I was told I
look like you,
and man,
I hope that's true

'Cause you were made
of morning skies
and
every shade of blue

and clothing lines
and working hands
and every field plowed

You were made
from lovers' hands
and dance in
every cloud.

I don't know how long
I have

until you decide
you don't love
me again

so I'll sit and watch you
smile
for now
for now where
you're in love with me
and I'm not just a
girl to you
who sometimes
walks away

and when she turns
when I turn
your thoughts
don't stray

for now I know you love me
so I'll let you take my hand and
buy a rose for me.

There's so much
sadness in
my hands
the way they
hang so lazily

the way they do not
have fine
control or careful
touch

There's sadness in my hands
the hands that held
you
that rubbed your drying
skin and warmed your
biting bones

There's sadness in my hands
where I hope the memory
remains
of you in robes of blue
and the last words that
I said to you.

The sun is shining
through the glass
and the twinkling city
lights are fading

and I'll think of you
and douse myself in
black

My hair, black
my nails, black
my clothes all stained
in the deepest black

and I don't have to explain

I want love;

I want the
gingered fire of
romance, and
all the ways it
pulls your hand
and whispers
"come with me."

I have forgotten
what love
feels like
when the sun is red
and the day is tired
and the hammock
is swinging
to the beat of
the world

and I'm alone
but full of thoughts
my feet up high
in twine,
my arms behind
my head

where I can sink
into
dreams
of where
passion exists
where you exist,
though I don't know who
you are.

Every situation feels
worse.

When I'm sad,
I want to be indifferent-
Indifferent, I want to be
numb.
When I'm numb,
I want to be hurting-

so why is it I'm in
a constant fight between
nothingness and
pain
where I need to feel
suffering
and also
nothing.

Upward and wayward with
shaky plans,
I lifted my glass and drank to a
simple
song of leaving

I've been watching myself change
in the mirror
a restless heart, I can't stand it,

Look out! I'm coming
and one day, you will see
The way I move
makes you
want to confess to
me

I hear a lot about Christians. I hear a lot
about God

but holy light makes my eyes hurt,
Mother Mary makes me cry

And everyone always says that
Heaven
takes its time,

but I can't. I've got shaky plans and
a restless heart
Douse me in water, second time
fire, third time
I'm Holy

Because down in the valley,
down in the swamp filled with ash groves,
and the ditches of mud,
the dregs of society
who have always shone like
gold
to me

You are my holy gate,
my heaven,
my sacred entrance to
the promised land
where
we don't have time
for the privilege of
waiting
on
prayer

You told me it'd
be my
fault
if I gave you
my soul

if I held it
in my china
hands,
and gave it to you
whole

you told me it would be
my fault
and I know
that it's
true

I swear that I am
noble
but my downfall,
love,
is you.

We drove up the
  switchbacks-
one lane,
  gravel,
   up the mountain
side

and on the edge of the
cliff
where the ground meets the
sky, an infinity
pool as
bare and as dry as
  depression

it's ugly
and it's not clean
  at all

and it's a drop-off to the bottom that I'm
afraid to
hit

-but only for fear of falling,
    not for fear of
        not existing.

Silver walls
a house of mirrors
fingers gripped
on your chipped
china sink

the tile is cold
and I can't find my shoes
from
last night

Where were you when
I hit the wall
and fell into cascading
black?

my knuckles
white and my
chest, heaving
and when I look into
the mirror
my cheeks are
stained, ebony
and rouge

Why can't I hold on?

I saw you shaking
trembling
unable to
control your
broken body

I saw your breathing
become
harsh and quiet
so faint that
I couldn't hear
it

and then I saw you
dying
I saw your soul lift up
and out.

I saw you break free
from the corpse
that could no
longer hold
the jubilance
the splendor
the joy that
is your soul

float away, my love
float away
towards the laughter
called the stars
and to
the dark side of the moon.

I read somewhere
that there's
no fear in love

then I have never
been in love
and know
nothing at all.

because
I'm afraid
of the day you died
the nightmares at night
and being forever
haunted by your ghost.

There's no fear in love?
But I'm afraid to let you go.

I will show you
the way to go
when you cannot
find your way

like years have passed
and there's a bird,
exists only in
her cage.

