feels like fireworks on a strange day,

  like October 9th or April 22nd.

  This is a poem about the first time

  I saw you naked and the night

  you showed up at my door at 2 a.m.

  with three tomatoes and a mango.

  My calendar was rude enough to remind me

  it’s been 43 days since we last touched. Still,

  I calculate how long it would take

  to walk 2,387 miles

  and strangely I feel better.

  (598 hours. And 12 minutes.)

  When He Asks Me to Describe Fear

  I say my mother smelling vodka

  on my breath at seventeen. I say grief

  is a firework of blue left on the collarbone.

  Superheroes always have broken hearts

  and tragic backstories, so maybe I’m doing okay.

  In my dreams we are brave enough

  to leap tall buildings in a single bound,

  and see through walls and also

  never lie to each other.

  Promise me this:

  when you finally leave me, you’ll get creative.

  Tell me I was more disappointing

  than your childhood. Send me your bloody ear

  with a letter saying, I’ve got to Gogh,

  you’re making me crazy. I am hard to love

  but know this much:

  you are the only thing I like doing

  more than writing poems.

  All That’s Left to Tell

  I.

  When I was trying

  to quit smoking

  and we drank white wine

  from Mason jars,

  you called my freckles

  cocoa powder

  and I called your green eyes

  celery.

  II.

  I am learning how

  to be a grown-up

  who pays bills,

  cooks her own meals,

  and doesn’t cry at words like

  I think I just want to be friends.

  III.

  The truth is this:

  Love is an organic thing.

  It rots and softens.

  For Nikki

  I know

  you and I

  are not about poems or

  other sentimental bullshit

  but I have to tell you

  even the way

  you drink your coffee

  knocks me the fuck out.

  Same Moon

  You told me mornings were the best time

  to break your own heart. So here I am,

  smoking your brand of cigarettes for the scent.

  I wonder if you still sing Beatles songs

  as you make coffee. You said your mother

  used to sing them to you when you couldn’t sleep,

  nineteen years before we met, twenty

  before you moved your clothes out of our closet

  while I was at work. By the way, I hate you

  for leaving all the photographs on the fridge.

  Taking them down felt like peeling off new scabs,

  like slapping a sunburn. I spent so many nights

  carving your body into pillows, I can promise you

  nothing feels like sleeping with your arm around me

  and your breath in my ear. Still, it’s comforting

  to know we sleep under the same moon,

  even if she’s so much older when she gets to me.

  I like to imagine she’s seen you sleeping

  and wants me to know you’re doing well.

  A Prayer

  But to come home each night,

  have a drink, go to bed,

  and be so deeply understood by you

  would be the greatest gift of my life.

  3 Beers In

  It’s 11 a.m. and I’m sitting in a restaurant

  3 beers in. Believe me, even I’m surprised

  I’m still alive sometimes. I have been

  drinking about you for 2 days. Lately

  you remind me of a wild thing, chewing

  through its foot. But you are already free

  and I don’t know what to do

  except trace the rough line of your jaw

  and try not to place blame. Here is the truth:

  It is hard to be in love with someone

  who is in love with someone else.

  I don’t know how to turn that into poetry.

  October

  I thought leaving you would be easy,

  just walking out the door. But I keep

  getting pinned against it with my legs

  around your waist and it’s like

  my lips want you like my lungs want air;

  it’s just what they were born to do.

  So I am sitting at work thinking of you

  cutting vegetables in my kitchen.

  Your hair in my shower drain.

  Your fingers on my spine in the morning

  while we listen to Muddy Waters.

  I don’t know why I’ve got so much hope

  pinned to someone who will never call me

  home, but the way you talk about poems

  like Marxists talk of revolution,

  it makes me want to keep trying.

  In the mornings, in my shower drain,

  in the music, in the walk out the door.

  I am looking for reasons to love you.

  I am looking for proof that you love me.

  You Draw Constellations

  in My Freckles

  I mean you ask me

  not to fall in love with you

  and then you go write poems

  with your tongue

  and draw constellations

  in my freckles.

