Visible SpectrumYou reminded meof a stained-glass windowthat sits perched on its wallbeneath my stairs at home.Daylight doesn't measure its colors,it only scatters them downon the hardwood floorwhen the sun breaches the suburban canopy.And daylight didn't measure you,no, I saw you and all I could think onwere your mosaic eyes, the spectrum of your blush;that they were solidand real and more than patterned light.I cover stained glass with my handsand colors vanish. I cover you with myselfand you are vibrant.
The Penny on the TracksThey say thatwhen you put a penny on the rails, the whole train goes careening off. I wanna know who the hell laid that coin on my mindand laughed as the cars toppled over,flaming.I think I understandwhy people run back into burning structures. My train has toppled, and I would wrap my handsaround its burning steel not for scars or stories,but to regain what's caughtand smolderingunder the weight of the wreckage.Maybe if I saw the penny on the tracks, glinting in warning,I would've jumped from the cabooseand saved myself from the arduous processof grafting my sanity from better places.But I can't push my brain backward
The DreamingSome mornings I can feelyour lips pressed to my forehead,and when I pull closer I waketo empty blankets.That's when I roll onto my backand close my eyes tighterto will your form next to me,though wishful thinkingnever made anybody materialize before. I always hope I'll be the first to manage it.I have walked with you in dreamingten years on and off,and you found me by chance in words.We loved without meeting for seven months. Why shouldn't my mind conjure you here?For that's most of what we were,dreams and words,before you ventured to me. If I could hold out to holding you, I should be able to will you here. We've wai
First MeetingsNervous.Noun: a woman meetingher beloved for the first timeat the baggage claim.This should be the definition.I searched for youin an airport as emptyas an echo,your flight early enoughto leave me feelingas excited as I was unprepared.I looked up.So used to knowing youin word and image,I burst to see you in the third dimension.When I felt your heartracing through your shirt,it solidified the reality of you.I can't remember your first words to me,but I recall the way I fit against your chestand your hands running down my backto ensure I was there.When our lips were brave enoughto find each other, I swore I'd neve
Casualties of WarLike your duffle bag strings,we were burdened and taut. In the hangar fullof camouflaged men,we all blended;another family thinking abouthow if this were World War Two,we’d be hanging you a blue starand praying that the alchemy of war didn't turn it gold. We wondered if the photograph of us,soon to be framed on the mantle,would be our final documentationthat you existed,and “single mother” would becomepermanent status for our matriarch,eyes tight as she hugged us fourto her chest as if to ward away thoughts of widowhood.They don’t tell you aboutthe deaths on the home front,how the father comes ho
And Call Me in the MorningJust past twenty-one,and my liquid luck has drained. In the shuffle to the doctors, I stare through the concreteand analyze patterns on the waiting room carpet.From one landmark to the next,first drinks and live jazz to checking off symptoms on a listand describing my historyin the same tearful monotoneI've learned to adopt after the seventeenth telling.Maybe the burden slips from here,having finally accepted that like I can't ignore aging Icouldn't meditate this away.Like the tableted relief I hope to receive, these feelings and alcoholshouldn't mix.
Puddle JumperMy childhood is over,so I leapt feet-first intoThe miniature lake Swelling over the asphalt and weeds.For ten blissful secondsI worried about nothing. Weightless in the rain,I watched the murky waves break around my ankles.I wonderedif the neighboring anthill declared a colony emergency,a tsunami on their doorstep.I speculatedthat the undulating mirelooked like the universe expandingin sepia.I imagined the raindropstapped out telegraphsfrom God.I stepped out heavy with growing up again.
Between the CreasesFolded in the bathroom is a note in the shape of a bird. I’m convinced you’d miss me betterif I up and sailed away;my body a paper crane.Hanging from a string In the bedroom. Little wings dangling.Cut me down.
Burnt EdgesCrumple like the letteryou threw into the fire. Curl up at the edges,you feel the ash inside your chest. You ache to ember and glow into an open flame,but your chimney is too dirty to give your smoke away.So you burn her out of the picturebut the memory is a phoenixand it roosts inside your hatredof everything she represents. You curse every broken matchstick that left her gazing from the frame.And did it always look so greyBefore the fall?
Film NoirPaint me greyscale. Words hang thick likecigarette smoke and slow jazz.Turn your collar to the rain and follow me into a 3 AM cab.Give me your gritty romance,Eyes flickering likeneon-signs half past the red-light district. Oh, you can touch, my dear detective--just don't leave any fingerprints.
