71715 0113

i am drowning in inadequacy.
to be wrapped in sweet nothings and...
and then to have it taken away
stripped of the progress...
i allowed myself to think we had made
i have walked so many extra miles
doubling back on myself time and time again
it feels like all at once
i am beginning to feel
the toll of it all
i don't understand what lesson
the stars are trying to teach me tonight
but i'm tired of being torn apart
right as the glue
from the last time
has finished drying.

sleep is supposed to
speed up the healing process.
but i haven't been able to sleep in days.

07102015 2253

the warmth of your hands
makes me yearn for cold nights
and wool blankets
and how it felt to sit in your car and
talk to you for 5 hours about
next to everything.
if, two years ago,
someone had told me it was possible
to fall for someone so deeply
and still have that feeling every day,
even months later,
i would have shaken my head
and explained that love is work-
that the christmas morning type feeling
goes away after two weeks,
maybe two months if you are lucky
but here we are 7 months later
and i still feel the same,
and even more.
maybe it's easy for me to jump to this
so early because i have never had someone
as supportive and independent,
have never loved someone so reasonable
so personable and outgoing,
with such solid morals,
without imposing any of these onto me.
you hold me with open hands
instead of clenching you lift me up
i know i am not tethered to you,
i know i am free to fly
and because of this i still come back.

070615 2109

sometimes when i wake up

it is like the first step out of bed is

onto broken glass and gravel.

i must remember to fight.

i can choose to wear shoes

or i can wait until the soles of my feel

are tough and calloused and accustomed. 

070615 2104

i was told so long ago

that one day,

i would be able to go weeks

without you crossing my mind.

i had shaken my head at the time,

said it was not possible to forget

fires in the middle of the night

ladybugs on white walls

sleeping in cots in strange houses

but now i find it so hard to recall

the first time you made me cry and

how your voice sounded when

you tried to coax me into your bedroom

and the look in your eyes when i said no.

2240 021515

my shadows wrote for me
they wrote endless monotonous books
who's spines were stiff and uncreased.
i try to tuck flowers in the pages,
so when i stumble across them again
the grey and white will be but a background
for beautiful color and a reminder that
even after life goes on
there is still beauty
there is still inspiration
that one day maybe someone will stumble across
a book and fan the pages in thoughtlessness and
catch a glimpse of a less-saturated me.
my shadows have always shown me
more beauty than i could ever hope for
we must remember that it is the sun that casts shadows
that even with light we must experience dark.
a reminder that we are here.

050115 0116

I hope that when you are
prattling on about
the women you have conquered,
that you do not consider me among them

i am a mountain
unconquerable by
a man as weak as you

033115 1043

I wake up drowning in you
Wrapped in the way you smell
Like hotel rooms on the coast
I wake up drowning in all the ways
You held me the night before
The way your hands held my heart up
When it grew heavy.
I knew it when I put my head down last night,
that I can live in a world without
knowing the feeling of your arms
wrapped around me,
But I hope I never have to go back
Because the way you hold me
Is within itself a simple at of selflessness,
You do not understand but
You also do not attempt to crack my ribs open.
You have become the extra light in color,
Saturating my life in a way that
I cannot gracefully put into words.
But I know the way you comfort me with gentle hands
quiets my thoughts and soothes my lungs
while everyone else was setting me on fire.

032815 2253

you drown my demons
with the color of your eyes
and the creases of your smile.
you quiet their incessant groaning
with the soft resonance of your voice
when you whisper good morning
and
the warmth of your hands
reminds me to breathe again
and brushes the dust
from between my ribs.
this is for you
this is for you
this is for you

032515 1745

God, if I could put into words
How badly sometimes
I need my skin between your teeth
and under your nails
Of course I enjoy gentle fingertips
and soft lips just as much
but sometimes I need to be reminded
that we are human
and that I can trust you.
Just as sometimes I remind you,
with hands on your throat
or fingers wrapped in your hair.
Hand on face, finger in mouth.
To be blind to your actions,
to be mute despite your touch.
It is as necessary to me
as loving touch is.
I'm so glad we share this.

