For Raja

I don’t know how to live without dogs.

My spirit needs

bad manners

unrestrained joy

eyes full of trust

cold noses in the morning

As a little girl

I would whisper future plans

into a wolf dogs lazy ear
we’d both smile

in the way that animals do

teeth bared to everyone

but the pack

My dog and I don’t lie to each other.

I tell her secrets and

She tells me she wants more

breakfast

I tell her

today

we will be putting you down

the same way I wanted to put myself down

all those years ago

but we got through that

together.

Remember that, girl?

good girl

good girl

Dogs will teach you everything

you need to know

about how to love

they will not exaggerate

their dedication

they will love you exactly

as you deserve

What happens to the dog

when the little girl grows up?

Stops tying bandanas and bows

around furry head

invites boys into her bed instead

the girl goes on

needing her dog

and her dog waits for her to come home.

So now I take care of her

the way she always took care of me

and I try to love others

the way she always loved me

A dog will die today

just like every day.

It doesn’t feel like every day

to me.

What happens to the girl

when the dog dies?

the girl goes on

needing her dog

and her dog waits for her to come home.

"Wolves"

Click the image below to read "Wolves" in Oyster River Pages' 2017 issue.

How terrifying it is
to watch yourself grow
feel your body take up more space
than ever before

your chest swells
with all the words
you're finally ready to say

You see each phase of yourself
all more beautiful than the last
grow
shrink
grow again

You are everchanging
with curve
and crescent
just like the moon

and isn't that womanhood?
stretching yourself
across the sky
just because you can

Sometimes Love surprises you

when you find it waiting
in the pocket of those awful jeans
you bought when you were in high school
and that concert ticket falls out
you're grateful for one of the few memories
that hasn't faded

or when you find Love slow dancing in the living room
of your first apartment
to a song that isn't a slow dance song
but you dance anyway

or when Love gripped you quick, fast
on that hike
on that trail that was full of broken branches
fallen leaves
and you couldn't breathe in without
Love filling your lungs

or when Love slipped under your tongue
while you were drinking your coffee
and there wasn't enough chicory in the world
to wash away the taste of him

or- or that time Love found you kneeling
clung to the dirt under your finger nails
as you planted seeds you weren't sure would grow
and ain't that the best Love
the kind that's full of the unsure and the surprise and the effort
to dig, plant
dig, plant
and hope

Student Says

Mrs. Cole sometimes its hard to talk to people
because I talk weird
walk weird
I hope you understand me
Does this make sense, Mrs. Cole?
It's just that my brain is different
Does this sound good, Mrs. Cole?

His hand shakes
waits for me to tell him he's good enough
because to him, I'm good enough

He drinks in the conversation
lived enough of his life in thirst
to savor a kind word

I try not to hate the people
that made him doubt his voice

3.31

there are a thousand ways to be woman
right now I am the kind that knows you are looking
eyes roaming my pages
for your story

3.29

there are a thousand ways to be a woman
or really, only 3

right now i am the maiden
and i am treading
along the edges of your flesh
the winged future nestled in my breast

right now i am the mother
bound to anyone selfish enough
to need me

right now i am the crone
and everything she has lived
and lost

3.28

there are a thousand ways to be a woman

right now i am the kind with dirt in my mouth

the best parts of me live underground

my roots entangled with redwoods and pine

i am silent, steady


there are a thousand ways to be a woman

right now i am the kind that dances fast

waits for the snakes to find my ankles

climb my body

find their way to my head

medusa's daughter


there are a thousand ways to be a woman

right now i am the kind that swallows the earth

waits to feel you all

inside me

Black Out Poems for Mom

3/7/17:

Let it be known
I never wanted y'all
I am broken
in a million ways
I did what was best
for me
I was dying
you remember me on my knees broken
I've said heartless cruelty
I had to leave
BOTH of You
without love
I just want to be happy
I wasn't happy,
but now
me.
me
me
me.
me..
That hurt // will never go away

