Maybe the Willow Knows

You were never the plan 

As we wandered through the morning lit cemetery 

Sunlight lazily dancing with the beckoning arms of the willows 

Hands anxiously grazing too aware finger tips 

Glimpses of a future flitted across the tops of the stillness 

Flickering like memory movie screening 

Too distant to be distinguished  

A feeling unfamiliar crept its way through my hairline 

Rooting in the base of my neck, it sat waiting 

 

I have worn out miles looking for love 

Overturned cities and bedrooms 

Leaving behind tiny pieces of my heart like breadcrumbs 

Should have known that my love would be hiding 

Tangled in the long forgotten 

 

You were never the plan 

Had commended love into the basement of my mind 

Something for the other  

I was always the almost 

The maybe 

The one to come before the vows 

I had settled resolute in the meaning of lonely 

 

So gently you slipped  

Through the door I thought was ironed 

Revealing that maybe my fate  

Was not one to be forgotten in the graveyard 

Perhaps maybe the willows held the secret

to what might be forever

 

Female

Girls are taught to be quite

heightened voices
associated with the violence against us

to be ignored even in the most populated parties
we look for our voices to be mimicked
in our favorite idols
false gods blazoned over speakers
splashed with rose bubbles on lonely Saturday nights

No matter how many calendars we survive

we find our voices trapped in our throats
years of love professed laying dead in an alley
new love rotting in window pane flower pots
nothing rhythms 

 in this thrown away state

There is no amount of prayers 

to save a discarded woman
is it any consequence that even 

auto correct ignores the word

Woman is always the easiest word to cast aside
feminine is the most easily spat out saying
worse than any indiscretion
even by our own

Girls are associated with crazy
unable to handle truths
look at our tattoos, worn visible scars
held with more reverence 

than your basement box secrets

You don't know that girls

are able to hold more piercing pain

abused in our teens
a thousand broken hearts in our twenties
and a million days of anger in our thirties
the fear of judgement keeping us silent
our struggle cannot be color coded
though we see the gruesome rainbow 

I would dance naked in a thousand 

pagan rituals

give myself willingly to demons

if it meant that my earthly body 

was exempt from your fire welding stares

and hands that shredded the skin

of so many of the innocent

We continue to throw fists in the dark

fighting against the shadows

that threaten to keep us down

making allies with the enemy 

anything to postpone the inevitable

Thoughts on Love

1. You are the lyrics of every unwritten song that holds churches in the depths of my heart.

2. Loving you is like looking at life through stolen eyes.

3. Where are the words I once had to take the blade off these feelings?

4. I thought removing my hands would make writing about you impossible, now the poetry has taken over in a ever ending nightmaring and ghost hands choke out the words without my consent.

5. I used to think love wouldn't hurt, now I don't know the difference between the ache and the joy, the blood and tears are an intoxicating cocktail.

6. Letting you go would be admitting defeat.

7. Entirely made up of scars, gasping body parts sinewy strung out charm bracelet dancing tapping out a sermon to an alter of grief.

8.  I cannot make you want me or make you stay.  In leaving, I will find a trail you left underneath the floor boards, wrapped in bloody cotton sheets.

9. You choose to withhold your protection. To live always on the surface, so afraid of drowning in reality. I will chose to sink my fingers into the wounds, becoming engrossed in the valleys that will now be my shelter.

10. Its easier to love the versions of those who left projects of the past flickering on bedroom walls

11. Finding you proved simple in this cluttered age.  Reaching you marks the beginning of the end or possibly the end of the beginning.

12. I would happily be boxed if I knew this grief would not transcend the bridge into the darkness.

13. The ripples of actions effect more than the present, ever influencing the beats of the hearts that hold the secrets.  I wish you had bee more gentle with your goings.

