may the rain wash this away

I wonder if you feel a measure of blame
Towards me
For quietly, abruptly,
Writing an end to that story.
We made this bed
But I lay down first.
I chose him--
So cliche, as though there was a choice to begin with
(There was, there always is)
--Of course I did.
I had to.
I am that choice.
But since snuggling into that den we made together, alone
I find I have been carving off pieces of myself
And tucking them away for you
To present in a future that may (will, can, should) not be.
No. 
I cannot
Should not
And there is the struggle that plagues.
Me, if not you
I wouldn't know. 
What I have learned: 
Just because you want
Does not mean you deserve
Does not mean you can
Does not mean you get.
I liked myself in that story
Though it was not the kindest
Purest
Goodest
Self I have ever been
But it felt like bliss
And for that I do penance.

not a haiku

you spoke to me in poetry
for that, fuck you
and thank you

this is not a poem this is stupid

Last night I did a spell to find the words to say to you

To fix this liminality, not the thrilling kind, the kind of slow death

Even as I watched the candles burn down, I felt the answer was silence

That the words I needed were empty air

And this morning I understand

I see how I cannot wake with him and walk with you

I see how you have frozen me out in the dying heat of August because it’s what I asked of you

I see how incapable I am of choosing what fades

Sometimes things just die

Sometimes they will return in new shapes

Sometimes the fight for survival is merely a beating

Tonight I will cast another spell

I will burn thread and whisper a prayer I penned myself

I will let me go in the wavering light of the first sliver of fresh moon

I will let you go too late, as always

I hope you can forgive me

I hope you find a place of peace that spares you much more suffering

I hope somewhere there is one for me

time and time some more

so i sit spinning a stone in my fingers
my body in rebellion
songs ricocheting around my rib cage
and you say that time isn't linear, but it seems
that all the lines have converged at this point
i am both empty and imploding
alone, sans answers
as the mountain goats bray the mantra
i will make it through the year
i will make it through the year
but i may not still be here by the time the snow
has overstayed its welcome
one way or another, the girl at this convergence will be gone
if i can only find a way across this chasm
for now, i sit in silence and wait for the snow
while the heat surrounds and scorches me
of every bridge i've ever known

who do you confess to when you don't believe in god?

I used to think I knew the sight of my soul--
Filmy thin and white,
A dryer sheet
Delicate and quivering, hovering
In the space between either side of my rib cage
I used to feel its horror when I sinned
Could see the flecks of dirt blemish the pale the way asphalt stains the snow
I used to apologize and could feel it nod:  abashed, at the mercy of
One monstrous human person.

As of late, I am not so certain--
There has always been a stronger tug
A ghost behind the sheet, biding
And now, where the forest meets the sea,
Where the high and the hard collide and leave you wretched,
I feel it with tendrils through my chest, in my limbs
Woven through my spine, a thorned morning glory
Nesting around my brain as a cliff bird
Beating its feet on the dirt, grasping onto branches, howling, gasping
A will-o'-the-wisp, a wraith
A mouse, a bear
Vast, so very vast
Thriving, having come so far through the trees
That at last it can taste the sunlight
Just behind the canopy
And trembles with fear and delight.

heavy coastal mind

about the mist
how empty it is, like
a shroud over a body resurrected
you could release all your whispers
in a scream, and have it
rise through the great expanse
invisible immediately
soaring like a crow
like a curse
like a treefall

or is it full
is it heavy, potent
like a field full of bodies covered over
tenderly by the bobbing flowers
all the flaws of thousand lives
become granules in the soil
moist and cold and breathing
we are cold and breathing
the waves fold in on themselves
again, again, again

damn it's been a minute

i was peeling an orange

my whole body shook

how weak have i become,

subsisting on mist—

a dissatisfied triangle

a different kind of misery