1/4/18:

I removed you

I'm not going to see who you are

I'm deaf and blind to the manipulation that's happening

I release you

I am the reason love is no longer in your eyes

You are released

I have no love for you

My truth is best for me

Raven, I hurt you and

I will never change 

My Mother Was Here

my mother was here

until she wasn’t

my sister and I search for her

in the hearts of other women

we pass them all by

just ships in the night

we find motherhood in each other instead

when our tongues are heavy with grief

for a mother that has not died

she is gone just the same

I sometimes see my mother looking at me

in the mirror

the pain in her eyes looks so familiar

I trace the lines on her face

feel the sins of a thousand lives settle

onto my shoulders

I tell my mother about the daughters I will never have

how i would have loved them

how I would have taught them the truth of

what the world will ask of you

I tell my mother I love her even though she is gone

and it almost does not matter

that she does not hear me

Super Thundercock Lightning God

When I tell you he's got music in his blood
What I mean is that his life makes me sing, dance
Stomp my feet into the earth, push forward
Encompass me in sound
What I mean is that he is everything music should be
And always has been

No one warned me about the darkness in love
When love is so strong, so present
Creeps into the seams of your everything
And you do not feel worthy
But suddenly you are
Because he deserves it
Because you deserve it

When I tell you he is the light of my life
please understand that he is the sun, swallowing the sky
Interrupting the flickering bulb, the slow burning candle
To show us all how to shine

Wolves

Sister, we are 7 years old
I am telling you a story about three little pigs
and a wolf and you are laughing and wanting to be the pig with the brick house
then we are 12 years old and we are bleeding confusion and anger
cursing the feminine parts of ourselves for being too much too soon
and we build straw houses right next to each other because don't know where to find bricks
and we are 17 and we love him
We are 18 and we love ourselves
We are 19 and now we don't love either
We are 20 when we try to be big bad wolves but it feels like too little too late and we don't even know why we care these pigs anyway
We are 21 and I am telling you the story of us and how the women in our family have been building houses with their bodies since forever and how wolves have always come to blow them down
and you
sister, you are laughing.

Booknerds

BOOKNERDS OF THE UNIVERSE:

We breathe stories like oxygen, 

Then spreadwords into our world like wildfire

We hear the call of the wild from the pages of a worn paperback,

We understand the power of myth

We stare into the eyes of the world and see narrative

Dear readers, we understand how worlds are created.

We let stories live in the spaces of our minds

let the magic fill our veins

we grow Halloween trees in our hearts and

search the skies for moving castles 

we steal kisses from Kafka

and we know that every love story is a ghost story

because we live in the best of times and the worst of times,

drinking bathtub gin,

and smiling because we understand that a hero ain't nothin' but a sandwich.

We vacation in Narnia and Lusitania,

and we love Jo but goddamn is "Albus Severus" a stupid name.

We are friends of elves and cacticae and hobbits and dragons,

We find truth in pages and understand how words can change lives
how language is alive 
We follow words down the rabbit hole that is empathy 

We have lived Bukowski's low life

danced in Neil's Neverwhere,

and we know fear

know loathing

know Las Vegas

We got through Wuthering Heights twice before realizing that we hated it, 

and we've spent many a day wondering exactly what combination of drugs we'd have to take to get on Lewis Caroll's level

Falling in love with our tell-tale hearts

we embrace stories like old friends

and inhale the perfume of binding glue and parchment like the scent of a lover

worshiping in library cathedrals,
we know that books are not just paper and ink but containers for ideas and change
we read because we know that to value imagination is to value our humanity
we read because in language there is freedom 

