My poison has always been this:
thinking things will get better
when they never do.
I am always alone.
Even when I’m not.
I am trying to take that away from myself.
I don’t want to be like this anymore.
I remember when I thought you were a stream,
my quiet spot in a secluded forest.
A therapist once told me to build a happy place,
I never told her that you were it.
Me and you
alone in a forest.
Not talking,
just holding each other.
I regret that every poem is about you.
I regret that you are a poem.
I regret that I am not a song you catch yourself singing.
I regret that I catch myself watching you in the bar.
I regret hoping that you are watching me.
I regret the balloon of happiness in my chest
when my friend whispered,
“he can’t keep his eyes off you.”
I regret wearing lipstick because
I know how much you like my mouth.
I resent that you are not a stream,
but an ocean with barrel waves
and I cannot swim.

—Amanda La Valley

My lips are a moon
that every man in the world
refuses to kiss.
The dark side,
the back side,
facing the stars.
Naked and shivering.
My fingers are duck feathers,
fluffy down,
inside a pillow,
dusting across your questions,
answering your lies.

Antarctica was covered in forests
one hundred million years ago.
You don’t love me anymore.
I’m drawing conclusions.

You blow on my neck in the middle of the night,
like I am a cup of tea.
Please take a sip of me.
I push my hips back against you
and pray it is enough.

The night I left you,
I felt light.
Not the kind that shines,
the kind that makes you float.
I smiled at a stranger on the way home.
I thought,
‘if my coffee is less than $3 
I will never see him again’
and when the cashier asked for 2.79,
I left a dollar tip
so I can learn to make my own decisions.

I named a color after you, you know.
I spent hours mixing it on my palette,
it is the one just between red and pink.
Raspberries, rhubarb, radishes.
I taped leaves to my shoulders,
glued the cracks in my fingers back together.
I unlaced my boots and, into the darkness,
I whispered to nobody
‘consume me.’

Your move.

I don’t get sad anymore when the birds fly away.
I am gloriously numb,
like a limb that’s been removed.
What do they call that?
A phantom.
I can feel myself,
but I’m not here anymore,

I’ve been working on this poem
where you ask me where I’ve been
and I have the courage to tell you to fuck off.
Where I can’t remember
your hands on her belly
and it didn’t feel like a punch in my gut
to see her follow you back to your room.
Where sand sticks to our skin when we fuck
and I bite your throat like a branch
reaching up reaching up reaching up
and it’s over,
I know that now.
It took me loving you to realize
you’re not worth it anymore.
it took me trying to define “long”
to understand that there are worse things than being alone.
There is a reason birds have holes through their bones.

My heart is a flower that only blooms in moon beams
I say, “okay.”
I say, “give me your worst.”
But I’m not really ready for it.
I have gotten so good at hiding under the blankets.
I wish I could list this as a skill on job applications.
Other things I am good at:
Licking the spoon, brewing coffee, feeling sorry for myself.
You were in my dream last night.
I met your family.
You kissed me in front of everybody.
I miss you.
I miss the person you weren’t.
My heart is a flower made from moon dust in moon beams.
I water it with the tears I shed when I am sure you are not looking and the last few drops of beer I don’t finish from each bottle.
I dig a grave,
Place the shoebox in.
You don’t know, but it’s full of flower petals.
I kiss my fingers,
Say a prayer,
And vow to never speak your name aloud again.
I can come just by thinking about your eyes.
The sadness there.
You’re beautiful.
Your hands on your things,
The bones of your ankles,
The bob of your Adam’s apple when you swallow.
Your body is a song I’ve never heard,
Or a poem I’ve never wrote,
Or a bird who has never flown.
You are the flight contained within a set of wings.
You are maybe,
You are hope,
You are chance.
I know I should give up on you,
But it’s not what I want.

I keep having this dream where you live in my house
and you tell me, “I never asked you for anything.”
and then we make love but it feels like I owe you something
and when it’s over,
you’re gone and I look for you a long time
but never find you.

I. Smoke and Clouds

I said “come closer, I don’t want to be alone.”
He let me put my arms around him
and whispered in my ear, “you’ll be alone forever”
and he went back inside.

II. What the Fire Said

I am probably a ghost,
a punished soul,
wandering.

III. Give Me My Coat

“I’m in love with him
and I just want to leave.”

IV. Perspicuous

Why are you always trying to change grown men?

I want everything to be red.
I hate myself sometimes.
I don’t tell people that.
I don’t write poems.
I don’t know how.
Something inside me does it.
My fingers do it.
Something in my hand.
My poem hand monster
who is knocking on the inside of the closet door
who wants to get out
who is also
afraid
of the dark.
who whispers a question
because he knows he is alone.
who whispers a secret
who swipes at a tear
who is angry because he is not
happy, beautiful, loved.
who knows you can’t be loved
unless you are happy.
who curses cycles
and dark closets.
there aren’t skeletons in the closet,
there are monsters
but they want to get out,
not to scare you,
but to see Paris,
or try to make soap,
I mean,
he has his own dreams
he doesn’t care about giving you bad ones.

Sometimes I get to thinking about
trees without leaves and how come
they can make it
when I can’t.
but I remember the leaves wash away in the fall.
He used to ask me why I paint my rivers black
until I took a drag off my cigarette,
crossed my arms,
and just smiled.
No talking.
Silence is so powerful.
Like a freezing fucking forest at night
near the river your sister drowned in when she was a baby
under the same stars the ancient Romans gazed upon
and named
and who gave them the fucking right?
Those stars are more mine than theirs
and more mine than yours
and mine mine mine.
I get that way sometimes.
I’ve been carving paper
and making clothes.
I’ve been getting so good at being sad.
The knife cutting the crisp white,
the needle piercing the cloth.
this is not about my flesh
although I have thought about that too.
the piano keys being pressed
my heart is a stringed instrument
that not even the angels know how to play.
my blood is clouds.
My throat is a piece of cotton.
I want to float away.
my fingers are feathers trapped in an hourglass
but my arms are iron weights
and he laughs in my face
when I try to save her.
HELP she says
HELP ME and waves and then gurgles
and then there is no more
and that is why I paint my rivers black
because if I put colors,
I am afraid to see her swimming in them
but I would never tell him that
because he doesn’t need to know.
she is mine
the river is mine.
my secrets, my fears, my desires
are mine.
the day I decide to die,
I will paint a river so bright you could see through the canvas
and fall through it to open, waiting arms.

Today I etched
the sands of the sahara
into my palms
and carried telephone wires upon my back
so I could try to talk to you
somewhere
anywhere
walking walking walking.
I broke the bread,
spread the jam,
kept walking.
birds called out to me,
men with offers,
tigers, et.al.
I stopped for no one.
ages and ages and universes and multiverses.
men with dogs,
the salty taste in my mouth.
This is not about traveling,
or a desert,
or you and me.
I am not writing about you.
This is not a poem.
This is not a song I sing to help myself fall asleep.
This is not a tune I hum when I am sad.
This is not a prayer,
a wish,
a hope,
a longing.
Your hand on my ribs.
My heart in my mouth.
This is not what I want.
This is not what I want.
Something has broken inside me
but there are birds coming out of the opening between the pieces.
I know how to define all colors now,
I can paint,
I can see the sky for what it is.
Brush the curls out of my eyes,
sigh.