[x]

He's Not Heavy1.
Sometimes,
I don't want to be
a mother.
Sometimes, his big blue eyes
are just barely enough
to ground me.

There are nights,
I want to pack a suitcase,
walk out the door,
and never ever look back.

There are mornings,
I want to throw the baby
monitor against the wall,
watch it shatter,
and pull the covers back
up over my head.

2.
Sometimes,
I see him watching me,
silently, in the corner
of my eye,
and when I finally turn
to face him,
he smiles.

Sometimes, he climbs into
my lap, rests his head on
my breast and pats the arm
I've draped across his
legs-

without words, he teaches
me how to forgive.

I Only KnowThere are at least
thirty-seven thousand ways
to get from here to there.

here,
where your body fits
next to my body, your breaths
match my breaths; your
escape-
paradise, sanctuary, utopia-
surrounds my escape.

there,
where you and I are not
the same; where your edges
break against my smooth,
your rises coalesce with
my falls, your
d i s t a n c e s
clatter against my presence.

thirty-seven thousand ways
at least,
but I only know one.

I only know the way the thumping
of your heart leads to the pressing
of our lips-
I only know the here and there that
pales, insignificant
to

the you and me.

Confession in Five Parts1.21.13

i.
my mother asked me, "don't
you love yourself in the winter?"
i said, "no, not really," but
i really meant to say
"hardly at all."

ii.
i am disconnected,
double jointed,
arm out of socket,
breath out of lungs.

i know a cold that you don't.
it reaches deep down into my
bones and whispers, "quiver",
with such authority that even
the muscles in my chest comply.

iv.
please, don't teach me your name
if you are going to leave.

you are the one person
i couldn't handle losing
because everybody leaves
but you.

v.
i want to learn to breathe
like i used to, i want to
feel warm air in my lungs,
not catastrophes

a listthings i'm not sure of (anymore?):

- how to love someone
- how to let someone love me
- how to forgive
- how to forget
- how to read people
- how to believe people
- how to call bs (on the right things)
- how to mean something
- how to breathe
- how to stop
- how to feel
- how to not

voicelessi.
I lost my voice one day. I woke up to a hollow echo in the base my throat and knew I’d lost something special before I’d ever had a chance to say anything worthwhile. I checked under the bed and tried the lost and found, but couldn’t even ask if anyone had heard it lately.

ii.
I found my voice one day. I took long walks with silent friends, made travel plans and came home tired but fulfilled. I pulled a pen from the junk drawer, or sat down at a keyboard, or bought a journal on a whim and found it curled up around my fingers, sleeping, rusty, but alive.

Untouchedquestion marks rest
on his parted lips in eternal curiosity -
unconditional love's open-mouthed kiss;

flower petal cheeks
and poster child eyes for the hopeful -
I pray he never sees the world for what it is.

90.it was always a god damned contest with you.
my bones were charcoal grey and too heavy
well yours were pitch fucking black and unbearably so
i couldn't breathe when someone said that one name
you literally did stop breathing.
i hit you.
you stayed still.
the white traveled even faster
than your hands did
to shove the bloody things
down your fucking throat.
and i blamed myself
and i hate you for that
you unbelievable bastard.

Midwestern Roadmapsi.

wine-fed confessions
are what brought us together;
with a stir of paint chips and skin,
we made clumsy love on the concrete
of a condemned factory,
moving in the shadows of machinery
that loomed like winter trees
or judgmental Gods
who still stopped to smell the alcohol
in our pores.

ii.

"will you pass me a cigarette
and along with that sign your lust
on the paper that will gray in a flicker,
bitter acrid and addictive
like the first high of tobacco—
a euphoric quiver
that lasted only a minute,
gone when you inhaled your second
seeking the same."

iii.

indiana is the land of crossroads,
where the wind blows
to find a better des

a town i don't want to call mineon the right of the turquoise green sign
that welcomes you to columbia,
there are two gas stations and a church.
on the left side, there’s a morgue.

when i was five years old, my father pulled over
and stopped on the side of the road while black car
after black car passed us, going the other way.
“did we know them?” i asked.
“no,” he said, putting the car in drive. “but someone did.”

at seven, mr. jimmy down at the ice cream shop
let me have free samples of all the new flavors he made
before he put them out to the public.
a favor, he called it, for his little henry.

