Tag: mine

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You are the
Kermit the Frog doll
I used to carry
under my arm.
The one
I’d never go anywhere without–
the one that smells like
my grandmother’s perfume and blooming
Michigan summers.

You are
my favorite pair of shoes–
the ones
that have my footprints
molded into the soles, and
creases where they bend at
the toes.

You are
the way my pillowcase smells
a week after I wash it–
a cocktail of
dryer sheets and shampoo.

You are hot tea,
a warm blanket, and
a book
while watching the
snow fall.

You are binge watching
my favorite episodes of
Friends in sweatpants
after a long day
at work.

You are every poem
in every piece of my heart,
the home button
on my GPS.

Apology to Myself

i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry

the words throw themselves off
my lips to become the ground
you walk on.

i’m sorry i wasn’t the one
you wanted to squeeze
into your daily planner in
slanted, sloppy script.

i’m sorry i fell so hard
so fast because i am
scraped up and
don’t know what to do.
i made you my
emergency contact.

i’m sorry i confused
us for love because
it hurts to see you laugh
while I am trying
to ignore the fact that
i am still on fire.

i’m sorry all I can seem to remember
are your eyes and lips and
laughter instead of the words
that hit me like
lit cigarette butts or
the humid silences or the hours
i spent worrying about someone
whose only mark on
my heart is a burn.

Nectar

When she wilted on the wooden

floor and allowed herself the blows,
I couldn’t see the love

was gone, but I knew
I couldn’t save her.
When I found myself
cornered in the eyes of her

hurricanes, helpless
to the venom she spit,
I didn’t realize I needed to
save myself.

Biotechnology

I am swimming in a sea
of crippling uncertainty,
and it is my life’s greatest fear
that paralyzed, I’ll drown in here.
I’m struggling to stay afloat
while anxious tears constrict my throat.
Afraid there’s nothing I can do,
a merciless god I’m praying to.

No matter how I push and kick,
the sea ignores me and
I sink.

It’s that much easier for you to suffocate me now that your hands aren’t in mine.

because if i’m not holding your hands then they’re around my neck, and every time you smile without me hurts a little bit

Scars & Bruises

let me kiss your
black and blues.
let me run my fingers over
your scars and
read them like Braille,
so I can feel where
you’ve been
and what you carry
with you.

let me stare in awe at
the auroras of broken blood vessels
that read me stories each night.
I know the way your
cheeks bloom with roses
when I tell you they are
beautiful.
I know the way your
eyes shyly run away from
mine, but
every piece of art on
your body is a story I want to know
by heart.

Freedom To Believe What They Want You To Believe

they dunked me underwater

long before i could swim. 

i was not born 

with communion wafers dissolving

on my tongue. 

they took my mind and

threw a snake in it. 

a slithering snake that snarls 

at humanity and 

what they have become. 

but i will laugh and dance while 

i am ripe and still have the

recourse to forget. 

motion is the only guarantee: 

they’ve not stamped a cross

upon me yet.