you always leave, even when you're there

I try to find the words 

yet they are honey-covered

horse shit compared to 

what I want to say. 

What I could say 

if I ever grew a backbone. 

If I ever learned how I got to

this page of the story. 

When I cried was it to quell 

my own fears,

or to give you a purpose? 

Who am I, if not in relation to you? 

Yet how powerful I become

in your absence. 

I thought I wanted to know you

and people are quick to condemn

a daughter that says no,

I don't really have that type,

that special type, 

of relationship with my mother. 

I wouldn't know.

Because I am just the sloughed off 

skin;

My mother's daughter. 

For Bill

I burst into fragments 

of myself

when you died. 

The child that needed a dad

who changed their oil 

and kept his promises. 

The adult that gained a new 

perspective on work

and life

and what it's like to live solidly 

with regret. 

The model of a partner 

that sticks it out

for a presence on the couch,

in hardware stores,

and at our door. 

The "retired people" person

if only just beginning

to walk down the path

of becoming. 

I entwine our stories 

because I don't know what it's like

to love so fiercely 

and be loved 

without condition,

without placeholder,

or hierarchy. 

I close my eyes and see you at Christmas,

terrifically proud,

of your electrical switches, 

capable of turning off or on;

your face lit up:

pure joy at having "lost" the gift exchange. 

As my eyelids lift, 

I hold my palms open

hoping that you have found rest;

the absence of pain;

the presence of peace.

Love,

your daughter, in practice.  

simple and small; a poem for the morning

I woke up

and forgot

you were mad at me. 

bliss lives in the nuance 

between our sheets. 

The rhythm of our breathing,

joining,

and sleep states.

Beta, alpha, theta, delta; 

they all hold the space 

between anger 

and desire

like book ends. 

I can't stop thinking 

of loving you 

for all of time. 

here and now and never before

"I'm not the problem," I say.  

"A creak of a floorboard.

The feeling when my fingers graze the light switch. 

Every pore is a dichotomy 

between what is and what could be. 

An illusion

of control."

She told me to trust my body; 

its shakes and hurricanes. 

There's a moment 

when everything will make sense. 

Bore straight through the center, 

but use a shovel. 

On the right, there's shrapnel from a bullet I took when I was young. 

On the left, something more solid and whole that never stops. 

I cried when I realized I was broken, my eyelids like glass shattering

the diamond that lives inside of me,

endlessly,

until my body bursts apart and is buried. 

The rocks that formed me,

layer by layer, 

become the sediment in the cave

where fireflies sing behind my ears. 

I want the tears to wash down from my head to my toes, 

so I can feel 

like myself again. 

permissive

Sometimes I float away

under the blanket I share with you. 

I become a daughter, a mother, a Queen.

Those nights when I reign

and don't know what to do. 

I sleep more soundly 

when I am calling all of the shots. 

The creator of life.

This feeling tastes like impermenance:

copper and burnt coffee.

Nights when you were too high 

to sleep. 

This waiting is retching

over and over. 

An itch that builds like a passion

and spills over to scars. 

Did you forget? 

I am broken too. 

we walked along the same path since we were children

There are shards of glass in my eyes.

Fragments of you.