pretty bird,

your wings

aren’t broken

they’re just tired

of flying

through storms.

sometimes, i feel a hunter

i admit, i admired

your pretty coat

and wild eyes,

your gnashing teeth

when i reached

to touch your wounds

sometimes, i feel a poacher

i confess, i craved

your feral blood

and savage snarl,

your brittle claws

when i reached

to take your hand

sometimes, i feel a savior

i swear, i stole you

from one trap

right into another,

your skittish heart

when i reached

to feel your pulse

sometimes, i feel a stalker

because love

is patient,

like a wolf.

we figure out

how it works-

move with the waves

and crash into each other,

let our lips

ebb and flow

if our skin is the shore.

give each other oceans

and more.

we sin with ease

and no regrets-

not even the bruises

on our chests,

not even the wood creaking

a little too loud.

2:40 a.m.

a bump on my shoulder-

you come under the covers

with tears in your eyes-

you're not going crazy,

i tell you,

you're just tired-

my arm wrapped tight around you

says more than my words ever could.

-sleep swallows us whole-

9:13 a.m.

our shirts on the floor

but still wanting more-

we move in time

with the drumbeats

under our skin.

between shattered respirations

you apologize

for last night

but you don't understand-

i will always be here for you

again and again.

burning time

like we burn rubber

down the streets

in the midnight sun

acting like it's worth it

we're all just on the run

hiding from demons

we can't escape

trying to balance

our loaded guns

really, our hands are tied

with fake ropes

that weigh metric tons

It may have been the whiskey the princess and I consumed after he boarded the plane. Maybe the parting words he whispered before stepping on the escalator, "You always take my jokes seriously and laugh when I'm telling the truth-what more could I want?" All these tiny sub-plots shacking up together until our destinies were a tangled mess of co-dependent probabilities.

We were made for loss, the three of us. The opposite ends of the globe conspired for eight weeks to fuse our skins until geographical impossibilities ripped them into separate humans again. A line of happy paper-dolls forced to face the world as flimsy individuals. The universe never holds its breath.

So we ricocheted back across oceans, finding places where the booze ran free and our lungs recognized the air. Still, the ache. Memory became an angel that tortured and sensitized.

The princess faded like Sleeping Beauty, letting silence lull her into a dreamland where everything floated in suspended animation.

He and I swung across the internet hoping to inspire some kind of apocalypse. Nothing moved.

We were relentless romantics, yelling through a translator that worked in binary.

When actual death occurred, there was little to say. All that beauty had bled its way into the fluid suspending our cells. We rose together and we fell, loss ebbing like the slow seconds sliding their way through bone and dream.

I was a girl

hiding beneath fir trees,

imagining my breath was enough

to satisfy

the greed of time,

giving me a cocoon where I could live

in pressed bliss forever.

But this man,

breaking my soul

with his cerulean eyes,

lay next to me,

so beautiful,

so deft,

I wondered,

How can god imagine something

so impeccable,

all other creation

becomes unworthy.

Even encapsulated in

winter afternoons,

wound up in warmth

curling through words

dancing on fingertips,

time and space became

inadequate,

crunching dimensions

together

until we writhed like serpents,

spent

beneath the covers,

knowing this was all there'd ever be,

the rushing fall from suspended grace

into panting humility...

as i lock myself in my room

once again

and i shove

my old earbuds in,

i try to drown out the world.

i can't mask

the wicked sounds

of my mother yelling

at my sister

because once again

she

isn't

thinking.

that isn't the whole truth,

i suppose.

she is thinking

but her thoughts

never stray far

from herself.

she doesn't understand

that our mother doesn't

have the thirty dollars

to spare

so she can go and mess around

at Adventure Landing

with her friends...

she doesn't understand

that our mother doesn't

have the time

to spare

to drive her to

her friend's house...

she doesn't understand

that our mother

is putting us through

private school

with no help

and that she has to pay

over a thousand dollars

a month for us to

go to school.

she doesn't understand that

the tuition itself

is going to take about

a ninth of my mom's

total

annual

salary.

her thoughts

have never left

herself.

i can hear

my mother's

heart breaking

as she screams

about how she

doesn't know

where she'll

get the money from

and how

we're not going to be

ok financially

once we start

high school.

and during all of this,

i am sitting in my room

and writing this down,

feeling like a coward

for not getting involved,

but knowing

that i will only be told

to

shut

up

if

i

try...

she arrived at two a.m.,

her sobs becoming the new

white noise of the ward.

fourteen, cut, and caught

having sex with her boyfriend-

mistakes and scratches

on her arms and thighs

put her with the rest of us.

and just like the rest of us,

she didn't want to be here.

at breakfast,

she paired her black leggings and ugg boots with silence

and did not talk to anyone at all.

by lunchtime,

she was the back of my hand-

my skin had never looked

more beautiful.

her story?

she had been to a psych ward before-

the treatments had curbed most of her

nasty habits,

but she still didn't eat

anything at all.

they watched her eat.

they watched her weight.

i watched her hope

fade into the chipped paint on the walls,

even though she clung to it like

her favorite teddy bear.

she did not see beauty

when she looked in the mirror

but her grungy red hair

reminded me of alleyways

lit by starry nights.

the bags under her emerald eyes

made it look like she'd gotten in

a street fight with god-

but the strength twinkling in her pupils

showed me she'd won.

she was a goddess

turned mortal

without consent,

but she was rising with the sun.

i hate to say i don't remember,

but i don't remember

the words she strung together

to help me patch up my wounds.

my only memory is of

the hope she instilled in me

while we talked at lunch

and she finally took a bite of

her shitty hospital food.