190. Your house is too large compared to mine.

He kisses me with blood on his mouth
then he is in a golden field
and I am missing my flight again.

A hand has an anchor
tied around its finger, dangling.
It is trying to remember
the color of bravery.

189. Haiku: On the moment flecked with gold that became the very beginning of a problem.

I do not say yes
often. But there was something
in the way you asked.

188.

I prefer you in the moments
where you are not paying attention.
When you laugh too strongly
and the lines of your eyes emerge.
When you catch me listening
and it startles you.

Sometimes I wait for you
to become an animal
and run. You are used to people
watching and touching.
Not listening.

You would prefer that I not see
things. Keep it simple,
remain inaccessible.
I would have preferred that you didn't
see me either, but
accidents happen.

When it is winter,
I think of my stepfather,
and his bloodstained clothes
that were brought home to us
in a plastic bag.

I treat everyone as though
they are already a ghost.
So when you worry
about getting close to me:
don't.

187.

When you are drunk and on the sidewalk
shivering in your black tights
he spins you around to point out the dippers,
but you can name Jupiter
before he does.

When you finally sleep with him
you refuse to take your underwear off first.
You are incapable of being naked
before the other person.

This is what you do,
even though he is always the guide,
the responsible one that takes you home,
holds your hand when it's too dark, and when
it's not, and opens the car door for you
every time.

Everyone is always asking what you want
and the best you can tell them is,
everything as it happens to you.

They ask you why it isn't good enough,
how you can want both more and nothing
in the same moments. It's easy,
you say. Tell them you live in a house
with too many rooms.

Tell them, that things are not supposed
to love you.

186. Haiku: On why you should not be in love with the winter.

Because, goddamn, when 

is the last time you let some-

one take care of you?

185. Haiku: On when he asks you.

You want this to mean
something and you do not want
this to mean something.

184.

I imagine
introducing you to my friends
and them falling in love with you
within the first five minutes.
Being snowed in together,
wearing sheets and listening
to the steam of the radiator
and the flakes falling asleep
against the windows.
Making you breakfast
and giving you the last handful
of blueberries.
I miss missing someone in a way
that doesn't make me feel
like my body is about to fall
to pieces. I dig holes in people
but I can't make a home
out of them. I'm sorry
for that.

183. Orion.

How beautiful it is
to walk home
without you,
slowly,
in the middle of
the night.

182. Crush.

Magical
things have happened we were
together. It snowed on our foreheads
when we were in water.
I was wearing red
and you found me a wolf
to dance with. It was November
and we sat by the sea
without coats.

Non-magical things
have happened too.
The sky isn't clear
when we are outside, together.
I fell asleep on a couch
next to a friend
and you can not shake
the assumption.
You are still afraid
of me.

181.

I wish I was still afraid of things.
I wish I still saw the world in darkness
or gold. Not this in-between,
this brilliant pond water.

I am still writing about forgiveness
in a way that means I do not understand.

We know all about panic.
We go for days without sleeping,
because in his dreams there are bullets
and I'm in a hotel on fire.

This is only part of what keeps us away.
Other people have left us
and sometimes we forget
that it was a long time ago.

180.

Taking a person under your wing
is not the same as pulling out your feathers
in February. There is no warmth
in wind-seared flesh.

179.

You no longer need
this time
to mourn.

How astounding then,
that he thinks of you
as a widow.

These mistakes
are your own.
Wear them

without a badge,
without a veil.

178.

Of all his parts,
you don't get what you want most.

Wrong taste,
maybe the wrong mouth.

You are both hungry.
It has been a very long year.

He tells you he's killed someone.
He says that sometimes,

people stop touching him
when they learn this.

You have never been with anyone
who has been to war.

There is a hardness
to you both and so

you test this. You have both ruined
many things.

He is much more gentle
in your dreams.

Awake, it's neither here
nor there, no specific color.

Where is he?
And where are you?

You stay, quiet
and listening.

177.

Everyone is so
beautiful,

but I do not want
a thing

from any
of them.

176. On romance, as an adult.

Each time you meet him, it is accidental.
He smiles at everyone and this does not
impress you, so you don't let him touch you
until you do.

You still treat life as a schoolroom,
expecting lessons to be learned
as quickly as the snap of a rubber band
against naive summer flesh.

When a person tells you who they are,
you should believe them.

Now: Do you forgive
the letters in the wrong order?
Forgive him when he sleeps with someone
ten years your junior? And does he
forgive you, when you use him
to write about him?

Say that it is fair because with him
there is no point of safety. No soft hum
ringing in your ears the next day.

He tells you not to trust him
so you do not trust him. But you stay
out until dawn like glassy-eyed kids,
and you fall asleep smelling like him,
unsure if you enjoy it or not.

The water and the stars are calculated,
but you do not want to forget them.

175. Haiku on people you consider leaving him for (two).

A bar. The marine.
Strong hands, mouth. Promiscuous,
silver compliments.

174. Haiku on people you consider leaving him for (one).

A coworker, then.
Who is kind and tells you what
you are too good for.

173.

No, I do not miss my father.
It has been twenty-four years
and I remember little.
Waiting for me
at the bottom of the stairs,
a bridge, a car veering
off the road and settling
gently into a ditch.
But other intricacies,
like his voice? I try,
but the images come up mute.

No, I do not miss him.
But because of this, such feelings
are compounded and stumble
all over the other men I meet.
There is no grace in this.
No way to talk about it
without feeling crazy.
I worry that all this time
I've been trying to find him.
I do not need anyone,
but I would like
to be safe.

172.

So he looks at you
and then he stops
looking at you. Jealous
when another man
puts your arm in his.
He was naked and you,
you were not,
yet you argue
about vulnerability
because you hope
that neither one of you
will blossom.

171. Halloween (two).

I.
Much of it is unexpected.
The number of people circling
the park this early.


II.
The mysterious appearance of
a hole in the breast
of your favorite sweater.


III.
None of this is satisfying.
Stay late at work and that is good enough.
Draw until fingers go numb
and hair is halfway down your back.

Something in this would make him proud.
You are not far enough away, yet.


IV.
You begin to feel sick
again. Repeat:
This is not last autumn, this is not last autumn.
This is not last autumn.


V.
He wants something from you.
What? Less discernible.
You do not find out until after,
if they loved you.


VI.
A tree on the page turns red.
This is your fault.
This is always your fault.


VII.
Forget feelings. Sometimes all a person wants
to do is go home and wash their clothes
and not think about
anyone.

170. Halloween.

And when I walk home
at 6:30 in the morning with a peculiar mixture
of shame and satisfaction,
in the smallest costume I've ever dared,
tasting like morning and a hint of gin,
sparkled with a stranger:

I chronicle my life differently now.
Here is the moonlight hitting the street
that you will never see. Here I am in October
and you do not know my address.
Here is a list of mouthes that I have kissed
since yours.