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What's left in these tiny states but the interstate out to somewhere new?
Memories floating in every landscape
Each molecule holding the bitterness
No doors will open but the ones with exits signs glowing above.
No windows to sneak into on late nights.
But out there
Past the doors with no door knobs on our sides
That is where we will escape to a place where the sun only ever rises.

The night before a new life

Do they have lightning dragons in New Hampshire? Will I be able to taste shooting stars in the night air without out you? I hope for neither, or I hope for a way to fold you up in my pocket and take you there with me into the mountains. Maybe we can strip down and jump into a cool stream with no one looking, and stare at the moon in the reflection of the water. We can make song lyrics for ourselves, instead of clinging to a melody just not quite right.

Wheat Field

Glittering in the field of grass, a gentle breeze blowing the seeds of a new destiny all around. We sat waiting for the lemon drop rays to melt off the sky and plummet to the ground where we lay. I wondered where everything was going to go, how we were going to be, but the sun tasted too sweet to think of such serious things.
And as we caught each little pearl of sun on our tongues, our most important worries dissolved away.

It read so much longer in your eyes

It's a new year. New plans. Our futures being quickly intertwined with our dreams, as if they had always been.
Now we'll sleep under a shower of burning stars slowly soaking into the strands of our hair, dripping cool beads of stardust on our feet.

Dream Bed

I sleep on a bed made of white cotton clouds, above me stars made of plastic and paint. I'm enveloped in the darkest of satins, the brightest of silks. My mind wanders slowly through each as my body tosses and turns to find a comfortable hole to fall down and escape the pressures of gravity and reality. Somewhere down the tunnel my body curls, resting between molecules of air and smoke, hoping they are from you slowly exhaling next to me.

Summer's Over

Smashing Sunday afternoons driving down to the harbor city. Watching the sun set with our minds and go wandering through the darkness in our heads. Quiet laughter echoing through the empty clouds of smoke and artificial light. One more night of summer.

Forecast

Forecast for tonight: Raindrops dripping through straw colored hair with a chance of sweet sultry dance and song from the black sky below. Mountains will turn into mole hills and smiles will last throughout the day. Highs are UV rays and sea glass. Lows are waiting for your judgment day.

Hurricane Season

The worst went by a long time ago with the May flowers. But now every time I look up, the sky is filled with thunder, the trees are empty.
There's moss growing on my escape route, the stairs creak like rusted hinges, and these clouds don't have a silver lining.

Three Trees

not writing for weeks makes everything ooze out my pores in the morning, before the birds have even awoken. no bursting or busting or bleeding, just slowly escaping as each butt is burned out in the secret jewelry case ash tray. i wear camels and marlboros on my skin like charm bracelets and diamond rings hidden in perfume. i wonder how they sparkle in the sun when i look away to fake an emotion he'd rather see on the street instead of twirled in pillows and something warm, quietly drifting down curves where rich satins will never touch, but it's okay right because we're artists and all we need is love. and a piece of paper that says i'm good enough to the world. and three trees in our backyard to make it look just right to the neighbors and our family members. and two point five children. and a dog. and a cat. and luxurious fabrics my thighs will never touch.

Seasons

sun shines through clouds made of silver linings. the wind walks through my hair and gives me goose bumps all over from the chill.
I constantly wonder, wandering, if it is pushing me forward or pulling me back. If I should or shouldn't go south to see family and friends, if its cold fingertips are what I need.
I'm tired of the rain and the clouds and the sun and snow and ice and wind pulling me pushing me, spinning out of control. The currents of leaves falling turning rapidly into snow then rain then rays of light.
Away I go into the breeze. Arms outstretched and let it catch me to fall where I finally belong.

Too long for a text message

Speak for me once more. Let the words trace down my neck and smiles etch on our faces. The good old days he says. The days before I abandoned you and hoped you would be waiting n the decrepit roller coaster where you took beautiful pictures and searched for a sign. Something more. Get something out of nothing.

I look from a distance and see how much you've grown. Pinks, reds, orange, yellows. Your hair braided into mine.

Remember the feather narrative? I want that feather. I'd cherish it more than you know.

My first true love, make sure Georgia is good to you. I know he will be. Write soon about amusement parks. Lie in the bath and think of candy striped legs and Dr. Stephen. Take pictures so I know you are alright. Take pictures so I know you aren't.

I'm glad you got out, regardless of how. Let's remember the notes and laugh about our antics.

