Pêche is
the French word
for peach
it's the
French word for
love, and
loss,
for nostalgia
and your heart-
beat.

It's the word for
the color of
your tangerine
cheeks
and your
favorite thing
to eat.

Péche is the
French word
for peach and
peach is the
word for end-
less love
and longing.

I look into my
self to see what
I can find
my golden hands
cannot hold
still
clinging as they
dig

I want to fall
I want to fall so quickly
without time
to think

my hands are made of gold
and I am trying to look
within
but there is nothing left
inside of me
in gold I've
been set free

I see you every
now and then
and it hits me
in the gut
how two lovers
aren't supposed to
cross paths again,
watch it fade to dust

I know that we
are strangers now
but it wasn't
always so
you used to smile
when I arrived
and frown as
I would go

but now your smile
is pleasant,
demeanor,
too polite
I know that you
have lost all
love,
but, oh, to be
with you tonight.

Close the window,
it's cold out
and start the fire,
I'm freezing

It's December
& I'm wrapped in you
before I learned
you're leaving

It's before I learned
the tender truth
that's leaning towards
forgiveness

When I would watch
the snowflakes fall
& you were mine
at Christmas

Ugly girls don’t get hurt,

Too strong
and rough
with hardened
edges likes
Shells &
Barnacles

They're
always stuck
between pages or
interests too strong for
people like flowers

I think
that I'm in
love
and it's
tragic,
my pulse
won't stop
pounding
and I need to
hear you
say my
name and
feel your
loving
touch that's
growing
cold now,
oh,
you don't
love me
like I need
you
to
and want me
just the same.

So,

(You shouldn't start a poem
with so)
but who cares?
So what?

You died on a Monday
and I felt
like I did too,

so that's everything
that life is.

It's 1991, community-based drug treatments
are on the rise. People, on the mend, bending over each other to fix addiction

It's 1991, my mother is holding her
low belly, watching TV in the basement
Shared housing, bending over her arm, grip,
friction

It's 1991, have you heard of social feminism? Have you heard how
they do it in Sweden?
Inequality.
Household labor.
This is America. It's a "man's world"
Hold her belly, water, it's a girl.

It's 1991, rise economy,
rise homelessness,
rise, her chest
her ribs
her lungs
her body
expand,
rise, push,
rise, fall, rise, fall
pushing
household labor.

I forgot to tell you
the last time I was there

when I kept my hand from reaching you
from brushing through your
hair

and that way you looked
at me, detached
and unaware

How'd we end up here?

I forgot to tell you,
it just made us seem so small

defining us to simple words
while running through them all

and the way I said I needed you
love, paper,
ink, and
scrawl

How come I left you in the fall?

Out of all
the things
that have
happened in
this life

untouched books,
dusty corners,
broken shoes,
frostbitten toes

out of all the
candles burnt
to nothing
and the skeletons
of moths
fried by the light

and the
hems ripped on
the bottom of your
jeans
and the blisters
on your hands
because you
worked so hard

out of it all,

all of the
secrets you
never even wrote
inside a book

you never should
have had to go
like you did
fade like you did
decay like you did
and pray, as I did
you never should
have had to end
like you did.

When I saw you,
I looked into your
Eyes and
Found your soul

When I saw you,
You saw me and
I could
Tell you knew

Now everything is
Different
And I
Feel brand new

I've been changed
For the better but
I'm more
Of myself too.

Where is regret
when flowers bloom
and they're on the brink
of bursting
with lacy desire

Where is regret
when yesterday
I was not who I am
today and
today, tomorrow.

Why is regret
here now when
yesterday it could not
create a shadow
but only a subtle
flicker,
tap in my gut
a wick of a candle
that will not light,

but burns to oblivion,
all the same.

Why can't I just be
and not let the bees keep
swarming in my head
words being written
on the wall of who I am
and who I thought I'd be?

Where is regret within my soul?

I have to stomp it out.

