Backwards Looking

you would think that leaves would grow
brighter by now, greener and translucent
under the light of our best memories
you would think, wouldn't you?

that some golden glow would wash over
the photos we took together in the beginning
you would think things would look
lovelier in the autumn tint of yesterday

instead I see strange shapes lurking
in the corners of retrospect, and I am afraid
that they were there all along and I was
merely a player in a game they set

now I have become a gnarled branch, an offshoot

of my former self and you are smiling across

the room from me. I mimic the expression

as empty and flat as an old mirror

and new lovers look like little cut-outs
of the shadows you cast, your tallness
and all the wants I wasted. so many other
poems need writing, but here I am again

I keep falling in love and hate every day
with everything we built together
you have always carried fire in your blood
and I cannot shake the heat of you

perhaps this is what you wanted, but
I am forgetting how I sustained these injuries
only the scars on my face now remain
from the first time you kissed me

and my heart breaks every time you do not
touch me, and I know it would split if you did
it could be easier, I think, if I did not see you
in every person I pass, but

I carry your smoke in my mouth
like the stale cigarette I use as a pacifier
and I breathe it over everyone who tries
to help me heal and leave my bed

I tiptoed around you for so long that I bruised
the balls of my feet. walking reminds me
of you now, the sensation that comes
with dreading each new step forward

which is a word I am lately unfamiliar with
the future has become some strange intangible
mist, and I am all twisted backwards looking
for what I must have missed in your face

there must have been maps in its creases and lines
but somehow I overlooked the legend in your corner
I never quite learned how to read you correctly
and I was doomed to wander aimlessly

so I am scratching like an old record
and I have put myself on repeat. I listen
to my heartbreak more often than the songs
you used to play for me in the sunlight

and you would think time would have washed
me clean by now, would have cast a glow
over all our insecurities. you would think
things would be different these days

but here I am
writing you down again
and the gray dawn doesn't do much
to change the light anymore

Impossible

it is just a little bit absurd how little I was when I left you.
walking around like half an ant, waiting to sweat out the toxins of you
and I am still trying to remember what I felt like before we became
the thing that changed my mind. I was so ready to be unsure
for the rest of my life, and then you happened to me
and I brought you in closer than a dark secret and breathed you
for too many days and nights. you are thicker than blood in the air
and you filled my lungs just as fast. I became one of those people
I used to pass on the street, who look so certain, and I knew
they were being held by someone lovely at night. your lips
must have been drugged. they altered my vision of the future
and my sense of self. I was so ready to be unsure forever, but
I changed my mind because of you. and then I changed it back
because of you. and I have looked in so many directions for answers
that my neck has broken and rebuilt itself a hundred times over
nothing looks the same from that cracked-spine angle
sideways and bleeding all the love I had stored up for you
I made myself into a patchwork quilt of all the things I thought you wanted
little threads fraying at my edges where I couldn't quite keep myself
together the way the pattern said I should. but I unravelled
long ago enough that I should be able to gather my fabric up
and sew myself into something new by now. somehow I still sit
shaken and alone, pushing and running when something good
shows up on the horizon. my reflection even laughs at me sometimes.
calls me weak. the mirror has become an enemy, and I cover it
with white sheets when the sun goes down. I heard once
that some people do that when a loved one has died.
it seems appropriate, mourning the loss of the version of you
I thought existed. you were a ruse that I never saw coming.
and I still hear echoes of skepticism from our friends --
I know they whisper behind me and they wish I could take one step
forward, just one single step, but instead I write poems about you
five months later. we have been apart for almost as long
as we were together. and yet I still look like a shadow of myself
and I still talk about you at parties, and I still wait for you
to drift out to sea and find some other town to pillage
and I feel like the only one left behind on the shore
while you've sailed away, and taken the best parts of me with you
I always thought I was a mermaid, but I know if I dove
into the ocean I would only follow the wake of your ship.
I know it is time for me to unclench you from my fists
I know it is time to stretch my neck and learn to swim
I know enough time has passed that I should remember
how to breathe again by now, even with you nearby
and I know that nothing
has ever felt
so impossible

We Decided To Be Brave

there are things we were not supposed to say.
words like "intimacy" and "unconditional" and "open"
words that stung our tongues when we let them out
from between our lips, somebody told us
when we were little that love was a fairy tale
and we were never allowed to write it down.
there are things we were not supposed to say.

