poetry is red wine and rum,
your words dancing around me 
like butterflies in the dawn
youre the girl i think about
you say, and you fold into me
like the way chocolate chips fold
into cookie dough batter,
baked to perfection, 
i love you, you say
ive loved you for so long, i whisper
ive always known this moment existed
suspended in time somewhere
waiting for us to reach it,
and here we are.
its poetry, i swear. 

everywhere i turn,
there you are.
haunting me like a fucking ghost,
haven't you done enough?
why am i good enough to fuck,
but not good enough,
for anything else? 
and why the fuck do i love you
so much it takes my breath away. 
rest, already, please,
just let me be.
let me be.

hi, yes, hello,
i like reading and plants
thanks for asking,
do you want to see them
thanks for letting me show you.
im probably going to go for a run.
hanging at my moms, you? 
hi, how was your weekend?
hi, how are you? 
hi! i love to hike.
here are my favorite places.
do you want to actually go sometime? 
silence. 

you can love yourself to death,
but it's still awful lonely 
talking to yourself. 
excitement, nothing but an echo.

i am vanilla chai in a mug that tells you
im a plant person, fresh bought from target, 
only two or three or four hours ago,
i am dirty fingernails, and chipped paint, and
and split ends with blond streaks, 
because thats how much the sun loves me
and i buy conditioner, but i dont use it 
because it takes too much time.
i never understood people who took long showers,
but i will sit in the bath with tea or breakfast
and even then, the water gets cold
or i get too sweaty, and whats the point then,
of being clean, if you are leaking salt water
from your pores, so i get out, 
and sometimes i sit on the toilet lid,
contemplating life and scrolling through my phone
and i wonder if i am depressed again
or if i'm just doing this because i'm weird like that.
i am running, when your knees burn 
because i dont drink enough water,
but the endorphins make me forget
that i've been sad, so i keep going 
and i know how far it is to the car wash
and to the fire department,
and to the end of the sidewalk; smells like
laundry detergent in front of the laundromat,
which is the sort of thing you'd expect,
and the stench of grease and garlic bread
turns your insides queasy by the pizza place.
im dancing in the kitchen, baking something
it could be bread or cookies or cupcakes
and probably i had to google some kind of substitution
how do you make whole milk from powdered skim?
it calls for a teaspon of vanilla. 
i give it a tablespoon. maybe two. or three.
causes thats what my mama does.
except she just pours in it til it feels right. 
except shes not my mama, that's a long story.
im the color yellow. yellow flowers at the supermarket,
4.99 because you saw them and you thought of me,
yellow dresses, yellow mugs, yellow teeth sometimes
if i drink too much coffee, maybe thats why they don't like me.
yellow is the color of the sun and happiness, 
and if my soul is any color, i hope it's yellow.
i am coffee on the deck looking out;
mountains whispering to me from the clouds,
trees calling my name, while my lover sleeps close by;
i am loneliness that weighs more that my weighted blanket
but isn't at all comforting; tastes like the inside of a cup
that wasn't rinsed all the way, it's bitter and chemical
and the taste makes you scrunch your face, 
and sometimes you rinse it out with a hundred dating apps,
swipe, swipe, swipe - and sometimes you just chug it down
because i'd rather be bitter than give up the tea,
i am vanilla chai, in a mug, that tells you i'm a plant person. 
 

i did it again today. 
i tiptoed into the unknown,
danced softly into the wild
of something new and precarious.
i took the sunshine in my hands
and brought it home with me,
for a while, just for a while. 
and so even if it rains,
it's supposed to rain tomorrow,
i will still have the memory.

you said,
maybe you should find a boyfriend.
except,
i don't want a boyfriend.
i want yellow flowers,
from the grocery store 
just because.
just because you saw them,
and thought of me. 
i want mountains,
sweat and earth and sun,
or maybe the stinging cold of the rain,
and the wind whispering our names.
i want warm nights, 
too warm for anything other
than sweet, sweet skin.
i want to drown so slowly in the depths of you 
that i never knew i was under water.
i want a lot of things, soft things, wild th things,
but i do not want a boyfriend.

you are like a stoplight, stuck on yellow,
and i never know if i am supposed to stop,
should i stop, is there time for that?
or should i press the gas to the floor?
i dont know how to navigate you,
like a back road, gravel and rutted
with no map and no sense of direction.
hot one minute, cold the next,
like the new weather brought by climate change 

i wanted to show you my plants,
my tiny little seedlings i grew,
leggy green things with tiny leaves,
birthed in dirt in tiny cups and plastic wrap
from sunshine and seeds,
right in my kitchen window.
i wanted to show you,
to see you smile, with you head cocked to the side
laughter in your eyes, 
"that's nice, real nice. you did good!"
i can hear it in my head,
but you said,
why can't you send a picture? 
and my heart just aches. 
i just wanted to show you my plants,
baby watermelons and cantaloupes,
and beans, and sunflowers. 

its a red wine midnight, and
i am listening to the wsh, wsh, wsh
of water swirling through the dishwasher
sitting at my table, trying to figure out,
how to love less loudly, differently,
but i do not know how
and perhaps i do not really want to be different. 
i am whole.
multiplying fish and loaves.
and it's okay, to be that way,
even if it makes you ache inside, sometimes.