Like I'm your heart and
you're my ribs,
the marrow in
my bones.

Like you're the cage
and I'm the bird,
clipped, perched on
my thrown.

I will take your winged
fingers
and your feathered,
sculpted wrist,

and take you to
the stars, the sun,
where only you
and I exist.

One day when
all your summers are
gone
and the heat of
lover's joy
subsides

you'll think of me
in every winter
drink
you pour
your bourbon and your
poison
lemon slice

And you'll wonder
if I think of you
and where it is
my sparrow heart
flew

but you won't find
a piece of me in
anyone
because I know that
I'll have
gotten over
you.

It's another day
where the sky is
clear and blue
and I want to push my hopes
up, up,
up and cover the sky with
cloudy dreams

It's another day
whose bound to turn
to night
and I want to lift my arms
up, they're up,
and hold my hopes as
the sun comes crashing
down.

I forgot how
blue it was
in autumn

when trees are
orange
and the hills
are straw
are dry
an indian summer
has gone by
and left its purple
bruise

I forgot how
the fog
kisses the cliffs
and how
it feels
to be with you.

I've seen
five sunsets I can't
forget

and as I left
the smokey valley
and my eyes
stung
with ash and memory

the cascading blue
overcame me

I knew I couldn't leave you

and as the gravel
kicked under my tires
and my lungs
stung with regret

the aching thought
of the kettle
on the stove
and your weak cup
of coffee

overwhelming love
shone over me

But I knew I couldn't go back.

I brought back
a bunch of maps
to hang up
on my walls

but they're
folded in a
lonely drawer
so I'll
forget them all

I never thought
I'd go so far
and neither
did you, dear

That's why I
can't love
my maps
(I don't want to be here)

I've done terrible things
like drive away
from
you in the rain
within my
rear-view mirror

like keep a
cauldron
of secrets brewing
within my
hard-shelled soul
where I do not exist

like leaving in the night
and hoping that you'd
leave me soon
that you'd be there soon
maybe that I'd love you soon

I've done wonderful things
like hold
her hand
to guide her to
her
India

To her private place of peace
where orange and
cinnamon veil gutted
battle wounds

like staying in the night
and hoping that she'd
leave me soon
one way ticket to
India soon
where I would love her
to the moon

Oh, these are wonderful things.

This morning gives
me bitter cold
that kind of cold
that sleeps in
bones

that does not quit
or leave or cease
down blankets
socks or winter fleece

they
do not rid this
aching chill
not running far
nor sitting still

and so I write
because I can
in hopes that
passion
warms the hands

the thawing blaze
of artistic desire
might be enough to
light my fire.

I almost forgot our
mosquito love
song
buzzing at the Oregon
sky
in laughter
in mud, in splinters and
hay
We used to be giants
too big for small
spaces
untouched by grace and
light
But we've heard it, grace, exists
somewhere
outside of us
outside of fear
outside of the unknown
outside of stamps and
welfare and the place we
call home
I almost forgot our
mosquito love
song

By this time, it's been a few years
mulled wine on the stove
and songs of reindeer

And lights in the windows
of homes I held dear,

I wanted to keep you here

I have been
waiting for
thunder so long

Checking the sky
endlessly
furiously
impatiently
searching

I have been waiting
for lightening to
strike
and for that sturdy
oak to come
crashing down

My stomach hurts in the morning
when I first open my eyes
and it's hard to breathe
imagine another day

in another burning room

This calm is so unsettling
when I can see the storm
raging in you.

The first time
that I
saw you
I was scared and wild
I loved you
for your
anger
as rebellious as a child

You showed
me that
love exists
(but also, love's deceit)
in the laughter
of the moon
and the kiss of
your bedsheets

the violin
goes on
as I hear it
play our song
where you
and I
danced in meadows
and I could do no wrong

But winter
comes when
I close my eyes,
the seasons always go
and when
I find
the strength
to open them,
I see eternal snow.

But even if
I knew
that we would
find lover's demise
I would have
loved you
anyway
even though I sensed goodbye.

When I think
of how
scared you
were, and
how you held
your stomach
tightly

and how the grass had been so dry
this summer
and the people,
so sick

of you
hunched over your
bed,
a tissue
in hand,
a heartbroken
plea to God.

