I take the morning to weed through the brambles,

thorns pricking at my forearms.

The juice of overripe fruit stains my hands.

How can you be kind to yourself?

You looked so beautiful in the stoplights

that I couldn’t do anything

but drive forward

at full

speed.

to breathe it in

so deeply

that I forget that I

am drowning.

But I cannot bring myself

to bury

your bones.

His eyes are green?

Oh, yes.

Like the sky

before a storm.

I am exhausted,

mouth dry

and eyelids

too heavy

to close.

Sometimes

we bury things

that aren’t quite

dead yet

Accumulated

like snowflakes in the gutter

It doesn’t matter

how many pretty words

I scatter on the page

You are running

Through my mind

Like a song stuck

In my head

I can’t remember the tune,

but the lyrics were something haunting

if the water wants me

then the water

will take me

Then,

when he feels as though

he’ll never be warm again,

he turns around.

My heartbeat marches on,

destination unknown.

The fuzzy edges of memories

are smudged

against the condensation

on the windows.

The river is the same

but you can never keep the water.

My transition

is a love letter to myself

"From what?"

I'm not sure

The world is cruel

and so were you

but at least I could feel it

when you held me close

Floating on a flat expanse

of water,

clear skies

and

dark ripples.

I reach my hands into the ether,

lazily tracing an airplane's path with my fingertips

I am dreaming of swimming in the river

when in reality I’m simply lying in the bed.

It's like trying to follow fireflies at dusk,

blinking in and out of existence

and leaving afterimages of thoughts

I have never been stranded in the desert…

Keep quiet.

Keep still.

Sometimes I want to

p e e l

the stretch marks off my body

I was sipping poison,

the taste was bitter

but at least my thirst

was quenched.

I was lying in a field stargazing,

waiting for the northern lights to peek over the trees

But I can’t

steer the ship I’m in,

just watch the whims

of the waves

pass by.

As my ears rang from a gunshot I didn’t hear, I had a question:

Did Jesus’ hands and feet tingle as he woke up from dying?

I want to feel the sun.

I want to taste the ocean.

No.

It’s not because of you.

…but you’re certainly not helping

The years between then and now
were filled with motion sickness,
rocking,
dizzying,
falling.

I have poems in my mind

but no words to give.

Sometimes good,

sometimes bad,

always “what changed?”

You didn’t stay,

I didn’t expect you to.

But we played on

and grew together

again.

He was so small yet so significant

He was the straw that broke the camel’s back

and somehow I am the rest of the straws

as well as the camel.

6 o’clock
There is no such thing
as a defect,
only a difference.
Aren’t we all defective?

My leg is itchy.
A “you can’t scratch this hard enough” kind of itchy.
A “nails won’t cut it this time” kind of itchy.
A “there’s a knife in my desk drawer” kind of itchy.

Skin, rough against skin,

my lips bruised from his force

and his hips bruised from mine.

I asked for it.

But your hands around my throat

felt different from before.

Buried in habit,
choking on repetition,
suffocating under piles of
dirt
gravel
sand.

It’s so hard to release your fingers
when you’ve been gripping
with white knuckles
for so
long.

I feel as if I am an empty café.
A closed door, with no one around, nothing but
bright lights
and uneaten
food.

Temporary.
I am temporary.
A little quiet, and I feel as if
I will
fall
apart.

Bright reds make me think of passion,
of late nights entwined tightly together,
the flush of cheeks contrasted by the ivory white of skin.
Bright reds make me think of rage,
a fight for your life against a foe you want to save,
cherry handprints blistering against purple bruises.