affects

like the rough renders i scrawl

with ball pen

at two am,

my love for you is incomplete.

finding.

wish we had a past,

instead of this irresolute present.

wishes,

like water,

ever precious.

for (granted)

for (ever)

forget to eat

this
what happens when i forget to eat
hands
red from longing to find you in paint
you
who not so very long ago said
i
was the only writer you had read

this
what comes when i forget to forget
hands
touching my face like the leaves touch sky
you
just as green just as delicate as
i
hold you just to keep you from speaking

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!

Your Hair Is A Metaphor

When your hair sticks out like that
To one side, along the edge
Like the sharp edge of my desk
Which I'm always hitting my knee on
You kind of remind me of old pictures
Of my grandfather, now late
He was harder
More worn
Not like your soft carelessness
and he had on an old warn stetson
which should have fallen apart years ago
if not for the dust of a hundred head of sheep
holding it together
tying him to his home and his profession
You smile
slightly cocky and definitely embarrassed
as I reach up to try and fix it
disturbed by the thought that I might fall in love with my reincarnated granfather
I wonder if he had that same smile
When my grandmother first reached up
To fix his

Me

Up
Down
Cancels out
And I'm level