Yellow

When my cousins and I were

young enough to build forts using

binder clips and blankets,

we used to sit and listen

to Elton John

croon to the circular rhythm

of the square-bladed fan.

It was wonderful to

talk about the stars as if

they were right above us,

dusty and simple and yellow.

My cousin Juliet was my best friend

and always will be because

when her younger brother Gabriel

invited himself to our world

she welcomed him before I did.

The first time he joined us

we listened to Billy Joel

as if the instruments that sounded

like flutes filled with Jell-O

were there just for us

and the pillows.

Gabe fit in easily enough,

and we were happy to have

the company for games.

I only realized I was too big

for the fort when

we tried to invite someone else

into it. Liam was

small enough that his head touched

air where mine lapped up blanket,

and yet I couldn’t understand

until the whole thing shook

like a leaf and

drifted slowly to the ground

taking the yellowing stars

with it.

Imported Ingredients

I hate my name,

though my mother gave it  

for my birthday.

I hate it because it isn’t mine.

It isn’t like the stars,

it cannot stretch like they can.

My name sounds exactly the same

no matter who points to it.

I want to feel like

my body isn’t just

imported ingredients:

something taken from

something else,

my name yet another thing

on the list of

what I do not own.

I no longer wish to be

disappointed by my lack

of an individualized label.

And God,

I just want to hear

my name

and I don’t want to turn around

expectantly

every single time.

Unjustifiably Pink Clouds Draft II

The unjustifiably pink clouds

wash over me and I blink

to allow the flowing waves to crash.

Your voice clicks like icicles in the sunshine:

a memory unwelcomed.

I know the guilt,

but what I do not know

is why you,

why now.

You are not here to tell me that

the clouds are pink for a reason.

Reducing their beauty

to a science

I will not remember in the morning.

If I had to choose again

I would choose the same.

I know you told me

never to answer the questions

you were asked when you were a kid

but it isn’t fair because what you are

is only half

of what I see when I look in the mirror.

And yes, I know that the future is blank

more blank than the moon on this starless night,

but the only way to write the future

is to use the utensils of the past.

I remember the past because

when faced with a choice before,

I have always snuck my way

into both decisions.

With precision, I am able to

cling to a compromise

like the green from your eyes

has clung so vibrantly to mine.

Everything I am,

every little piece of me,

broke that night

on the front porch of my house.

It was the night that neither of us knew

we were going to say goodbye

and God, I would give anything

to give that goodbye right back.

But instead, I must pick up the pieces

and reassemble them to let the puzzle

continue.

It’s difficult to be torn apart.

But the day I am whole will be the day I learn

how to say goodbye to everyone who has told me

what I need to hold myself together.

Childhood

Too often when I was younger,

I would lose my best friend and cousin

Juliet

when I closed my eyes, and for a moment

lived in the other half of my world.

She was always discoverable,

and in the same place too:

nestled among the unrelatable

adult conversations.

I always envied her childlike wonder

invested in big foreign things,

and when my own eye skipped over something

I frowned to know Juliet picked it up, and,

skipping it like a stone,

never failed like I failed

to try.

I think Juliet was always ready to

grow up in a way I never was.

Though I was envious,

I mostly loved her

in a way I didn’t love myself.

Too late did I realize that

in order to be a part

of adult conversations,

the only thing a child has to do

is be present.

Marrow

One of the worst things to do in this world

is develop a fear of dying

young.

Because the way I see it,

we are only alive by chance.

I could have died yesterday,

disappearing into the wind more quickly than

I was to take my very first breath.

No, I am much more afraid

of living too long.

I never want to be older than people on

television commercials and

I want to laugh at the same things

as my children.

I would rather live rushed

and die in my mid-thirties

than die at the turn of the century,

because the way I see it

a safe life is a life

barely lived at all.

I want to move to the Amazon rainforest

and I want to die

swinging from a vine on a tree branch

laughing and watching as the sun

melts like a lava lamp.

Little drips of sunshine

swallowing my breaths and eventually

taking my essence like

the top of a soft drink sucks carbonation bubbles

from the bottom.

I would rather die tomorrow than be

inhaled gently by my pillow,

surrounded by those

left longer than me.

Into the Wild

When I am cold,

I like to imagine Christopher McCandless

hitchhiking to Alaska

in a car reeking

of Hawaiian music.

Perhaps while he listened,

he stared right out the windshield

and understood the stars

as a bunch of frozen peas:

scattered and the same

whether frozen or not.

I belong in the winter

he would say

I belong with white rabbits and I

deserve to have the sun kiss me

cruelly with light.

Soon with every breath I take

I will feel the wind chill my lungs.

And for a second,

I believe in it.

I believe in snowflakes and

icicles and

short days and

lonely nights.

But suddenly I remember--

Alexander Supertramp died

facedown

with his lips frozen to the

floorboards of an abandoned bus.

Through the window of your hands,

my fingers trace scars

and I am reminded of the tideline.

I didn’t know the sea could be so black,

but I suppose I should have known:  

loss is dark because

it takes more than one color

to make.  

Take me from the shoreline

I want to understand

what wild is elsewhere.

If you write me

notes in the dark,

I swear it will feel better

than a promise.

I want to understand

why you don’t sleep

when the sun goes down.

Embrace me with your sorrows,

convince me no one is ever

who they say

I’m not the one who broke you

and you’ll never understand how much

that hurts.