September 1st

Piles and piles of dirty laundry speckling my room like landmines and the smell of all the socks you abandoned and the face you make when I make stupid jokes about it and how hard you try to make me smile when I am confused watching your life combining with mine like the colors being put in the same wash cycle as the whites I think it will be something terrible, something to clean up, but here you are snoring softly on my bed and it is something beautiful, you’re stretched like a stray cat that only stays long enough for a nap, and I can remember what it is like to miss you and I can remember all of the reasons why everything is always going to be okay because being around you is like the first day of the month.

walking, walking

Walking around the city, walking in circles,
walking around forgetting to call it home.
Instead of watching the people, catching their bits and pieces
as they float, dance, zoom around the city like dandelions,
instead of the circles I rotate my jumbled limbs back into place.
Directionally retarded, I confess.
The smirks smile it into a joke,
but the truth is that I am constantly in motion.

it's something

Isn't it something that we are most beautiful when everything is okay,
like the apple cheeks of a wind kissed autumn pinching us into September,
or the two of us on a Saturday night surrounded by lists of things
(to do), and nothing but our flushed secret tellings and hands that know exactly when to hold each other on a mattress built for this kind of living, and mornings straight out of the shower with a yellow towel keeping me from the possibilities waiting beyond the front porch. Isn't it something that all of the makeup in the world can't fix
the absence of beauty, like mornings when the porch seems like a prison settle
in its place, whispering about going back to bed?

what happens when your dad doesn't know everything anymore

My dad says it's water under the bridge, but what my dad doesn't know
is that I'm still looking for that bridge.
To what, to where, to how? My dad can't even answer when.
Being small can mean so many different things, but for a long, long time
it meant MY dad is the strongest bravest tallest biggest
he can beat up your dad he can fix it he can always, he can always.
My dad keeps talking about that bridge, but now all I'm thinking about is the water.

7 am

At 7 am there is absolutely nothing to do at all
except watch the tiniest things that you’ll forget by noon,
like the sunlight and tree branch dancing in a shadow
or the sleep bubble wrapping the city's breathing at least for a few more hours, nothing to do at all except maybe detour around the 5 o clock shadow
and remember all of the reasons why the tiniest things that I'll forget by noon are still much bigger than me.

news

Good news, she said when she woke up that morning. I've finally written something down instead of the push pull back and forth up and down roller coaster of a train wreck car crash spinning in circles sinking and sinking all while holding every inch of myself completely still. Good news, she said without opening her mouth. Good, she said. How many people are there inside of my head? They all raise their hands, they've all got the answers. Good. She's not saying anymore.

I want to move forward I want to go backwards I want to stay here

I want to go back to the days when rainy days were cardboard spaceships and blanket fort libraries and none of the gray blanket sadness sprung from experiencing bad days, I want to go back to worrying about which color crayon would make the best sunflower and none of the worrying about whether or not it's okay to cross the street while a man in a drunk red car smashes a bottle out his window and whether or not your best friend's boyfriend likes you and whether or not you like yourself, I want to go back to reading about Harriet the Spy being the same thing as becoming Harriet the Spy and none of the wondering about structure and hints of post modernism and maybe she was a lesbian.