Define:

They wrote those dictionaries, you know.
The ones that tell you
who you are – the ones
that you think define you.
Do not believe for one minute
you can be printed
in size 12 font with a semicolon
after your name.
You are the only one who can choose
your phonetics.
You are not Merriam-Webster
definitions.
You are an entire novel,
and you alone are the author.

What Breaking Sounds Like

Her voice
asks him to stay.

The gravel crunches as
his car drives away
for the last time.

Her knees hit
the bathroom floor
as she silently starts
to pray.

Fighting to wheeze
between sobs.
Gasping because she cannot exhale
all of him and still
breathe.

Struggling to believe that
one day

she’ll want to inhale again.

– What Breaking Sounds Like, Pt. 1

This must be hell– reliving my biggest mistake over and over again.

it doesn’t hurt any less with the passing of time

Key

The hinges of my heart scream
as you try to pry it open.
Haven’t you realized by now, my love,
that no key fits this lock?
That forcing it open will only
break it?

Sweet girl, who taught you that you are not worthy of your own love? Don’t you know that once you’ve realized your worth, you are infinite?

don’t let them hide you from your own light

April

it is the most serene
madness.
the smallest oceans fall
from the sky,
and the wind extends her arms, inviting
everything to dance with her.
the rooftops sing
with the skin cells
of the sea.
like the bathing earth beneath
my feet, i am
saturated with life.
my layers have clung
together.
i am now one.

We were never completely in sync. You were the lightning and I was the thunder: always right behind you, never quite fast enough.

you never walked next to me

Even When You’re Here

language fails to express
the most profound darknesses of the heart–
the small cracks between the fertile soil of the
soul where only God goes.
There is no one where I am,
seeing through these eyes or
hearing through these ears, or
feeling the darkness in my stomach.
In all that I am,
I am utterly, darkly, alone.

You Only Stayed While You Were High

You rolled me up
and lit me on fire.
You kept me burning
until I dissolved in the
wind and collapsed
into ash–until
I was small enough
to pinch between your fingers;
my ebbing embers smothered on
your skin.

Space Boy

you were my space boy.
i didn’t see that you were light
years away because i was
transfixed by the nebulas in
your eyes.

you were my space boy.
i didn’t mind that your kisses
came through the arms of
reaching stars, because they
tasted like the Milky Way.

you were my space boy.
it didn’t matter to me that you
only touched me with your fingertips,
because I loved hearing about
what the earth looked like
through your helmet.

you were my space boy, but
i tried to ignore the fact that
there wasn’t room for me in
your shuttle–
that all those stars must make
my eyes seem so dim.

you were my space boy, but
it is hard to love
a space boy when there are
heavens between
infinity and earth.