;

Last year, when I wrote you my last letter

(the beginning of my future poetry)

I acknowledged who you were for the first time. I didn’t call you by any other name. I let you know that I knew the true nature of your heart- that it was evil. That it convinced me that darkness is real, that the devil is a real devil, and that monsters don’t always know they are monsters.

But projection is an interesting thing.

After you burned the house down, you tried to convince me that I was the one holding the matches. You told me that I didn’t know what I had done, you said I don’t know who I am.

But I do know who I am.

I love Rose Gardens

I buy Violets every time someone leaves me

I love the great sequoias of Yosemite

And if you asked my sister to describe the first thing she thinks of when she thinks of me, she would say woodsmoke.

I’m gentle

I’m funny

When I’m drunk

Though I haven’t been drunk for 14 years

I go on trips to the beach with my friends who don’t know that I’m crazy.

I can do that.

I can do anything-

Even leave you.

Because my bedroom is a sacred place now, there are children at the foot of my bed, telling me stories about the friends they pretend to hate that they will make up with tomorrow-

And there are fresh cut flowers that I grew myself in vases on nightstands hand-carved by old pals from Big Sur.

And the longer I stay here, the more I am sure that the more I step into becoming a poet, the less I will fall into being with you.

The more I step into my poetry, the less I will fall into being with you.

The more I step into my poetry, the less I will fall into being with you.

The more I step into becoming a poet, the less I will fall into bed with you.