unsent letters

unsent letter # 83


tonight i'm
missing you
i'm sure no one is surprised
someone mentioned your name
and i found myself
unexpectedly
crying
there was a wolf
at the door
and my curtains looked shredded
my tongue bled
a color
eerily
unred
i picked up a book you sent to me
once upon a time...
and saw your accusations
printed in
12 point font
so that i could
focus in on every blamebased
syllable
i dreamed i was lying on the
sidewalk
in front of your house
when the sun came up
i've been running
from that spot
ever since i woke

unsent letter # 82


i fell sleep next to you again
i know your arms are too big too hold me when i sink unpredeictably
but thats not something i can help
or i would want to
if you felt crowded
when you tried to
breathe
its because i was draped across your chest
and my tangled curls were probably tickling your face
annoyingly
its no so romantic
in reality
as we imagined all those
nights apart
the room too hot
and i turn
when you toss
i dream of somewhere
faraway
and the night noises of your
foreign dreams
are haunting me
startled i awake
to find you watching me
hazel heat in softset eyes
something breakable
and young
hidden there
in between these middle of the night
moments
your fingers
brush against my face
and its enough
its enough
to keep me close
for one more night

unsent letter #45
Just a hop skip and a freefall


Into the dragonfly winter
Pale blue you
Mixed into a palette of silverbell indifference
Tinny
Chiming out the reasons
To be alone this season
Tell it to the wisemen
They know already how
You can’t look at
That star anymore
How the pattern of forgiveness
Looks like the
Path a snake might make
In the desert
Shifting the sand with the weight of its mildbody
So the presence of a pinnacle queen
Pretends you into a brandnew fairytale
Where the end is just a beginning
And we go from living
Ever after
To the happily before
I cry against your murmurlips
Drowning eyelashes caging
In that soft sea of green
It’s a kiss that twists itself and
Melts into an eclipse of
The past
Until this is a deadend moment
And no one seems to mind

Baptized in snow
I kneel
And receive the blessings on
The back of my neck
Believing in the business of
Buying newborn glory
For everyone to see
I was a fighter before
I became a lover
And I never wanted to listen
To your broken clock
Bible stories
Until
The silence camped inside me
And sent smoke signals through
My etchless dream scenes

Now I compare
One hand to the other
North to south
Now I compare beauty
To breathless borders
Between the territory of the heart
And the land of liberty
Contemplating the curled
Imagining the same dusty flag
Carelessly unfurled
I compare words to the movements
That make them
The lips that swallow consonants whole
And ask for more
A valentine of vowels
Typed on your doorstep
Like footprints
Its inevitable
It’s the weather of shinedup boots
Blacking across the big night
Stamping out the moonwhite miracles
And the dyingspots of stick-on stars
From the ceiling of December

The symbol of a tree
Tattoo’d into the back of me
The mirrored mystery
Of the supersticions
Laced inside the locking ribs
And lacking a combination or key
And the tattletale tempo of the
Number three
How nothing important
Comes easily
I’m covertly crouching
Inside a Christmas eulogy
Burying the leftover London skyline
In a painting
That turned out grayer
Than I intended it to be

unsent letter #
hypothetical hypothermia


ambrosiababy
satindreamed wasteland
beige and brambled
that's how i dream
curledwrist
t
a
m
e
the tigers
in the fireplace
all drunk on december
all striped with the courage
to remember
vague lion licks
on a stomach of glass
and even this too
shall pass
i streak evil
its the greeneyed envy
that pushes you into the
naked frog well
come little queen
and tell me
show me what you mean
mister henderson was only
a twicetold anger machine
and tonight, littledrummer
i'm guessing you have no gift to bring
at least
not a thing
fit to lay before
a crying king

shake these (fists of) rain
voodooshallow
quick like a river
i have wicked words
i keep in a case of bloodredsnow
cramped into the shape of a stillbirthstone
warm enough to melt
this p u l s e
ice enough
to cause a shiver

careless christmas
calibrated like a crystal comet
that holds a cupid's candle
keep it boxed and locked away
in an abandoned kitchen
where the flames became too much to handle

this is my carol for a compound
fracture
a break in the ice
that grew thin
i skated the dervishballet
all year
waiting for (invisible redtides of)
traipsingtulips
to burst from my albino skin
the half that you hold
amputated from the cold
of the half that froze

f
..a
.....l
.......l
..........i
.............n
................g

in.