032515 0931

your chest on my cheek and

your legs under mine,

curled around me

hands warm on my back

like your lips

soft and hot on my own.

you awaken a field of flowers

in my stomach

blossoming all at once

and you tug at something in my chest

things i am no longer used to.

it has taken a while to trust that your teeth

won't break through skin

when you know i'm already close to shattering on you.

the colors that seep through

my skin the next day make me feel 

like your canvas

and i can only hope you will continue to 

give me your art and i will continue to inspire

because the way your hands feel on my neck

and my hips

and the way it feels to come undone on top of

or under

or beside you

is the most beautiful medium of art

i have ever been blessed enough to experience.
second only to the way you hold me afterwards.

032415 1250

It is so nice to
curl into my bed
and look at new beginnings
beautiful apartments with balconies
imagining waking up
and curling up with the morning
I am so excited.

031415 2325

is it loneliness that
buries itself within you and
causes you to latch on to
the first person to extend their hand to you?

031215 0403

you pleaded
with hot breath into
my neck
stamping your proclamations behind
my eardrums.
now that you've gotten it
what will you do with it?

031215 0402

it is very much
like the way the
ocean always fills the
void, leaving me breathless and
envious of those living on the shore
you leave me the same way.
overcome and waiting...
undone.

sometimes we must look past
the glassy surface of the water.

031215 0352

I had forgotten that your face
was once familiar...
even memorized.
It comes as a shock
but nothing more
and that is even more
of a shock, that
that is all there is.

030815 0010

Even when I'm folded into 

layers of frustration

I will still cling to you 

in my sleep

like a ripened fruit, 

ready to fall

why would i want that bruise?

030415 0951

the hollow rings of ice cracking on a thawing lake

the tinkling of ice washing up and onto shore

calming, added to an already soothing song

the thunder of glacier giving birth

the anger of nature in complete silence 

the roar of fire caught by wind

crackling as it cleans

these are the sounds nestled behind my eardrums 

when i think of you

012615 0612

You calm my waters
when you are near
and when you're gone
my ocean is angry
and dark

022215 1933

You hold me in the way
I've always begged to be held.
No more yearning for intimacy,
I have it right here
In my arms.

021815 0321

i wish i could fold the way i love
the colors painted across the sky during a sunset
into a paragraph
into neat words and complete sentences
instead i have to be content with
saying that it is the way the clouds
settle over the horizon,
heavy and lazy and warm,
the way the city gets busy
trying to get home so it can relax.
i have to be okay with struggling to describe
the way the birds,
who i love dearly,
fall silent and how that silence tends to engulf.
i could try to explain how
watching the sun say goodbye
both breaks my heart and
mends it at the same time
but i don't know if i have the energy to
dance through that would-be paragraph.
instead i must be content with
saying that even though i know
it will be back tomorrow
nothing hurts more than watching
it go down.

im trying these out lets see how they look on the blog yepp

021715 0028

it is seasonal and terrifying
shadows that slither from underneath cars
and settle on my porch at dusk
leaking into the cracks of this old house
and coming to sit on my chest
i don't want to frighten you
with the way i will clutch to anything
that brightens my day
when i'm fighting darkness and much worse
when the sun kisses this city goodnight
throwing pinks and purples onto the horizon
... it is something that usually soothes
but for now leaves me anxious to face the silence.
i will need to be held a little more,
reminded a little more that
i am okay?

021715 0024

i love the way your mouth smells
when it is on mine.

021715 0020

I like the way you curl into my arms
like you feel as though I can protect you.
you fold into me as if
I am made of titanium,
as if I am a brick wall unbroken.
You give me hope,
that I am indeed whole.
You make me feel strong,
as if I can hold my own and
hold you at the same time.
No one has made me feel that way before.

013015 0206

I long to bury myself in your arms
where I can listen to what your heart
will whisper to me
when your lips are shut

012315 0240

my heart feels raw

012115 0200

it is so easy to crumble
with self doubt
at 2
when silence is thick like fog

012115 0141

you made the bed you sleep in now
so you smooth out those wrinkles
and you fucking lay in it.