  Advice to Teenage Girls

  with Wild Ambitions

  and Trembling Hearts

  When you are 13 years old,

  the heat will be turned up too high

  and the stars will not be in your favor.

  You will hide behind a bookcase

  with your family and everything hunted.

  You will spend years pouring an ocean

  into a diary. When they find you,

  they will treat you like nothing more

  than a spark above a burning bush.

  Still, tell them,

  Despite everything,

  I really believe people are good at heart.

  When you are 14 years old,

  a voice will call you to greatness.

  When the doubters call you crazy,

  do not listen. They don’t know the sound

  of their own God’s whisper.

  Do not let their doubting drown out

  the sound of your own heartbeat.

  You are the Maid of Untamed Patriotism.

  You were born to lead armies

  and unite a nation like a broken heart.

  When you are 15 years old,

  you will be punished

  for learning too proudly.

  A man will climb onto your school bus

  and insist your sisters name you enemy.

  When you do not hide, he will point his gun

  and fire three times. Three years later,

  in an ocean of survival, and no apologies,

  you will stand before the leaders

  of the world and tell them

  how your country is burning.

  When you are 16 years old,

  you will invent science fiction.

  The story of a man named Frankenstein

  and his creation. You will soon learn

  young girls with big ideas

  are far more terrifying than monsters,

  but don’t be afraid. You will be remembered

  long after they have put down their torches.

  When you are 17 years old,

  you will strike out Babe Ruth

  then Lou Gehrig, one right after the other.

  Grown men will be so afraid of the lightning

  in your fingertips that a few days later

  all women will be fired

  from the major leagues. The reason?

  Girls are too delicate to play baseball.

  You will turn 18

  with a baby on your back,

  leading Lewis and Clark

  across North America.

  You will turn 18

  and be queen of the Nile.

  You will turn 18

  and bring justice to journalism.

  You are now 18,

  standing on the precipice,

  trembling before your own greatness.

  This is your call to leap.

  There will always be those

  who say you are too young and delicate

  to make anything happen for yourself.

  They don’t see the part of you that smolders.

  Don’t let their doubting drown out

  the sound of your own heartbeat.

  You are the first drop of rain in a hurricane.

  Your bravery builds beyond you.

  You are needed by all the little girls

  still living in secret, writing oceans

  made of monsters, and

  throwing like lightning.

  You don’t need to grow up

  to find greatness.

  You are so much stronger than the world

  has ever believed you could be.

  The world is waiting for you

  to set it on fire. Trust in yourself

  and burn.

  Love Poems

  I want to kiss you.

  Like big, fat kisses. Or angels. Or stars.

  Or something. I don’t know.

  Love poems never make sense to me.

  Poets say things like

  Your teeth are flowers

  or Your eyes are miracles. But you

  aren’t miracles. Or flowers.

  You are some sweet boy with a good smile

  and a shaky heart. Come kiss me.

  I’m in love with the miracle of your body—

  beside my body.

  I Am Jealous of Your Tattoos

  And how long

  they will stay with you

  after I go.

  Poem for My Mother

  When She Doesn’t Feel Beautiful

  Don’t worry about your body.

  It isn’t as small as it once was

  but honestly, the world

  needs more of you.

  You look in the mirror

  like you’ve done something wrong

  but you look perfect.

  Anyone who says otherwise

  is telling you a lie

  to make you feel weak

  and you know better.

  You have survived every day

  for as long as you’ve been alive.

  You could spit fire if you wanted.

  My Father Sits Me Down

  to Teach Me How

  to Play Guitar

  First off, he tells me,

  your fingers are going to blister.

  Your fingers are going to bleed.

  Here: Let’s start with the D chord.

  This is how you play Down on the Bayou.

  Vibrations travel through the body,

  and that is how sound is made.

  Here: This is how I pray.

  These are the notes that roughly translate

  to Hallelujah. This is how you play

  I Won’t Back Down. Now,

  Don’t Back Down.

  Every song has a rhythm

  you have to find like a pulse.

  The beauty of music

  is you are never done learning.

  There is always time to get better.

  Clementine, you have to push harder

  with your fingers! You have to be stronger

  than this.