Wide-eyed MonsterDon't look over your shoulder.You run the water in the bathroomso they can't hear you pantingand you don't know whyyou're checking in the mirror.So you breathe like they told youand you sit on your bedwith your spine against the wallso nothing grabs you by the neck.Knees to chestchin to kneeshands to headyou uncurland you paceon the rug.(There's safety in rhythmif it distracts you fromthe shadow on your back.)You try unwindingbut your heart's coiled tightin a small steel ball you can't untangle by yourself.Call your love,'cuz he knows,and he worries like clockwork.You feel bad that you can'tpull together for his
The UninspiredThey are clockwork. Such asinine machines, you could pity themso long as you pity them softly.Our sighs catch on the ear,and their empty eyes glint with loathing;for all the world they'd short themselves out just to eat the spark we posses.We, the possessed!Our power lies in entities thatshake our minds when westumble on the worlds in our head,left breathless and dumb with our brilliance.We translate it to the world,we are our own prophets.They had the same giftswrenched, robbed, or broken from them. And without the humming in their cheststheir very bones turned to lead,their minds turned to pistons,and their spiritsl
Month FourYou were standing in the kitchen,washing dishes that your brother should'veand you talked in funny voicesmeant to make me smile,and the pride in your eyes when they didwas unmistakable. You're special.And I don't mean theI-say-that-because-I-don'twanna-call-you-weird-special,because we both are, outwardly. We do strange math,figuring out the caloric equivalentof a Girl Scout cookie overdose,wondering how people whoare geographically closer in lovehave lasted half as long andwhy you don't like omelettes(but you should!) And if that isn't love,don't tell me what is becausethings are great how they are.
MetempsychosisLift your spirit to your lipsand kiss it.That's how words are born. They fly into this worldmessy and covered inthe dust of forgotten wisdom. They are yours. They move with you,so gladly stepin the syllables ofevery thought you've owned. Treat them well. For when your voice turns to rust,and your bones clatter cold,when your name is buriedwith the last man you knew,hanging in the windare your words. In some old dog-eared bookare your words. And when its pages stirin younger hands,they will lift your spirit to their lips and kiss it,re-birthing you in words their own.
Thousand-Mile LoverEverything feels likeI'm wading through water. Falling into blue, my heart is calling. It sounds like you.Kissing in summer downpours,as if the weather mattered. I feel you on my skin,although you've never touched it. You're indescribable,somewhere past comprehension.Promise me you'll be aroundto pull me close before the years get shorter. And the distance is a bitter pill,but your voice cancels it out.
Seven O'Clock on a Sunday NightIt's a pinwheel moment;everything spins too fast aroundThis.One.Point.I'm staring down Orion's Belt and it's twenty-eight degrees, but I can ignore the lights,the cold, the neighbors,because the presentis melting in my mouthand I can't bring myselfto swallow it down.For now,I feel all the worldlike an empty field on a dark night,so I close my eyes and spit my pith at the stars, because it's too quiet to scream out everything I feelwhen I shut off my sight.TAKE ME OUT!I want to call, but it's a whimper in the scheme of the universe,and I don't think I really mean it,anyhow.And coal as dark as mineturns into diamon
Post-ApocalypticHelooked outover the waste,wondering atwhat the haphazard winter had left him.Hewhistled,soft thoughts idlypassing through hismemory, sharp as January winds.Eyesclosed herememberedthe way her scarfseemed to catch, crimson, on the crescent moon.Butthat wasbefore thingscrumbled to dust;now the world was a wasteland he wandered.Shehad chokedmany nightsprior to this,unable to breathe through the senselessness.He had foundher cold there,and he neverunderstood what had happened before dawn;hejust knewthat he wasalone for now,and he could cry as loud as he wanted.He had lovedher, and muchlike the formerw
Wistful ThinkingThe world is a wall of whistling white,so we pick up heaven's cast-off snowand laughing, hurtle it at each other.When our panting breaths catchas clouds in the air,we'll stop to be children again at the top of the hill,shrieking down slopes as ifwe weren't one decade past innocence.And when we lie breathless at the bottom,joyously frozen,we'll hold hands the whole way backbefore we shed winter from our skin. Glad will I be to share my hearth with you,to kiss the warmth into your lipsas cold becomes no more than a word.
