this is how it works
you're young until you're not
you love until you don't
you try until you can't
you laugh until you cry
you cry until you laugh
and everyone must breathe
until their dying breath

now this is how it works
you peer inside yourself
you take the things you like
and try to love the things you took
and then you take that love you made
and stick it into some
someone else's heart
pumping someone else's blood
and walking arm in arm
you hope it don't get harmed
but even if it does
you'll just do it all again

too far away to tell you my knees hurt
but still close enough that i can hear you breathe in my ear
'oh, kelia'

when you tell me
'i told you so'
or
'i tried to warn you'

i will only be mad at myself for not listening to anything
but 'oh, kelia'

​can only hug me one armed
knights under a fan that shakes
as my legs go their own way
too far gone into loving you
say you love me in some ways too
concerned with your own knees
to worry about mine how can i
willingly put myself in your bed
do you think that maybe when
you leave me for dead
you won’t miss me if you die too!

a loverboy that didn’t last
an agreement
maybe it wasn’t supposed to

i can add him to the list
i’ve got going in my head

‘ones who left’

never wrote it down because
i think it might change

a loverboy who held my head
the 30th time he found me
spinning in circles
chasing neon with whiskey

held it until the morning after
brought me water in a mug
‘you’re a cool girl, can i see you tonight’
and then never called

i can write about him
until i find someone new

loverboy who i wasn’t ready to lose
just yet

he asked ‘yet’?
and i corrected
‘ever’

loverboy who left me little crumbs
to eat
after he took me home for dinner

he says he’s ‘not in the right place
for loving a girl like you’
and i roll my eyes, toss my socks into the corner
‘yet?’ i ask

‘ever’

A single year strikes long
in the tooth of night
When all you do is wait.
For fear—we go, we climb
and drag ourselves out of
despair.

A hole we dug ourselves,
affixed to the nails, beneath
the skin, and dusted with a
smile.

It was only a year,
I say, but to believe?
There are only so many
lies I can permit myself
to tell.

At the end of the wait,
behind the chime of a
client that strikes its
golden mark at the corner
of my screen?

There.
I found it in the eaves
between a thumb and forefinger.
I found it in a conversation,
where words were written.

Where voices failed.
Where stories sat only
to tell.

Like we used to laugh
To talk
We created our own melody
Our own music

But that
Didn't seem enough
for you
you needed more
More variation
More attention

And our music
Became heavier
rougher
Exactly the music
You liked

The last seconds
went in
And our very own
Melody
Ripped apart
Crushed
And ended

In that,
the tiny pushpins
that invade my clumsy pulse.
In that
I find you
in that-
the electric scarf
I wear around my neck
Insomuch I find
you choke me
so I am not wordless,
I am not without screaming-
dripping and falling from my lips
wrapped like gifts of mortar
more out than in
no I am not wordless.
I see you and tiny electric pulses
dance on me
dice through me
I feel you
touch so perfect
like a violin string
strung-
strung taught
tight against my mouth
tight against you leaving.
I am sensory.
I am sound that bounces angry
I am sound that chisels
the prayers of the prayer wheels
upon the bumps of my spine.
listen, listen
for your footfalls
and you will touch me,
perfect touch
of space and air
and fingertips that have no bones
no skin
just a note on a
cello-of a touch
and a kiss from behind my neck
a strangle,
such the kiss is tight.
tiny electric pulses through me,
oh, love,
for the tiny electric pulses
that bounce through,
move me.
prayers on the prayer wheel
spinning.
sahn 01/22/15