  Here: This is how I mourn.

  How I take revenge and tell stories,

  ask the woman I love to dance with me.

  This is how I built our family.

  This is how I built our home.

  Here: This is the heartbeat

  of the song you were named for.

  Have I ever told you

  why your name is Clementine?

  The first time I held you

  all I could think was, Oh my darlin’,

  Oh my darlin’.

  Oh my darlin’, it is time you learn

  everything worth loving

  takes hard work and patience.

  See, I know you.

  You are the good half of me.

  People like us are not good with words.

  What we mean gets muddled and wrong

  somewhere between our minds

  and our mouths.

  We make art to say how we feel.

  Here: These are the chords

  to Make You Feel My Love.

  Morning Haiku

  You’ve no idea

  how I want to be the blood

  pumping through your heart.

  Mermaid

  The day I surrendered to my limp,

  and went out and bought my cane,

  I realized I was done with the burden

  of having feet.

  Instead,

  I am going to become a mermaid.

  If everyone is going to stare at me, at least

  let it be because I’m beautiful.

  Besides,

  I have always liked the ocean,

  the promise of depth. I am tired

  of this dry world, with all of its dust

  and sickness, these barren fields.

  I want to dive without drowning.

  I want to swim among the teeth.

  I want to braid my hair with seaweed

  and mythology. I want men to carve me

  into the bows of their ships

  like a prayer, before I lure them

  into the depths with my fishnet mouth.

  I want the beauty,

  the gorgeous mutation, the legend

  of half body. All the wisdom of a woman

  without the failures of sex. I am plunging.

  I am sinking. I am not coming up for air.

  I do not want all this human.

  My legs move

  like they resent being legs; my body

  is wrecked by all this gravity.

  I cannot face another morning waking up

  with no hope of a fairytale.

  Here on land, I cannot move.

  Here on land, I cannot breathe.

  On land, I am always drowning.

  I am always drowning.

  It’s the Way

  Every poem is about you.

  Even the ones about other people,

  they’re for your eyes only.

  Everyone else who reads them

  is just a stranger

  looking through the window at us.

  It always comes back to you. It will always

  come back to you. It’s the way

  I love you through literature.

  I gave you a book about journeys

  before you left. Do you remember?

  And one about home. I filled it with notes,

  instructions on how to miss me.

  I was afraid you wouldn’t know how,

  and you’d give up.

  Frustrated.

  The Wedding

  Tell me again about the wedding

  we did not have. How I did not wear white,

  did not choke on tradition, did not blush.

  All the weddings that were not weddings.

  The vows that were just sneezing.

  The road ahead painted on a wall and how

  we sped over and over again into the brick.

  I say we. Like you weren’t just standing there,

  watching me bruise.

  Did you know I built us a home,

  laid the brick, filled it with Jameson

  and apple-cheeked children?

  I tried to slip the key onto your tongue

  but you cannot kiss a smile.

  So my home is not an honest home.

  So my home is an empty bed.

  That’s the thing about heartbreak.

  It’s the smallest of worlds ending.

  Everyone goes around you smiling,

  like it’s nothing to close a door.

  Notes on the Faces of Monsters

  I’m afraid of a lot of things.

  None of them are the boogeyman.

  That creature is waiting under your bed

  to meet you when the lights are off.

  When the most hideous parts of them

  aren’t obvious right away.

  I get that, boogeyman. I can relate.

  Things I am afraid of

  are a lot more common.

  Gaining weight, a grown man crying,

  any article about an abuse survivor

  that contains the words

  It still affects my current relationships.

  I fear a story

  in which a stubborn wound

  does not stay stitched, but rips open

  with the flex of muscle.

  Once a man

  (who was barely not a boy)

  gave me pills until I could not speak

  then did what he did

  with my lack of language.

  I am afraid he crawled inside me

  and never really left my body.

  I picture him waiting,

  crouched in my throat

  for the moment I am most in love

  to reach his hands back out

  and strike again.

  On Being a Writer

  Look at us,

  smiling with all our teeth out.

  Suffering so bravely in the spotlight,

  spilling blood on the page.

  Behind the curtain

 

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