I'm pretending not to know,
I want to hear you tell me.

Whisper it quietly into my waiting ear. 

Tell me as if you were the rain
that slides down my nose. 
Gentle: I'm laughing,
but my ribs don't hurt any less. 

I'm smiling again, 
you've brought me back
from waiting to be saved.

This is my call to freedom,
"Yes, I'm alive!" 

I'm not sure how you save
a soul like that but look,
here I am... 

now it's my turn to hold you,
please let me hold you. 

I still love the rain
but now I know why.  

Someday I'll tell you it reminds me of you.   

Some things happen like this. 

sometimes

I really shouldn't be writing 
this to you. 

Not when all these eyes 
are on me. 

Not when I should be telling 
you about the gentle sun 
this morning or the dog 
that woke me last night, 
police lights in the driveway,
a quiet wail
from the street. 

Silence 
hurts 
but so does screaming. 
 

This is a poem 
for you.
 
The kind of poem
that drips,
golden and glowing
from your lips
onto hard concrete at 2AM.
 
I’m reading you aloud
in the dark company
of night.
and you’re not even here to listen.
 
This is a love poem
to all the gods
we thought we knew.
 
To thick fog
at dawn.
 
To distance between fingers
and the sticky glue
we call hope.
 
I’m finally talking about
all the things
I forgot to mention
early in the morning, lonely
 
on a train platform somewhere.
 
Surely, the exact place
I have never been.
 
This is a love poem
to you.
 
It’s about caves,
and winter sunlight.  
 
About all the places you refuse to cry 
and the time
the ocean did it for you.
 
This is a manifesto
to the nook
below your chin.
 
And the place your

You remember his hands
on your back, flying 
over you 

Laughing 
Upside-down 
Everywhere

It reminds you of airplanes,
he reminds you of the wings 

You remember his hands
holding yours 

neck
arms
legs 
wrist 
in your hair

You're gaining altitude 
and never want to land. 
He'll never let you. 


 

He's standing there again.
Right in front. 

Stomach fit full of bees 
and a shirt that smells strongly 
of 2am books 
and burnt morning coffee. 

Your minutes turn to hours,
hours to days,
days to years. 

Where have you gone
with your green velvet pants
and a hole in the right side of your head?

Please tell me what it's like
to hold the whole world
in your ears. 

No, don't tell me. 

Show me.

Show me what it's like to slip
your silent honey fingers
into someone else's overwhelming
life. 

 

 

There were thorns involved
and so with careful fingers 
the firm, deep purple berries
were pulled off stalks,
held in palms,
and eaten.

It reminded her of birds 
when they delicately land
on thorn bushes.
Tiny toes splayed,
balancing the sharp mountains
in between skin.

Blackberry picking was a slow, methodical process, one that could last hours
if let alone.  

And she was alone;
reaching with night-stained fingers, 
for another jewel 
draping towards the ground,
adding it to the collection of savored
things from summer afternoons.

Cool ponds,
tiny caterpillars,
dirty calloused feet. 

They were simple and achievable 
and are the things she remembers 
20 years from now. 

Blackberry picking 
in early August. 



 

 I had a necklace once,
a key that never opened anything.
 
A soft white heart string
tied around my neck.  
 
Then there was the ocean
and the sudden idea that keys belonged
more to it than to me.
 
The waves were waiting.
 
Stomach pressed to splintering boards
reaching for the small string on my neck,
twisting over damp hair,
slipping through silent fingers.
 
Now, even if there was a door to a long lost room
or a chest full of somebody else’s dreams
I will never open it.
 
And there is a piece of me sinking
to the bottom of that ocean,
a slice of my existence,
a reminder that somewhere out there,
I’m still waiting for a chance to float.
 

 

Every time I sit down to write
I remember 
your smile. 

The dark.

The light in the corner.

1. You have entranced me,
consumed me.
The only thing I know how to do anymore
is remember. 

2. I'll see you again 
and it scares me to think I could've changed
in your eyes.

3. I have fallen in love with the way you remember me. 

4. I'm not sure when we became beautiful.

Were we born that way?
Beautiful before creation? 

Beautiful the second we met?

5. I'm not sure it works that way
but I kinda wish it did. 

6. I want so badly
to be a part of the world
that falls from the sky. 

7. Every time I sit down to write
I remember your smile.

The way we fell together.

The way we learned to fly.