Here I lie
in a browning
blanket stained
with mascara from
wiping my eyes

in the blue light
of the pool side
gleaming
and the silence
of a summer night

it's here
I lie and do
not know where
pain comes from
or exists within
my soul

or why it
burrows in
so deep and
buries itself
in its hole

and how
agony can
be so big
yet it
makes one feel
so small

Here I choose
to feel my pain
to lie and
sleep through it
all

I drew it best like a river once,
calm to violent
wasting so much space, un-hoped for, an unpleasant
surprise, and
never treated like I
was

There was a lot of laughter, dirt, loud voice, loud TV,
smoke filled rooms with
strangers
The power's out, the water's off
high again, sad again
off our meds again
but laughing
again

We're joking. We're troubleshooting.
We're running out of gas, looking for
quarters

We're knee deep in a creek & our
teeth are falling out.
Dogs, rabbits, skinny horses, pins, cows, rust, motors,
cars, and cars, and rain. So much rain.

It always poured until it didn't

I always thought I'd
  feel the same,
living off of fumes
you can't stop burning

I always thought I'd
  want to stay
Inhaling and
exhaling all our poison

I don't know if through
thick smoke
you can see where this
is going

I'm throwing out our
ashes and pretending that
it's snowing.

coffee carafe
unspoken words
clawfoot bath
singing birds

cotton and brass
a pew in church
catholic mass
eternal search

Nothing exists,
that, I'm certain

I want to see
what's
behind the curtain.

When the day is over
I can still see you
being ****** into
a whirlpool
of turbulence
swirling at
your ankles
refusing to let go

what kind of hell is this
where your demons
won’t let you be
and the swirling
seaweed stops
for nothing
when you’re fighting
to get out

Mom,
I’m really sorry and
I know my demons
haunt you too
but when today is over
when everyday is over
I hope you still know
that I love you.

I peeked out
from the tomb
that seemed to have
built around me,
trapped inside
and failing to grow

I reached my
hands up like
there's something
stirring within me

after my heart stopped
beating
    months
        ago.

When I was
              considering eternity,
a brooding,
primrose ghost
of who
I was
before December

Before the nights were
long &
the days were
shorter -

I was like a
  swan who sat
still,
brass or porcelain,
until the chill of leaving
    pulled me out
the door
       into the
         hope
  of building a nest
somewhere new.

Well
who would have
thought it would
end like this?

with one sunset
fading out of sight
(I'm close behind)
the glitter
of a city
in the distant night,

and in a second it is over
and the rains begin again
and winter is your lover
and summer's just a friend

and flower shops are closing
and the candles burnt
to wax
a step into your long,
lost home
and you just want to turn back

and no one is waiting
how you thought they'd
wait
and you left someone behind
decisions are the demons
pedaling my mind

Well,
who would have
thought it would
end like this?

with just what I wanted
in hand
and the painful sense
of regret
when you give away
what you had.

I keep thinking about
  San Diego
   and sitting with you
- the oceanside

My blanket's on
my glass is full,
it's all hot wax
   and candlelight

I can read your lips
before I even hear
  goodbye

I'm not ready to
watch this go
& leave
this all
behind.

Where are you
now?

dancing in
obsidian oblivion
or on the
surface of a
star

or maybe on the
moon,
(I know you
always wanted
to go
there)

Heaven exists
and
you live there.

you're dancing
and letting the music
take your soul
(please, please take my soul too)
where you're the light.

you're the light.

My God,
you are the light
and wherever you
go
I swear that
I'll go  
for you

so I will meet you
beyond earth
and stars
and moons
and anywhere that you might be

a week ago you
died
and
so
Heaven,
it is,
for me.

How can I say it
in so few words?

I love you.

Sometimes I can hear
the woods at night,
the cascades where
   the shadows turn to      

gold

I'm in the valley in
                        September
before the fire
      and
the

fall

Maybe life can be
just as
simple
as a life
before
everything
has
changed.

Sometime then
  I can't quite remember when
we threw
trash
     on the bonfire

it looked ugly,
   and we'd scream
    
- throw crab apples at
one
    another

Sometime then,
  when we were tired and
thin,
  tripping on patches &
holes
in the floor

I took your hand
  our socks filled with sand
and laughed like
poverty
didn't
hurt
any
    more

You want to be friends
but I can't because
I love you
and I think about
moving back to
France
and I can't,
though I 'd love to.

and I can't bear the
thought of another
winter spent
an hour spent
an eternity spent
without you
a season spent
with someone new

I know why singers
sing
that Christmas is so blue.