unsent letter #37
was, not is


i am
everything you are not
shimmer of skin
where you are still

i am rockpaperscissors
while you sleep
hands hidden

i am shytrees
in winter
covering my naked branches
with selfish snow
as you flaunt your pride
and jump two steps at a time
as if you could walk
on empty air

i am a voice that
ticks onto a page
and you are
music
pure sound
echoing in through my
heart
thicker than my own blood

i am
an abandoned building
built sturdy
but now outdated
and you are modern glass
busy
occupied
a model for the future
as i stand as a testament
of history
so here we are

i am
what was
and you are
what will be

and everyone knows
never the two shall meet

unsent letter #40
the arithmetic of me and you


you laugh
at the things i am afraid of

i laugh
because you are afraid of me

i give too much
because your eyes look sad
in the mornings
like there's something
you're missing
something you can't name

and you hate me for it
you say i dont give at all

i study the fossils
of this dead dinosaur
this beast so large
it can only be imagined
its extinction
as legendary
as its bite

i am so tired that even in dreams
i am exhausted
i dress in fluttering sounds
that only you could recognize
i ignore traffic signs
in memory of how you would
never stop

and sometimes that's all a year
adds up to
a january sense of
something
a marching flux of revolution
staring down your wartorn heart

a valentine mixture of sugar
and sweat
overkill of absolute
polished into shiny red
put it on credit
forget about the debt

may will always bail you out
rain you into a new river of
wrecklessness
somehow opposites
meet in the middle
in fairytales and
fables

and then you wake to find
you blew out the candles
and you're another year older
tattoo my mistakes into my
right arm
advertise my wishful thinking
that never came to be
your water poured into
this patch of my skin
bluer than it needs to be

and then its the cliche
of august and everything after
its a countdown to a beginning
that was really an end in disguise
some things really are worth waiting for
like the truth inbetween all the lies

all along i should have known
i was falling into an endless
november
stop all the clocks from ticking tonight
i broke open to bleed
so i wouldn't remember
but daylight has no mercy
for broken hearts
and it drug me right into december

now i keep my scars so well hidden
nobody knows where they are
they've all heard the rumours
and stare when i pass
they think any moment i'll fall
and they all think i'd take you back
if you asked me
and i guess its true that this year
was all you
but i sit here tonight
on december the twentieth
knowing in 11 days
you'll just be another person
i made the mistake of
getting too close to

you laugh
at the things i am afraid of

i laugh
because you're afraid too

sometimes we laugh because we
we don't know what else to do

so we drown in these desperate attempts
to make all our lies come true

sometimes that's all a year
adds up to...

unsent letter #33

dear you,

another day slipped by without the jinglebell magic that december is famous for. i guess because
i don't believe
in magic anymore
or because this december seems so much colder
than the ones before
am i growing old?
or have i simply given up?
i think of all the words we
made intimate
so that now they are like
landmines in my everyday language
not that you would notice
i saw how you erased me from yur vocabulary
but kept my coins to buy
another night of freedom

unsent letter #28
trembling, my trademark


trembling
my trademark
hands too small
too soft
a tomboy smile
i stood in the shower
ten minutes too long
tonight
i can't get you off
my sunburnt skin
and its winter
its winter
that's what you got me with
stabbing me with words so holy
a mock mercy and songs to console me
before you left me lying here
with nothing left to lose
that's what you got me with
the perfection of opposites
trembling
my trademark
the temperature tumbles
into belowfreezing
and my mind converts it
to celsius
automatically now
my mind converts everything
into your backwards world
still
like thinking in a foreign language
becomes second nature
you
became second nature
and i am tired
tonight
i trip tied at the ankles
tethered at the wrist
by the teasing touch
of my dreams
(are they nightmares?)
where you keep me
held in the net
of your violent voice
where you keep me
from moving on
trembling
my trademark
i twist
my sheets
and my tears are tattletales
when i tell you
i could care less
time is my ally
my only enemy
and my heart is titanic
i called it unsinkable
and it was the talk
of the town
it was
too good to be true
little did i know
it could never survive
a collision
with the iceberg
of you

unsent letter #17

not that there's anything left to say
not that there's anything in that box of your
things that makes you seem
less faraway
i have all these new friends
new ways to breathe
but i can't help but miss
the way
you breathed all over me
maybe it was unhealthy
the need
the speed of somersault sin
the spiraling summer we
were bound to drown in
at opposite times
in opposite ways
i still peek at that beautiful blue
as it sweeps across the morning sky
outside your window
as the sun flies up from my starstruck
evening inkwet and sensually smudged
i watch the water roll
the way only water knows how
and your laugh becomes a whisper
in imaginary trees
i still sleep curled at the foot of
your bed
like a ghost
with nowhere to go
but i'm new and improved
i don't cry or bruise
and i just thought you should know...

