I wish I were funny.
Wish I could make you hahaha right off into dreamless sleep.
Wish I could make you hahaha right off into a life in which I didn't exist.

I wish I were funny.
Wish I could make you hahaha yourself into forgetting about me.
Wish I could make you hahaha yourself into finding peace.

But I was born too sad to be funny.
I believed the sadness was my fault and then I believed it was yours.
But I don't think there is anyone to blame.
The sadness is just in our blood.

I hope,
when the day comes,
the sadness will die with me.

I hope,
if she ever finds her way
into this world,
my daughter
will be funny.

"This is the end," my mind says. "We are rotting like the leaves."

"Just a season," my heart says. "Just a season."

"No, we rot," my mind says. "We rot like the leaves."

"Just a season," my heart says. "New leaves are born in the spring."

"We don't want to be new," my mind says. "We want to be whole."

"We mourn the fallen pieces now so that we can be whole in the spring," my heart says. "Just a season."

No longer handless, so I wipe the stars from my eyes.
No longer lungless, so I suck in fresh air.

I march forward now.

And that'll be the last time I let someone else carry my sword.

I could tell you
I could
I feel them now
in this slow death

Hands
fighting my hair
to find the back of my neck
unhinging me in a way that
only you could
Even still

And I remember

That first outpouring of words
Orange flowers and a lost car
A rock by the river, a kiss on my shoulder
One finger lifting my chin in the darkness
We were always happening after midnight

From North Ave to Montrose to Bayview
From Sawyer to St Joseph
From Wrightsville to Carolina
From Isabela to Playa Sucia
We were always more beach than sidewalk

Mood ring and resin necklaces
A room that wasn't ours but was perhaps made for us
Empty apartment, full library
A blizzard in the mountains at 4am
The smell of vacant houses
Wood smoke and wood dust
One thousand first times
We were, we were
Always

There are so many, too many to name.
I cry now as I finally face them
I feel them like knives. They carve me open, bleed me until I am only sinew.

I didn't know memories could be quite so violent.

You thought I'd forgotten?
How could I?

Have you not seen
how I cling to these heart vessels
that I have nurtured just for you?

This space is yours.
There will always be room for you here.

Cassiopeia

Am I fated to spend eternity hanging from my ankles while everyone around me glows with a brilliant unawareness?

To be halved, to be cored,
to remove the pit from me.

Be careful not to fall in,
it may take the rest of your life
to crawl back out.

I have secured a knot around my tongue
so tightly
silence is in everything I taste.

You will not appropriate my voice. I would rather choke on it.

Fill me again.

Where
is
she,
this girl
that could have
been mine?

Why does she not answer
when I call?

My bell tower stands without a bell. There is no music here. Not even the wind will sing.

I used to mourn the days. Now I mourn the years.

I do not carry.
I only bow beneath.

I
have
gotten
so
good
at
swallowing
knives.

In trials of love, I saw myself a victor.