my bark; your bite

The part of me that wants to beg you to stayis a firecracker optimist, all emphatic gesturesand...

The part of me that wants to beg you to stay
is a firecracker optimist, all emphatic gestures
and wide, spontaneous smiles.
It is the part of me that drew you in
and it is the part of me that kept you coming back
when you were still coming back,
but now I almost always have tired eyes,
wandering hands, a mouth that is slipping
into frowns more often than I like to admit;
and you are bursting at the seams in a small town.
I do not blame you. The sound of clock hands here
is thunderous; more than wide open spaces,
it is ceaseless, unyielding doldrums—
and fresh from the fight,
you’re not looking for calm seas.
I know you want to dig your hands into something,
find your favorite spot in a new town
with your arms wrapped around a better lover.

Summer will be cold without you here
and winter colder still.

Maybe the part of you that I will beg to stay,
to set up room in my chest even if you leave the windows open,
will be the singular, comma’s curve dimple that snuck out
on perfect Tuesday afternoons when we were
(yes, young now, but younger still)—young,
wide-eyed with pits of hope in the centers of us
instead of fear or dread or pity or anxiety
(things we picked up gradually, things I am still picking up
and not knowing how to put down).

Once you wrote me a letter and you said
“I know it always sounds like I’m saying goodbye, but I’m not”
and you were right. I love you for that;
I always will.

I am the one saying goodbye.

I read so many love poems about forever(my soul, I swear, will be chasing yours forever)and I...

I read so many love poems about forever
(my soul, I swear, will be chasing yours forever)
and I don’t know anything about forever.
I don’t know anything about a lot of things
but I certainly don’t know anything about forever.
I just know with a simple certainty
that I’d like to chase you now, to taste you now,
curl up with you and coffee now and maybe
tomorrow and maybe next week too.

Fingers like fish hooks,you pull words out of the depths of me:everything gutted out in the open.I...

Fingers like fish hooks,
you pull words out of the depths of me:
everything gutted out in the open.
I wonder sometimes if you do this to everyone,
if you smile at strangers and they spill at the mouths,
truth teeming up behind teeth and welling over —
or if I am just weak and easily fooled
by eloquent lines and pretty lures.

Sometimes I want to fuck you so bad I can’t even write a poem about it.

Sometimes I want to fuck you so bad I can’t even write a poem about it.

"What, Are You Afraid I Might Write A Poem About It?"

If I could have sprung through the phone tonight,
I would have.

Only it would have been less jumping for your throat,
more lunging for your mouth.

I know you don’t believe that.
You don’t have to.
I just have to say it: sit it out here gently,
unobtrusively, somewhere you might stumble across it,
might not.

You are bound to love a girl with flowers in her hair:something light and something free,someone...

You are bound to love a girl with flowers in her hair:
something light and something free,
someone with laugh lines — I can see it now even from a distance.
I do not know how to tell you that I dug up my roots
a long time along, lost all my petals
and never thought I’d need anything but thorns.

Nothing feels right when you’re gone, but nothing feels right when you’re here either.

Nothing feels right
when you’re
gone,

but nothing feels right
when you’re here
either.

I’ve been told that girls always fall for men like their fathers,but I found it a hard concept...

I’ve been told that girls always fall for men like their fathers,
but I found it a hard concept to grasp
when he was always gone
and I grew up on radio static and blackberry preserves.
I remember having smaller hands
and looking at him through wider eyes like everything
was so much grander
just because it was so much bigger than me
and he was so much bigger than me
so he must be grand too;
and for a long time I thought that he was
but now words like sweetheart and princess
make me straighten my back
and shuffle my feet: back and forth, back and forth
always on the move.
I am a runner — just like my father — only we prefer leaving
to lacing up sneakers and hitting the track.
The first boy that I loved used to kiss my forehead
and it sent chills down my spine every day
until one of his friends laughed and said:
what are you? her father?
and I realized why I liked his big hands so much more
than his sloppy mouth.
I used to bury my face in his clothes
because I liked the smell: cheap beer, cigarettes, Old Spice cologne
and I knew it from somewhere
I knew it from somewhere
I knew it from
the way way my father used to lean in
and smooth back my hair,
plant a kiss on my forehead.
Sometimes the noises of mouths still make me upset:
kissing, chewing, breathing, slurring speech.
Shouting makes my insides jump up my throat.
Once my mother said to me,
she said: you’re going to fall for men like your father;
I’m sorry—

and I wanted to ask her if that meant I would fall for a fighter
and a hard fist and a fast car,
boys on motorcycles,
people who ran from their problems,
midnight phone calls from the beds of other women,
slippery mouths with tongues that twisted truth like cherry stems

or if that meant I might just be comfortable with absence.

One day I might have to face the fact that your handswere not meant to fit into mine and your...

