collecting my bones

Blossom and Bone

you threw
this day out
in front of me like ugly dice

what an unimaginable hand
this day has dealt
you
but I can’t know
which way
I don’t know which way
to care about you
I don’t know the way
to get to you
I don’t know where
inside this horror this space this distance or place
where in this horrifying day
you
have gone

there is a collection of bones
you carry around
a morbid bouquet
of roses long dead
petals and thorns and stems
long stems
long tear trails and stories
long stories and years cut short
cut
smoothly by the blade
of decision or whim
precision incision
to end them

they’re not flowers
not flowers you said
they rattle they rattle they rattle
not feelings
not that not that
too brittle too dry too unable to cry
they remind you
just here to remind
you
that you are not like them
not yet
not like them
not ended
not yet

if I quiet my beating
that beating
if I quiet my heart I can hear
that rattle that rattle that rattle
and follow the sound I will find you
in the boneyard of this horrible day
picking out new reminders
to add to that brittle bouquet

this boneyard
created by hands
on that blade
whose decisions
were made
whose decisions were made
about thoughts about choices of
which path to take and the steps
and the steps
and decisions
were made
to swing
that blade

cutting short
what might have been long
breaking down
what might have endured
putting out
what might have burned bright
to end
to end
to end
to ending it

and the hands that raised that blade
sometimes belonged to the bones
but many reminders you now collect
were decisions you wielded alone

know this
bone collector

as long as
I’m walking beside you
as long as
I’m smiling at you
as long as
my hand is in your hand
my bones are residing
with you

know
they are not for collecting
they are only to have and to hold
a warm tender living reminder
that you don’t
you just don’t have to go
you don’t have to go
to that boneyard
not yet
because you are not ended
not yet
not yet

you are
not like them
you are like me
I am not ended
I never will be

you are not like them
not cut short not bent down
not broken
not brittle not dry
you don’t rattle and
you can cry
you can open all the way up
you can dive all the way down
to plant a kiss on the floor of the ocean
and with only the breath in your lungs
can move clouds across the face of a mountain
and love with all the life in your heart
and dream about hope and believe in
anything
or in something
again

but I don’t want just to remind you
I just want you to never forget
if you need to remember
remember
or reach down and take hold
of my hand

because my bones won’t be piled with the others
they’ll never be rattling there
my bones won’t ever be ended
they’ll always forever be here
if you raise that blade upon me
if you choose that dead bouquet
if you wield that blade against memory
please gentle
gentle gentle as you swing
cause these bones will be
walking with me
these bones will be walking with me

come along with me
bone collector
put down that troublesome blade
come with me
memory gatherer
let all those dry bones
fall away

not yet will not follow you here

come collect me
into your arms
and I’ll remind you how to feel
life
come and gather me
gather me up
and I’ll remind you
how to feel
loved
and I’ll remind
you how to
love

About Up

If a bird couldn’t fly
And it perched
On a fence post
Precariously there
Wondering how to get down
~
If a bird couldn’t fly
Is how I feel
About you
~
If a bird couldn’t fly
And it was stuck there
On that post
Stuck there
With nowhere to go
But down
~
If that bird couldn’t fly
That’s how I feel
About you
~
Nowhere but down
Nowhere else
But down
~
If a bird couldn’t fly
That’s how it would feel
About up
~
And what about up?
What about up scares me
So much?
What about just jumping out
And catching
Up?
~
If a bird could fly
If a bird could fly
If a bird could fly
Off that precarious post
Out and up
Up and up
~
If a bird could fly
It wouldn’t be thinking
About down
~
And if I couldn’t
Love
I wouldn’t be thinking
About up
And I wouldn’t be thinking
About you
~
What about you?
What about you scares me
So much?
What about just jumping out
And catching
You?
~
Don’t you know?
~
You are
my Up
~
And I know that I can love
Because I can’t stop thinking
About
Up