unsent letter #20
forfeit

Model me into the girldreamfairytale collossus in blackleather boots
And i will trip over your teeth when i smile or speak
Read me books you've never read in bed with a spark of flesh flaming under these heatsoaked clothes these cells dividing faster than anyone knows each new cell somehow surrounded by you
Killkiss my fingertips with blackeye blushing inside the ring where the referee is the minutes ticking indefinitely and i always knew it had to be her or me

Marauders in sheepskin counting the clouds between constellations constant elation
Aroused like suspicion while your paperback mother unfolds in the kitchen
Relive the last pages where the monsters are safely back in their cages and the coal is enough to last through the cold the rivets are straining but i know that they'll hold
Knifesleep sliced open by a mimicked memory of a girl who looks nothing sounds nothing like me and i can't help but remember how you laughed so easily

Maybe that was just the way your boyeyes cried carelessly
Always a little more melodramatic than me but you perfected your skill so silently so violently and even your hate sounded like poetry
Ripped from the lips of a dead dreamer crucified on a blackjuly mountain waiting for something holy to accuse him of angelbigamy the whitefeathered sins of childsized greed rearranged into innocent need that haunts you in your morning sleep and the promises
Kept like a chain around your grownman neck all the ways you broke that i never learned to expect and the dollar signs on your heart of the price the loaded dice and the ghosts you endlessly try to resurrect...

unsent letter #25
prophecy poem


I bless you with the sign of a teaspoon.
you told me there’s nowhere left to go
but I wouldn’t listen
to your littlegirl lies
and if I did I couldn’t let it show

I burn you with my ring of reason
slipped on fingers shiny cold
mythless kisses schemedup dreaming
the possession you prize the hand you hold

a worldwide graveyard of valentines lost
red faded gray around edges of hearts

no more
the pinless voodoo
call me and tell me
you want to come home
no more
climbing these trees
leaving your name on the ground
no more
dreams of sleeping
no more eyes
that don’t make sense
no more
angels of apathy
no more broken
picket fence
no more northern star
to pluck down
no more burns
on palms of snow
no more
words that rhyme with
love
no more
hollow points to throw

this is where we cave
in
this is where your arms were a circle
that I fit
right in
this my last confession
quickens
opposite everything
balance of black
and white
call me up
and tell me
I am your home
I know how it sounds
I know how it feels
I know how you drown
how you fall
when the arrows
hit your heels
I poured your souljuice
into a bottle I could wear at my
neck like a badge
of blood
give up
give up
I know what you’re afraid of
my eyes are the covenant
of colors
after the flood

unsent letter #13
You're wrong about me.

I will admit
that I have cried
more in the last three weeks
than I ever remember crying in my life
but
it's only because it hurts to lose you

that is all

it doesn't have anything to do with
the way I feel about you
I love you

that is all

no more
no less

I have spent the last 325 days of my life
loving every part of who you are
and that can't be erased
by a few words
angry or crushing or emotionless
it won't disappear in a few weeks
because you've changed your mind about me
this doesn't mean I'll never move on
it doesn't mean I'll think about you
every moment
for the rest of my life
it doesn't mean I won't learn to sleep at night
without hearing the sound of your voice
it just means
that I love you

that is all

I know I let you down
I know I hurt you
I know I am to blame for how things ended up and i'm sorry
I'm not angry
I'm not bitter
I don't want revenge or endless explanations
you told me how you feel
and I accept it
it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt
it doesnt mean I don't wish
you would have given me a chance to
be the person I was meant to be
instead of giving up on the girl
who was reeling from the blows
of a life of chaos
trying to find herself
I was close to finding myself
but the human heart
does what it needs to do
and I know you did as much as you could
for as long as you could
and I love you for it

that is all

I never got to see your face
I never got to touch your hands
I never once fell asleep beside you
taking afternoon naps sharing dreams
we never ate ice cream together
or went to the fountain I so wanted to see
we never made love on the beach
and I never got to hear the birds outside your window
after we'd been awake all night
we never went to a concert together
sang the words to all our favorite songs
you never bought me a rose from the sidewalk cart
and dropped down on one knee to hand it to me
and then stood and kissed me on the forehead
I never wrote poems all over your body
while you slept
or hugged your mum and thanked her for the gift of you
I never got to pet your dog
or meet your asshole brother
you never cooked a steak for me
or played with my hair
we never stayed in bed reading poems to each other
or wrestled and had pillow fights and found each other's
ticklish spots
I never got to kiss you on New Year's Eve
or see you laugh
or see you cry
I never got to hold you
when you really needed me
or place my hand
over your heart
and promise you
I'll always love you immensely
but I will

