Snap, crack, snap -- twigs break underneath
Each burst is music fed deep into her heart
Balmy air blows crisp across her cheek
A kiss as sweet as a daughter's caress
Pride inhaled with each labored breath
Seventeen miles of inclines and slopes
Over fallen trees and swollen creeks
Intentional steps, stitches of success sewn into
the blanket of her soul as she
wanders along the path of her
journey to renewal

Chase me
I will run
a dangerous race.

Praise me,
I will ignore headlines
and writing in the sky.

Anchor my heart
against insistent
waves.

Quell my
woody-stemmed love
afraid to grow.

Show me knowledge.
Contain my spirit.
Stay near.

Capture me
with tender hands.
Knead my soul until I rise.

If I were to live my life

on sheets of acid free paper

I would bounce

tap, tap, tap

and each line would say

in fragmented metaphor

you are adored.

I would pray and meditate

in rhythms that dance

sensual sways to entice

you to take me to bed

and flip me slow

to look back or peek

ahead to satisfy

curiosity. You would bend

my corners to remember

open mouth kisses.

Our play would sound like

cries and laughter

from a ship of fools.

Cover me with blankets

warm from lust

lingering

and find me in the morning

with the same stare

black on white

calling, devour me

finish me,

turn me

finish me.

I have never woken up to a sunrise

Instead,
I have watched the walls turn
From gray to orange, and
From orange to white,

Seen the shadows of trees
That never knew the sight of my face,
Refracted light creeping into my bedroom through
The windowsill

Forcing their way through the darkness,
The cracks,
And the creases of my eyelids.

To this day,
The closest I have gotten to sunrise
Wass the musky gray of
Dawn.

But I have woken up to a moonset.

and no you dont understand when i
tell you i want you to hold me a certain way it's not because
your elbow hits my
scapula in a way that makes it
impossible to sleep
and when i ask you to kiss me it's
not because i really need the
validation or
comfort of lips pressed hips ******
together and heartbeats
knocking like
opportunity at the door & my knees
and when i ask you
to make love to me it's not because i can't
take it ***** i mean you could just
shoehorn it in there but that's not the
point and what do you
get when you ask for

twenty pages of love notes and dust scribbles in cobwebbed
corners where you'll never look twice and
how do years curl up the way
pillbugs do when they die
accordions collapse and ribbons
lie shredded on sawdusted floors

above us you know lately i've been begging every man i meet to tell me fifteen stories
high on acid low on fuel
the fire when i knelt to feed it cedar explodes in embers writhing syllogisms of love
the way that moths feel like featherpaper shadows when you turn off the lights where do they go
on and on and on andon andonandon&onampersand;
storm and locust breeze might be the only thing we have to eat
until you can't stop
.

if i drive back to colorado tomorrow it's
not because i cant take the heat and lord
knows it's not the rain thats keeping me rooted
even if my
boots are covered in mud

it's because
right now i'm a little
fragile &
that doesnt mean dont
touch.