Decisions for Another Time

I am a crossroad

paths Gemini'd into confused existence
drawing bloody hands 

across inky timing

Unknowingness which guides this body
unwittingly into precarious shadows
a heart that knows 

only unsought donated boundaries

Clumsily supplicating higher powers
bestowing statements into scripts
gently dancing through 

cemetery pasts discarded

In this lack of comfort
friendly only with ghosts

that threaten current existence
I cannot mother a pedestal of anchorage

To That Which We Never Spoke Of

It was undeniable
my heart did flip flops on a roller coaster
flickered in still frames
black and white dripping
focusing hard enough

I knew in that moment 
I would have to erase this outcome
nausea gripped my throat
swallowed entirely into the floor

there was no one to assist my rescue

Your laughter pierced my clouded vision
I imagined myself

drowned in the bathtub  
your indifference become
weaved into my demise

when your body is torn asunder
halves of you no longer puzzling
numbness is greedily devoured

when pain takes resident in the softness
invades your safety
comfort comes from shutting down

my body was a battle ground
waking moments riddled with bullet holes

my skin became a prison I was held in
for crimes accidentally committed
justice cares not for the begging of redemption

this murder was hanging from my hands
I dreamt of clawing it out from inside of me
the choice had already made

Hearing my own voice agonizing the end
a mouth full of anti-anxiety
shock ripped through the entirety of me

Then. Blackness.

It was over.

Our eyes never locked again
the butterflies were extinguished

littering the bathroom floor

sickness made its away
now I was nightmaring
in invisible view

this was my punishment
to be shadowed by decisions
haunted by metal
wholeness to never be again

Pieces

There are times when the darkness
feels endless
sidewalks tend to lead into fog
disguising what is treacherous, waiting
wanting whatever is being offered up as sacrifice
inside a wrist
peak of collarbone
jutting hips
hands in this space are forever coiling around
each curving piece
regard for ownership left under the tree roots
that envelop the wanderer
words taste syrupy, sickly, fractured
each line
no matter its origin
are crafted into promises
by the severed ears that perhaps once
belonged to the discarded hourglass
left begging in the inky dampness
mouth sewn shut around her longing
swollen tongue choking silence
eyes over compensate
betraying what could never be private
nauseous aching of beating tissue
shameful wanting
created what would be her murder

A meditation on loss and depression

Sometimes the demons speak louder than mornings over coffee
I am doing the tango with unseen shadows
choking on loose strings of conversations
violently hoping that the ball in my throat will silence
my screaming eyes before you notice the windows rattling

My heart sits precariously on the edge of my collarbone
exposed, it is easily disrupted from its task of blood pumping
instead it waits to consume the words that hang unsaid
in the space between us and them

I still think about this whenever the tears knock at the back of my eyes
and my fingers knot my rings around my knuckles
I wish it was that simple

On Love, Lust, And Longing

Please, with a gracious gesture
  brush this curtain
    away from my endangered face
      with the back of a hand
whisper, one day
 tears carving riverbanks
  will dry out
    rain will fail to deliver
      memories of heartbreaks
If love is the most addicting
  I have been gluttonous
   drinking in liquid promises
    poured from mouths of wanderers
I am drunk
  conversing with the ghosts
    that reside in this space
     although these occupiers
      are far from benevolent
Fear has driven me into arms of monsters
  here in the wanting
   I wait

Red Days of the Left and Leaving

So many calendars have been recycled

since the day you snapped that first photo

of me unexpected and unsuspecting of the impact

a click of a lens could make

Pictures can say a thousand words

but they can also capture pieces of hearts

this was not something which I was aware of

but has snaked its way into too many nighttime ventricles

Every time another love finds the exit
I seal it shut with sap and nails, yet
you somehow find your way through my veining

You have not revealed your secrets
on how you knotted so instantly into the fibers of my being
if cutting out an organ would offer release
I would willing take steel to skin,
Yet this is not how to gain relief from the unrequited

Healing comes not from taking away
but adding to the tender, browning, undesired
train eyes to see the apple around the bruises

There is no harm in the heart as an offering
It seems easier to forget than to forgive
but that depends on where we are aiming the dagger
to forgive oneself for vulnerability is to become enlightened
perhaps finding the on switch should be our focus

How Distance Is Not Linear

I do not know how to love the distance
have no idea what to do to encapsulate the hours
minutes echo themselves off the walls
does not seem possible that time is going forward
seems as if I have been waiting for a long as I can remember
waiting for the door to open

I need your skin
as much as your heart
and right now I am feeling a little lost without it
I attempt to keep myself busy
but without whiskey to drive the dance
it is harder to convince myself to leave the house
this shell is easier to navigate without the glances
and stares
I don't want anyone to know that I am currently
feeling hollow
I know my place is not inside of you
but my heart has already taken refuge

 so I wait
for time to pass
for the tears to dry from their riverbed
so maybe I can run faster down the calendar
I cannot let my hands sit idle
my brain does laps

