Heart on a Platter

she stares at the blank page
hoping that she won’t fall in
not again
not again

last time she came this way
it was better
there were words on the page but

now there are no words
no words at all
there’s nothing here to show where she’ll end up
so she
can’t fall in
can’t go down
can’t step out
into that
blank world

where have all the words gone?

it changed
it changed
it changed
he pulled the world out from
under me and it changed

there’s a plate on my heart
empty
staring out like a headlight
like one beam of light
out into the darkness
this white plate
there is nothing on it

there is nothing on it
but reflection

the moon stole my heart away
but I got it back
when the words fell off the page
and the world fell away
I took it back off that platter
and now
I see the words again
all the new words

and there is nowhere to fall
I only thought there was

All the words…

I’m thinking of all the words. The ones I want to say. And then I remember… maybe I already said them. To that person I thought was you. In that moment I thought was this moment. And then I don’t want to say them. I don’t want to say them again.

My fool eyes, my damned tongue, my Judas hands that wrote those words… to those inconsequential impersonators, wolves in soft clothing. Those thieves of golden moments, turned criminal by those fucking traitorous words. Those words, like black glue they permanently adhered to the pages they were scratched out on, and the ears, and the hearts that mistook them from me, those hearts and ears, those thieving eyes that held me. Laying in wait, they ambushed me with trust and robbed me of that rarest of moments, that first moment, that first time, that first word, shared. And heard. And gone now.

I’m throwing all of my words away. They are garbage and trash and I’m burning down the house they have lived in. I want to walk through the ashes of my history of words. I would be silent for years if I thought I could wipe the slate clean. I have kept away from the wolves, the ones that feign connection and promise and paint futures that I’m able to consider long enough to wrench my words from me. Your words, the words I meant for you. But though I have kept away these years, the words have still been spent. And they are not renewed. They are banished the moment they fell from my lips. Banished to a lost place that I do not know. Carried away with the men that took them to heart.

I find myself hoping that my words have in part or at least fallen on deaf ears but might have landed squarely on your heart. And every time another woman pretended that she could love you like I already do, and every time she promised that she would, her words fell like worthless currency on the table and you had no use for it. And there it remains, on the wood you never bothered to knock on.

My tongue, no virgin. No pure and sweet and new words are left. Those have all passed this way before, tied to balloons, lofty with hope, or blooming like fucking daisies. All the words I’ve said before are ringing in my ears. The thoughts and dreams and all the things I said I wanted to do.

And now all I want to do is find new words for you.

This Distance

when I feel that distance
this distance between us
I just look up and I see our fingers intertwined over my shoulder
and you whirl me around
closing the distance between us
with a dance

this dance
this dance that pulls me in close to you
just when I feel more than an arm’s length away
you pull me in and show me
what the distance is for

it’s for feeling that pull
it’s for feeling your arms encircle me
it’s for feeling you all around me
strong and there
and here for me

back to front
your hands on my hips
we sway
feel your heart thumping on my shoulder blade
you are here
so close to me
we sway
we sway
to the back and forth
the pull
and the push

chest to chest
your hand on my shoulder
my hand on your heart
we rock
fingers trickle down my back
and it’s those
details
those tender moments
that I come back for
when I am more than an arm’s length
away

and I know
if I couldn’t feel the distance
I wouldn’t know
what this closeness is for

My Sweet Cherry

come on in
the wet is wine
lick my whistle
lips plum fine
sin your name
a cross my heart
‘n hope two dine
on love sweet
love’s sweet lover
hover over
red rover red
rover over come
again and
come again
‘n my home sweet
home sweet
cherry
my

collecting my bones

you threw
this day out
in front of me like ugly dice

what an unimaginable hand
this day has dealt
you
but I can’t know
which way
I don’t know which way
to care about you
I don’t know the way
to get to you
I don’t know where
inside this horror this space this distance or place
where in this horrifying day
you
have gone

there is a collection of bones
you carry around
a morbid bouquet
of roses long dead
petals and thorns and stems
long stems
long tear trails and stories
long stories and years cut short
cut
smoothly by the blade
of decision or whim
precision incision
to end them

they’re not flowers
not flowers you said
they rattle they rattle they rattle
not feelings
not that not that
too brittle too dry too unable to cry
they remind you
just here to remind
you
that you are not like them
not yet
not like them
not ended
not yet

if I quiet my beating
that beating
if I quiet my heart I can hear
that rattle that rattle that rattle
and follow the sound I will find you
in the boneyard of this horrible day
picking out new reminders
to add to that brittle bouquet

this boneyard
created by hands
on that blade
whose decisions
were made
whose decisions were made
about thoughts about choices of
which path to take and the steps
and the steps
and decisions
were made
to swing
that blade

cutting short
what might have been long
breaking down
what might have endured
putting out
what might have burned bright
to end
to end
to end
to ending it

and the hands that raised that blade
sometimes belonged to the bones
but many reminders you now collect
were decisions you wielded alone

know this
bone collector

as long as
I’m walking beside you
as long as
I’m smiling at you
as long as
my hand is in your hand
my bones are residing
with you

know
they are not for collecting
they are only to have and to hold
a warm tender living reminder
that you don’t
you just don’t have to go
you don’t have to go
to that boneyard
not yet
because you are not ended
not yet
not yet

you are
not like them
you are like me
I am not ended
I never will be

you are not like them
not cut short not bent down
not broken
not brittle not dry
you don’t rattle and
you can cry
you can open all the way up
you can dive all the way down
to plant a kiss on the floor of the ocean
and with only the breath in your lungs
can move clouds across the face of a mountain
and love with all the life in your heart
and dream about hope and believe in
anything
or in something
again

but I don’t want just to remind you
I just want you to never forget
if you need to remember
remember
or reach down and take hold
of my hand

because my bones won’t be piled with the others
they’ll never be rattling there
my bones won’t ever be ended
they’ll always forever be here
if you raise that blade upon me
if you choose that dead bouquet
if you wield that blade against memory
please gentle
gentle gentle as you swing
cause these bones will be
walking with me
these bones will be walking with me

come along with me
bone collector
put down that troublesome blade
come with me
memory gatherer
let all those dry bones
fall away

not yet will not follow you here

come collect me
into your arms
and I’ll remind you how to feel
life
come and gather me
gather me up
and I’ll remind you
how to feel
loved
and I’ll remind
you how to
love

My heart.

I took my feet off the pedals but I was cranking them so hard, they’re still whirring. I can’t build up the velocity for my body to catch up with my heart. It’s spinning out of my chest. It’s spinning upward and away and I’ll never catch it. I’ll never catch it.

Why can’t my heart just float out, almost out, but always within grasp like theirs do? They don’t understand why I spin so hard, why I always look exhausted and not happy and floaty. It got away again. And I just have to wait for it to come back. It’s sad, the waiting.

They judge me because I don’t have a heart. Sometimes it feels like it’s running away when it goes. At first it’s so happy and so beating and so bright. Painfully bright and then beating so hard and it can’t be contained and it just… it just… goes. I can’t hold on.

And here he comes, to stand there and smile. His heart is there too. He looks happy and peaceful and he’s there and his heart. His heart is there too.

He’s raining on me with his words again. Like the mountainside and the tiny little flowers that grow against the rock. Only the gentlest of rain should fall on them. And his words are rain like that.

My wheels have stopped their spinning. In the stillness, I can hear myself breathing and my heart. My heart. My heart is here too.