Drops of Me and You

Rain, rain, go away

Rubber tires roll through water

That lingers in dips of streets

Swooshing sounds of cars passing on the concrete—

It reminds me of

You,

A symphonic sound

Of a candies plastic wrapper bring crinkled by Aphrodite—

That is

You,

Or maybe it is because you made her cry, too

It is the noise I felt sloshing in my boots when I stood in the rain on the first day

It is the noise I felt drip from the ends of my hair

It is the noise I felt stream down my arms

When I looked up at the drops falling into the stream of light above me

And it is the one I felt when the drops on our lips made one

But, it is this noise that I saw when I laid on my porch to feel the rain again

To try to feel again

But now all I have are wet socks and pruned fingertips

Rain, rain, go away

I do not know if you should come another day—

Bits

I thought poems had to rhyme

Now I know, it is impossible

Everything cannot always go

Everything cannot always rhyme

We will take bits and we will

Place them

—Together.

Bits that don’t fit

Bits that aren’t whole or holy but, hole-y

Bits that we think will work well

They don’t

Bits fall

—Apart

We think we hold them

With glue and fabric

It tears at the seems

Dries, crusts over in the cold

Melts, like Salvador’s clocks in the sun

But, then again,

The impossible was seemingly possible

Now I know, once we make it past the impossible

Then what

What do we have but things that were once impossible

There is nothing more to achieve

We become bits

And the bits will break us to pieces, because nothing likes being alone

So we, too, fall

—Apart

Disso[she]ation

She is screaming a name that I do not know

Running now, running

She falls

This she is not me—or is she?

I don’t know

I keep running, turn the corner, don’t look back

I remember running once

But, I think I still am

It is me, wait, no

She is she and

I am, me

I dreamt that I saw me

She was there, I could have sworn

She was me because it was me running and so was she

This was not me, or at least, I thought

I woke up and I am running now, running

I never actually fall, but it feels like I am, endlessly

Flesh skids on payment

I fall

I look up and I see me

I scream my name because this time

This time she, I know—is me

But she just kept running, she turns the corner, she doesn’t look back

The Other Side Of Moonlight

How we hate when the rain fills up our shoes

But love how it curls the ends of our hair when it dries

How we love the smell of wet concrete

But hate how pieces of it collect on the bottoms of our bare wet feet

A decaying crab, opened and raw, smelling of rotting sea

It’s royal blue meat shows—and it is beautiful

We will feel free when we run on the beach but

Shells that made their way to the shore will eventually cut our soles

Even they are broken

But God,

I swear they are beautiful

We will love the silence of the night

But in times of silence we will fear it

When it’s dark, we will freeze

And sometimes the moon will be on our side

And sometimes it won’t

But there is always another side—

The Rolling Hills of Him

The climb burned, the soles of my feet hardened and blistered

My ankles were sore and bloated

Making my way to the summit, I jokingly complained and waited for your voice

Hoping you’d make me smile away from the pain, like usual

You never responded—

Mostly because you weren’t there but, partly because I needed you to be

Images of you—

In the imprints that my Merrell’s made in the dirt

In the way I remembered you saying that the shadow of the clouds beneath the sun onto the green sea of evergreen trees was your favorite

I took a picture

Looking through the lens, I swore I saw you standing there with

Mountains as your backdrop

But you were my picture—

Your cheekbones contoured with beams

Of the sunset that colored your face a delicate orange

Light breezes combed through your hair

And I swore I breathed you in

Drifting clouds made shadows on you instead of the treetops—

And suddenly it was my favorite thing, too

You looked at the beauty that surrounded us

But I looked at you and

I stared

I stared at you starring

Because similar to the way you noticed the quiet yet, vibrant beauty of the Earth and It’s curves—

That was the kind of beauty I saw in you

Love Poem to Myself

I wish I knew what my insides looked like

Every bone and morsel

I think I would love them more if I knew them

Really knew them

Not as something that just is or was

Because someday they won’t be—

I would cradle them in me and tell them these things—

You are not clay to mold

Be the creator

Make your own model—

Own footsteps

Own oils left behind from all that you’ve touched

Make more coffee rings on tables that you have never touched—

More white clouds that your breath makes outside in the cold of winter

More drips of sweat to bleed off of you onto the Earth in the summer

Notice how the trees dance when they sway in the wind

Be like the trees and—

Dance

Stop thinking that everything that happens to you is a metaphor

Stop looking for yourself and start creating

Create

And use the space between where you are and where you want to be as your inspiration

Because when you strip down to every bone and morsel

Strip that damn nonsense that makes you less than the others

You are just bone and flesh and

A beating heart

I stripped and I saw

What I saw was—

Me