I will probably never tell you how hard time time has been
how I shredded the sheets in my sleep
woke up with shadows draped across my mouth
most mornings I wake with your name on my lips
but without you there to receive it,
I swallow, hoping that by ingesting the word
I will feel a little less empty

It is not that I won't survive
 or that I think
that after this, things will be perfect
it is simply that I am spent
my palms out stretched
searching every room for something solid

I have to continue to wait
patience has never been my virtue
so I apologize my love
for the vacancy in my throat
that I need you to fill

Then again, I might never actually
tell you how I felt
during the time when I waited

Journey in a World of Limited Love

To say that I love you is almost to lie
how to describe when someone is part of your marrow?
seen you through the hourglass sands
never to drop the lacing of fingers
or letting your eyes discord from one another
how to let someone know that they have saved you?
not in a saintly way
but rescued your heart from the grinder
helped gather the lost meat parts
never grimacing at the mess of it all
always so willing to get scraped up bloody
how to tell someone
I am inspired by your very existence?
when I thought that this head would explode
from lack of love
your song echoed past horizons
giving strings of vibration to cling to
how do you tell someone you are my heart?
part of my muscle and structure
please do not mistake
I do not reside inside of you
instead have you mended my legs
replaced them with steel heavied pillars
strong enough to occupy the vastness
how do you tell someone you are star shining light
illuminating back a path?
your patience, grace, consistency
allowing sight to what was never lost
How to let you know that you are my other half?
part of the same rain soaked puzzle
we thought was behind us
I don't know how to tell you that you
 beyond my wildest dreams
that with you gone
I float along the pavement ghosting shadows
  gripping phantom empty fingers
I imagine you, maps away
eyes sewn against
what was drawn from blood
unsung songs have no existence
poetry unread
 just words weaved together on the page
love without intention fades
 hands tired of remaining empty
will seek all the promised
in a world without you

Waiting game

Time continues her dripping waltz
hands beseeching ether,
come, dance in the soundless never-ending
cruelly, these sockets still make home to sight
I bare witness to the ribboning
without invitation to join
I become more bone than woman
abilities once prized
carried into another world
what is not whole cannot be tied down
truth could save, but silence shreds
what is left is ghostly
I am comprised of only
time and ether

Final

And like that, there was silence

Totalitarian whole of love gone

What we cannot hold with our hands

And hearts

Will eventually fade into ether

solace in this charred silence

Serenity is closer

Burial of the Forgotten

I know in this moment I am doomed
to live out this life as driftwood
hollowed out bones
shaped so unkindly as a woman
heart a cavern for the feasting insects
sun bleached, half buried in the sands
time ticking lines in melting flesh

Here, I have no home
among the ancient bloodless
encased in stone
almost as unrecognizable
as when I would occupy any bed
punishment for seeking heat
is to be emptied out completely
womb charred
to feel none other than waves
or grit beneath

Abandoned, useless timber
omitted from the story
left to ponder endless shells
waters will not echo calls to
open gates of the underworld
Hades does not want such as this
for her army

How Distance is Not Linear

I do not know how to love the distance
have no idea what to do to encapsulate the hours
minutes echo themselves off the walls
does not seem possible that time is going forward
seems as if I have been waiting for a long as I can remember
waiting for the door to open

I need your skin
as much as your heart
and right now I am feeling a little lost without it
I attempt to keep myself busy
but without whiskey to drive the dance
it is harder to convince myself to leave the house
this shell is easier to navigate without the glances
and stares
I don't want anyone to know that I am currently
feeling hollow
I know my place is not inside of you
but my heart has already taken refuge

 so I wait
for time to pass
for the tears to dry from their riverbed
so maybe I can run faster down the calendar
I cannot let my hands sit idle
my brain does laps

I will probably never tell you how hard time time has been
how I shredded the sheets in my sleep
woke up with shadows draped across my mouth
most mornings I wake with your name on my lips
but without you there to receive it,
I swallow, hoping that by ingesting the word
I will feel a little less empty

It is not that I won't survive
 or that I think
that after this, things will be perfect
it is simply that I am spent
my palms out stretched
searching every room for something solid

I have to continue to wait
patience has never been my virtue
so I apologize my love
for the vacancy in my throat
that I need you to fill

Then again, I might never actually
tell you how I felt
during the time when I waited

December

I did not know that when the sky was vast 

my longing would subside for as long as the sun was high
as soon as darkness blessed it's presence upon the horizon
along with night would come the mourning of loss
of that life left behind

