oh, sweetie

it’s never been your eyes i mind
it’s not your mind
i want this for you and
we’ll fight together

it’s not the kites, they already fell, and
it’s not the dog, he was not born
and it’s not the mummies, they don’t
need our help to die

it’s just you and me
and we’ll fight crime together
and take ourselves under
with sightless wings

and breathe on pyramids of glass
until we have to wipe away the fog
and dream that it had never been that way, not
in real life, never for us, not us--

as if we were anything like
so mismatched, i’ll kiss your hair
and try to leave it up to you

amber volakis

when sunlight comes and moves
the little leaves across the
grass, the ground remembers you
and no matter what can ever
drift away, i hold onto the blankets
and i wonder helplessly
how much of everything i loved
about your world was only you
and how empty the afternoons were
that passed behind you
through king’s cross station
with only a breath left to ask
if it was real, or only in my head?
and either way, did it matter
if it was one and the same and
everything i misunderstood seared
permanently into my heart
and i still cry for things
that shouldn’t matter, and we are all
still scared to be alone?

missing the prince

elsinor knows what slides
between the teeth of a comb
what dust motes float
between the curtains and
quietly watch crimes
in the bright light

and executions may be symbolic
and he may never have lost
his head, her heart, the hand at cards
if he plays soft and we
play right for him
and never tell

that we knew him well,
and loved him ever
as shape shifted shape
because he was so clever
and there was no reason
to use him thus

but it is not unjust
it is simply life
and he is not macbeth
and doesn’t have to fear
women or a ghostly knife.

middle school

i should have climbed these steps at age fourteen
when i would have understood your walls
i should have known what would happen
to minds and shoulders and streaky glass
and we should have made then
all the promises we’re trying
to burn into each other’s palms today, and
we should have known then
which of these things would never leave
and we should have slept on it
and never tried so hard
in which case there would have been no need
and we should have kissed
and given up on those who didn’t want us to
and we should have ignored the myth of
the moulin rouge, and stopped waiting and made romance
and we should have stopped the tears
and not allowed those things that we allowed
to live so large in our shoes
and we should have gone even further and
given up on the shoes
when our feet started to hurt, we should have
given each other the dirt
and tried all the things we secretly wanted
to try. we should not have waited for so many years

to laugh at those silly fears

corollary to everything

in the case
that any of us survive, someday i'll tell you

about middle school
and hamlet and amber volakis. but
today i can only say, no more questions
about empty space. everyone secretly
wants their daughters to die. but

if you refuse to
love for no reason
other than faith, i'll do it. after all
there are worse ways
to waste a year than dreaming
pointless dreams about her waist. maybe

it will somehow legitimize
the things that drowned
when you didn't, maybe
it will stop the nightmares
about permanent marker washing
off my back. at least

holding on doesn't make
anyone stop eating. at least
i'm not risking any vital organs.

"maybe love is just a reason to believe in something."

what is and what should never be

these letters on my steering wheel
just go to show
you can’t erase from every kind of paper
and things don’t simply disappear if you
simply go away from them
and these unfamiliar water stains
on my steering wheel, they just go to show
the absence left by empty spaces
but it’s never over for us
not if you jump, not if
every hair on your head turns black, not
if you burn--or try,
it just doesn’t change a thing
and poison is still poison
and there’s no antidote
and we’re all going to drown together
and we’ve all cried for you
and we’ve all cried because of you.
but we’ll always love you
and there’s nothing you can ever do
to stop it. and any one of us can say
“i’ve lost count of the times
i’ve given up on you,
but you make such a beautiful
wreck, you do.” because some things
about the past are permanent marks,
and you’re a part of us--
a fractured bone in a strange body,
but there’s no amputation, no novocaine
to change the truth,
no medicine to make it go away…
and you have to let us love you,
because it’s nothing more or less
than the very most
and least we all can do--
and not one of us can ever stop
so you can only choose to let us stay,
and you can only choose

to be amazing and

to be amazed.

ill (still)

only now do i perceive
no matter what i win
you’re not the prize

on seeing bleeding suns
in bloody seas, i was so deathly
certain of the worth of crowns
and merry-go-rounds, and even songs
for no one, i knew, i knew--but

i just don’t now and grass
goes gray beneath
the huge crushing softness
and i let myself spin

dizzily round, round to finally
realize that it’s not just spotlights
that move eyes forward
and i’ll never once be able
to keep you