and that is all

and I don't have anything bad to say about you
to anyone
the new girl hurt
because I wanted it to be my place
because it made me feel
like we were never really real
to each other
because she has everything
I wanted for so long
but you say she makes you happy
and that makes me happy
and when i talk about you
its not how you hurt me
its how you were good to me
how you lifted me up
and made me shine
how you believed in me
and gave me strength
and courage
and kindness
how you pushed me to do
things i didnt think i could do
and made me a princess
and angel
how you cherished me
and loved me
at my worst
those are the things
i will say about you
because i still think of you with
nothing but love

and that is all

and there are no conditions
i don't need you to be in my life
i dont need to call you
or write you letters
or send you the christmas presents i've had in my trunk since september
i don't need to see you
or hear how you're doing
or e-mail you
or send you that special surprise i've been working on every night for months to keep you warm in winter
but i will still stop
a hundred times a day
and think of something i need to tell you
something i know would make you laugh
or cry
something we would have shared
and i will still love you millions of much
because every part of me
is in love
with every part of you
and doesn't know how to stop
and doesn't want to learn

and that is all.

unsent letter #11
land of conviction


something about the way
you mismatch your voice with the
standupsmile the words the catching
the net and the conversion
of every kilometer to mile
the temperature of stillness I have been
dreaming through
the vanishing commandments as I
turn into a smallhanded version
of the you I never knew

I break bread into bones of white noise
flowering from fingertips that know no
fury
snatchedup lands marked and bordered
a trespass territory
fish hook example of how a memory can
land in the back of your neck
and stick
barbed
ready to pull you from an almost life
into the thing that resembles death
that morningsleep that twists your body
into a mirage
of utter emptiness
as if your swarmingsoul has gone wandering again
obsessed with grassfeel and sandstone
obsessed with the way
everything is slowly
wearing away

do you see my eyes in the lines on the page
my laughter in the way I trail off into poetic freedom
do you need to hear my name
to know its me
to know that this is about you
is my plateglass skin evident in
these fragile rhymeschemes
if nothing else
I thought you’d recognize
the ache in my verbs
and my unpredictable heart
dropping you at the end.

but I haven’t given in to the warpgreen
velvet that lies like an invitation
a broken door to pass through
here comes my thresholdphobia
here comes the iceberg and I’ve been mentally counting
the number of people on board this sinking ship
since I first got on
some people naturally brace for disaster
as if chaostheorycandlesticks were burning at both ends
I can look into your eyes
and know you don’t think I’m making sense

but
just suspend that doubt
for a 5 day window
and put your hands against
the coolglass to feel how blue
the air can be
in summer
or winter
doesn’t matter
if you’re on top
or bottom
east or west
if you cross your heart
with your right or left
I told you I’d save a space for you
and I kept that chalk promise as I pace the perimeter
of your body’s outline

what I’m trying to do is tell a story
that has no beginning or finishing touch
but maybe it starts in an old rocking chair
singing its lonely creaking song
and maybe we’re up to the chapter
where things have grown desperate
and cold
and we’ve had to burn the furniture
just to survive

yeh I’ve fallen into metaphor again
because you don’t want to hear
my unpoetic truth
buried in beachsounds
or curled inside shells
like a secret you sleep with
on your island surrounded by
an ocean
you won’t admit is there

unsent letter #7
"freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"


teach me to lie
open mouthed
wide eyed
so i can dream like you
blue and guiltless
so i can call myself an angel
and shrug off forgiveness
like last winter's jacket
fuck december and its way of ending things in the
most bitter ferocious way
possible
and my hands
frostbitten
my heart freezerburned
at the edges
play your songs that hold my neck like
a noose
i wont listen
i made the mistake of boxing up
your things
without taping it and putting it away
so that your poison sunk into my sheets
while i slept next to
that cardboard prison
where i kept my future carefully hidden
teach me to give up to give in
to let go of the rope
and let the quicksand close in
around my ache
broken feet bursted seams quiet thunder
childcry
i have been the gatekeeper
the lamplighter
i have been the tourguide
the santa claus
the mother mary
joan of arc modern fable
fairytale princess cut glassdiamond
mirror image
i have been
and will be
no more
no more endless nights
no more dreaming of upside down
continents where i could belong
no more phone calls
no more dwindling hope
for your sickness
your health
your poverty
your wealth
i'll wrap myself in veils
black and gold and
funeral bells
i'll grieve the freshdead
flowers
what better thing to sacrifice
another beauty
another life
don't mistake this for my final notice
my heart is strong and i'll keep fighting
from the floor
so i won't have to fall
anymore