My husband got music in his blood
Got rhythm in his bones
Got songs in his mouth
Tap tapping on a drum set

a steering wheel

our kitchen table

I hear him

My husband got broken up beats that hide behind his teeth 

His heartbeat is my bass line 
my life line
when the world crashes into my rhythm
he is there

keeping time

Tap tapping on a high hat when I am low

Most days his music is all I can hear
when depression has taken hold of my body
filled these lungs with anxious melodies
shoved songs of doubt
of insecurity
of hate
in my mouth
When my demons are a symphony of destruction in my mind
I listen for his voice
and as I hear his tongue sing with sweet harmony
I want to throw myself into the song
but I

I do not know how to be anyone's metronome

Yet here I am 
wife, friend, lover
my husband and I dancing through this life

And just when I think I will fall
he catches me


And I heat the music in his blood
Feel the rhythm in his bones
and taste the songs in his mouth

I heard no church bells - revision for slam clinic

Daisies covered that field like waves in an ocean
I swam through currents of yellow gold and delicate white 
A wild bride in her floral sea

I felt the softness of lace trail down my back 

to my feet

heard bracelets clink on my wrists

as I reached for his hand

Blue topaz and silver circles sang our fingers electric 

and we tasted love and freedom and youth

bare feet grounded 

in the magic
of us

I heard no church bells but I worshiped in the open air

and I gave my vows with certainty

because I wrote them myself

So we bound ourselves

woman to man

man to woman.

Revision of Little Sister

Little sister,
Little fairy child,
Little "what are you reading?"
and little "can I have that when you're done?"

little taller sister,
but still little sister,
When did you become a woman?


I'm still living in the times when we had blueberry tongues
when we picked all of the roses out of poppa's garden,
Little sister, our happy years were a bubble that burst too soon
One moment we were destiny's children and 
suddenly we were girls running to womanhood

like it was a race
We begged our bodies not to inherit the sins of our father
and you swam with sharks
and I danced with monsters
and we promised each other that one day life would be different

Little sister, our balance act of denial and pain 

never protected us from the number on that scale

Never taught us that it is possible to love ourselves

Little sister, no one gave us the words to name our experiences
and it would be years 
before we found the courage 
to speak them above a whisper 

And when we did,
we would notice that "Anorexia" sounded prettier
than caffeine pills and "I ate earlier."

"Depression" would taste like dust in my mouth
but you would hold my hand from a thousand miles away

and "family" would become a word
we would carve into our hearts

Little sister, I remember the whispers in the halls
and the interrogating eyes
and I need you to know that it wasn't your fault
Children lash out at the misunderstood
and you took those lashes with all the dignity you had left
We grew tough skins and tougher tongues
then we shed that life like we shed pounds

but little sister, we have lived haunted lives
The ghosts of our self hate show up in mirrors
in bedrooms
in the mouths of so called lovers

Little sister, we have kissed sharks and danced with monsters

but when you wonder if you are beautiful
know that you are
and when you wonder if you are strong,
know that you are
and when you wonder if you are worth it
know that you are

and little sister when you wonder if you are loved,
know that you are.

Super rough draft of For the book nerds

Fellow book nerds:

We breathe stories like oxygen, 

letting them take root in our hearts
and spread into our world like wildfire

We hear the call of the wild from the pages of a worn paperback,

We understand the power of myth

We stare into the eyes of the world and see our own narrative

We jump into words

and let magic fill our veins.

Dear readers, we understand how worlds are created.

We let stories live in the spaces of our minds

we grow Halloween trees in our brains and

search the skies for moving castles 

we steal kisses from Kafka

and taste stardust and the absolute absurdity of everything

We know that every love story is a ghost story

because we live in the best of times and the worst of times,

drinking bathtub gin,

and smiling because we understand that a hero ain't nothin' but a sandwich.

We vacation in Narnia and Lusitania,

and we love Jo but goddamn is "Albus Severus" a stupid name.

