love love

i love
love
i stay up late into the night
listening to whispered breath
barely audible above the stirring in my head
i listen to clippings caught in the wind
small samples of love poems from
a million loves and a million more losses
they sigh and give voice to their aching and their contentment
and i sigh with them adding my voice
i love love
because love will never tell me I’m not good enough
will never stand and say
that i can’t
i shouldn’t
love doesn’t believe in can’t
love didn’t even ask for an audition
but i love love and want love to love me so
i give my best and my hardest for love
so terrified of love saying
that was fine or okay
that i piss myself right there
while love just stares
not stares but
is there
and i turn to leave but i can’t because i love love too much and
i sit there with my piss and my shame and i look at love and
love looks at me and
love doesn’t say anything
doesn’t say anything
doesn’t say anything
and the piss is gone and
it’s love and i
and love loves me

meandyou

it was only recently that i realised what
expressing myself really meant
when someone who said they’d never been able
to express themselves
told me how brave i was to do so

i didn’t think it was brave it was just what did
do
but i thought
and yes
we are brave
we are brave
we are braaaaaaaaave!

It takes GUTS to
pick out a piece of ourselves
because our emotions
our stories
our memories
are ourselves
and lay them out and say
Here Is Me
Take It And Do What You Will
And Step Away
And Watch As They Take Us
And Make Us
Part Of Them

making art really
is not about me
i mean it’s all about me but it’s not about
me
you know?
it’s about you

me

you
and
me

youandme

we
are brave
it takes GUTS
to take someone else and make them a part of ourselves
to take them in
their stories
their memories
them
take ourselves aside
and put someone else in there
listen
hear
watch
move
touch
see
taste
drink in someone else and
replace me
with you
to be

meandyou
us

Absence

i need to tell you something
it is a story
it is a story i have told before
it is a story i have never told well i need too

picture a man
then picture me
sometimes i still see the man but it's never actually
picture the man loving me
picture the man loving me while i am loving him

he was my first
man
love
the first
kiss the first
trem-bull-ing in my stomach the first
arms around me since my mothersfathers stop
ped being the best armor protection

he saw me and
was the first to show
the good and beautiful could grow
in me
the first to kiss the first kiss the first lips the first me lips his the kiss

happened in my birthday present

See he
for my 18th birthday
uh
got us a room at the westin
it was a huge surprise and
when he told me

no pressure of course
nothing will you don't want to happen

the trem bull in hap pened in my sto mach like this and i
said yes i'd like
i'd like that

we walked not holding hands and i was scared his
arms held me turned me his lips

kissed me

next morning i bought breakfast for me
he
had a hearing or something owned a business didn't explain but okay cause

i gli ded home

saw him once af
ter for just hal
an hour then

the uh of him
no calls no text no
visitinhimatwork no
meals out dreams in no
eyes no nose no arms no lips no
him

the absence of him crept in lik
a slow crescendo of broken horns and
a sync o pat ic percussion of cryin kids and
the conductor'ss passed out and the choir's strung out on
someshit and they're wailin n wailin n wailin n wailin n

the absence of him
stole the tremor of
my stomach n
turned to stone only it was glass n broken n
it broke my heart in like
no more met aph or si mi le in me til
i didn't feel the absence of him

I'm gonna follow up with a recording of me reading this!

Sparrow Version 2

Sparrow Sings
Not quite
sweetly or softly
but simply
sparrow sings on her branch
of place she has known and people she has seen
of the homes that keep their bird baths clean
and of the girl bird he met last week
She already has a sparrow of her own
and
they’ve built a nest together.
She says they can be friends.
A blackbird caws, listens for an answer.
Sparrow sings one last note
A quick statcatto blip
Then bursts into the wind
Not a leap
No graceful falling, spreading of the wings, waiting for the right moment to push
up
And be taken away
No
Sparrow
Though small
Is an explosion
bend the legs beat the wings crane the neck
Jump
and explode
The wind is strong
but Sparrow is small and quick.
He cuts through it easily enough
Only a little off course
He lands without hesitation on a branch in the tree across the way
Rustles his wings
Looks around
To see you are listening
then sings
and overhead
the black bird flies