petalled words
swallow my tongue
I'm always softest
when talking to you
as I'm dotted harshly
with the rarest raindrops
and chills roll slowly
under my skin
to strip it down
and leave it all
to the grey skies
and the haunting mornings
if only to hear
you say my name again...
in a conversation
pulled heavily
from the deepest heart
it's all just talk
just talk
just talk
so we can waste the day
with rounded words
to remember before
and love with the unspoken.

I wanted wanted wanted
you
and now I'm
starting starting starting
over
sangria in a plastic cup
and wine soaked fruit
on a summer day
are breathing life
back into my cheeks
and arranging tears
like numbers on my skin
you cracked the code once
and I wish
and want
for you to be the one
to someday break my paralysis
despite how
irrational and illogical
that dream may now be.

as it all rests sedentary
the leak in it all lets me go
an alice in wonderland tattoo
defines my grace
and breaks my skin
just when I'd been hoping again
choose me, choose me
just when I wanted again
choose me, choose me
you chose, you chose
and it wasn't me...
so kill me in the end
the pages are yellowed anyway.

how are you today?
I've missed you a lot...
but I'm not the same
and neither are you
there are yellow flowers in my hair
and I'm a lion in the sun
spread bare in the warm
a textbook summer,
perfect and blue
eats at my eyes
and sears my skin
I'm stuck without you
once again
and even the night
can't break it down
enough for me to understand
I know how I feel
and I know that it doesn't make
a damn bit of difference.

I'm making sense
of bottle caps
and letters laid
flat on the pavement
even though
it's all so heavy
cold water droplets
lifted the weight
pushing gentle fingers
in the middle of my skin
I'm being split open
from button to zipper
and crease to fingertip
the sun
broke down the leaves
and left me naked
laid out
molded to the ground
the curls streaming
from my head
become the roots
that hold me still
and hide me in the light...
I thought I could
make sense of all of this
as if a name
could move your breath
to stop and wait
and throw it away
to turn a page
and ignore the last number
I wouldn't want me either...
not now.

I'm finding more and more that all I want is to run off into the woods and be a fairy in the moss and the mushrooms.
dreams are lovely...

I'm in love
with the smallest parts of you
and they are the ones
that ruin me again
and again...
I hope that someday
fate will find me worthy enough
to help me let go
of you.