288

i was told once if i left you to die you would crawl back to me on dirty knees and a broken head,
but it's hanging now and it hasn't rained for weeks, you know, and i see no mud in the distance.
and i try to change the scenery by shutting out the greenery but when i close my eyes i wake up, almost too suddenly
and a jerk in my spine
and flicker of light, too bright.

i am sorry.

287: hazel

your eyes are deep and clear like planets
with forests and deserts no one dared to touch
and i want to explore them, leave my heavy footprints in the sand and dunes of the widest beaches
and break those mall twigs that get in my way, my pitiful path in the green towards that field i know of.

i know if because when i climbed the mountain side i looked back,
laughing,
and saw that peaceful grass smile back at me,
calling my name in its gentle whispers like a song (one that i still remember).

it is there i built my house from trees i cut, and mud that i stole from the roots of that shine.
it is in this house that i will wake every day to your smiling lips and crisp eyes,
i am certain of it.
and it is on this hard bed of rocks i will look into them,
recite this quiet poem, while i watch myself destroy
through your glass planet eyes.

286: for a friend

i don't think i could ever live again.
i've swallowed this and regurgitated and forced myself to swallow it again.
your words choke me at the base of my throat,
i just want to let it go, take a deep breath and release it into my fleshy lungs,
i've grown tired of the feeling of collapsing organs.

but you won't let me,
and i know i won't let myself, not that easily, to feel the regrowth of my ribs,
arms twisted around, fingers crawling up my spine, fixing each and every crack.

no, i can't, i don't know how,
i was never taught how to fight. i want to try it for myself,
taste the first bursting cell, first black blood (although i already know perfectly what it would be like).

so no, my friend, i will not pull myself up with the help of your body this time,
i haven't yet figured out how. i can feel that breeze, and to be honest,
i don't think i could ever live again.

285.

soft sunlight is my favourite.
i want to see it on your skin
when you are napping and
i am reading a magazine.

an article on a new type of sea fish they found in the atlantic ocean
last saturday. i want to feel the sun on my feet too,
between my toes, up to my palms, right next to you.
and i want to watch the dust float around and your eyes,
they move behind your eyelids
from a dream.

284

little stings on my lips,
ghost tracks on a sunny afternoon in a silent house with dust,
and then dusk,
and the reception gets weaker as i descend into a curve down beneath the sea.
i've been here, everything else is the same,
those smudgy footprints along the hardwood,
but it's definitely been a while.

this is how i can tell:
i have not stalked the land for countless days.

this time, like my every visit, is different.
i know, because when i open my mouth there is no more hunger.
when i open my mouth all that comes out is song.

283

there was music this time, wasn't there?
turn it up,
i want to hear your hands louder than this noise i've been hearing all summer long.

282

how strange is it to exist?
i couldn't tell you, i wouldn't know,
because i can't tell tales like you - i can only count sorrows.
it's sad that i know what happy is and cannot have it,
and it's also sad that i'd like to be happy again,
i'd like to wear flowers in my hair,
i'd like to see people laugh into each others arms
and speak into each others mouths, gentle and familiar words spoken in an unfamiliar way to me.
i've said these words too but somehow it has never been the same.

i wouldn't say this to anybody else,
and when i write it is like a secret,
because the world is closed like a clam but i am open
waiting to be read like a dusty old book.
you once told me, that is the only the best and most charming thing about me, didn't you?

281: life

life,
mama told me it wouldn't always be good,
and that i should avoid being misunderstood,
do whatever i can, wear a bracelet of wood,
crawl to a cliff and there i stood,

for so many days then countless moons,
seen so many loons that i know their tunes,
standing over the blackened lagoon,
my hands tied up by three red balloons.

balloons are red to tie my arms,
and make me a woman with motherly charms,
balloons are red to keep me still,
and prevent me from sleeping and falling off the hill.

"untie me" i say with no forced will,
but the words squeeze out, the words i kill,
with little skill,
i might as well be misunderstood,
between could and should and would,
life, it wouldn't always be good
but at least i have three red balloons
and a pretty bracelet of wood.

280

for a day so bright, the night was darker than i have ever seen.
i can't tell if my eyes are open or closed,
if that is wind blowing in my ear or you whispering your frozen breath,
but i don't care.

this is today, that is tomorrow,
we can save it until later when there is all the time in the world and everything everything is melting in that burning sun.
i don't care i don't care i don't care.