but we decided to be brave.
we were taught to guard our chests
with adamant and hard chain mail, we were taught
to fear love and hide our soft skin under branches
and behind rocks. we were taught to run away
before our lovers ran first. we were taught
to hate and to hurt and to punish.

but we decided to be brave.
because there were moments when the light changed
moments when we saw each other's eyes for the first time
in weeks, when we stopped looking and started seeing
vines and flowers growing from our irises and we blossomed
into a twined mess of thorns with blooms in brilliant shades
we were never perfect. lattice could not hold us.

but we decided to be brave.
we decided to start peeling the layers back
and to be gentle with ourselves and with each other, because
shifting your weight can be terrifying sometimes
but we were there to balance each other's scales
we had both been burned by dragon's breath
and we were afraid of our new love sprouting wings
and flying away with all of the gold we had stored up
we had nightmares of losing each other

but we decided to be brave.
and we moved each other's feet forward when we stumbled
and we nursed each other's wounds when we wept
and we held each other through storms and shadowed nights
and we forgot to hold our tongues and we forgot
to guard our chests, and each day that we woke up together
we became a little bit less afraid.

we decided to be brave
because loving ourselves was easier with help
and someone to show you how. we decided
to be brave because our reflection was too beautiful
when we stood side by side, and we could not
stop looking in the mirror. we decided to be brave
because something deep inside each of us clicked.

we decided to be brave.
and the day we did was the day the sun came out.
we have been basking in its warmth ever since.
and our days will not always be bright, but we
will spend them in each other's arms.
we will watch our children grow
we will hold each other's hands
we will heal and learn and love
we will love so much that we cannot take it
and every day that we can,
we will be brave
together.

(rocker)

The rocker pushed and pulled as I breathed thick summer air and sipped hot lemonade. This was Texas at its best, wrapped in a screen porch and sweating, happy to scramble under the southern sun like an egg in a pan. Homemade ice cream waited behind the freezer door. Our horses tore grass from the field. This is what we bargained for. We came out on the best side of the deal.

(composed in 60 seconds at oneword.com)

For The Days When I Wonder

I wonder what I will become when I die
my everything is already too big and I already leave
carcasses trailing behind my shadow
I already walk through walls like a ghost
and I wonder, will they read my words and say
"poor thing. she was very sad."
or will they say "I am sorry for the ones
she loved." or perhaps will they say
nothing at all. perhaps I will not be read.

I am sorry, as well, for the ones I loved
for I am thick with tree bark and maple sap
I taste sweet when tempered or diluted, but
I will not leave your skin. something in my scent
will linger and cling to you like a virus that dies
if left alone. and sometimes I am so small
that magnifying glasses glance over me like blind helicopters
combing the landscape for fugitives, and sometimes
I am so expansive that I encompass oceans
and drown kind sailors who only meant
to make their living that day, but I had other plans.

I write myself into little boxes with dark walls
you would think I love bear traps the way I let them
catch my ankles so well. I paint monsters on my skin
and I watch myself become a morsel for hungry gods
I make myself less than what a penny is worth these days.
but then again, I have my moments.
I am fiercer than grizzlies sometimes and I am tall.
and if I leave carcasses in my wake, I will leave them smiling.
I already find myself on stilts half the time,
tent-high and so much wider than my own striped skin
that I do not fit inside myself. I topple forward
most days, I cannot find my balance because I am
too far lost in the stratosphere. It is the only place
large enough to hold my hand.

but it is lovely inside the sky.
and I wonder what I will become when my body is gone
and all that remains are the pictures I drew in black and white
I wonder what I will be when all I am is
this... these words. I cannot imagine my everything contained
on a handful of pages bound between paperback covers.
perhaps people will say I was just a sad girl with a pen.
perhaps the ones I loved will tell them
otherwise.

104.

you said that you had always been in love with me
after I told you I had never stopped wanting you
and I am twisting under your shadow
like an open wound beneath a knife
I am bleeding lyrics for you and smiling
and that was our goodbye

(taboo)

She was a taboo like a scorch in the throat. A word you shouldn’t say. The taste of her sweat when she arches, like the songs your parents told you not to hear. She walked all lace and spiked heels and she loved you like you never wanted. Like you always needed. She was the taboo you were never supposed to crave.

(composed in 60 seconds at oneword.com)