I like when you wear red.
it puts fire back in your skin
a heat on your breathagain

Cuidado - tantas curvas y yo sin freno!

i want to know who your suicide notes are addressed to now by ari

in the swimming pool, my sister takes 

pictures of my feet ballet position,
back upright, arms on hips.
"make waves like this"
i make waves like this and she takes pictures of them. 
i float on my back under water,
three feet from above water and i try to recite poetry
i wrote a year ago 
i come up and still wonder if i'm able to hear anything but my bones cracking under there. 
it isnt long before i realize i can hold my breath longer than i could last week and 
i feel like i am seconds away from death. 

june 18th, 4 in the morning,
3,000 miles away the pills are being shipped out of her stomach and i know they've been back stroking through there for too long. 

(i get out of the pool and she tells me 
what's happened and where she's taking it from here)
i say i love her and i say it as more than a friend. 
i say it because i have to 
i say it because at one point, her suicide notes were addressed to me and i dont know who reads her new ones now.
i say it because nine months ago,
i made her breathe and only breathe and
i stayed awake while she slept on the other line.
i say it because i have been those pills in her gut but also i have been 
the days when she has been clean. 
i say i love you and i dont stop. 

i still feel like i'm under water.

The way we talk about talent, it makes it seem as if it were a consistent, driving force. Something restless and in a constant state of being. The few times I have been told I have it - talent - I doubted it's very existence. I feel I have been talented at different points in my life; I have done something exceptional, I have felt I'm doing it, whatever it is, right. To the fullest extent. But soon after I feel it wane and quiver and sometimes it is lost all together. But however much of a gift it is,or however many moments in which you reach one potential, there is always another and talent - ebbing and flowing, one moment a seemingly tangible thing, the next dissipated and unreachable - is never constant. It is another daily struggle. A worthy and admirable one, but a struggle nonetheless.

mama

I'm taller than you now - that's okay, I'll
perch my head on your shoulder like a bird, ruffle my
feathers in your warmth, share your
sunlight

some people may feel like home
but mama, you feel like the freshness in something new only to me.
an old side table, the perfect size, a goodwill find.
using a new word for the first time,
learning that you've been able to do something
extraordinary all your life, you just never knew
it was extraordinary because it felt
natural.

but to compare you to anything is an injustice.
you are a complete world in yourself.

we are, all of us, all the people that we have previously been.
we all reside in our future selves and
carry our past within us, though some carry more
than just the knowledge. Some tote it behind them - carry it to the top of that pyramid
until they realize the last pyramids were completed in roughly 1800 - 1700 BC,
and it's too late to find a new base to build on.

but mama, you somehow found a way to start building from the middle, out.
from the top, down.You found a bit of earth to dig out,
build around.

tailspin

I wish I could 

do a cartwheel, justso I could know 

what it feels like.    wish I could 

sing out loud   whenever 

just so I could let you know

I have more breath in me 

than these few 

words