We saw the same street
with wildly different eyes.
Hers were sharp like an eagle’s
and mine were soft like a foggy day.
She didn’t like how I stood;
she preferred I lay down and take it
like she always had, no matter the man.
I only wanted direction from someone
who knew stars, not just smoke.

She was vaguely aware of miracles
but only as real as cartoons on a cereal box.
I got frustrated at her inability
to acknowledge how rain
washes away the day’s filth.
She would say, “it’ll come back again.”
And I understood because that’s why
I don’t make my bed most days.

When we’ve laughed,
it’s mostly been about how the world
is shit and people are shit
and things break all the time so why not
eat and smoke and take all because
fuck, it’s not going to end well, is it?

When she handed me the June petals,
I was still leaking afterbirth
but there was no embarrassment, only
a memory of a candlelit nave
cradling a stained glass rose.

Sea green

I knew a sea the color of the green tin roof
faded and shadowed
near the parking lot in town
and though it’s decades past,
the memory of warm sun and water
lifting my body as I floated
is fresh like this morning’s shower.
The afternoons were quiet
and nights dazzled with fire and music.
I was so young.
I don’t remember my skin before
lines and lumps but I recall a moment
of feeling my first break with reality
by choice- not the fantasy of a child.
A firm grasp of the unknown
and accepting fate while disappearing
in a pretend world,
filled with warmth where it counted.
It was a soft greenish sea
and I hadn’t faded yet.