This has to be it.

the place between
then and now
how obvious
it is
yet
I can't quite
see it,
make it,
reach my hand to feel
it

but this has to be it

the effervescent
present
the holy
present
the infamous present
they tell you about

where you exist
because I love you
only because
I love you

and where I exist
within myself
and nowhere inbetween

There's a way
in fall that seems
forgotten
a way in
Autumn that
  never fails to own
you

I'm sitting in a
coffee shop,
but my heart's in
Barcelona.

You float
in the water like
it was made
for holding you,

where the sky
looks down
and only sees
itself,

There,
I only
see you.

I wish you
hadn't been so
beautiful
and I hadn't
so
naive

In watching light flood
through a window,
there's a sort of
haze
It's sleepier and cloudier
extending
length of
days

I somehow miss the
   orchestra
I want to sit next to a
stranger
Or hold my
sisters' worried hands
and believe that there's
no
danger

I want to step into a
crowded bar
and tip toe to the
counter
Then tipsy, laughing,
saunter back
when all of this
is
over.

Some things keep me up at night
like standing at a crowded bar
ribcage kissing every inch of the
counter
a gin & tonic from falling apart,

My pink fingers pressing neon lights,
warming me from snowy weather,
Like your pockets used to do,
Wrist deep in smoke-stained leather

Why can't I keep you off of my mind?
I drink cities from where you are
I picture:
what if just you walked
in here
what if I hadn't gone so far?

Some things keep me up at night
Like what I said that September
and now leaving drunk, all by
myself
just to feel like we're together.

Summers where the wood
Was rotting,
the humid stench of
 Root rot,
Paint, and pine

Where tv trays were popped
In place,
while
mom & dad
Got high

Winters where home
Was bitter
Muddy dog prints
stained
Linoleum

Someone I trusted
put
Their hands on me
And I
Never
Told
anyone.

I'm sure it's predictable by now, the starts
& stops, the usual way of speaking
like ink is coming out of my eyes,
your eyes,
every opening

     let's close them.

Too much velvet, too much smoke - too much love, it's love, it's always love. It's too much, we get it!!

I can't stop writing about flowers
   but I never go deep? Too
clever. Too witty. Too descriptive. too pretty.

I won't do it and wild roses will stay
a simple vision in passing, with nothing else thought to be said
in our
absence.

For a second I smelled
smoke
the charcoal, burnt ash fog of summer
in
the valley

  in that second,
I felt sunlight
too
that feeling after endless days
of
gray

I've been lasting here
alone
  miles, states, may as well even be
planets far
  from you

Long days
long nights
and long thoughts about
   hot days where we were
together,
and we believed
the

good times
would last
forever

I used to be a shade of blue,
our open desert
sky -
not knowing that
I'd start to
sing
& still not grasping
    why

I don't know where
music lives
or why wind
can hurt and heal
a spark,
But this happens time
and time
again,
I fall into
    red dark

I'm not denying
you're the shade
of smoke I mixed
last summer,
a canyon
filled with streaming light,
one ravine to
another

I was born red-blooded, a
lionhearted fighter
I'm gonna watch the dirt on
both our hands
expand
    like
          wildfire

There’s something about me
you should know
and it’s kind of
hard to
share
There are years
I was a
liar
and there were years
I was not fair

There were years
where I went out to
school
with nothing I could
wear
and years where I
ran to the
woods
to find my own
“somewhere”

There’s something you ought
to know about
me
and it feels like the right
time to
share
I grew up in a
rat-filled house,
without money
or
health care

And there were years
I tried to skip
these thoughts,
and it felt like
repair
like if I lied
about myself
It would all
just
disappear

But there’s something you need to
know about
me,
I got silence
with each prayer
There are years
that made me
hard as stone
to
get me
out
of
there

I can’t bear to look at
trees
not any kind of trees, but
evergreens

there’s a skeletal
finality
to the way their
bark is breaking
while
somehow
growth
prevails

and it’s such a simple
thing,
getting through
heartbreak
  miles from home
  why does it always feel like
I’m miles from home?

but I make do,
somehow

I just can’t bear to look at
trees,
evergreens,
an entire ecosystem,
temperate rainforest,
aisles and aisles of
patchwork
Pine

So often, I go out to the
desert now
and push my foot into
the red dirt,
and every rock is the
hate of what is lost
and every trail is
a cold-blooded vine

I can’t bear to look at
trees,
evergreens,
douglas, spruce or
pine
I can’t bear to look at
trees

these woods don’t feel
like
   mine