i'm willing to wait
for the sun to catch its breath;
it's tired, just like you
but we'll dance
with the man on the moon
but the butterflies aren't out yet
the butterflies haven't flown yet
the butterflies, the butterflies
now we're subject to change-
course, direction, clothes
but we haven't found our cocoon
nestled inside the honeycomb heart
of the great big sea
(i think i've forgotten how to swim)
secret:
i think of you
in poetic devices,
in alliteration
and juxtaposition
i think of you
and the framework
of your spine
the border where
your vowels
and consonants
reside
i think of you
as the small spaces
between the rise and fall
of your hushed
language
i think of you
as the shingles on my roof
and when it rains
you smell of salt water
cities
i think of you
as the shards of glass
beneath my skin
which can, in no manner
be safely removed
i think of you
as the wicker chair
in my kitchen
the one i sit in
when i feel rain
i'm one of those girls.
the ones that sip tea like vodka
the ones who tie bows around their ribs
to keep out strangers
the ones that spill onto pavement,
pooling around parked cars
and resting gulls
the ones that turn off the lights
to see their skin turn from
pale to bleached
the ones that wear dresses
only within the four walls of their bedroom
the ones that like the feeling
of chapped lips in november
the ones that would dye their hair
red, brick red, to match old apartment buildings
that hold character and charm
the ones that sit in trees, legs crossed
telling stories, or rather waiting
for their story to be told.
it's late.
i don't understand things after midnight
like why i wear purple nail polish
instead of the popular funeral black
or why i live in a house with crooked floors
and a rotting deck
i don't understand why i listen to music
that doesn't mean anything,
music i don't even like. but i do.
or why i like to pretend i have pretty words
when i don't. they're all uglyuglyugly.
ugly masked in floral metaphors.
i don't understand why i type in lowercase
and write in uppercase. always.
or why i need sleep
when dreams don't exist.
i don't understand why i'm terrified,
my skin peeling away from my bones
in a distressed urgency
or w
we grew up watching the sunset
crawl over our backs like spiders
invade damp bedclothes in dusty
rooms.
we began speaking, singing the
songs of wallflowers in morning
rain while the blue ink swelled
from our wrists. the effects of
homemade tattoos made from
cheap pens and sticky fingers.
we smelled of history textbooks,
science experiments and barely
sharpened pencils. we were the
echoes of school bells, wedding
bells and sleigh bells. we were
echoes.
we spent hours lying on rooftops,
smoking cigarettes and calling to
the ocean through seashells. we
spent too much money on records
we couldn't play and far too much
time pi
one day,
i won't feel-
my itchy skin, raw
my collapsing lungs, needing
my spine tingling beneath
my skin, a reminder
i'm merely skin and bones
but i will feel.
there will be no need
to keep my ears underwater
and my palms pressed
against the windowpanes
or the need to stand knee-deep
with bare legs and a bare heart
in the snow, fighting for
the moment i feel numb
i will feel less like i'm falling from
a burning building and more
like i'm inside faced with the flame
because it is in fire that hope remains
we are the in-betweens-
the rise and fall of poetry
we misuse structure,
misplace grammar's skeleton
and neglect the proper magic
of capitilization
but we are poets because
we hide in the vowels, slip in between
the sharp consonants that make
tongues click and teeth snap
to the spaces between the actors
and the supporting cast
connecting words like buttons on a shirt
or colliding magnets
we are poets because our hearts
become the page, the stage
but we are always left
with the blood on our hands
you're just out of date by hush-lullaby, literature
Literature
you're just out of date
wait-
my watch may
hear your hour
I
heard it speak
of red waters
know
you are living
by outlasting
your
tree limb arms
(k)not for me
heart
comes washed
up and empty