0.
I wear Venus around my neck, so I am blessed by the strength of seven women and the pride of seven more:
I.
She’s kneeling down, kneading the earth under her feet, begging for light, trying to stare straight into the sun on the hottest day of the year and not once blink. (This is how you make her feel)
Moonshine is a bloodbath by the time it reaches the shoreline.
IV.
She’s asleep as if the only way out is to close your eyes and pretend you’re out. Pretend it’s over. Like there isn’t a baby crying on your lap, no world sipping down your shoulders, and heaven is not under your feet.
The sky is a deathbed for all her dreams, yet still, she peaks above her head.
II.
She went to the place where the city is a sea of lights and the mountains are waves and seven waves are not enough to swipe her off her feet. She was swept off her feet without even trying.
Stole a pocketful of love from contraband, a fast car that doesn’t get out of town
Bringing truth back to this dead town
Putting on the night like a gown
And dancing to the lightning.
V.
Model daughter and later model citizen. Nothing interesting.
VI.
A mother. She has a way of dealing with trouble: she doesn’t deal with trouble.
But mother, here I am; child, daughter, trouble,
please don’t deal with me
I do not exist.
I do not exist.
I do not exist.
Mother's drowning in the fountain of youth.
III.
She knew better than to miss with someone with Spring in their heart, so she brought Winter back to hers. It weighs her down, yes, but that’s better than sinking in a sea of fear and responsibility.
No but really, he had an electric smile
She had an iron heart
Built with one too many walls
And no fire escape.
Arson, darling.
VII.
“Is this how you honor the living?”
“ No, this is how you honor your honor.”
A bullet planted in her head
Growing like the tree of death
A crimson sunset lingering before the full moon
Finally
The devil ascended announcing truce.

for the forest in which too many were lost but only a few made it out alive

(This is for eyes as clear as Spring and as cold as Winter)


I have traded my excitement for poetry; for spirit can only wander much until spirit sobers up.


Galaxies away, yet they’re stealing my Sun. There’s something pretty about It rising every hour, but darkness isn’t always sad; only cautious. That’s all.


This is how oblivion works: there’s a storm on the surface of your moon and I can’t hear it. I can’t pull the tide away from the shores of your heart, but I can try and sink the craft, until we sail home, to the clouds. Fly not, for wings melt but sails do not.


The clouds: far away and high.


Dawn is cold and dry.


Still, I have a hope for a midnight sky filled to the brim with stars whose iridescence would fuse fantasies to the lead in your veins.


I think I saw Heaven glistening in your brain. I kept telling myself that the trip to Heaven was worth the fall. Tell me it was worth the fall.


Somedays, it feels like the back of your mind is broken. Like I am going to jump back into nothingness if you don’t mend it with days lost to a future far away from now.


I have swallowed so much pride, it’s making me sick. It makes me sick that I have the courage for you but not for me. That I live for you but not for me. 


That it doesn’t seem to make that much of a difference because not two forevers are exactly the same.