I always think of your lips when I smell photo developer. Some days, it makes me cry

Bullfrogs

My growling aching limbs remind me of the days of crouching in the duck weed and muck searching for the biggest bullfrog in the pond. Careful footsteps through the water so the horrific squeak of a squished frog would never creep out, or the snapping turtle wouldn't catch our toes in her jaws and eat them like saltines.
I never knew how important a mosquito was or when the wrong time was to squish it. She is just feeding a family, just trying to survive. She's trying to feed the frogs, feed the ducks and the lily pads. And I thought it was funny to mush her on my arm.
And I'm trying to survive, but dinner tonight was air and Sunny D mixed with mythical animals who make their homes in little red and white spheres of light. Goldfish danced in my hair and flopped back into the tiny pool of sheets nearby.
Something inside is breaking like eggs cracked on heads, dripping through tresses of hair and down my neck. Taking a shower means letting it win. Letting go of the largest bullfrog in the pond, now in the bucket, looking at me with the wide eyes I adorn every day.

--

I never had the heart to tell you it never came the month before red thinly poured out of me, you along with it. It disturbed me, and I shut the door, locked it, and tried to throw out the key. I cried for what seeped out of me. The salty bitterness that was everything I feared and hoped for at nineteen. I covered up the stain, pretended it didn't exist once you left. All the while remembering you were the only one I wanted to fuck so hard, the only set of blue eyes to not tangle my hair.
What ifs come to mind every time I'm aggravated. I just end up hitting you.
And sometimes I wish my insides had fallen out that night and that I let you hold me.

Drift Road

On the shelf sat a little gray fox with wide eyes like a four year old. He gathered dust for years, the memory of a long lost friend taken from a vicious animal.
I often sat with him on a leather couch, talking in a low voice and scratching his ears. I'd pick at torn bits of the couch from the big dog that laid there most nights. He was soft like the spring grass in our back yard filled with clovers. I looked for years for a four leaf clover to give to my parents but never ever found one.
Now the fox gathers dust on a shelf near an unused bed, a mattress from yet another person that left the world; the only to leave on his own terms.
He has lost his happy purrs and no longer hisses back at the cats. I grew and misplaced it where hiding places in stairwells full of pillows were a common thing and snow was beautiful. When the leather couch sat in that small living room and fluff sandwiches meant bloody arms.
The house is empty. The Malibu that brought romance and images of the past is long gone.
The raspberry bushes have died.

Handprint Sun Beams

concrete as hard as mud mountains dripping out of hands. children playing curtsy and bows christmas presents that will never get to the receiver.
spider bite finger tips surrounded by blues and reds.
rolly polly pencils sliding to and fro like your nails on a chalkboard that time i just wouldn't shut up about the paint on the walls.
my stomach hurts from all this walking walking no where. walking to rooms with tigers in grass and handprint sun beams. no where you would remember. no where we ever went. mushrooms growing out of white sheets.
grass.
empty. empty empty. pens and paper down, up up we go to the clouds. soar and forget the nights when i hit you because mother was mad. i didn't mean to break your favorite horse when the shoe flew. it was your nose.
freckles and fingers etching black paint on walls. dreams in acrylic.

Swirling blue cocktails

energizer legs streams of hair empty chords blissful bliss mine can't shake it hard pressed hands on cheeks smoky entrails swirling blue cocktails head injuries hiding secret empty memories grasping at the air for something just a little more meaningful burning sage burning pink hair burning burning the way home no more masks no more palaces of ice and stone trees are growing thoughts are dying and I'm not sure that it matters anymore when Carolina is so far down the fear of moving to see the north star and the curves oh the curves and how one day I would have those curves and mix drinks for men that have always loved me for who I wasn't no one knew that no one could count the times drawings on napkins and character sheets made pools of vodka on the bar with grenadine and blue ribbon nostrils the size of wine screws scars left from something once desired and held back to please parents that never once saw the truth in aches and pains my ankles my hand and the cat can't die now when all we have left from the house on the hill is her and daffodil graves for each little memory slowly fading off onto that tree where we sat and talked about rich princes coming to take us away hand to ice bruises hot cocoa and cracked glass a family was until I left in search of something already in front of my face bare feet on cold tile something growing inside with every single step

Letter to Elise

Rain drop rhythms pouring over photographs of memories where you once made me smile. Matching school outfits and playing Disney movies. You were always Jasmine, Cinderella, Pocahontas. I was always Rajar, the mice, Meeko. Or the Prince. Yo were my princess after all. I didn't mind the hand holding and the singing A Whole New Woooooooooorld. I pretended to pretend to want to kiss you. We both knew it wouldn't last. Don't try to bring up the past. Don't try to bring me back to the big canopy bed in that old house by the river. Rambo can't come up on the bed anymore. Rambo died. And you weren't there. You left me back then for Aeropostle clad boys and girls with dye jobs. I never wanted to leave, but eyeliner and Julian Whitney called me closer. With every new friend cloaked in blues, blacks, and plaids, you looked at me less. That photo album you have doesn't show the abandonment, the ridicule. Pictures are taken, smiles are faked.
My princess died in 8th grade, when you chose the apple over your drawf.