Bandages

I want to crawl into your wounds 

And make a home for myself 

in all that pain

Rearrange the furniture in your veins to make room for my old sofa

And stow my luggage 

in your heart

The tag on my suitcase still has your name on it

From the last time I flew home

I want to rip off your bandages and revel in the beauty 

of all those scars

Shine a light into your mouth 

so they glow

As bright and beautiful 

as the stars

After all, the blinking bulbs of this lonely, glittering city

Have nothing on the sky seen from your bedroom window

Poetry

Take a pencil and slice open your own Stomach

Let someone poke and prod

your Intestines

Until they are satisfied

with the amount of Blood 

covering their hands

And you'll know how it feels to write Poetry

Anchored

She is a ship

A beautiful vessel

Anchored in a dock

Where storms can occur at any moment

"Hope" and "secure" were never synonyms

Until they were cargo sent across an ocean

Without the destination stamped on the crate

At times, she gets seasick 

She doesn't worry, she knows

A boat becalmed just means the wind has stopped blowing

Not that the journey 

is over

The entire purpose of an anchor is to "sink" 

But change that word to "ground" 

And you can keep your soul from floating away

Into the June clouds

She's always had a marine soul

A transporter of people and a carrier of beloved goods

She'll navigate this ocean until the entire boat goes under

Today, she looked out her curtain and could swear she saw a mermaid in the sky

I love you quietly

I love you in a prayer

From inside a hospital chapel

Where I can worship idols

With hands like yours

Surrounded by people

With cemeteries in their minds

I love you in a whisper

From inside a public library

Where I can read novels

With words that remind me of you

Surrounded by people

With better things to do than read

I love you quietly

but with conviction

Because I don't believe in love

But I believe in the way I love you 

An adoration so divine 

I see God

When I look at you 

Because the truth is

I could fill libraries 

Writing about how

I fell in love

With how I love you

Rare Girl

Look at you

You rare girl

You electric being

You wild thing

Look at you

With your too-big feet

And too-fragile soul

Stare into a mirror and

Repeat after me

"The fault is not in myself.

It is not in my crooked teeth

Or my frizzy hair.

It is not in my hunger for what

Or my need to be noticed. 

It is not in my dreamer mind

Or my selective memory.

The fault is not mine

And the fault is not my poetry."

Look at you

With your too-big feet

And too-fragile soul

You are the Universe

You rare girl

Big, Clumsy Hands

She sits on my bathroom floor,

the cold linoleum against her thighs, and she weeps.

Someone is in the shower, singing. I don't know the words. 

She's holding something in her arms. I can barely make it out through the steam that clouds the mirror and sticks to my skin. 

It's a package wrapped in black paper, boxed with bubble wrap, and stamped with the words 'Handle with Care.'

The box has a pulse. 

A rhythm that's familiar, but I get the feeling it isn't supposed to be heard this way - muffled inside a box. The sound is hollow and sad. 

I ask her why she can't open it. 

She holds the box out and I look.

It isn't addressed to her.

Her hands tremble. 

It isn't addressed to anyone. 

She continues to cry. 

The singing gets louder. 

The melody is foreign and the words are in a language I do not understand. 

I ask her why she won't mail the package to someone, anyone.  

She tells me that everyone she knows has big, clumsy hands. 

“It is necessary to find one's own way in New York. New York City is not hospitable. She is very big and she has no heart. She is not charming. She is not sympathetic. She is rushed and noisy and unkempt, a hard, ambitious, irresolute place, not very lively, and never gay. When she glitters she is very, very bright, and when she does not glitter she is dirty. New York does nothing for those of us who are inclined to love her except implant in our hearts a homesickness that baffles us until we go away from her, and then we realize why we are restless. At home or away, we are homesick for New York not because New York used to be better and not because she used to be worse but because the city holds us and we don't know why.” 

― Maeve Brennan