254. Please let your boat come back home.

In a dream, you walk into a grey sea and I don’t 

follow you. Clothes and all. 

Later, you are reborn 

and we are kissing in a grey room. Gunfire, 

meant for me, and then it is my turn to run 

without being followed. 

I am over the fence. 

I am in the fox hole. 

I am in the dusted shadows. 

I am in a forest of brilliant jeweled blue-greens, 

but the shots still scream out behind me. 

I am never out of sight 

but at least in here, 

the color permeates everything.

253. Marblehead

When I came home from work today there was glass on the floor.
The window, next to the front door. The cat had bloody paws.

When waiting, time slows like sticky sap from a tree
and nobody wants to get their hands dirty. I think I'm out.
I'm not comfortable with this level of vulnerability.
There isn't even any skin left.

You are the lightning of my life. Am I the leaping crocodile?
I could hit my head on the curb and dream about you for days,
and when I wake up my hands will still go right through you.

I am tired of taking myself so seriously.
There is always a hidden dragon in the fields, but I just want it all
to look like gold, swaying and singing.

252.

When she loves you and she puts her hands inside of you

When it’s what you’ve wanted your whole life

And you can sleep through the night now, dreamless

Something that looks like peace, a spark in the fog

You are allowed to say it then, allow it to be yours:

Joy, joy, joy.

1. I know, it’s been quiet here. I haven’t been finishing anything. I start and I start, but something always happens. An ending is missing. A middle. I get bored. I get frustrated. I have so many pieces of poems, but nothing is fitting together somehow. 

2. How about a secret? Will that make up for it, for now? I am in love with someone and we keep ending up in the wrong places. I have never been in love with someone that was so scared of other human beings. We all are, sure, but I think the trick is to stick around and fight through it. Most of the time, he doesn’t stick around and fight through it, and I’m not sure what kind of person that makes me, for staying.

3. Above: I have three poems in this. I am very grateful. I am also not sure where you will be able to purchase it quite yet, but I will tell you as soon as I know.

4. Most of you are strangers, but I hope you are well all the same.

251. (Untitled.)

I have lost count of how many times this has failed me.

You wore white to our funeral. The grief is water,
then fire, a sword on my forehead. A bridge through the clouds

too large for our hands. You want to know about my lover?

He is the tide that will not acknowledge the moon,

the hands of a watch that do not want the gears,

when I am washing dishes, he is the sound of a thousand plates

breaking against stainless steel.

It is terrifying, the nervous electricity,

the lifeboat and the teeth of the whale,

even the occasional grace. He is the airplane in the cathedral,

the silver magnetic voice rippling across my skin.

He is the wish, the mistake, the daydream stretching across

my Tuesday afternoon, the 4am blush, the blood in my mouth.

He is my shadow, the physical manifestation

of my inability to remain quiet, stagnant. A slow unfolding

and snapping shut.

You want to know about my lover? Sometimes it is a dream,

sometimes it is implanted so far into the earth, my waking life,

I don’t know how to uproot myself. It is the first time

I have not wanted to uproot myself.

250.

In a dream, she sees me across the street
but when she steps off the sidewalk she falls through the earth.
I don’t mean to be this far away from everyone.
It is the first time they have blamed me for your leaving.

249.

I would sell every ghost I have to buy something solid.