lilneenzmakeswords

so many times
I’ve so foolishly tried
to write you into simple lines
to capture you in the length and width
of pin sized paragraphs

but how could I forget the beauty of your complexity?
if you weren’t always a question I was trying to answer
than you couldn’t have existed at all
at least not in my mind

the only place I have the time
to dream up all the adjectives I would need to describe
the way your cells come together and divide
to create the tiny creases reaching through your fingers
or the soft spots on the nape of your neck
the color of your skin in the summer
your nervous laugh, your quick wit

to calculate and recalculate
the warmth of your body and your breath
and against my soul’s deepest desires
the emptiness of your absence

you stand on the edge of cliffs
and that tiny muscle you had long forgotten
beats hard against your chest
it swells, it seeps and it spills 
like liquid boiling over
coloring all of your insides yellow

you stand on the edge of cliffs
and you thank them
for making you feel small
and try not to think of the people
who have tried to make you feel small
because they did not feel as tall as mountains

you stand on the edge of cliffs
and you wait to wake from a dream
alone in an upstairs bathroom
with your knees to your chest
quietly burying sacred parts of yourself
under the hardened palms
of so many so-called mountains

you stand on the edge of cliffs
and rub your fingers hard against your eyes
as if it all might disappear
as if you blink for just one second longer
the ocean might submerge into the sand
the mountains might fold up like paper napkins,
lay flat, and disappear into the prairie grasses
as if entire landscapes might degrade to dust

you stand on the edge of cliffs
and your eyes return to focus
they pull lassos around the sky
and your brain learns to make the images permanent
you stare down at your shoes
and you pray for only one thing 
that you know how to hold them firmly to the ground
once your dreams have bled so seamlessly into reality

so many moments
i want to tie together with twine
stretch them across the rest of my life
sampling a small piece of you
for each hour i’m awake

got high
and looked through old pictures of us
my toes involuntarily curled
“cinema paradiso”

when I was ten years old
I read a book about a dog that got sick
in the end the little girl had to put him down
they buried him behind her family’s house

and I remember looking out the window
from the comfort of my top bunk
and sobbing for a long time
and I think I’m still sobbing now

maybe I know too much of suffering
to find your jokes funny
things still hurt
I am still an outsider in my own world
clinging to the only thing I’ve known of love

like on the days
I spent hours
watching dad drink himself to death
or kissing his back hand

like on the days
mom wore long sleeves in the summer
like the tail lights of her car
like holding on so tight
like long gone

like on the days
my sister’s nails sunk deep into my arm
like we just can’t take this anymore
like holding her so god damn tight
like don’t you fucking touch her

like all of these nights
like I’m 20 years old and still can’t get it right
like a song you wrote last year
I had a life worth forgetting
I think you were right