Bodies birth a nest of fibrous tissue for the linings to be shorn. 

Glassfuls of ice chill espresso and milk for cups to house but a drop.

Canvases come alive with swirling color for flat hues to renew. 

The scent of honey suckle is thick 
the sweetness in the air 
paired with the late evening heat

intoxicates me

We are buzzing 
Like the locust 
Who made thier scheduled appearance 

last time I heard them
I was barefoot and missing baby teeth
standing in the yard as my father pointed out 

it would be seventeen years till they came back again 

now here I am with you
older and far away from the place I first experienced the sound of summer erupting 

I think about you
Drinking as we stand 

I think about my father 
all those years ago 

he was drinking too 

Calm myself 
or let anxiety fester?
be positive or
focus on the messy parts?
smile or
cry or
do both at the same time?
scream or
remain silent or
speak up creatively?
let someone else
affect me or put
on my armour?
put off what needs doing
or be productive?
be myself or
be who others want to see?
be strong
or stay weak?
educate myself
or remain uneducated?
stay quiet
or scream at the top of my lungs?
be patient
or jump the gun?
quit or
keep trying?

And if nothing works?
Keep making choices!

Poems are like a yard sale
Stretching down 400 miles of interstate
through quaint and crumbly grandeur

I place a pair of off white heels 
next to a microwave
and a 30s magazine catches me up
and winds up several spools of my minutes

This giant bowl I set here for you
Your name is written all over it
and the stories this napkin holder has to tell
about particular conversations held long ago

I can almost see the tears, the hands that dried the plates
That pulled the beans
That repaired the fence
That hugged the children

I can’t help but hope you bring some of it home

and as I pick through each object
I silently pray I find myself
Crouching under a sun hat 
in prickly heat
turning everything to dust

i’m looking for the lichen that only grows
in the stillness between air and stone
one mind and another
delicate partnership
a gaze of knowing- 
you too have both Suffered and Surrendered

given over
bent deep
by waves and storms that come standard with having a heartbeat in this world

yet, you too (I see it in the gloaming of your eyes)
have found the magic
that secret that makes us part of this nature, not just discontented tourists

given over
bent deep
with roots in rich soil
holding fast the ancient knowledge
that what decays today will be reborn tomorrow

always

ALWAYS

ALIVE
in some part of this garden

wipe chin with calendar page / slipping between sheets / planes /
let’s just lay here one more time
and if we don’t touch we won’t kill the hologram / just because
i’m over it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen to me / every time i hear
that song / every time i have
that dream / boil myself down to the sweat on your arms /
reincarnate as July to watch my seventeenth / my best / birthday
from above / keep writing love letters / don’t track
the forks in the road / research desire / pray to want what you get /
not to get what you want /
the paper dolls
are ready for bed / go back to Saint
Louis / uninvest in “home”

the molecules are close enough to convince that you’re here,
an astral being entering within a gust that sweeps aside the tapestry patterned with teal and lavender spheres

Why is it that you like to peer?
Do my insights of fear have an appeal that draw you near?

I don’t empathically feel the emotions in you dear: to me you have none that cross or interfere, unlike the usual your white noise is all I hear

It’s comforting; that detachment in your
austere

if your heart catches fire
and settles into glow,
watch it burn

fan it as needed
(or let it die out)
if it wants to consume you

whatever happens,
you must try to hold it like an ember
which is to say

you must not try to hold it at all.

You think I tell you
Everything.
Every thought and fear
Every breath I save to whisper as you hide.
But I don’t.
I have neither words nor color to shine all my truths for you.

You think you know
Everything.
Every touch and tingle
Every spark I feel from your fingers on my neck.
But you don’t.

Do you feel my heart leap when you chime into my day?
And do you taste the salt on my earlobe catching pillow tears?
Can you know the ache that follows the breadcrumb paths, creeping time moving back to you?

Maybe.
Maybe you do.