Erin.

She's got black hair

dark eyes

and she has your name

but she will never be

my girl.

You've got 2,847 miles

between your town

and mine

Two highways and

2,847 miles

Yet I'm stuck in

second and third thoughts

and I can't remember

to take the time off work

I was mad when

you missed my party

and I was crushed when

you missed my birthday

Then, I didn't even

write you a poem this year

Is this really over?

Are we premature

or do we get to live out

our three years?

Three years, right?

Right.

I'm sorry I left you for him.

I'm so fucking sorry.

I never meant for this

to happen.

It just

did.

And now we don't even talk anymore.

I wonder where you are,

how you are,

what you've come to.

I picture you happy.

Five bedrooms.

A real go at love.

Not our kind of love.

Something good for you.

Something realistic,

not just real.

And he loves you,

I know he loves you.

I saw it in his eyes

in the way he touched you.

He's just a boy,

but he can learn

and he can love the force of you

all of you.

I always did

but never could

and now you've become

the girl that used to be mine.

But you'll always be

my girl.

In case you think I haven't been writing...

You're wrong. I just haven't been posting. Or something like that.

So here are two relics I just dug out of the vaults. I have no idea when they were written. I have no idea where they came from. Frankly, I don't even know if I wrote them; or who wrote them. Enjoy.

-----

sometimes I am eloquent after cereal

if we didn't have letters
from lovers past
to bring tears to our eyes
you know we'd never cry

and our hearts would close up
and we would become cruel,
and get away
with every awful thing we did


---


Why is it
my dear
you are everything
and everywhere

in my days
and in my dreams
I find you stitched
into my seams

you're in my fingers
beneath my skin
I leech you out
bleed myself again

but in my days
and in my dreams
I find you stitched
into my seams.


The more I read into these the less I think I wrote them. Please come forward if they belong to you. I find them potent enough to post them without intention.

Thank you.

A Road Love Lullaby 090110

Slide through the light

ignite the hairs

of your underbelly

on my dreaming smile

I'm lost for you.

You are bubble love

pulled taunt

through strings in the air

lengths of my hair

Bass pounding the beaches

of the entire planet.

We will drive them all

Tomorrow

I will breathe fog from my breast

and you will sleep

upon the cold morning ground

The broken salt of sand

a million grains painting

with hazy eyes- distracted

by the drifting of your ocean

I will swim and you will take photographs.

You will drive as I sleep on your shoulder.

I'll feed you the horizon in California

the Earth itself in Oregon

and the stars back home

in Washington.

They will pass

one by two

from my parted hands

through your open mouth

and I will alternate kisses

until your dreams overflow

But you'll never

be full.

1,2oo rolling miles

and my hand will never fill

of yours

for we are the perfect fit.

I never knew I was missing

until your pieces fell with mine

and now- I will only be whole

beside you.

071610

I'll carry on

moon tucked in my ear

sneaking beams through my hair

whistling saw blades peering in

casting haze onto paper trees

of the horizon

There are mountains

beyond the water

secrets in the peaks

sounding warning

of a life

lived too plainly

Lights behind me keeping distance

even as I pull to shore

water written dreams on stones

while the road twisting out from here

is oil canvas

and perfect lighting

I've never seen you so bright before

that night when your tears set the city

on fire.

Final Paragraph In Parenthesis Pt. 1 - 071410

Three years

our unsolicited fortune

Three years

and that was impossible

Three years

preposterous

My only conclusion

was death

and yet-

Our only destruction

could be death-

or love.

We've never been so good at sharing

not really.

I've cut us short.

Short 48 long months.

Unsolicited

Unsought

Unsettling

Unfair.

I'm sorry.

A True Love's Guillotine- 071310

Your face is pure radiance

glinting lights from my limbs

outstretched to play across the face

and break smiles to a hum

A summer whisper

insects fill the water

rustling ripples surround

our metal on the shiver

One quizzical instant

where my heart besought it's power

summoned all ferocity

to explode upon my lungs

I'm slung into the trees

hanging in your eyes

fingers intertwined

your scent inside my veins

Untamed wanting

breathless lips

devouring magnets

slays a smiles inhibition

and breaks again

Lets begin back where we started:

unstoppability stitched

down the hems of our fingers

forever laced with butter.

