this is how i became: naive/heart on my sleeve/easily deceived.

home is where:

i leave my purse unattended,
sit on public toilet seats,

&

without looking

cross busied streets...

have friends that pick me up
with wilting flowers & a sign,
knowing that i can love love love,
no matter how much or little time
i have to say
i'll stay & call you mine.


michigan has taught me bad habits,
i chase dreams like
foxes chase rabbits

& leave my passport on tables,
and doors unlocked

trust strangers with my bag of mess &
know the backroads when m-22 is blocked.


home is where,
it's always warm
i'm always known
i'm always half-grown.

and with cold cheeks
& only two too short weeks


i hope we can rearrange
this county like the romans to the greeks.






(i love you leelanau.)

foul weathered foes i never needed to know.

my thoughts have become unoriginal

unfinished paint-by-number portraits

that will never move anyone.

the way my mind can

take even the brightest of colors

& make them rain-soaked gray

is suffocating.

but this body is not my own anymore.

these bones clank awkwardly against each other,

knobby knees and hips that forgot their sway

next to a pile of old letters back Home

toss & turn through the night.

& with bit tongue and split lips

i spit teeth and words out of a mouth that

does not remember what it's like to kiss

an honest person.

(of all the foul weathered foes

i never needed to know

is the one i've created

in a mirror,

made with smoke.)

it sounds like spring but feels like winter.

i just don't know

anything or myself

guess i'm drowing in dust

on this too far to reach shelf

& self-preservation

has become more like self-destruction

and no one understands

how hollow i've become...

you tell me 'don't run',

you tell me i'm fine,

but you haven't been listening

this entire time.

(it's not a lie when i say i'm falling behind.)

dangling.

i hang on your last word

like a noose,

and if this is love

i pray you'll cut me loose.

lately i've been feeling low

lower than i thought i'd ever go,

and lately i've been ten new shades of blue...

but maybe,

just maybe...

if you tell me that you'll save me

then i could finally stop myself from wanting you.

run on.

fall flavored whispers & wishes of winter kisses on foreheads of long lost lovers turned into true friends under covers forever for better and better but wonder why the silence is draining all hush hushed complaining complying all the time trying to see above the trees stop the tears and start flying start falling it's love and it's calling out names of the past just don't look back for too long 'cause all that was familiar is now simply gone.