One day I might have to face the fact that your hands
were not meant to fit into mine and your mouth
was not made to sigh into dark next to me.
You were crafted for more important things, surely;
things that matter.

Under the influence of muddled mint and rum,I finally boxed up your old work shirtsand set them out...

Under the influence of muddled mint and rum,
I finally boxed up your old work shirts
and set them out with the trash.

I swear it was not in spite;
they were just things I had outgrown.

I am no painter,but you make me feel like my handsare made to part your paper:brushes for...

I am no painter,
but you make me feel like my hands
are made to part your paper:
brushes for fingertips,
watercolor tongue
hung up
on your canvas.

You wrote me the most in December. You wrote me until your bones were as bare as the treeswe walked...

You wrote me the most in December.

You wrote me until your bones were as bare as the trees
we walked under when you insisted we take the long way home.
You wrote me like you were feeding a fire, trying to keep warm
with words burning up — makeshift kindling when we had none to spare.
You wrote me with bloody knuckles, skin all cracked up from cold.
They say writing is bleeding on paper, but you were just bleeding.

I feel like peeling the skin off my bones. There is not enough aspirin in the house to get me where...

I feel like peeling the skin off my bones.
There is not enough aspirin in the house
to get me where I need to be tonight.

Even though we were making plans for next week,I knew I’d never see you again.I am familiar...

Even though we were making plans for next week,
I knew I’d never see you again.
I am familiar with leaving; I know its tells:
the way you wouldn’t put your hands back on me
or look me in the eye when we said our goodbyes.
You talked your way out of a hug
and I let you.

I spent a lot of time that night looking at your mouth
and wondering why I ever wanted it back on my skin.
There was no finesse; we did not fit.
I could never make good on my promises;
I do not think you expected me to.

We were both comfortable liars with tired eyes
when we smiled at each other and parted ways again;
lipstick slipping, sliding down my throat,
blouse unbuttoned, untucked—

When I opened my front door and adjusted my clothes,
I was more worried about the state of my hair
than you.

I have done this once a year for the past four years: given in and let my delusional head sink into...

I have done this once a year
for the past four years:
given in and let my delusional head
sink into the arms of a fantasy man.

I have made you up in my head—
not all of you, I know;

just the feel of your palms
and the taste of your mouth,
the bends of your knees
and your cold feet in my bed.

I am making a terrible mess of things
again, aren’t I? —crumpling up
the comfortable way you care
and dressing it up in simple affections,
reading between lines that have
never stood firm to begin with.

I am sorry.

It has been so long since I have
strapped a filter on my wicked mouth
in your company.

The next time that we speak,
I will pick my words carefully.
They will ring true,
but not too true.

I’ll spare you all of my pleading,
teasing, needing;
keep terms of endearment
trapped between my teeth.

I swear I can choke
everything down.

I have had so much practice.

2:36am I can’t get youand handcuffsout of my head.

2:36am

I can’t get you
and handcuffs
out of my head.

I cried every time you left.I always thought it would get easierwith repetition: like algebra, like...

I cried every time you left.
I always thought it would get easier
with repetition: like algebra, like sex,
like learning how to roller blade
and grazing knees, skinning palms
on gravel over and over
until you are used to the sting.

I never thought it would be
your returning that burned worse
than all the shallow goodbyes.

I did not figure silence into the equation.
I forgot to factor in growing up
and moving on.

Maybe we are too big now for all the things
that held us together for so long: show tunes and
nicknames and passing notes about boys we’d kissed
or only very much wanted to kiss
sometime,
preferably soon—

We are trading in childish things
for business suits and passports.

I do not think I care for this.

If we were still fresh and young,
sixteen years old with big, pink cheeks
and wide smiles,
I would have still written a poem about this;
but it would not have been passive acceptance.

I used to be adamant that
nothing
could ever tear us apart.

I was so sure I would always be
carrying part of you around with me
that I tattooed it on the inside of my arm
on impulse.

Good thing I still fucking like e.e. cummings.

I’m sorry.
I know I was never supposed to
write this poem down.

How many poems do you think I have written about fucking you? I’m not even sure anymore. Here...

How many poems
do you think I have written
about fucking you?

I’m not even sure
anymore.

Here is one for the road,
quick and to the point:

sometimes when we speak,
I let out tiny, involuntary whimpers
because we are talking about your day
but I am thinking about
the noises
your mouth would make
pressed between my thighs.

I still think I would give almost
anything
to watch you taste me.

After taxes, my last paycheck was eighty-six cents. I am still packing bags in my head. I’m...

After taxes,
my last paycheck was
eighty-six cents.

I am still packing bags
in my head.

I’m just not sure
where I’m going
anymore.

I Know You're Going To Say "No"

This is not so much a poem
as an admission of understanding.