// i dragged you straight into muddy ground //

 it is always in the naked, vulnerable moments right before sleep sweeps through my bones. 

Do you think

if we just stopped for a second

i could gather all that is near to me, my emotions and this mess that is in me, 

and lay it out on the floor, piece by piece (like i do when packing for one of my road-trips). Let’s assess, let’s collect, let me stand with one hand on my chin and my eyes filled with memories i can’t unsee.

I want to wear sea-foam colored soft sweaters and never brush my hair. I want to collect my artifacts and my books, walk up the side of these lone foothills, 

sit by myself and marinate in my sadness. 

Remember wen i used to wear those shoes?  Long before they got buried in the chaos of my closet.  Remember when i wore the old lady jeans and the same striped shirt i still have, the same purse i have been using again-

many colors,  lots of textures.

I am often lost to myself.

But here, under the wind of grace, 

like when she taught me to dive into waves //

(but then that's another thing)- the ceaseless, unresting, unrelenting force of waves, 

the ocean, over and over and over again. 

I want to erase it.  I want to gather my shame and bury it under a pile of rocks so high and wide they have to build a bridge just to see around it.  I want to rest in the arms of something I barely know.

I’m feeling dangerous and overlooked, ignored and frustrated. 

I remember my first collection of plants.  So small, they fit on a plate, on a stool, in front of the piano.

I have

An uncontrollable unfathomably deep drop of sadness.  I drown, i hide my face in my coat sleeve, 

I am within myself. I squeeze my eyes shut in pain. 

(two years ago) the winter wheat

is beginning to show it’s color, some growth. 

march is always a strange month for me. aching and groaning against the bonds of stubborn chill and frost. 

once, many months ago, the girls drove in to visit. i wore overalls, the sun was warm, it was windy. i wasn’t bored. 

my car is very quiet. it’s unusual for it to be this calm, not windy, 

(just the breath of a breeze testing the long prairie grasses still burnt with golden death from late fall).

and i wonder if that house can see me like i see it. 

I wonder if it knows I sit here and watch, hidden in these hills,

like i watch you, from hidden in my heart. 

She said I should be proud 

that they don't understand how 

being called that-

hurts my sensitive soul. 

and to be proud of the ways in which I feel my way through the world // almost as if every single blade of grass I see with my eyes also touches my fingertips. 

I, however, 

made a list of things i want to do in this season that will begin this week. I want to feel like the clouds are not pressing down on me.

it's funny, however.

 

It felt as if all of heaven and earth came crashing down and sitting up all around me 

As I lay on the ground 

Back to the earth and arms outstretched with palms up. 

I am scared.

So this is who I am now. 

Ice. On weekend nights. Stumbling after the sundown. 

I remember an evening in late October, a song floating around a white garage, still touched by summers clinging vines of familiarity. I didn’t want to move on. Complacency, an unexpected knife to my throat. 

It was both rare and not so rare. I forced my sister into posing for a film portrait, sitting in the backyard, I fancy myself more than I am. A body that is bigger and made of stars and thunderheads boiling along the edge of green prairie. 

And here I am again. Fading. 

Your gaze. It made me feel like I was worth looking at. 

Is it so wrong to be all tied up like this? Or am I just telling myself that because somehow- that night and that hope but also the distance in an October almost three years ago, it all ties into now. The faces and the feelings. A tenderness, a newness, but also, the strongest penchant for leaving ever felt. Again and again and again. 

I look back into the colors and see my life peppered with the twisting of my leaving, again and again and again. Freedom, I say. I like being free. 

(But is it maybe fear I'm not trying to address here?)

Why? Are some days made so easily for leaving but other days I am all tied up. 

Because except for the soft moments when falling asleep or waking, that’s what you feel like. 

Tied up. 

Staying and leaving. Tugging, pulling, sitting. 

My heart in my hands. It belongs to me, fully. 

Normally tucked away where few have seen (but it does belong to me),

 It’s funny

however

don’t know why I keep showing it to you. 

 

that's the thing

and then sometimes I find myself f a l l i n g down around myself.

how strange- 

how strange indeed.

roll the dice, melt the fire,

burn the ice. 

I'm not sure if things are getting easier or if I'm just getting better at ignoring things.

but that's the thing 

//about laying on my bed

//about taking a deep breath

//about remembering His presence

//about this weird thing and these pieces we hold in our hands

of each other.

where were you when I was still kind

(november 1)

I will avoid saying the things that come to mind

In effort to drum up some miniscule portion of creativity.

I am afraid of love.

I willingly capture it so eagerly with my weaker left palm

But my stronger right arm londs it closer but will not grasp.

Do you know what it’s like to sit on the edge

And hate it

And not be able to move

where were you when I was softer

like spring leaves on tender branches

dreaming of the day someone would be able to understand my thoughts and forced poetic predispositions.

now there is space for healing (and that is good)

but with the spaces comes miles and miles of distance from the inner workings of my brain 

which is continually filled by the hum of other human bodies around mine in close proximity 

(but not too close, we are still in a pandemic, after all)

now I eat salted lime tortilla chips on my bed and wish that I had had bought fruit instead. 

oh, think of me often, loosen my coffin

before the end of the month of march

when we all fell into a deep but frenzied sleep-

there were dreams of tomorrow.

(now, just some dreams)

there is a feeling that is like a hunger,

it is like running towards and running away, all at once.

(how do the pages make something so difficult in my mind, look so easy)

I used to sketch the outlines of trees

and sip warm lattes out of ceramic mugs 

at our favorite table.

now caution tape surrounds those things

like the unspoken words wrapped around the circumference of my thoughts.

(there shouldn't be a boundary)

but this,

like many other things-

which should be allowed to roam free-

are now teathered.

(full of love and loathing)