revive

i write you off
but the ink is invisible,
will always be.
whatever your last word was
it will stay on my skin
and shiver
so i hope it is no word at all
but a touch.
do you hear me
when i curse at you through walls
for never catching
when you could have
when my heart falls.
but i can't wait
for you to hook me again.
breathe me with life
so i can die again.
i'm quite sure that you know
where i'm hiding.
waiting for the touch on my shoulder
has me trembling
and alive again.


a.w.

wax orchards

i will save a place for this
with the certain words
that my memory likes to pet
the street names
and lake names
and foreign words for avocado
china mountain
wax orchards.
i will cover you with tags
a bit like an autopsy
a bit like a charm bracelet
and the whir of the wind
will flap them
but not shake them.
i have my ways of keeping track.

i know what medications you're on
i will not mix the right moment with the wrong touch
i am like a pharmacist
in that.

if i tell you my favorite flower
and you never hand me one
does that mean you don't love me.
i should not think like that.


a.w.

extra covers ep

like a tire

somehow i know
there might be nothing
worse to you
than being cared for.
i turn this thought over
on the nights
when i need more air
when you've made me a fish
on the carpet
yet i am the one
wanting to save you
in my fantasy
still.

i was falling in love
but i promise
i stopped,
like the staccato violence
of a baseball in a glove.

if you had wanted sacrifice
instead
i would have slashed myself like a tire

if you had wanted breath
i would have given you my deepest one

in moments of the night
i may find myself grateful
that you didn't want these things,
that each beat of my heart
is another beat you let me keep
another sleep you let me sleep.

because if you were thirsty
after your bad dreams,
some of mine are sweet
and i would have found a way
to siphon them
like a worm into your ear.

i saw pinholes in you,
i wanted you to be the slits
of silver that came out,
that one time your heartbeat sped up,
that is the you i wrap myself around.
drink enough and you will surpass
even my most exalted statements
spool the night out
and you'll break all the encasements
but it's just pinholes and whiskey
and if you wanted to be here
you would be here
where your place is.

i only want the bees and butterflies
who found their own way here,
i never armed myself
with any pins
to put in their pretty wings
because it's not the same thing.

i didn't say anything to trick you.
did you say anything to trick me?
my love, i don't mind.

bookends

the song i would write you now
is different
because my hands have broken down
but not just that
it's that all of me
is humming in lower sounds

there were days
when you were too lovely to write about
and my hands instead
were the ones trying to tell you
what was in me
trying to get out

but the rest of the time
i was diligent with my homework
trying to be a healer and a singer and a poet
anything that you think
we dropped behind us
i went back and got it

anything you haven't figured out yet
i already knew it
and forgot it

the girl writes the poem
about the first touch and the pet name
about the morning
and the kiss in the rain
and even about the broken glass
and the heart pain

but not about the first day
she forgot to think about you
and everything went on just the same



a.w.

thunder

last night
the sky made thunder
like sheets of metal
thrown down the street
toward the lake
and if there were a glass of water
beside my bed
i believe it would shake.
and even when the sun was dim
a different green plant
suddenly turned red or purple
unwarned in my own garden.
how dare you
i've been keeping my earthquakes
to myself
and all of the colors i would have turned
instead i held my breath
i watched you
just wrote some words down
and was like a leaking tap
that could've filled the bath
but instead whispered
down the drain.



a.w.

in dreams

if i could sleep
i would use my dreams
to summon you to me
that fish bowl of the night
that you can't swim from.
that power we think we have
in dreaming of one another,
as though you were sleepwalking
and now you will never know
the things you did
that i have seen...

but in my day
and in my sleep
i don't get to do the things i want to
except in those last fleeting moments
one two three
when my eyes start to see
things that aren't there
but my heart still feels
full of real-life.
blur my worlds together
and bring you to me.
i wish i was better at this.
i could make it last longer.

i think the fiercer
i encircle you in my sleep
the gentler i touch you
in the daylight.
the more i pull away
the more you will know
that you have me.
every night
as i drift off
like a good-bye
on a platform
and i can't say anything grand
if i don't know where you're going
because i am careful with my heart
but i am not careful
enough.

one two three
is all it takes
to wake up with my heart
beating like a race horse
that ran all night long
while i was sleeping.

it is written
like a fortune.
constant as a pulse,
crushed as my pillow,
and as sweet as sleep.



a.w.

torches

i miss being
in the front
of each others' minds
knowing we privately smile
at the same time
the draught in this house
puts all the candles out
faster than i could ever light them

it's the same with kisses
and escalators
if you wait too long
it will never be the right time

the light's changed
we never took the polaroid
we never accidentally fell asleep
on the sofa
i never found out
what you would call me
when you open your eyes in the morning
i had guesses

but even i
have no interest in torches
that have fallen into the water


a.w.

blood poem

bend the space
for me
i don't want to be
opposite corners of the fitted sheet
don't make me have to memorize
your colors
don't want to be the one
taking minutes
because the point of being with you
is being with you.
i thought i told you
how i need your blood
how just mine pumping
doesn't push enough
and just like everything
with you is,
one drop is enough,
is all i want.
the promise i make
is to only take
what i need to keep breathing
i am someone to be lost at sea with
all of the rations are yours
except for that one drop
my love.


a.w.

purple juice

i have come to learn
that you don't know how to take me.
if you were picking blackberries
you would have the purple juice
all over your fingers
that heartbreaking moment
as a child
when you tear your first leg from a spider
all by accident
with the rim of a cup
that you were trying to save
i'll pretend
pretend that you're heartbroken
by the things you've spilled
the moments you kill
by laughing
out of the corner of your mouth.

i hardly ever fall
but when i do
i expect to be caught.

a.w.

spokes

there is no such thing as a long night
or a short night
each minute is the distance
of eyelash to eyelash
dandelion spokes
everything in nature is even and steady
like my fingers splayed apart
but some of the minutes hurt
and some of them are saccharine
and some of them i would've looked at so much harder
like you just laughed
and i was listening to the sound
and i didn't count the lines at the corner of your eyes
and let me relive it now
again
for each of the senses
and let me see both sides of your profile
at once.
they won't replay it for me.
but i do.
that is love.
taking one moment
and bringing it back to life
like a vampire.
knowing you touched me
and knowing it must've been the warmest thing in the world
but i was so busy holding my breath
i didn't even get to feel it.

a.w.