come summer

Oh right now.
there’s a perfect kind of rain comin down
it’s been a long damn day
in an even longer year
this rut grows like carrots
down
my dreams still think they’re redwoods.
there’s a little lady on my shoulder
she’s tellin me that redwoods
go farther she whispers
she’s the same woman
contentedly sipping coffee
alone with her pen
in a crowded room
she won’t
scan for your face
doesn’t miss your arms
she’s forgotten the last time.
Someday, she taps
rhythms itch for movement
biding her time
waiting for the days
smoke from a fire
she’s been dropping
sunflower seeds
in the cracks in her pavement
She’s leaving trails
come summer
she’ll touch the sky.

A Good Day.

what I wished for you
that day and all the others
days when my heart makes its home in my esophagus.
may my week of storms be your week of sun
The soul is in the spaces.
Remember me?
remember when…
I do. I’ve got six
years of good days to pick from
six weeks of silence
long enough to prove it’s moving on
so much for settling in
so much for you coming back to me.
it’s pouring over here
change is growing,
oddly content in your absence.
yet another ocean between us
today, I’ve no desire to swim.

fireside

there’s a giant library
fireside,
after the sun sinks
I’ve read and reread it
Dysfunction: A History
traces of the dust
trails I hacked through jungle
the foreign wilderness
of a heart who hasn’t learnt
the pain of communication
there was intention
in every route I mapped
there was always love
on all the days you asked for more
though I had none left.
I found ways to dig some up
I’ve sown so many seeds
they stubbornly refused to grow
we sucked out all the light
sat in silence when we needed touch

I hope you understand
the darkness has killed me, too
I want so badly
to hope. to have. to love.
you.
but it’s been dry for one too many seasons
you’ve taken one too many drinks
I can’t feed you anymore.
Hell, I can’t feed myself.

I’ve been trying to tell you –
Tonight I stuck my hand into the fire
just to feel the heat
I watched my skin blister
it peeled and melted
alarms going off in my brain
weren’t enough
the dust-filled drum in my chest
ceased to beat.

Out of Town

It’s your turn to be gone.
I’ve got an appointment
tomorrow morning
I still can’t bring myself to tell you
sonogram #2
2 of a lifetime of every three months
you’ll come back soon
it’ll be my turn to go again
the perpetual lump in my throat
is no scarier than losing you
it keeps me from screaming
out for you
crossing fingers
for stability in a chaotic life
no changes
secret stays safe
from you.
for you.
I promise myself
life’s too short
I’ll take your hand
next time,
you’ll come back to town
I’ll be here.
I’ll ask you to stay.

Playlist Poetry

Unsurprisingly, you’re gone.
again.
I’m too busy trying to fall out of love to call you.
again.
a trail of songs cuts your path across the continent
countless disordered metaphors
pitting logos verses pathos
I’m begging for a little ethos from your end of the line
you’re killing me.
Shakespeare I can greet like an old friend,
but these damn lyrics
trip me up
a manic laugh escapes my lips
face twisted at the irony
an avid listener falling deaf to the rhythms I send
and a writer blind to the picture you’re drawing
crossing wires with such certainty
missing the marks of each others’ compasses
each track could have come with clearly defined penciled(in) point, you know
you’ve gifted me the cipher to your heart
no cryptologist, I delicately turn it over,
my fingers tremble with fear
no one has ever given me such poetry before
the next song plays –
maybe I’m illiterate
perhaps I’ve forgotten how to read.
I’m too shaky to ring you,
“kindly send a dictionary for this new language, please”

Or maybe you just liked the music.

to do lists

There are 6 hours until midnight.
and 8 hours of work to do still.
there’s jet lag
and unpacking
laundry
repacking
hospital visits
my car needs some love
my body needs some love
and all I can think about
is you.

The White Spaces

There’s a page-long letter
waiting for your eyes
in the front pocket of your carry-on
find it please.
can you read it?
not the lines my pen formed
but the silent string my heart spun
even if you did understand,
would you write me back?
would you answer
or avoid me
oh I know your eyes
that deer in the headlights look
I’m stuck
as usual
do I make you feel that way again
or drown in my silence?
just babe please,
don’t make me break any harder
read the white spaces.

Hold Me Tight Before I Go

What is it that prevents us from finding each other? We’re constantly crashing and burning each other’s walls and yet we’re still sitting inside our own havens. Why isn’t there a light switch – we’ve been fumbling around in the dark for a door that I’m starting to think was a figment of my imagination. Help me find it please. soon. before I give up on us.

I need you to want me. To actually tell me that you do. I don’t know how to explain it, but I need you to hand me a written invitation because I’m so tired of not knowing where the party is.

When you love women like me, there are scars you ain’t ever seen. Touch your lips to my shoulder, tell me it’s love because of the loads they carry, not in spite of them. That you understand that every line, every spot, is a part of this story that you’ve come to love. Oh and what if you kissed my bruised knees and knelt beside me for a while. Just long enough for me to hear the rhythm of your heart. I’d pull your head into my stomach and wrap your head in my arms as if to say you’re mine to protect. That your fears are my fears. That your bad days are my bad weeks. I’d say, through the lump in my throat, let’s stay like this forever.

If I knew I would have to go, that I wouldn’t make it to next summer, would you walk away right now or watch me slowly fade? Would it make a difference if I tell you that I’d stay? That it is worth it? That you’d mend every broken piece of me before it’s time. Hold me tight before I go.

Am I Ever

I leave so I can’t stay
go right so I won’t be left
don’t dream so I can sleep
sing ’cause no one hears.
I’ve got holes and bruises
they protect me from you
keep me from pretty things
breaking is easier that way.
and still I’m here.
I need you to know
I’m tryin’, hon.
Oh, am I ever.

Love Just Hurts.

There’s a distance lately
radio static silence
from my end
you feel my Heart of stone
but this rock
has me sinking
straight to the bottom
and it’s all your fault.

Everytime
you come home
it happens accidentally
There’s an unmistakable fall,
this roller coaster
this fucking roadmap to disaster
or heaven maybe
that’s just it
you come back here
with your eyes and your heart
piercing my soul
unshakeable thoughts
I fall in love all over
We cut each other
We carry grenades of fear
we build walls and lob them over
duck and count
Suddenly it’s just me
again
I’ve got to tell you –
it gets harder every time
the people who love me,
it gets hard on them, too

What if someday soon
I get to be too old
too stuck
too heartless
to love you at all
so instead
of loving always
In love sometimes,
you get nothing.
Is that what you want?

I’m too tired
to keep loving you
to keep trying
without you
here
Love just hurts.