279: for a friend

i can't believe that i would miss you, boy with cold hands i've never held,
and i can't believe i would see you in that house of yours by the beach in a dream! it was all so close
and it was really really cold by the water, where i dipped my feet and watched your gentle body sway back and forth,
hands pressing piano keys,
black white, white white black, white.
and by the water there was sand in my shoes, crawling between all my toes, separating them from each other
like separation i felt when i finally packed and picked it up on my back
and carried it like a burden, away from you so that you would be free to be free
and i would be free to be me.
but in that house you were swaying to all those pretty notes under your fingers,
with a dog and a small child singing songs that i never got to learn,
nursery rhymes i'm embarrassed to admit i do not know.
i know if i told you that you would laugh at me with that warm morning voice like roses in the back garden,
ones i didn't plant,
and you would, with that voice, tell me i'll always be beautiful to you
and tell me i'll be alright and alright
and tell me that you don't mind at all if i don't know the sweats and rhymes and beats.

you know, i can't believe i would ever miss you,
i want you to show me who you really are, i want to see you bitter, nostalgic and inspired.

278

when i get there, i will ask no more questions,
because the rain will for sure answer me.
and when i am dead and dead, throw me overboard,
because this rocking of the boat will keep making me sick.

277

these hot summer days my palms are black from climbing trees and digging dirt,
burying the stuff i dug out of my pockets
like pocket change
a rusty paperclip or a safety pin,
some wet fireworks i never lit, but meant to ages ago.
today i forgot my multiplication table,
but i can read more words than i ever could,
biking down this narrow street,
downhill,
feet on peddle,
mouth open,
leaves getting caught in my hair and hair getting caught in this delicious breeze.

276

this feeling is so quiet in the pit of my stomach,
it lacks light and red and colours that only a dumb girl can taste.
when i cover my ears and pretend to be her,
i can only see more details (instead of taste, you know what i mean),
like the baby lines in the palm of your hands and those creases between your eyebrows when you frown at me and knit them, telling me my age is not what i act.
hum hum humming amplified from your open mouth,
i want to put mine over, to hold it there and hold your breath,
so that what you lack will not appear then suddenly disappear,
and that water will not wash away the tattoos i've carved in your eyelids when you cry that say "gloria misses you gloria misses you gloria misses you" three hundred times magnified by green glass.

this time i put my hands over my ears i cannot make it the same as before,
and i do not know what drips from between my limbs anymore...
i just know i am not going to fall back and land in the snow that has helped me get to sleep the last few days.

275

i wonder what made you this way,
shy and afraid, you look south instead of north, and east instead of west.
i have to follow you while carrying dirt,
hidden by flowers, growing through the cracks
of my back,
showing you things i like in our track.

and who told you to leave me unattended?
where's our bucket?
which way is to the gold?
who told you to tell me those funny funny things and make me laugh,
when my body is so obviously deformed from chasing you,
so obviously tired?

"i know we must belong outside," i say, i don't care (or think) if it's dangerous.
can you sing a song?
you were holding my hand all along,
and i had to follow you carrying dirt,
because, this here, outside is where we belong.

274

well, these feelings are oozing out of my knee,
i am tightly squeezed like a tangerine,
in a glass, waiting for a hand to grab me
and drink my blood clean, before i turn nineteen.

my life is a book, too long to read,
i think i am boring, i think i mislead,
and out of the jacket, a spring bird sings,
and she will stay there - i've clipped her wings.

there are these summer fruits i love to eat,
peel them open and reveal the sweet,
they sit in my throat and make me feel complete,
like love would under the summer heat.

273

fourth of july, feet swinging in the air on a bus to downtown seattle,
my shoes were a bit too tight,
i remember this perfectly.

and i remember that day i had three water bottles in my backpack,
and a notebook with mostly blank pages i meant to fill out,
twenty dollars in my pocket to fill my empty stomach with food i could already smell.
it was great, children screaming themselves free from their mothers,
and those without mothers were allowed to wander the streets too,
walking next to me,
i felt them watching, like murderous eyes of pigeons, tasting the flesh of their cousins on grills,
waiting for the bread that wraps itself around those bodies,
ten feet above everybody else.

and seattle at night was really beautiful,
a light breeze constantly beneath my body around my feet,
fireworks outside my window, i could hear the sound of a creek with water rushing through like highway,
sleepytired, hungrythirsty, watched magicians on the tv in my apartment, families laughing through the cracks reminded me that i was sitting alone in the dark, back against the kitchen counter, and that this was the best vacation, and that i didn't need anybody to be happy, and that my tears will always be warmer than my face, and i was (and never again will be) more breathless than when i screamed out the sun.

272

you've lived every dream i've ever dreamt of,
because you belong in every one, haunting me or tugging at my heart strings.
most recently was three nights ago, you asked me where my house was,
and i told you it was back home in china where i left my little girl memories and little girl clothes,
where i spent all my spending money on dolls i never even looked at,
i'd put them in the corner and study on the glass table,
the house covered in plants,
great breathing air,
beautiful boys in the sun.

and then there was a pause in our conversation where i heard you breathe in,
then touched my face with your wet, trembling hands.
everything stood completely still,
as if i had said something to upset the entire rotation of the earth.

271

is there such a disaster?
there is such a disaster.

270

cut out pollution with your face.

269

that's not my head.
where is my head?
buried beneath your house.