the most beautiful place we know

Take the time to listen to your own silence without judgment. It may frighten you at first. After all, it is absence. It may make room for sadness you have not been allowing yourself to feel. It may reveal holes in your life's fabric, past or present. It may point you to truths you are not ready to accept. But listen anyway. Be still. Your silence is a fingerprint; it is uniquely yours. And it will begin to fill you up. It will begin to hum quietly, like heat pumping through an old house. You will start to wonder, dream: return. You will start to love your own company so deeply. Your light will become self-evident. You will start to question how you ever ignored it. You may find yourself asking for the opinions of others less often. Your decisions will start to feel solid under your feet. Or you may just find a million questions that you are no rush to answer. All this, in silence. 

i am dark and only half complete. there are memories of marigold and magenta that i can't find when the sun is awake my chest is one of drawers, knobbed and sliding i only rifle through the top ones, hastily looking for something to wear for the day. at night i come home to this chest, the drawers below, still untouched.

The way to you is a mystery. I often crouch in the corners of late afternoons, hiding from you avoiding your hurricane gaze There is bliss when I wake up to you in mornings, but you leave before I've had the chance to put the kettle on Teardrops water you, but suddenly, you are spontaneous joy. and I can no longer find you in dark spots in dust knots, in the inquiry that makes my bones ache Though forested, I know my way Though I tremble at the sight of you, you are love. I sigh with closed eyes; my sight is intangible but my longing corporeal. could I evaporate you into sweet bayou air and inhale the way I take in a stranger's cigarette smoke on a snow-swirled sidewalk, I would. I want to write you a letter, saying we are waiting for each other. but I know you are the one doing the waiting, and I am the one moving my feet towards you.

wonder what it’s like to be written on a body they’re all marked up either way: memories tattooed into the valleys that wrinkles make, words scrawled across the knots in knuckles wonder what it’s like to have been in that room where your mamma held you and you learned how to scream, learned how to grab a person’s arm when you wanted attention and when that attention became a friendship, you still screamed to be heard wonder what it’s like to walk down those streets, hands in your pocket, Singing a much different song than the one I sang when I walked down my streets, my hands swinging beside me. we’re scrolls, because we keep unraveling – there’s always more room to write. Scratch your etchings on me so they’ll become part of the décor that people have to pull back the curtains to see. I like to keep the curtains closed. you wonder what it’s like to be written on a body? it’s a little like setting the table for guests who ne...

I never knew a human being could be so very many things at once Never knew she could love the way cornflakes stick together when they're drenched The same way she loves feeling like stolen glitter when the moon comes out. Never knew she could want to be wrapped tight, feeling warm and Still want to conquer the world, boldly, valiantly, with every last nerve standing on end And every last breath lit on fire Gasoline, embers, hot tea. Never knew this human could want to be fiercely brilliant And still fiercely loving Loved Tender; Could tap into iron clad, deep in the bone strength Only for it to dissolve when she arrives in the arms of mother. I never knew a human could want everything in the world And nothing at all, Just as content to publish a library of great books As to pass her days in sunshine. To live is not final. 

calming to think we all spent our Thursday nights contemplating our chains, wondering if we’ll be trapped all our lives. all I need is a little time, a tiny bit of a moment. To wonder. and if I find a drop of anything that tastes like truth, I will never stop drinking. let my existence be ocean-wide, somersaults of salty waves, for that’s the only way any of us get someplace. I could fill the rafters if I wanted to but someone told me once you have to practice for moments like these but I never knew. so my breathless air stays trapped around my throat, and my bright-wild eyes are the only things looking up because down here feels so small and up there feels too wide. cold tiles hard benches scream my body move they say chances come in fragments but I can’t make a mosaic out of bent pieces so when the light comes in, I’ll fold my dreary knees, succumb to the warm-drench drink in the colored glass in shards at my feet say a prayer, graciously depart; unlik...

Chasing dreams. As if they're darting, impish sprites. And we, the frantic pursuers, have our nets at the ready. Nothing about life, to me, seems like a chase. Perhaps I'm too slow and so the race becomes a farce and I am left standing breathless and windblown at the starting gate. But I'd rather sink into dreams. Or nestle softly in them. Or even dance them around a crowded terrace on an ultraviolet night. I am no pursuer of dreams. Dreams are fields full of daisies and I couldn't pick all of them if I tried; the bouquet would be too decadent for my simple country table. I am. by definition, highly capable of saying nothing I mean and, in doing so, saying everything I could possibly mean. There's nothing in a dream that can't be found by lying in the sun, staring at orange-darkened eyelids.