Tag: recovery

I. i saw your jar full of wrappers
and thought maybe you’d just developed
a sweet tooth recently. though
it never occurred to me that
white waxy wrappers
can carry
fun-dip powder and pixy stix, too. 

II. i knew something
was wrong when
clouds fogged your eyes (grey and heavy
with rain);
so heavy
they could not look straight.
so heavy
they kept sinking. 

III. at half past midnight you left
to ‘be right back.’
45 minutes later and i felt the thunder
shake the house; i knew
there would be rain 
in your eyes. 
At eight forty-five the next morning 
(you normally never wake up before eleven), 
you ‘stop at a friends’
before breakfast and return 
empty-handed but eyes full, 
veins full, blood full 
of calm, full of ocean waves and 
lullabies, full of 
ice so cold you feel like you’re 
on fire. 

IV. you are forgetting 
more and more 
about me these days. it seems
you’re drifting farther away, 
farther into
your veins. 

V. i know that
i don’t know
how your mind rolls
on the tracks in your skull.
i never will
feel the hunger in your veins
for a needle that bites 
so good. but every time a new
track mark paints your arm,
the train that’s riding them
runs over my heart.

for alex: i see you dissolving in front of me and am not sure what i’m supposed to do. // a.s.m

Dear Erin,

I know sometimes you feel
like you’re walking down a sidewalk runway
and the spotlight is on you; 
that there is too much of you to love.

But look at yourself, my dear: 
you are a monument to 
the human race. 
There is history written in
the architecture of your bones,
stories embroidered in the strands
of your eyes, 
and generations hidden in your face (your father’s
nose and your grandmother’s hips). 

You are home to an ever-expanding
universe inside you
with skies of electric neurons,
blue vein-rivers and sandy skin shores.
The earth has made you her reflection: 
curves like meandering streams, 
moon-eyes, and thighs
strong and rooted trees. 
Do not let anything uproot you. 

You are a flower, my love, 
and you cannot be afraid to bloom. 
Imagine how bland the spring would be
if the orchids and lilies were too shy
to blossom. 

The universe does not want
a bouquet of only roses.