(years later i would realize t

Decemberhe laid her life out in polaroid amid the dark blue tendrils of a dying december; it was all he had left after summer had taken the rest.

SenescenseI aged half my life
in one evening:
landed on a fall moon,
full of red and the howl
of wolves.

Harbor womb to a fox
more wild than my birdhands,
my vernal equinox,
his twitter-pated harvest
moon.

feral child, disquiet;
I aged half my life,
wept fifty years;

birthed reincarnation,
hallowed redemption.

ily2i wrote a poem for you because
you make me believe in happily ever afters,
romantic suicides and the fact that one day
i might not break everything i touch.

i don’t know what i’m going to do in four years
because i can’t comprehend a life without you.
and i hate you for it.
you’re just so—

you adjust my skirt and give me a pair of jeans
and say, “don’t let society make you .”
you stay up late with me to watch the sun set
only to wake me up early to see it rise.

you guide me out of the way of
already-broken leaves and
piggy-back me straight into puddles and snowdrifts.
you steal pieces from

Ocean-childThe ocean has whipped the bones within her into a frenzy; they clatter loudly, violently, as the wind shakes the silt from hair burnt the colour of autumn.
She breathes deeply. Shakily. She imagines, for a moment, that her bones sound like wind chimes, tinkling softly under the starlight; but the moment passes. Even wind chimes sound ugly when the wind gets too strong - and it has.
It strips him from her skin in too-thick layers. She watches him drift away within the embrace of his newest lover, cloud-tipped fingers holding him in all the places she never could.
When she thinks about it she feels nauseous. She wonders the things that everyon

fast-forward through the goodbyesthis is the beginning of the end
“i know you,” he says.
and he looks defeated, he looks sad, he looks like
he's a boy who may one day realize how much
he cares for you, so you cut him off and say,
“minus all the secrets i don’t tell anyone.”
“well, yeah, minus those.”
“then you don’t know me at all.”

and then you tell him,
i love you. but you don’t use those words
because those are taboo. are jinxed.
are knock on wood three times fast.
instead you press him in a hug and say,
i’m sorry, knowing he won’t understand
that this is the first time you ever cared for some

Wildflowers, Imperfect BirdsI breathed your name like wildflowers under vast broken skies, in wide-open spaces. The wind blowing through them spoke of dew and dirt and petrichor, and there was sunlight on the ground like a mosaic patterned by god's own hands.

I said it like a monarch claiming new land: a declaration, a butterfly breath over old earth; like it was coffee on a warm morning with the sun in my eyes, interlacing with my lashes; like it was a dream; like it was a prayer like it was a miracle wrought of air and bone and body: you, in, out, in, out, in and in and in.

I cried it out like an earthquake between lip and lip, continents that don't quite fit: your

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10 Months

by *RiseandBe, Jan 17, 2013, 3:07:29 PM
Literature / Poetry / Family Life / Free Verse

i.
He looks at me with smiles
crystalline in eyes as big as the sky
but more blue.

&.
He may be fascinated by
everything,
but he doesn't love anything
as much as he loves
me.

ii.
He wears joy on his hands,
and his mouth opens wide to the sky
when it rains.

&.
I wish anything was
half as beautiful to me
as everything is to him.

10 Monthsby *RiseandBe

Literature / Poetry / Family Life / Free Verse

©2013 *RiseandBe

For Gaby.

Day 17

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~~neutral 0 0~~

~violetense Feb 5, 2013 Student Writer

I really like the pacing here and the way you've formed the stanzas; it makes it a little less formal with the ampersands instead of numbering each break. Lovely work.

Reply

*RiseandBe Feb 6, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you! I appreciate that.

Reply

Mood: Love

~summerday27 Jan 21, 2013 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

This is amazing. The way you can craft such emotions, amazes me. You are an astonishing poet. I am forever in love with your work. It's so heart touching, and truly beautiful.

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*RiseandBe Jan 21, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Oh my goodness!

Thank you so much!

That really means a lot to me.

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~summerday27 Feb 16, 2013 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

You're very welcome. I'm really glad my comment means that much, haha

Reply

Mood: Joy

~tickersymbol Jan 17, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

I love the little beats of stanzas, so as not to miss a step.... You captured those cherished moments beautifully.

Reply

*RiseandBe Jan 18, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you!

Reply

*0hgravity Jan 17, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

lovely final stanza.

Reply

*RiseandBe Jan 18, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you.

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