to be gorgeous only briefly

“We held hands. I was wondering what it would be like to have a home of your own where you could come and go, where people would be welcome, where you would never be frightened again.”

'“It’s the little cruelties that get you,” she told him. “Never the big hurts, the pains you can point to, and say, ‘Oh, I see this bruise,’ but the wounds that you can’t even tell are there until one day you are eating a bowl of fennel soup or sunbathing on the deck of the pool and you can’t move, you can’t do anything, because you think, Well, something is dead in me, what has been done to me, and why did I allow this to happen? And now, and now, and now…”’

“I could not stop wasting time. It was crazy. I wanted to do something with my life, but instead I went to sleep, or sung in the shower, or sat and stared at the wall. I couldn’t even tell you about anything that I saw. I didn’t talk to anybody. The cicadas kept dying outside, and as I dreamed, my mouth grew thick and venomous with silence.”

i carved the face of someone no longer alive into / the sky so that i did not grieve alone. i plucked the moon. peeled / its rind. as the world turned in the dark, i filled myself on its pulp.

“My love is honey tongue. Dandelion wine in a pitcher. Thirsty love. My love licks it’s fingers before it has even fed. My love is peach juice dripping down the neck. Too much sugar love. Cavity love. Toothache, tummy ache love. Soft hands holding the jaw open love. Summer love. Sticky sweet, sticky sweat love. My love can’t ride a bike. My love walks everywhere. Wanders through the river. Feeds the fish, skips the stones. Barefoot love. My love stretches itself out on the grass, kisses a nectarine. My love is never waiting. My love is a traveller, a fruit-eater, a holder. My love is alive. Warm. It lives. It breathes.”

“i feel like a subway station and what i mean is, i am something liminal. what i mean is, everyone is always leaving. it is always getting dark and everything is always too loud. there is ruin where ruin shouldn’t live. there is the stench of bad decisions in the dirt. what i mean is, i am always halfway to a beautiful place. i have only see heaven from the postcards.”