It’s much easier to listen than to be heard,
so I assemble a wide-eyed, open expression,
and shelve all the blaring thoughts
to the dead wood walls of my mind.
I am an expert at starting sentences,
horrendous at finishing them. How can I

you open all the blinds for moonlight
to make a place at your dining table
the radical yellowed pages say “liberty is an illusion”
& you must agree,
crouched on your cold chair in a t-shirt
& underwear. eating tomato soup.

It seemed clear at the close of a lengthy conversation,
In the cool heat of late Spring.
We have long mourned,
The colonial appropriation of the ancient East.

Heat becomes a god faster than
anything else – agave creeps up, bursting
like a yolk cradled under the tongue.

Walk as far as you can and get nowhere.
Scales thrash; sand unwinds lazily.

the two of you walk around the lake,
trying to balance on the familiar, unsteady ground.
around you, icicles hang from trees like glass ornaments,
swaying lightly in the wind.
they’re on the edge of breaking off the branches
but they don’t.

Little calloused hands climb up a grandfather clock
Pink cheeks and huffy breaths of exertion
We try to pull ourselves up the very same trees
That lightning struck down years ago
I don’t see my dad as much as I did back then

i’m stuck on the edge of something and i’m sure i’ll find it under the waves that tug me like a hook in the eye and i know there’s something where the sky ends but i’m not sure what this pain is supposed to bring me closer to or what stain this salt is supposed to scrub or even if this is the lon

take the knife and never use it –
press mercy into your skin and
hope it’s enough to fling the stars’
light back. grow into your teeth
and remember all their faces.
open your mouth and drink down
every drop. can’t you see?
you are nothing until you are wanted.

Have I ever told you that
Once, I reached my arm
In the sky, to try
To pinch a distant star—

I wanted to squeeze it,
To secrete its sweat
And watch it drop from light years away onto my tongue

I know nothing but darkness
Until my stomach is ripped open
The light turns on and they look inside
Give me nutrients and then take them away
Steal my belongings
And drink my blood
I haven't slept since birth, I am so afraid
For one day I will break down

when i go:
scatter my ashes in that clear cold stream.
let the current take me down,
down,
to that small place,
where god stains her cheeks with river-clay
and cicadas scream sweet hymnals.
where life is raw and quiet and sublime
and the worms find heaven in

Two sleeves brush. In a single touch, it blossoms: love.
Wide-eyed, whisper anything in my ear, I’ll call it love.

Barefoot on a pedestal, white lace, floor-length mirror.
If you don’t cry when I walk down the aisle, is it love?

A fish doesn’t know what water is
But I think the water is full of-
Questions

You need to clean your room, honey.

The answers don’t matter nearly

-I know, I will.

As much as the act of asking

Whistle a tune by the fire with me friend
There's whole worlds out there,
but right now you're on this one...
So take it in

Freedom is only a tool,
Soon, you'll see that.
Timber giants stand among us here,
They cannot walk, but their spirits are reinless

lobby
i step onto the elevator
and push for floor 12
a woman in a black dress rushes in and asks for 13
she has red-hair and her perfume smells nice
we wait in silence for the doors to close and begin our ascent

Things that I feel guilty for:

Red scratchy fabric lining the confessional
Imprinted a checkerboard into my knees;
My spine stacked upright,
Leading to heaven, or down into hell;
Guilt or shame pulling my head down;
Tears would’ve fallen on my baby cheeks
If the church hadn’t been as cold as hell was hot;

Auburn curls waltz in my eyes, flames in my earliest memories.
I remember most parts fondly.
Matching blue eyes, struggles inherited
from your mother.
We struggled existing
as the proper mother and daughter.

I stare at the pavement
And pray it turns back time
I hope the concrete changes
And I’m back where I was before
When I belonged

I smiled when she said
That I was the only person she really talked to
In the only class we shared.
I would ask her
How her week had been
Since we both knew
The quality of our week
Far outweighed our day.
Only, I don’t think she ever realized

Where I hope to be
In case you ever need to find me
And I am no longer here:
Find me in the stolen glances
Across the room when everyone is busy.
In the anxious anticipation
Of someone’s presence
Or the small thrill that comes
From a brief moment of locked eyes.

Three strings across my body,
Pinky and thumb pinching each fraying end.
Pulled across my chest, three strands
Strung taught in my open arms.

Pink,
Blue,
And white.

seven horses dead in 10 days, track dirt still
painting damp mouths and eyes that will
never start again and here we are with
our feet kicking up ground and orange light
staining like iodine on skin and we never
think to worry it’ll be us splayed out on the

a split second meeting.
one glance,
and nothing more.
i do not know your name.
neither do you mine.

a short friendship.
we drifted apart.
i have your number,
but i won't call.
you won’t either.

Studying my nose in the mirror
I recall roaming for comfort
My fingers are my ailment- dismay
That you will one day let go of my hand,
Not necessarily for another, (though it has been so)
But from a gradual loosening
My knot of insecurity,
A continual,

Her hands were golden, as if baked under runny sun,
Yolk dripping into the palms,
Painting her in ancient warmth
As her fingers held the cigarette to her lips, allowing the aged paper to crack her mouth open
Autumn afternoon senior year ‘08

Once again,
my eyes have failed
to cradle the sorrow
of her last morning’s cascade.

Once–
my back bathed
under the lazy midday sun,
lightly awakened
by her calloused touch.

i was raised in the house that neither of my parents built
although my mother was the one that raised me
she took a home not built yet and filled it with daughters
and when her husband left
he took his paintings of french women
garbed in robes with eyes grinning into the sun

In his head, he is
beneath the stars,
that are shimmering
but silently so,
quiet in their
overwhelming beauty.
They reach out to him
despite being held
captive
in the sky’s embrace.

there is a gentle pulse on the other side of forever
when Mother Nature’s whisper grows hoarse
and our two hands hang limply in the space between us
leaden feathers dragging on the corners of fickle consciousness,
the laughter drying,
morphine for the pre-dead