Texas, age 7

5.25.13

We begin to make plans, lists
of places we could end up,
long loose lines on cheap maps.
I do not want to be alone,
so I invent you,
I give you purpose.
I wake you up singing in my sleep.
You dream of falling and I stumble over the lyrics.
You would like to see the end of the lemon season,
I would like to dance topless
on Mustang Island.  
I would like the wind to lift me
like fishhooks in my palms. 
We diverge, we
calculate. 
I try to steal that purpose back.
The staggered hydrangeas bloom
between songs.  You wake up
and walk out the door.
I am on my own adventure.
I scream.
How have I not noticed; this bed
so bare and small.

Swords

5.20.13

too shaky to sleep for a week now.
outside, the moon is sharp as glass.
I drive downtown, around construction
in circles for an hour
until I forget where I was going
in the first place.

blue stains under my eyes,
my eyes themselves going blue.
so far from my skin, not even
the scalding bath could save me.

but I am in here, I know.

somewhere

I am cutting through.

Love and damage

5.19.13

The noise of rain,
then the noise of forced air.
I'm stirring onions, mushrooms and wine

slowly, my arm too raised,
my hand dangling
as if it is not mine. 
Manic depression is talking in the next room,
asking how many times per day
the blocked number calls.

I don't know, dad,
says Noah.
I want to save him with this meal,
but I know who I am.

     Poor children
who are fed and taunted.

Love, damage;

no chaperone between.

The call

5.18.13

I'll come back like the rain I've forgotten to wait for.  I will come back with a hush, then a growing whisper you might mistake for wind.  I am not wind.  Not wind any longer.  I will come back strung with lights and curls.  I will come back green-eyed again.  I will come back crying.  The world will gurgle and flow.  I will come back barefoot.  I will come back miniature.  I will come back without the wheels spun out inside me.  I will come back without ice.  I will come back with grief.  I will come back with fury.  I'll come back like a kiss through tears.  I'll come back salty, and you will know.  I'll come back alone.  I'll come back stitched up.  I'll come back healed.  I'll come back not caring that I will never fully heal.  I will come back shouting.  I will come back screaming.  I will come back throwing the punches I never threw.  I will come back through the years I never lived.  I will come back wanting things.  I will come back wanting everything.  I will come back with skin.  I will come back with fire.  I will come back and swim naked in the lake again.  I will come back with freckles.  I will come back without bullet points.  I will come back armed.  I will come back vulnerable.  I will come back pink.  I'll come back like the last blooming of the popcorn bush in November.  I will know how much I am wanted.  I will know just how rare.  I'll come back bleeding.  I'll come back smiling.  I'll come back laughing from head to toe.  I am not wind.  Not wind any longer.  I will seize my heart and come back with it.  It will be hot and steady.  I will come back clean as a snake.  I will come back bouncy as a sapling.  I will come back singing.  I will come back singing.  I will come back singing.  I will never stop singing.

New moon

5.9.13

Homeward, past
the gas station, sleepy and blue in the fog.
Sugar trees heavy in the sweet wet world.

My sister drives me around town in the rain.
We don't have much to say
so we murmur in strange voices,
turn the heat on and off.

Stars
we can see around the hole of the moon
when the rain stops.
Not a hole you fill
or cover over.

We're on the gleaming black streets,
the rich smell of soaked flowers
and grass.

I can't tell her who is alone
and who isn't.