012115 0127

and it is as if someone has reached into my world

and painted the clouds with a heavy brush, 

so low and so beautiful

spilling their oranges and pinks and purples

all over my horizon

someone reached down and wiped my eyes

it is all so clear now

it is no longer the darkness of corners

and the way shadows stretch too far across

the kitchen tile at night

it is now the way the sun casts rays through

trees, 

i no longer see the shadows cast by leaves.

now i see the pattern of the light...

and it is making me wonder

if i laid there long enough would i tan in spots

how beautiful would that be?

to have the pattern of sunlight through leaves

etched on my skin for a few weeks.

god, it's so simple!

i wish i had seen this so long ago.

012015 0022

it is real!!!
we're real and
you're real and i am real
independently we are real
together we are real
and this is real.

it is real.

012015 0014

i guess if i wanted to i could list

a few of the things that make me dizzy...

the way it feels going over 40 through

the intersection of randolph and old oconnor

the feeling of standing straight up

out of complete sleep

because i got reality and dreamworld mixed up

the way your eyes soften at the edges

when i surprise you by saying something sweet

and the way your hair is curly in the very front.

spinning in my kitchen in socks

and a large tshirt when i am home alone.

how warm your hand is on my cheek or

the back of my neck.

the way it feels to run my thumb over the top of yours.

the feeling of falling in my sleep

but waking and turning to bury myself in you

knowing that i am safe regardless.

012015 0011

it feels as though

the cold crawls into my bones

and settles there

and when i bend too far

i snap

and when you wrap yourself

into me 

you thaw me out

and i can bend a little farther.

i can reach a little higher

your hands soothe the ache

and lift simultaneously 

it is so beautiful.

011615 0017

it is the jolt of silence
through my chest and down
my stomach
the way it slows me and time
and you
and the warmth of your mouth
and your chest on my back
your hands on my sides and hips
fingers in my mouth and
around my throat
slow motion

011315 0217

I want you to slide across the tiles with me
socks gathered at the ankles
hair stringy and gathered onto the top of my head
i want sleepy eyes and sloppy hands
on my waist and my back
warmth on my cold skin
i want to be cradled in the sunlight
and i want to smell the way
the grass will get stuck in the hairs on your chest

you make the ocean pour from my mouth
tidal waves pushing my tongue under
before i met you
when i would open my mouth
it was bone dry.

011015 0505

i like the way you
close your eyes and
melt into my open palm
and i love the way
your fingers play in the dips
of my back
i would let you do that all day
if you were willing

011015 0503

i don't ache to be the stitches
or the cast
as if you were ever broken
i ache to be the salve
when something burns
or aches...
i don't want to be your cure
but i want to soothe.

011015 0502

i want to still
the crashing waves
i see in your eyes
i want to run my hands
over your rough waters
and smooth them out.

011015 0458

i sat and watched you

rearrange the letters on the sign

in front of the church 

up the street from your mother's house.

it went from a nice invitation

to come in and share warmth and thought

to something terrible.

you thought it was funny

i watched you do the same thing to yourself

a few months later.

011015 0457

my throat was sore
from begging you
to love me again
so i stopped begging.

011015 0453

you painted me 

with all the colors 

of your watercolor palette

but when you were upset

you dumped your water cup on me

and watched my colors run

i begged you to stop

to catch the colors with your brush

but you watched me drip.

010615 0016

when i stroke your face,
or rub your back,
when i reach into your chest
to cradle your heart,
or into your mind to quiet
negative thoughts,
i touch you gently
for many reasons
mainly because
i need to be handled gently too.
i am far from fragile,
but i am not stable either.
not quite yet.
i need fingertips and open palms
my legs are still shaky,
i'm relearning how to walk.

010615 0014

i think about your couch
and being tangled up in you
entirely too much
the way my eyes were distant
my hair was a mess
and my lips were puffy and bruised
i think about that feeling
and the fact that i still feel it
weeks later
all of the time.