matins

i'm not scared of you anymore, or the blanks in my brain. i waited, and you never came, and that was the worst that could happen and now i've numbed.

you forced me into a nunnery of the psych and i can't say i'm ungrateful, spending my days on pressed flowers and knit gloves and heavenly verse, there's nothing worse than lies treated like gospel, and now i know what i can live through:

anything.

but still,

i would prefer to still be unaware of my own powers if i meant you still sometimes pushed the hair off my shoulders and whispered things someone else wrote but you meant more into my skin.

shady

i used to be filled with stupid factory romances

marriage to me meant our names in a tree

there was an unspoken sexiness in our childlike blood oathes and

newborn bedroom war cries

you'd whisper, but i don't know

i don't think you really knew the weight of your own mouth

and how it pillowed over my lungs

traditional blooms of the femme, you attributed to my bareness

little did you know

i'd be content just lying in the shadow of beauty, not even being a shade of it

you pushed too hard

when i wept on your grass, i felt a spin

but i didn't feel you

you had gone

you had gone long, long ago.

and i knew that i had to grow up and take some responsibility for cracks and floods.

trails

tell me all about your soul

what it chases and why you think you'll die

how much can your bones hold

i feel newness in your peace

youth in our sudden lulls

you cut me up but i don't bleed

i'm neutral to your vulture tricks

and why you come in first, i don't know

but i close in on the swooping of your hands

slam your mind, slam your words

rolling windows up to speak

i want to know just how cold

just how cold this space can feel

but we breathe out only heat