You sat outside our beach bungalow with those coco cabana eyes, dipped in the promise of no goodbye, "Swear to me that I'll never know abandonment again." Your kind smile and - I've been a mystery for a while - hair tells me I'm covered in sweat over the anticipation of the denouement of your truth. I see your fear through the Indonesian palms across the trunk that you uncarved all their names in. You can't hide from a hider, but you can seek a seeker. I did not just find you. I really FOUND YOU. I found you in the honey of your loyal eyes. In the cup full of tears you shed on a black hole September night. I found you in your footprints and the music in your hair. I found you in my knowing. In my unconditional. I found you most of all in a century old friendship, gripped by four shaky hands refusing to allow blood through the cracks. Your insanity is thick, we make cakes with our crazy over white sands that melt into our hearts like the butter we left back in the states. Our words drip past desultory love into the stories we can't stop creating, stuffed in our back porch swing's hidden crates. I have never known a love, who isn't my own blood, who I would die for. But I would. For you. And I really would leave you be, too. If it meant seeing your smile across the planets in my collar bones, sheltered safely, if I was asked to walk away. And I never really knew what it meant to care about another, who isn't my own blood, in a selfless way. If that is all I ever learn, then I have learned the world. I have learned my own heart by loving her wild, her quiet, her laugh, her friendship, her art...I have learned my own heart, by loving a woman in her coming together, and her falling apart.

That is the story of my friendship. Of the UN that belonged in my rusted conditional all along.

Lionhearted body parts.

Bricks for shoulders,

tied to heaven.

Silent names on lips.

Medicated fingertips.

Brave, because I keep

the real secrets at bay.

Strong, because I trash

my strife and walk tall

with you on my back.

Weak, because I can

scream and scream,

but you only get

whispers out of me.

Prose in eyes,

the real cries still unseen.

Color and whimsy in a mind

too open, it faucets your

toxicity down to my heart.

Hands that only hold ghosts.

Feet that only walk forward,

but trip into nostalgia.

Hips that guard my

penetrable heart against

impenetrable heartache.

Arms that have held everyone

else's child but my own.

An empty belly by choice and earthquaked nerves, trembling and begging my throat to stand up to me in its name.

Ears filled with dedicated

songs and kept secrets.

And my face...the president

of my body's nation, never losing character in the midst of war.

No one has ever taken the time to know my parts. Yet, here I am, having memorized everyone's slightest breaths.

A story about a little girl in pain...who always comes out strong, proving the fucking world wrong:

There is pink noise behind your eyes. Their names are somewhere in your throat, caught between the storm of today, and shoved deep with yesterday's blows. You have never used your arms to hug yourself; they have always been hammocks for the sorrowful, or playgrounds for scars. You have never pulled the No from behind your ribcage with your lips when you should have. And so, Yes has become the stitches binding your mouth shut. There's a love letter carved on your thighs that reads, "You fall in love with the unavailable so that you have reasons to kill yourself." There's a scripture between your shoulder blades that sings, "You bring everyone joy. You are everyone's rock. And you rock...back and forth in the corner of God's Kitchen, praying for a meal laced with poison to take you out. And nobody knows. Nobody knows."

But, God just keeps feeding you life... because, you are not allowed to let go. The best of us hurt the most, little one.

I wonder how many

I Love Yous and Goodbyes

we'll kiss onto coffins before

we learn not to assume that

people "already know" how

we feel about them here on

Earth.

Do you remember that world we all lived in? When we were so very tiny, and the tall people loved us. And scolded us. And fed us yummy food. And vegetables. Ew, vegetables. But we wanted to play, so we stomached them or snuck them off our plate. When Christmas took light years to arrive. And school days were millenniums. We somehow managed to conquer evil every day before sundown. Time was much, much longer. Slow motion, you might say. Everything was an adventure. Cardboard boxes were rocket ships and castles. Bed sheets were ship sails and forts. Street lamps were clocks. Playgrounds were planets. We ran and ran and ran. Tag and red rover, and hide and go seek. We imagined. We...we believed. We believed we could fly if we kept trying. We believed in ourselves and our dreams. Ring-pops were diamonds. Cereal and crackerjack boxes had treasure at the bottom. Band-aids and kisses on scraped knees and elbows saved the world. Make believe friends at tea parties and cops and robbers were very much real. Do you remember? The big, big world of a kid. Before enchantment's golden thread ripped at the seams. Our skin was made of Disney movie magic. We believed. We believed. I remember. I remember believing...in...me.

I was mad at God today. Because your tears bounced like silly putty on the floor beneath your Gypsy traveling feet, and I am airplane rides away. I believe that the hummingbirds stop mid flight when they see your sadness across these summer skies. You're the bravest star soldier I know, casting comets across fields of the world's growing pain just to brighten all our dark days. Shields of therapeutic glory. But, armor gets heavy. And cold. And we are too wild to be frozen in time. You are too much MUCH for them sometimes. But not to us misfit, broken piece kids. We. We need your blinding shine. You unbreak all the hearts, and cut yourself on all our soul's glass shards. Just so we can breathe. What about you, dancer in the dark? May I sit with you on the lonely hearts bench at the Crash Park? Here is my lionhearted laughter. Here are my listening eyes, ready to watch your story spill hard. Here is my jukebox heart. You pick the song today, Cajun blues baby. I know we are skipping together on this journey, and your every magical molecule knows you're not alone. But, it's still nice to be reminded, you know? I love you six million oceans worth.

You cut me open, after gently peeling the tape off my mouth, and poured spice into my blood. Your slice was clean, sweet love. I was lifeless. Where have I been? Misguided. Dopeless hope fiend broken by pretend ecstasy. You laughed alive-air back into my lungs. You made me stand up straight. You found my smile and kissed it back on my face. Your name is a song I'm still learning the words to. Be our guest, be our guest... something, something, I'll teach you the rest. Fall leaves only mean one thing...I see sunsets around all the faces and places. That's a paper bag of happy. You know me. Spring, for me, breeds grays and browns. That's my serotonin tank on empty. Do you know me? I think a thousand thinks that you do. I feel you in my prismatic emotions. I flex bullets off my chest and into their false eyes now. I'm back. The lipstick soldier has her pistol again. And it's whipping in the wind at old "friends". New blood fills my rainbow veins, and I've ditched rusted chariots and sowed my own reigns. You can find me on the corner of Bad and Main. Now. I owe you a kiss woven wet out of thank you oceans.

Wild one.

Let's flip

the gravity

switch, so

that we may

rise in love.

Falling is

for stars.