I have never held you,
but at night when I am drifting off --

My arm is wrapped around you,
your back pressed to my chest.
My lips rest gently against your
shoulder as you sleep.

The baby is beside you.
My hand finds the cup of his thigh.
I remember, from watching you rest
on the way to the waterfall,
that your forehead twitches.

His does too.

I remember who we were last March.
And last July. And seven years ago.

You remember who you ran away
from in Maine.
I am not her.

I am not the woman that you
didn't say goodbye to.
That you didn't text
before you disappeared.

I am the woman who loves you.
Even after all of those question marks.
Even after all of these commas.

I am older, and wiser, and more patient.
I am a lot of things, and become
something newer everyday.
I am someone that you could be proud of.
That he could be proud of.

I am a history of hanging on,
and sweet, run on, over-exaggerated,
poetically justified sentences.

I am the one you never see, period.

I’m “skinny-fat” my best
friend said, tugging at skin
stretched taut against her frame.
I could tell she believed there
was something to grab onto.
“She must be crazy.” I thought.
 
I have flab and wrinkles,
but most of them I’ve
earned by eating really good
food and laughing too hard.
I’ve never once cried
over a slice of pizza.
 
My mother tells me that
I am beautiful, but I have her
metabolism. That I won’t
be able to eat like this forever.
I tell her that I’m lucky to have
gotten anything from her.
 
My ex used to tell me
that I felt like a woman,
that my curves wrapped
around her like a blanket.
That she liked the way
they held her against me.
 
Later, when we broke up,
She told me to keep the
exercise equipment.
That I needed it more than
she did. That my curves
would soon be roundabouts.
 
It amazed me how a blanket
became an embarrassment.
How my figure became a
target. How she could stop
loving something she held
so tightly the years before.
 
No longer being gazed upon by a
forgiving eye, I stopped seeing
my reflection through a rose-
colored lover’s lens. Under
darker scrutiny my body
became no longer my own.
 
It went to the magazines, and
the movies, the teacher in high
school who wrapped his hands
around my ribcage, squeezed tightly
beneath my breasts and exclaimed,
“THIS is your waist.”
 
I let him.
I let them all.
 
And here she stands, still
mashing her skin out like putty.
I'm beside her, fingers shaking,
pushing and pulling parts of
me that might make “this”
look a little better.
 
We will do anything for
a photograph, but will do
nothing for happiness. By the
time my body stretches enough
to carry a child I hope that my
perspective has changed.
 
I do not want them to --
male, female, or other --
carry the insecurities that
I have. I want them to see
themselves through the
biased eyes of their mother.
 
My body, and their body,
her body and your body,
Will somebody please tell me
what normal looks like,
because we are all beautiful
and not a single one the same. ​

I miss telling you I miss you.
The way you used that crooked smile.
The way you pulled me tighter after
midnight.

I miss the random phone calls
Asking if we have sugar,
Or if I'd like you to grab something
on the way.

I miss our closeness.
Not only between our bodies.
I miss the Mariachi music outside your
window.

I miss your struggling sensitivity,
And your easy understanding.
I miss how I never missed you before you
left me.

 
A friend told me recently
that she considers winter in
California over by February.
 
That means that I made it.
I survived my very first winter
without you.
 
It’s amazing how life fills in
the gaps. One minute
you were so, very, there.
 
The next, I was living in
an alternate universe.
One where you didn’t exist.
 
There are things that I miss
about you, still. Your opinion.
Your mind. Your eyes.
 
They were warm.
A sunny day in Chicago warm.
A day at the beach warm.
 
I have always been cold.
Known for holding onto the things
that push me away.
 
It’s not over for me, even after
all this time. Who else would
I write about at midnight?
 
 
 

It happens without
warning.
Life is normal.
We're functioning.
And then one day
we're not.

A heart stops
beating,
a life ends,
and what we're
left with are these
fluid motions.

We carry on,
but with a thread
unraveled.
A broken heart.
An aching memory.

Remind the people
you love each day
that they make
your world brighter.

When the light
disappears,
you'll hope that you
captured their glow
in photographs,
or letters.
Silent reflections
of the heart.

Even when
she was gone,
I could feel her
through soft fabrics
and midnight sweats.
 
I could hear her
in the ocean waves,
and the hum of
the metro.
 
Through the
rumbling base
of the city
she was still
alive.
Still filling us
up with her love.
 
She was a legend,
and I stood by,
pen in hand,
hoping for
a sign.

​I’m afraid to do this again.
Fall in love with a machine.
 
My fingers find those familiar
buttons that text me to you;
a thousand miles away, but
available from 6am to 8pm central.
 
Your heart is occupied by a
conveniently familiar face.
I expect to fall for you anyway.
All I can offer are snapshots.
 
What is it about distance
that makes me feel so safe?
What is it about you that
always brings me back? 

We the people of the United  
States of America in order to form
a more perfect Union have dug
a grave,
leaving a gaping hole for our
helpless children to fall into.
 
“Draw your weapons.”
we preach at our sons.
“Hide your broken pieces.”
We whisper to our daughters.
Smog fills our lungs, but
we choke on apologies.
 
The Constitution has become
to many of “the people”
what the Bible has become
for some of the Faith;
a reference point to abide
by or ignore as seen fit.
 
Even the Old Testament
was ratified to suit the times.
Still, we watch on
daily
As tiny fingers and bright eyes
Fall, blood-covered, to the ground.
They are not indestructible.
 
Bullets rip through families
leaving a nation shaken and torn.
“We must protect ourselves!”
Some cry out, guns lifted to the sky.
as another schoolyard is splattered
with the futures of innocents.
 
Who are we to believe that
our “right to bear arms” is
more important than the lives
of people slain around us?
What God would defend this?
What human would demand it?
 
 
In a country where we “Shoot first,
and ask questions later,”
what about this great nation
do we still dare to be proud of?
 
When hearts become as cold as
the streets our homeless sleep on,
and we turn a blind eye to persons
arriving near-death on rafts and debris,
our children learn that “WE the people”
can’t be bothered by compassion.
 
This great nation, much like those
once-beating hearts, can fall.
Divided by fear and hate, we pick
ourselves off, saving ammunition
for the enemy, which yet again
is only another scared human being.
 
We cannot trust our government.
We can’t trust our neighbors, friends,
families or our basic instincts.
We can’t trust even ourselves,
for we are the ones who’ve brought
this death and destruction upon us.
 
 
 
 
 

​My shoulders always felt
heavier when you were around.
Your words pushed me down
between the sidewalk cracks,
and there I found the straws
of my mothers overworked back –
all stacked together, waiting
to be blown down by the big bad.
 
I found solace in the undertones
of silence as I regaled memories
from my childhood in my mind.
I couldn’t find those darker places
that you swore must exist inside
of me. Never in your life had
you ever met someone who
was born to save the world.
 
I am not afraid of being myself.
I’ve always been happy with
the skin that I’ve grown into,
and I like the way that it feels
to love myself again. I can’t
fix you, but I can always hope
that one day you’ll love yourself
with the same forgiveness.