All of our memories are ghosts
Shadows of broken knives
Sketches of passing time.
They sit still on lasting years
Cradled on puppet strings
Masked away history.
We forget that they wait
Embedded in a secret
Lost among sleep.
Let it be.

(If you knew this place as I know it)

I am not just me. I have never been just me. I am a patchwork of everything that has been done to me, and that has nothing to do with being just. I am not perfect because I have never experienced perfection, my life has never been picked through for the best footage. I’m bearing the weight of the dailies, every last one of them.

I am not a story. My body is not made of letters, no meticulous thought has gone into me, I have not been drafted and re-drafted until there are no spelling errors in my bones. That does not mean I cannot create stories. I may not be made of the things I write, but the pieces of the world around me are enough that I can give a little of myself to many while still being whole.

If you knew myself as I know me, you would hate it, too much, too little, unevenly and over-dramatically. I don’t know myself at all and too well, all at once.

If you knew this world as I know it, you would love it. Love it and hate it, hate it because it’s going and love it because you’re going with it. I will keep telling myself that different does not mean good or bad, but I’ll still miss picking a crimson leaf out of a stream of sunlight in the middle of snowy fall.

You would miss it. You would miss sleeping. You would miss not being scared. You would miss being able to love everyone. You would miss thinking that everyone was willing to love you. You would miss your friends being free and knowing what you wanted for Christmas and not worrying about being afraid to look in the mirror.

You would miss six feet of snow in November.

And you would love it. You would love knowing more, knowing better, knowing more clearly, more complexly, and more meaningfully. You would love knowing that spellcheck and calculators that do long division exist. You would love re-learning how to imagine the world, to question everything, to accept and believe, to understand a life that is not your own.

I am not just me. I have never been just me. I am not lonely. I am not alone.

(I'm sorry if I sometimes need reminding).

Mother, Father
I am six foot one and I can see over the trees
I can **** mountains and bury my bones in the soil
I am six foot one and I am just tall enough to see the truth
I can look over others but I can't look over myself
My shoulders bend like a bow, waiting to break
And I can feel it all. I can feel it all.

And to you,
May your temporary smile be a golden forever
And your heart existent with or without hope
Let your brain open doors your hands cannot touch
And your chest not collapse when the smoke is too much
To live and to love with you is the grandest adventure
And to cut myself on your edges, bleeds into itself
And to live in your heart, is the biggest place I've ever found
And to kiss you until my hands break and there is no sound

And to all of us,
We're a dark piece of trash
Ribs are a cage and holographic souls sing
Disenchanted by the human experience
We're pretentious and objectify everything

And to all of us,
We're all light, we're all eyes wondering wide
And we all shine bright, some of us cannot hide
May your hands slant, slowly slinging
towards the bells that are slowly ringing
and may you strike a chord in all of us.
May your existence be a temporary forever.

Don't kiss me.
My lips are rough-- pure scar tissue.
Torn,
from coughing up self-truths,
regrets, sobs, misunderstanding
and formal apologies--
I choke.
Gasp
   retch
      retch
         retch
They are always a lovely shade of red
swollen, bee-stung, sometimes bleeding,
I blot the stains,
but their shadowy ghosts remain,
haunting aches, and throbs.

Don't meet my eyes.
They are wells
one might fall into and break a leg.
They will take him out like a dying horse
and shoot him behind the barn
and bury him,
in the dank soil.
And I will come later, sorry, and put dying roses
in his dead hands.
But what for?
Company?
The dead are happy,
only misery wants company.

Don't reach for my hands.
I will hold it fast, at first,
soft anchor, and the fingers will hook into my skin,
but I, in uncertainty,
put my claws in
and then retract them, drawing blood
I never wanted on my hands.
I should have thought of this before.
I am sorry I did not.

Do not fall in love with me.