I’m telling you
when the little girl says
“I don’t want you to get
shooted”
to her handcuffed mother
after her father was shot
for
no
fucking
reason
when they were just getting
ice cream
and she says she’ll protect her

and I can’t
I can’t
I can’t even be in the same room
as that video

and I go outside
and I fall to the grey stoop
and I weep
and I weep

And the pink sky
with storm clouds moving
too fast
And the lightening bug
that lands in my hand
blinks yellow:

caution

but I could crush it with rage
I’m telling you

I don’t, but
I could

because
that’s all I have left

I could
I could

Shame on you
for making my heart
offered as a pillow
for you to rest your blue battered cheek to
your punching bag
swinging like a carcass on a hook

These hands that once held yours
as the ground shifted below you
offered to steady, to pull you back from rocky cliffs
only to be cut and splintered
asked why I’m hitting myself, why I’m hitting myself
why can’t these fingers that you broke
still touch you

These eyes, once flooded with tears
when you couldn’t yet cry your own rivers
washed the dirt and blood away to see
the bright glass pebble of you beneath it all
sparkling in the sun, your promise
veiled by your fear,
called ugly,
closed.

My love will not grow again
in such unwelcome terrain.
Think you’ve fooled me twice?
Shame on you.

when she was my friend
this scrawny bespectacled kid and I
would laugh and dance
admiring each other’s growth and passions
sharing this steady confidence in our closeness
this triumph

now there’s this wall
of phone games and animosity
the injustice of choosing to love
how I wasn’t loved
while the lonely mystery of what I did this time
still haunts this bathroom corner

where I’m the teen again
afraid to ask
rejected

soft and luscious
with layers that drip and bleed
this pussy has painted her pain
in oil slicks on pavement
prowled through back alleys
howled at unrelenting moons

nevertheless
this pussy’s grown strong on your scraps
this pussy is proud
she bows to no king
dancing like fire through jungles of lies
she melts your snowflakes
huddles her masses by millions
heads high, fangs out

she is no fraidy-cat
she will not de-escalate
this pussy will flesh it out, lash it out
bear her claws on velvet arms
and move on you like a bitch.

do you hear the slow growl
of her red tide growing?
do you feel her pussyfeet rumbling
rearing, roaring?
she does not heed your warnings
she is done with your explanations
this pussy persists

this pussy
will eat the canary in your coal mine
for breakfast.

I stumbled on a backup:
our first texts, first jokes
frozen cherries and bloody noses
hairy men in canoes

and for a moment
I was back in our sweetness
remembering how you tapped the wells
I had safely hidden
coaxed my giggles into geysers
and seemed to want nothing more
than to dance in the hot spray

I told a friend, back then
“it’s like my soul is home”
I made camp by these springs, old faithfuls
sunk my toes into the shifting wet earth
thinking I was finally strong enough
to stand

I forgot, back then
before these dry days
that I would need a backup

some lovers are caterpillars
new and vulnerable
inching along to who knows where,
they are extended flowering branches
to slowly explore for possible safe havens
to warmly spin their tentative cocoons.
They may never do it,
or grow better on another’s tree
but they are sweet and fascinating
soft to hold in the moonlight,
lightly protected
to see what they do.

Some wrap too tightly to your branch
suffocating themselves
and stripping your bark raw
in their need.
Neither can grow this way.
Cut them loose, watch them drift
quietly to the ground
and start again

Knowing
that there are butterflies
who will delicately awaken
your belly
kiss your heart into light,
thrive off the precious
hidden nectar of trust.
With them you will ride
the warm breezes of change
with gentle grace,
evolve
and evolve again
dancing
laughing
migrating so far
your tiny strength together
will stun you.

They may fly away
or you will,
wings may disintegrate in salty tears.
Or you’ll never stop flying with them.
Either way
you’ll begin to see
your own colors are more vivid
your nectars more delicious
welling in your blossoms,
bottomless.

“I love the way the birds usher in the morning,”
you said,
as we listened to them
through windows framing tree branches
dark silhouettes brightening in the rising sun
like paintings coming alive,
your warm face against mine
smiling, the painter
of this life I didn’t know I could have.
“It’s like they’re so excited to start the day.”

It started out like a wound,

You will learn in time
to stay warm at any cost
choosing the spiced tea over the floral
Doubling, tripling your socks
You’ll let the pounds settle on your hips like protective arms
and resent them later as the year turns teenaged
You’ll watch for foxes
force bulbs from their slumbers on your windowsill
desperate for color as you look out at the bleak lawn
sighing at what once thrilled you.

Someday I think
I am going to finally take this for granted
accept that the other shoe
is not actually going to suddenly drop
and stamp out all of this precious,
hard won sweetness
that is my life right now.

It will no longer feel fragile
and amazing to me
like the first tiny bright buds in spring,
clinging impossibly
in the last of winter’s winds.

It will no longer surprise me.
It will just be my sweet,
vibrant,
delicious life,
perfectly normal to me someday.

But not today.