We are friends of elves and cacticae and hobbits and dragons,

We find truth in pages and understand how words can change lives
how language is alive 
We follow words down the rabbit hole that is empathy 
and

We have lived Bukowski's low life

danced in Gaiman's Neverwhere,

and we know fear

know loathing

know Las Vegas

We got through Wuthering Heights twice before realizing that we hated it, 

and we've spent many a day wondering exactly what combination of drugs we'd have to take to get on Lewis Caroll's level

Falling in love with our tell-tale hearts

we embrace stories like old friends

and inhale the perfume of binding glue and parchment like the scent of a lover

worshiping in library cathedrals,
we know that books are not just paper and ink but containers for ideas and change
we read fairy tales to our children because we know that things could be otherwise
we read because we know that to value imagination is to value our humanity
we read because in language there is freedom 

Still Really Rough Draft- Little Sister

Little Sister
Little fairy child
Little "I'm telling mama"
Little "What are you reading?"
and Little "Can I have it when you're done?"
Little taller sister,
but still little sister
When did you become woman?

I'm still living in the times when we had blueberry tongues
and when we picked all the roses out of poppa's garden
Little sister, I have watched you find your own way
all of your life
Watched you go a thousand miles,
running from nothing but toward everything

Little sister, I think of us standing in front of that scale
battling our demons our own ways
I think of you in running shorts and me in sports bras
I think of shoving caffeine pills down our throats
so that we could forget about being hungry
I think of my denial and your pain
and I wonder how we ever learned to love ourselves.

Little sister I think of how we found solace in goddamn devil town
and I remember the whispers in the halls
and the questioning eyes
but little sister I need you to know it wasn't your fault
that children handle things the best they know how
and some handle things better than others.

Little sister, I'm sorry I wasn't always what you needed
but I was still girl becoming woman
but I did the best that I could

Little sister please believe me when I say I wish I could have been more
and that I still do

and when you wonder if you are beautiful
know that you are
When you wonder if you are worth it
know that you are
When you wonder if you are going to make it through this
know that you are

and know that when you felt the touch of hands crossing the boundary of your body,
that you have never been alone.

Little sister know that you are loved.

Little Sister

Little Sister
Little Fairy child
Little "I'm telling mama"
Little "What are you reading?"
and Little "Can I have it when you're done?"
Little taller sister
but still little sister,
When did you become woman?
When did we become women?

I'm still living in the times when we ate blueberries
and picked all the roses in poppa's garden

Little sister I have watched you find your own way
Never asking for help
One thousand miles,
running from nothing but towards everything

Little sister I think of us standing in front of that scale
battling our demons our own ways
I think of you in running shorts and me in sports bras
I think of shoving caffeine pills down our throats
and thinking we lived in a goddamn devil town
and I think of my silence and your pain
and I wonder how we ever learned to love ourselves.

Little sister I think of how we found solace
and I remember whisper in the halls
and questioning eyes
but little sister I need you to know it wasn't your fault,
children handle things the best they know how
and some handle things better than others
and I'm sorry I wasn't always what you needed
but I was girl becoming woman
and I did things the best I could

Little sister please believe me when I say I wish I could have been more
and still wish I could be
and when you wonder if you are beautiful
know that you are
When you wonder if you are worth it
know that you are
and know that when you felt the touch of hands crossing the boundary of your body,
that you have never been alone

Little sister know that you are loved.

Pantoum about living with depression.

A monster lives in this body
so I live in a sea of couch cushions and guilt
wondering if it'd really be so bad to go out like Hemingway.
Michael looks at me with sad eyes.

I live in a sea of couch cushions and guilt
but I decide today is the day I get up.
Michael looks at me with hopeful eyes
so I hold onto my mask.

I decide today is the day I get up.
I go through the motions.
I hold onto my mask,
and I am tranquility recollected in anxiety.

I go through the motions.
My mama says I get it honestly
But I am anxiety recollected in tranquility
So I search for the good inside myself.

Mama says I get it honestly
but I don't know what that means to her
So I continue the search for the good inside myself
The paper says partial remission


but I don't know what that means
maybe that I'm too scared to go out like Hemingway
I want the paper to say full remission
but a monster still lives in this body.