Time Untold Me

Oh boy
A story
What’s this one gonna be about
I wonder
 ~
All about how you didn’t know
You didn’t mean to
It came out of nowhere
But you were thinking about me the whole
Time flies
Like bats from a cave
And I hear the echoes
 ~
It’s not that I want to own your time
To own your story
To say how it ends
Or how it begins
Or how and where we go from here
From this chasm of silence
The one you can’t bridge
With those stories
~
The chasm tells the story I want to hear
The words you won’t say
Those are the ones
Those words painted black
So I can’t see or hear them
Hidden words
Unspoken
~
The story is theirs
And I believe every word
Every unspoken word
Of the unavailable
Truth

those dusty boots

Boots on a Bench
She blew through this town on the way to wonderful and
When she came back, nobody knew who she was
But she was wonderful

Nobody bothered to dust her off
Back then
Her dusty boots
All scratchy and mud caked from that dirty road
That dirty road she walked

Nobody bothered to dust her off
That shiny she was
That shiny they never saw
Cause nobody bothered to dust her off

Nobody bothered cause what’s the point?
What’s the point when she’s always moving
Point A
Point B
Points in between
And unknown
Those points to wonderful
She was always going there
She was always going

She’s the kind of girl that takes the keys out of the ignition while the car is still in drive
Cause she just can’t wait to be there already
She wants to get out and go in already
She wants to be there already
She’s there already
But where are you?

I think you knew she was shiny
Back then
But you never dusted her off
You must have been waiting
For the dust
To settle

Now she’s back from wonderful
All wonderful and shit
The kind of wonderful you can’t not notice
Not now

She went places on that dirty road
Places and places and wonderful places
She learned things on that dirty road
Things and things and wonderful things
Now she knows about the people that live
In those places
And the things that they do
In those places
She knows wonderful things about wonderful people and the wonderful places they live

Wonderful is everywhere but here
Wonderful is everything but mine
Wonderful is everyone but me

But she’s the kind of wonderful that makes you look again
At yourself
She’s the kind of shiny that lights up
Everybody else
That wonderful kind that makes you look
At your own kind of shiny
Makes you look for your own dirty road
Makes you look for
That wonderful kind of you
Cause you’re dusty too.

Followers

Those broken women

With their unfeathered wings

With their messed up hair

And their naked eyes

Those broken women

With their tear stained necks

And their caved in chests

And their crooked legs

Those broken women

That can’t walk down their own road

~

Take me with you

You man you stronger man

Take me with you because I can’t walk on these hay straw legs

These weak wobbly crooked things

These things with no knees

These unbending soft stilts

These worthless

These worthless

These pointless dangling limbs

~

How can she go

How can she leave

Her legs don’t lead

They follow

Follow

Follow

~

She will never see that map

She will never touch that chart

That boundary that benchmark

She will never see the stars

See the sea

See the sky

See the air

See the clouds

See

See

See?

~

Those soft those sad women

With their black eyes and their grey souls

Those women

Those those those

Women

My heart.

I took my feet off the pedals but I was cranking them so hard, they’re still whirring. I can’t build up the velocity for my body to catch up with my heart. It’s spinning out of my chest. It’s spinning upward and away and I’ll never catch it. I’ll never catch it.

Why can’t my heart just float out, almost out, but always within grasp like theirs do? They don’t understand why I spin so hard, why I always look exhausted and not happy and floaty. It got away again. And I just have to wait for it to come back. It’s sad, the waiting.

They judge me because I don’t have a heart. Sometimes it feels like it’s running away when it goes. At first it’s so happy and so beating and so bright. Painfully bright and then beating so hard and it can’t be contained and it just… it just… goes. I can’t hold on.

And here he comes, to stand there and smile. His heart is there too. He looks happy and peaceful and he’s there and his heart. His heart is there too.

He’s raining on me with his words again. Like the mountainside and the tiny little flowers that grow against the rock. Only the gentlest of rain should fall on them. And his words are rain like that.

My wheels have stopped their spinning. In the stillness, I can hear myself breathing and my heart. My heart. My heart is here too.