Though much of nothing besides
what resided in frames held the weight of meaning
I found it is possible to love a skeleton
as I watched the flesh melt away
flickering candle incense
wine soaked confessions
became the makings of fairy tale endings
the bitterness of cold embraces turned to flame
in the twilight

Once the moon took her residence
the sky shrugged on her violet crown
my eyes flicked open to reveal the present
ashes gently rained from my bedroom ceiling
cleansing right now from already has been
clarity came in a familiar form

I often find I am looking beyond
much past my horizons
what I most need has been waiting for me
most patiently
with the visions of the past laying in the dust at my feet
lessons made manifest

I will have to learn to love the distance
I will fall asleep embraced by and for the wind
at times risking drowning
in a river of saltwater
will have to find salvation in convictions
I will have to climb into the very recesses of my own being

The ghosts that occupy this space
are far from benevolant
entering my every waking moment
burying my face in the bottle
no longer dims their calling

Fear has been a constant companion
driven me into the arms of monsters
sometimes without me even knowing
this doubt that has cremated so many others
I know this time it will give us armor
in which to weather this battle

Without mirroring the demons
that threaten to swallow this fragile frame
it will be impossible to root a home
this time I will not chose the poison

I have done the work to strengthen my hands
and now they are parachutes
that will carry us gently
creating shelter against the wind if needed
my heart, my blood

The definition of lost has changed
and I am no longer tangled up in it

Wishing

You could write the words
I would say
that would make the steel in hands,
relax
melt away
but as much as you would love
to hear those words
  wrote to be encased in lingering
I am not to be your muse
if allowed, mouths would house
those words
  empty upon arrival
  graced only with breath filled whispers
wishing that was enough
of enough
of enough
for those words to land softly
eggshell delicate
in open palms

Underneath

There is a blank space

where you seem to hide

in between window panes

when the light fades

I can hold nothing but your shadow

You are peeking from beneath the fridge

an eerie glow that haunts

the floor boards 

where you never even stood

Conviction has always eluded me

somehow I teeter on the edge 

of decisions more so now

then when the cliff edge was closer

I would love nothing more 

than to wrap myself up in you

get trafficked in your smile lines

yet those lines exist not for me

so I will settle for watch on the stairs

For You

I wish I knew how to write in a language you would understand
but I am beginning to realize
that language means nothing without action
to give it strength
you know the words to say in the moment to make me believe
that when times are rough
you will be my pillar, my rocking horse
that familiar and comforting peace
yet as soon as the door closes
the cold drifts beneath
with it goes my conviction that you will stay
you stray from me in minutes clocked
I will continue to love you as I have him
yet red years will not make you any closer to me
9125 days has only made me miss him more
and less
1825 days has only made wishing for you more bitter 
There is space within my shoulder blades that crave
the comfort of the warmth of hands holding a woven love
of lost tears, photographic smiles that were never taken,
letters in birthday cards never sent
folded up dollar bills that meant to say "I love you"
but were made silent by unstamped envelops
buried under forget-me-nots
you are so similar in your inability to commit
to this truth you helped cultivate
I will forever want you into the curve of my neck
and into my cages

No love lost

You are right
I have thinned out
my collarbones write themselves on my pillowcase
my fucks have taken shelter in my marrow
removing their bulk from my hips
and this is something I am ok with
I feel safer in less of me
than I ever did in more of you
so I will take this restructuring
it is better than attempting to carve myself out
of shadow each morning in the bathroom
that mirror that taunts my silhouette
plays trickster games on my eyes
I am still trying to put away the pool of bluing
that wants to make bruising tracks on my face
With each sunrise it gets easier
hate and love reside on different sides of the coin
that blister brands my hands
makes it nearly impossible to be kind
to my shoulder blades

I wish I knew how to weave tapestries
that showed themselves clearly to your eyes
but I will have to settle for
shadows in mirrors and on pillowcases

whiskey stained nights
strengthen my marrow
I will continue to whisper
moonlight intimacy into the corners of your smile lines

I may find the conviction that will lead me
out of the heaviness
or I may lay down, tiled blinking
lulled percariously peaceful
by your familarity
either way, at least my knowing
tells me this has so much more to do with me
than with you

I am not bullet proof
metal shield girl
but my backbone is steel crafted
my wrists hold lines that secure
what once wanted to float away

my story slowly unravels
from blank black and white
each turned away face 
helps me understand my own spacing