homesick for high school

he points to the divet, ive been driving in the yard, one tire, over and over, carving up one little spot. i should feel bad and want to stop but it looks so much like you. it feels like you. it feels like home. I want to keep on and then lay in the muddy, bare track and soak you up. in highschool you always parked half in the yard. your mother screeching, drunk from the living room window for you to not. but you always do. parking so you edge out of the winding street into the yard. two passenger tires of your oldsmobile, red and dripping with your personality. various signals of interests and loves hanging from the mirror, stickers covering the back, the seat covers, the smell, the case full of self-made cds. how many hours did we spend here? in our little haven? driving up to the river with your boyfriend in the backseat, us in front conversing as if he didn't exist. in those moments, he didn't. or you recording me telling a story on your new video camera -a wedding gift you received- to remember me by. as if we could forget. as if our souls weren't sewn together and our hearts hadnt grown around each other's like a tree that's merged into the chain link fence like you didn't impact everything you touched forever. you mark the world, all of it, with you. from me to the oldsmobile i know is rotting in a junk yard to the yard which still bore the scar off your tires years after you died. oh he points to a divet in the yard from me driving in the yard. from your spirit taking my wheel and i want to shrug. what's a six inch wide, two foot long stretch of yard to the rememberance? the healing tears of my eyes which can see your perfect straight teeth, and feel the loose thick strands of your hair long, or the scar tissue built up that ran from the base of your big toe to your ankle of your left foot from wearing the wrong kind of shoes, and the stocky blunt fingers grasping the wheel, pointing to a new cd, laughing with me one last time?

young turks

Remember the night 

we stumbled as little kids

across campus

hand in hand

across a little brook,

seated in the leaves. 

The sky opened

and we were secreted 

and one, as if the clouds

bespoke us into being.

Cut, trimmed, and tailored

to fit perfect in this moment.

Our names written 

under a window sill of 

the room where we met.

To capture like a polaroid,

Temporary but like permeance.

We knew we wouldn't return,

that this was a bookmark flimsy

string between pages.

You would go from small town

to big city and I from the urban 

blight to suburbs. 

We knew we would,

Just not how.

look at us now

We don't look back on the past

but slice that thin curtain 

between now and then,

let our past self embody today,

for if present can gaze back

Why not the other way?

reoccurring

Why am I like that pet store

from my dream

where I took you to play with puppies

because you asked for it

and they sold us a puppy which died

in your arms minutes later.

Dream you still thanked me,

hugged me.

The short lived hope crushed by 

external realities. 

this year

Looking for meaning in all of the places,

It's a rabbit year, I'm a rabbit;

It's a chariot year, my soul card;

It's the 14th year since your death.

Now my life before equals my life

without you, like bookends pushing

up encyclopedias of my heart,

heavy volumns bending the shelf,

bowed from the postmarked grief.

Like physics it fades but never goes away.

dreamt of liberty

Ignorance rises to the top

as bubbles in the boil, but love

flows down through the folds and

the ribbons of your skin,

tie a bow on the moment, 

a present to unwrap and

cling sunshine to your hair

sprouting out. I tug it. 

tug with my teeth,

fields of wheat.

patriotic, take a knee,

before my lady liberty.

I want to.

explore the caverns of you,

cave of wandering delight,

follow home the bright light of your eyes, and

laugh and giggle as only girls might.

infinity

Someday my whole personality 

My entire soul

Will be algorithm

Echo on a feedback loop

deep down

You can run

And you can hide

But you never escape

Who you are inside

picket fence

A lawn lullaby lime yellow,

the type you'd like to lay in

and pretend your life a movie

everything the same. Still you

playing you, but on screen.

A master glitz lens capture you

stooping to pick up laundry,

shaking out the carpets, or

frying up bacon- 

eggs. Illusion of audience

and all's all right.

wear your socks in sand

Not everything has a meaning,

somethings just exist for me.

hidden hymns

To be so soft, so vulnerable,

belly exposed and feet in the air,

is treason to my upbringing, 

my childhood training, where

I wish I could go back just to

grab your hands and say,

"Let's never try to run with boys.

Let's runaway instead. 

Be marine biologists like

in Miami, Malibu, like Barbie."

If we did that it'd be all different;

I not numb and you not dead.

happy time

It's as friendly as a front door,

Holiday decorated, shiny lights,

Colorful beacon. This is a home.

It's how living in Alabama is like

living in a sitcom, personalities

bursting at the seams with a slow

drawl and vibrant monologues 

aside and to the right, we sit.

death becomes us

I am a woman of simple tastes

the dead are just too easy to love

cause they missed their chance

to disappoint or hurt you.

wishes are wasted

I want to be someone's little pidgeon,

Their tiny fairy, light and sprite.

Their Rainbows and sunshine and

Sugar and spice, their sweet angel.

I want to be held and loved. 

They would delight in my words,

cherish my ways, charmmed by my flaws.

Wanted for who I am rather than

Who I could become for them.

I mould to fit in your space,

conform to your coaching and

Suggestions and outright directives

And fail forward to tomorrow.

Never your little pidgeon, not an

angel or fairy or sprite but

a pain in your side, annoyance, a project. 

Work on me some more, Till I am no more.