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

Homage to Timor

That is my deepest fear, I think

That the glittering image I’ve so carefully constructed

The giant iron effigy built of passions and aspirations

Is hollow as the sockets of a skull long sucked by worms.

The confidence is cracked like Roman stones

Flaws crammed closed with off-color wax

The whole massive mess of a person crumbles when thunder upsets the sky.

I subtly suspect that I fit the mold most excellently

And lack the strength to break it—

The assumed extra appendages of talent and dreams are common to all

And I have no way to escape this niche in the assembly line.

I’m inclined to believe people are kind, too kind

The kind of kind where they say you sing beautifully

But you know, deep down past your vanity vocal cords

You match pitch to the harmony of Furies.

All I have is contained within this pale and simple frame

And this, my powerful and most pervasive fear: 

That I am made, blood and body and soul, of carbon copies

That nothing real seeps from my mouth or hands

That upon the hour when my soul floats free

The ruins of my counterfeit lifetime will not outlast the roll of the earth
And will disintegrate in likeness of the lost pieces of Pompeii.

When Spring Comes, and Smells

Dear stubborn heart,
I fancy I miss you.
You, like a cinder block
Bully of opinion.
Dear handsome heart
I fancy I misread
Affection in green eyes
For self-satisfaction.
Dear tender heart,
Winter is waning
And with it recollection
Of your scathing flaws.
Dear first heart,
I'll acquiesce this one
The hollow of your chest
Was not so poor a house.