Relic

I once was the queen

of contradiction

multi-faceted

in every discretion

candy handed

and pure reflection

I was your fleeting fist

your first and final

your rendezvous

on a full moon clock

and yet-

I was the barter fair

flaming flair

unsought abridgment

a brides wine-stained kiss

I was apple sketch

and just slipping

past your corners

through the curtains

I LOVE THE GINGERS (Collaboration with Wendy)

I want your biscuits
and snow on the ground
there is synesthesia in the weather
and you are raining down
in huckleberry drops

I am diner coffee in your veins
while the foyer boys headbang
to the beat of your heart

the music floats
with the grace of a bumble-bee
stops- and collects
in an atonal mist
around the neck

tonguing the shape of "S"'s and "L"'s
up the nape into your ears

There is a small thud
as music crashes into taste buds
crissed-crossed feelings radiate out
and the absurd
takes our laughter
for a bangin' ride

052310

There is hot chocolate
in the morning
do I have to be a lady?

and Judy may always be
a bitch.

Summer is cocaine
and family
Sunshine
and famine

but we laugh until we starve
because swimming
ends at eleven
Sleep in in the morning.

We got it
We really, really got it.

The Value of a Face

save whatever you feel
for I am a baking woman
warming the painted lace
with the full breadth of my being

You are homeland foreigner
and sex on the side stage

I am natural breasts
and no tattoos

whatever happened to the suicide girls?
That night we drove to stripper songs
over so many bridges
and naked men in my dress

and thirteen miles
walked in the morning

We were so good at getting lost.

And I wanted to keep you
like strawberries on my salad
mimes that loose themselves inside you
and Patrick-

Dear God,
how I miss Patrick.

-with his eyes of the ocean
his heart of Allen Ginsberg

-I fell in love with you the very first day
when I startled you
inside the bunker

you thought you were alone.
I thought you were a deer.

and 20 years later,
I will remember you still.

Stagette Bubble Bath

This is terrible
because I miss you
and you are not

wild women
on wine and wedding vows
or dark skinned immigrants
who dance with bone and afro

and you certainly are not
the delta from home
in a foreign country
or
a girl too drunk
to hold her dignity
yet I miss you

while tonight was

hangover
rest stop
wine tasting
restaurant
hotel
short dress
new friends
burlesque

Little Red Rides-It-Well
and naked glitter

strip tease
cock please
and screaming 'til I lose my voice

followed by:

no parking
freak chances
nervous queuing
naughty stickers
silly money
dirty bitches
and platform dancing
(or penis whistles)

However

now I'm just jeans
not-asleep and bathtub dreams
far too early to be alone
drink free
with passed out ladies

and all I want is you
curled up
sweet man
in the porcelain beside me.

Water Birth

There is a road leading off
of Baker's Dozen
and Sassafras
that takes you to my home

I am Waking Cave
daughter of the Swallow
sister of the stone
my voice is the silence of stars
my breath is cool breeze

I am late summer
on black lake
gray ice
under the pines

cones to fill your basket
and offerings for your moon

I am eight million years in the making
limestone and fossil fuel
closed doors
for one hundred winters

I bore my ventricles
deep into the bones
of Mother Earth
Father Sand

I am heroine
in the veins of my planet
liquid diamond to light the depth
of black the shade of nothing

Stolen Bait: A lack of decency.

Drifting on the glacier's current
under the first taste of months to come
(come Summer and next year)

come the memories
first the real ones
follow the fabrications:

My mother painting her fingernails
My teeth marks in your back
My family's broken merry-go-round

The tears on your face
the night I wouldn't let you leave and
I found out that he'd hit you

again and again
the memories come like water, no-
they are water-
water being life
life becoming recollection.

They slide downstream
broken rocks
a broken path

with a splash! Crash!
A boulder cracked and
water so cold it's pure

blessed by Inuits
kissed by Winter's lash
That's the turn and pike of
too many season's laughter

and hitchhiking down
the state's most dangerous highway.
But how else will one learn secrets like:

past the cafe, up the left
where the road washed out like film
a ghost town thrives
and you can meet me there
we'll travel the river together.

Too long's passed- and I'm in love.

You are moonlight in my apple tree
Summer's hair bleached bright by laughter
long days with heavy dreaming
and strawberries

We climbed every sapling
just to kiss
when we reached the top

Where sailboats land
without wake or wind
and we build train tracks
to drive away on

I'm sitting under them now
sand in your hair by the glacier river
ice in your smile and I first realized
this is forever.

