doves
alighting on aspen
branches
with roots that bury in deep-
but bark as tender
as newborn babies

brown blotches
feathers in no way
glossy
unnoticed
and
dull.
small fragile
bones.
a sister of
depression,
people will always pass over thee.
of course when there's
creatures like cardinals
with
flaming red bodies.

but eyes cannot tell all
for ears that open too
can never mistaken
the ever sweet
tune of the
bird
almost always
forgotten;
but not quite.