Self-MedicationThey say sad songs aren't good for the sad soul. Cathartic theories state otherwisebut I know it to be true.The best therapy lies in happier harmonies.So I abandon distress for the day,to lose myself in lyrics that taste likeEarl Grey on a morning whereall the world is a snow-globe,twice shaken and turned over.I'll hold the mug to my chest,literally warming my heart beforeI set it down to haphazardly danceto rhythms I could've imagined.When it's over, I softly say"Settle down sunshine,hold onto you your head,and ride this out againanother day."
The Caged Bird ScreamsIt depends on the day.Like the weather, it changesand in my brain, a little man standsbefore a green-screen and tells methe average of highs and lows."And today we're looking atyour daily morning low,followed by forced optimism at noon,quite possibly plunging intoa long shower later today,where things might look betterand now back to you, Jim."Simple as that,with my feet rubbing on the carpetand my hands clutching the bed likeit's all that's keeping me tethered. I open the blinds and knowthere's more than this.I'm just caught in a cold-snap,and I'm not really myself,I'm just in there somewhere,yelling myself hoarse,'c
Love PoemPlease believe me when I tell you that you make everything shine in ways it never had before.Innocent eyes,you strike me blind. Such words as these willnever amount to more than a tower that's tumbling downin separate syllablesas I speak my heart,true as tomorrow.You leave mestanding and smiling in the wreckage. Everything I've ever thoughtis called into question and I wouldn't want you to make me feel any other way.
Dog Days of DecemberCurled at the foot of my bed,butter-and-cream,you rest softly snoring.Chasing tales I've spun,that you don't understand,you just know that you likewhen I read to you. Maybe it's the late December sunwarming my tones up like a hard-wood floor. Maybe it's just howthe words tumble out inan unfamiliar tongue. These are your days,drifting in cold like the afternoon snow. You keep the drafts outof my chest,but you'll never really know, now.
Kitchen HeartI am the center of your home,so much traffic through me,and yourwords words wordsfill me up.Toss your flour in the air,it hangs and lingers in the sun.Pretend it's remnants of somefairy dust orancient ashes in your lungs.Stir me up,catch my drippings in your panthe silent thoughts that neverfell all the way into my mouth.And clean my inner ovens,with all the fire you've got--'cause I work best when my brain is clean,and better when running hot.
DaydreamerIn a perpendicular universe,I own a bakery.I sing in Spanish while I waltz with croissants,pie-crusts spinning out likeskirts made for twirling.And in the next little worldone reality to the right,I own a vineyard.Such sultry red wines,sweet greens,subtle yellowsfrom my dark Tuscan soilare happily grown.In the future is my orchard,where my peaches are sweeterthan the Georgian summer,while the trees sprawl over the foothills of Vermont.In the present momentsbetween blinking slow,I find the blueprints for such thingsand store them for tomorrow.
TwentyTwenty is an ice-storm,I am coated.Solid and stuck,I was.Twenty is finding my boots are too heavy,struggling and strained,I was.Twenty's forgettingto light my own candle,dreamless and dark,I was.And twenty remembersall former transgressions,bitter and brokenI was.Eighteen was first loveand Nineteen had lost it,before the next year sang in. Twenty was somber,stumbling sober,until the October began.Twenty reflectsupon all of her follies;Learning and stumbling,I am.And Twenty is healing,acknowledged the broken.Discovering strength,I am.Twenty is loved,though she sometimes forgets itRemembering swiftly,I am
The RunawayMy muse left a notein the frost on my window,saying:"Call me when your ink runs out."I imagined her vaulting from the sillinto the freshly falling snowcocking her hat just soas she stepped into the Eastbefore it iced over.She leaves no prints for me to follow,no re-imagined trail for me to trod,and I could spend yearstumbling after her shadow,only to find hergone.
Stranger than FictionAll my mind speaks of fruitless unions,separations.I am left with needing you butembracing solitude instead;staring at the wall as if I could summon you there...but you won't come. I am terrified that we will vanish intoink and yellowed pages,become characters who never meet butbrush gazes and swear by everything they havethat it will never be enough. I could ask you for promises you don't have,times and dates you can't find,anything to bring peace to my trembling heartbecause sometimes I drown in the space you leave,choking on your absence.
Sta.sh
I definitely will! Let me know if you have any prompts for me. 