And I am too many beers just to ride on your back
because, you always carry me.
That's where I love you
every part that I can touch

Each one I will swallow
tip your toes into my lips and sip you in
there I can keep you
drop by drop

I will never get enough and you are a fountain
artesian wells that will always call me home
where I belong, right between
your shoulder and your chest

I can't help myself.
Fireflies on your fingertips
as they trail along my spine
leaving warm lines tracing

the places you have been

I can't help myself.
I am crashing like the river
all through the Spring
and lazy into July and early August

Iced tea and raspberry lemonade
and you've got sugar on your mouth
let me pull you down
and keep you like the Summers left

I'll keep you like the Summer.

043010 "Take off your boots and kiss me again."

I met a man tonight
who reminded me of poetry

he wasn't you
who always
reminds me of poetry

or sap-filled love songs
power ballads
epic riffs

my heart's got a whammy bar
and you wail
boy you wail

I've got strings tuned
for your fingers
and a hummm
for your toes

When you hum,
"Take off your boots
and kiss me again."

I sing.
Lay me down

and sing.

Arrivals and Departures: Her

Because you must go
(though I want you to stay)
(play your songs on my soul)
(troll your hands through my veins)

Kiss the curve of your bone
lonely whispered goodbye
sigh the saddest of tones
droning wedding ring ties

and my last eyes will furl
bullet lashes in rain
drain the banks of the world
pulling tears up your name

while the terminal haunts
gauntly growing insane
painful distance that daunts
taunted hands without shame

As you step from my heart
start descending the air
faring sweetness and tart
lark and lullaby flair

and the earth shakes your grasp
asking all that you hold
path imposed on your maps
tapping heels through the mold

don't you grip to your fears
tears and quiver-bit lip
tip your eyes as the years
turn the shape of my hip

and these miles that jaunt
wanting mothers and whores
more the lovers that haunt
what will always be yours

You'll return to my heart
heat your skeleton bone
lone to slip through my parts
where you find yourself home

As our limbs intertwine
bind our bodies in stone
you're my Psyche in vine
growing mother on throne

As the earth tries to shake
take and bend what we are
scar the bonds that we make
break what's sealed from our jar

We will bind ever tight
fight for all that we've got
rot and ruin can't slight
light our bullets unshot

I will keep you in springs
ringing deep from the earth
birth return to my rings
fingers locking our worth

As our planets unbind
twine our worlds into one
hum my promises blind
I will keep you unsung

073109

For this moment in passing
I have returned to my rarest
of usual forms
a stretching of tinted ivory
broken by the caress of pavement
and impact

July 2009

Tonight I am lonely; but it's for no other reason other than that I am alone. These days have come in waves of brutal self destruction and rabid introspection. It's all changing and I've got the past clenched tight under bruised knuckles. I've managed in the midst of this, however, to bore my fingers deep into the soil that holds me. I have blood and worms caked under my nails. And these days it's happened time and time again- you didn't know that about me, did you? Neither did I.

In just one week, I have managed to wear my threads bare- picking them strand for strand and stretching each one out for closer inspection. This process is discovery, though my body calls it pain. Pain is just a part of life anyway. To deny myself the sight of blood would keep me from discovering what moves beneath my skin.

What what have I found there? Broken vessels paint a map of reckless abandonment and genuine delight. If I seem interested, that's because I am. I have discovered the recipe for wild laughter and not giving a shit. Yes, I love you, but it is clear you don't get what I'm doing here. You tell me I am belligerent. I throw my head back to the storming morning in hysteria. You tell me I could never be- 'cause I don't understand. Baby, that's what practice is for. You've got worry in your head and it's triggered all my allergies. Honey, I can't stand it. We're so close I can feel your breath on my spine, yet our lives have intersected at a point of dementia. We're on different planes today. You push as I dig and I pull as you shove brashly. There is a bitterness I can't quite place. If your life makes you unhappy, find yourself a new one in the thrift store.

And we are not happy- that is clear. I push as you finish our promises before me. You pull as I run full speed towards the cliffs to watch the sunrise. Where are the cliffs, Darling?

There are no cliffs here. And you know the real problem has nothing to do with you, right? Of course you do- it might be what scares you the most. So why did you quit speaking up for the two of us and especially you? Your voice was once a bell. Somehow it has become a what? A mumble. What? And then you quit speaking all together.

but now

I am going to revive my blog

reconnect my lungs

and dig up every scrap that bastard buried

Look out

here comes the woman I made dormant with months of desperation