I left a note

in your locker

slipped it through the bones

of your ragged ribcage

knocked against your chest

before the bell rang

scribbled over old wounds

and labored breathing

with my thin handwriting

Sorry to force my way in

I forget the combination

guess clumsily at the digits

turn myself this way and that

writhe back

work it out walk it off

I open back up eventually

but my wrists are weak

this paper is crumpled

Written between blue lines

along the sinew

our tired veins

(if this is us

if this body is yours now, too)

“this is my heart,

this is my heart”

If you’re my home, I'm homesick. You board a plane and everything becomes unfamiliar. Through this turbulence —that tremor and tremble— my wild whirlwind mind is wearing itself out. Thinning, finally. Exhausted. Can I starve fear by depriving it of safe ground, or still water? We're soaring, I think. Flying further. Shape-shifting our longing by sky gazing. Fast moving storm clouds. Stars, if we let them transform across our sleeping bodies. Awake, I am gentler. I’m your sunset if you're dawn.

I am becoming aware of how I am softening. Dripping like condensation from cool glass. Pouring over you. Melting against you like tired fabric; an old t-shirt, sheer against the press and pull of nostalgic palms —admiring the way it drapes so easily around the form of the wrist when turned right-side-in. Gently pliable at the back, loose at the neck and through the shoulders. I keep asking you to leave me behind when you go anywhere, ashamed, within the walls of your suitcase. Confined. Latched for good measure. I beg sometimes, to set aside my tattered affection. It's old. Worn. Habitual. I subject myself to writhe in that heap I'm in. I come up with new excuses when I am restless and alone. A puddle of mathematically inaccurate if-then algorithms. No rest for the desire of your figure.

I am programmed this way, a skipping record. I dream so often that I'll lose you that I can't help it. An ambitious nightmarer that you quiet with a shake of your head and the way you ask to lay with me. (I almost always answer, "Please.") Let me dissolve with the sharpness of our memories. Pain blurs around the edges eventually. Faded and pale. I watch you adjust the settings on your camera to keep us in focus. A new lens to see more. Developing this snapshot of time in a way that still feels beautiful to you. As much as I discard your vision, you disregard my desires to break, destroy. Shred.

I know I'm wrong. I write about it all the time. You tell me so, softly, when I am doubtful, but I know. I know. I just need the reminder. When you do, take me from your desk drawer and keep me between the pages of your book. Read me at the wrong time, the right time, all the time. Vulnerable, like folded paper ripping neatly at the seam, wet with careful envelope-kissing. Tearing without outcry, I am still your love letter. Always. Cautiously grazing your skin, at your fingertips, your lips, when you fold me up for later. Tangled and afraid for now, I think I am the pieces you packed for comfort, weary of travel.

Where is home now, and are you homesick, too?

Tired ocean eyes

stare at an endless horizon

Downcast lashes for now

Dark and snow-tipped

fluttering like birds

on the echo of a hillside hymn

a prayer whispered

from languid terrain

and cold exhales

Pale curtains part

for intrepid dancers

a slow ghost waltz

rising up gracefully before fading

like mist; a fistful of dust

disappearing in a ceiling of shade

Grey and white, silver and still

Shrouding the jewels

that encrust your gilded winter

like a sunless daydream

You curl into warm sweaters

in search of humbler stones

I’ll watch you comb your beaches

carelessly plucking quiet agates

collecting my unread poems

or the weight of my longing

silenced, in a small glass jar

What a rush, a terrible rush

At my own expense

Running blind like always

My sordid adventures

But I'll be back soon

I don't know how to drown

In your tall trees yet

And I envy them a little

Embraced at their necks

By loving ghosts

Please hold me, too?

Find me when I'm lost?

Perhaps I'll kiss you with my eyes closed

Pull you under me

Wade more gently

I'll cool you down

Leave you just long enough

To shiver in my absence

Or taste the salt

I left on your lips

I’ll sculpt with bitterness

in stone, in clay

in my clumsy cynicism

the ragged figure of a young man

I’ll craft the sloven years

with nothing refined

or smoothed over

rough around the edges

It’d be the embodiment of

a strange shyness

swallowed mouthfuls of hope

and perceived cadging

That reminder is ugly and this statue is uglier

such a proud, lonely pose

shrugging away from

any hands that ever cared

I’ll leave my tools in his side

and step back to look it over

“A real piece of work”

That’s what my father would say

“Of course I was,” I’ll laugh

But I’d abhor the sight of it

and cast my work in metal

finished at last

He has the shell I’ve always desired

this bullet proof self-portrait

and I think I almost admire it

so much I avert his bronze stare

I want that cold skin

As I remove my palms from the kiln

patch the real wounds I’ve obtained

in kinder cloth

I wonder thoughtlessly

if that poor soul

is ever jealous

of my warmth

“I don’t care,” I say aloud

Turn off the lights and retire

leave my shadow to stand

the silhouette of my stillness

but beneath my breath

find that affirmation leave me

thinking of his lifeless eyes

my eyes, too

“But I do care,” I say softly,

to no one but myself,

an empty room, and my sculpture,

“God, it hurts.”

I made note of my run

Marked it in the leftmost lane

Speedy Gonzales Saturday mornings

with the radio on

Drown out my panic

and the caricature of my self-loathing

with a schedule

Song, speech, song

Forgetting the nostalgic

high pitch sounds of

getting anywhere

too quickly to measure accurately

I'm already halfway there

My destination highlighted

On the map in my dad's old truck

tucked in the pocket behind the seat

curled gently and careworn

I know this route

It has your name on it

and I'll be there soon

you just got there in a hurry

Fast as lightning

Trek the terrain

across my notched shoulders

Jaw loose,

like a cat

with its head tucked low

swimming

against the current

of smooth skin

and your

slow,

deliberate

exhales.

Blue petal skin folding inward

A shivering self embrace

Trembling shoulders

and small cool notches

Freckled spine lingering

Beneath pale raised rivets

Scarlet fingernails rest for now

Having clawed at the neck

Never quite comfortable with how

She's gotten bone deep

Unreachable

Asleep

Tucked within the marrow

Hibernating

Perhaps until spring

I’ve been saying, “tomorrow,” for the last three months, dreaming again in a bent and hollow sort of way, shoving myself into all of my crooked corners. I’ve purposely avoided it up to now, trying to dodge it, like an expert lightning runner —my sad attempts to slip unnoticed past the inevitable summer months.

It denies my wishes for a moderate temperature and ruthlessly tortures me with its slow crawl in my direction, wrapping its clammy hands around my throat to pin me to hot pavement; sparks within me and kindles unkempt fires, burns me at the shoulders like Memorial Day fireworks —feels so potent I can almost see it tucked behind the horizon. Waiting.

I want to taste a sky that slowly darkens, bowing its graceful head to welcome a storm that may never come, existing only to fool me into praying another day for rain.

Retrograde brides

Sink into the warm pool

Catatonic smiles

Beneath hooded lashes

My poor ancestors

Foolishly donning a white veil

With bright, crystalline eyes

Their still bodies

And pale, sullen cheeks

Drown me

Finger brushed collarbones

Apathetic embraces

Pull me deeper

into a wavering mirror

Of deafening static

Their collapsed chests cling

Against my beating heart

And I decide my suicide dreams

May kill me in the end

But only because

While I am alive

I am painfully aware

I have not lived