I want to be
everywhere you are
and I want you
to know
that the world hasn't
turned it's back
on you.
That I'm afraid too
and that nobody
blames you,

Oh, Adonide,
nobody blames you.

There are dark places, empty containers housing "rock
bottoms" that I've put lids
over.
Vessels, that live with or without you
cabinets that hold things I forgot I even put inside,
rarely-used possessions that
I've gathered over time -
sometimes by demand, but most
by no ask,
at all.

I forget about what lives in my curio
cabinet
until I'm where the case was
filled
Until I'm where that intangible
entree consumed me
where I was burdened with your
leftovers

A lid that opens up a little when I'm standing at the edge of the driving range -
and the single swing of a stranger,
a stroke,
blows the cupboard open
- a small yellow ball being hit by
a 5-iron releases a
feeling I'd forgotten to index, but I somehow
still placed inside

What else is inside of me?

There are really dark places I
can't find my way back to,
no lock, no key, no entry card or subscription
Just places in my collection, improperly
categorized,
- I can't find what's in there
No signs, no arrows, no naming systems or classifications
It's all too much

I can only see what's in my cabinet of artifacts
when I go back to a
place that held out a token to hand to me
- a bauble, a gimcrack to take
and
to place in the archives, the vault of
forgotten things.

Your dark hair
is a waterfall
where I seek the
end the
crashing mist
the spray,
your body is a river
and I'm the wind
you always turned
the radio down
said
"listen to the words,"
looked at the
guard-rail passing
by your eyes
skipping
skipping
skipping
skipping beats to
listen to the words.
You don't like music,
you like poetry, my rose.

I'll never forget
the shape of your hands
how your fingers
dance on a baby grand.

You're beautiful and
ever-growing
into someone I could
love and
love and learn
to love
    again.

I know
I'm not the
"best"
that you could
find,

but all I
wanted
to do was
love you.

You have returned here again
for the second time
I love you and I'm speechless.

If inside my
soul
existed fields
of endless
snow

every crop
would hold
snow angels
that you
made

It's curious that
the universe
chose to
exist as
me

and now I spend a
lifetime trying
to choose to
exist as
it, too

I wore the earrings you
gave me
that used to be
  yours

in the photos I took that
you'd never see

and I had my hair pushed
back
the way that you used to
before you ceased to
be

I leaned against the hills
that night
chilly in the breeze

and thought about
your bony hands
  and all the memories

One week ago
already today
when I was the
    sunset and you
were the waves
where day closed
its eyes and
the moon & stars
lifted
My hope lies in
you and my soul,
the Pacific.

I want to be
the paint on
a canvas
exist where brush meets color
where wrist
tickles
canvas
I want to exist in
a field
of flowers
where the light
is just deceiving
and where nothing
exists
everything exists
it's where I want all of me
to exist,
I belong inside a painting.

How is it
I fall in love
with everything
and with
no one
at all

Your olive skin
is sinking

(when we were kids
you put black olives
on your fingers
and you grinned)

your fingers are worn
hands
cracked with age
from bearing the weight
of heavy things

(when we were kids
we were Greek gods
we were infinite
darling,
you gave me my wings)

and I can feel it
closing in

the way you can't
force yourself awake
when hard days
euthanize
you.

I can feel mortality
pushing you down
(it's pushing me too)

maybe
I should pray more
than I do.

Where there is a
ghost
she walks with
thunder

moving through the
tombstones
where
her skirt
is floating
in a twirling ribbon
defying
grief.

It's wonderful

to see her dance so
much and
walk like bones have not
fallen down before
her and that nights have
not been black
and that the inky
stain of death
has not soiled
her soul.

There is a woman
in Spain
whose mother
used to
read her poems
at night before
the moon
lulled her mind
to sleep

and now she
keeps them in
a journal
while her mother
cries at night
and her father
dies of cancer
and the moon
still owns the night.

Sometimes I dream about you, but
it's not like you would
think

I'm standing in a public
place and
in,
I watch you
slink

And it just sort of happens,
like I've never
been aware

that you could step into a
space
and maybe
find me
there

and I keep running
from you, but
your face is all
I see

Every street and corner's like
you're coming
after
me

Sometimes, I dream about you,
and I always
meet your
stare

before we vanish
like a ghost - I
wish
I weren't so
scared