Wednesday, July 16, 2008

machine guns growing from the hardwood floors

it is a thump thump thump rhythm breaking into my ribcage like arena rock and roll blizzard road show serenade. pump in the snowflakes, my veins wrapping ferocious inside wallpaper skin, all wandering houseplant decor. i dig your style. i have a photocopy of your laugh that i keep in my back pocket. i kiss it when i need to cheer up. there is the sand in my throat, the harmonica between my toes, the seashells in your eyes. i can remember the ocean in you, the rhythm of it, the taste. it has been too long since i swum there. my sneezes are my soul escaping my body to try to hold your hand, to kiss your collarbone, to fly a kite with you, to bring you soup, brush your hair, touch your shoulder, to sharpie your palm with "i belong to you", to sing to you the song that summer has written inside my bones. i will draw you a map. it will have on it all the places. i will sign it at the bottom. and when you are ready you can climb into it, and i will be waiting for you at the place where the X is. it is beautiful there. there is a bougainvillea blooming fuchsia and a violin that when you touch it's strings plays perfect back to you the songs your mother used to sing. i will be waiting with iced tea, and coffee for you, chocolate (and peanut butter), a string of pearls, seven avocados, two paintbrushes, the single wish of an oak tree, and my lips. when you get there i will hold you. i will hold you like a hammock, and we will lay there, swinging, a giggle factory, twin grins blossoming, the true love of the forest. and we will talk about all of it, until our voices are sore. the squirrels will laugh. i will bruise your lips with mine. i would like to get myself a new pair of eyes so i can see you for the first time again. that is what it will be like anyway. i miss you. i miss your fingers, the shape of your thoughts, your breathing next to me in bed. it makes me crazy inside my head. i feel like i live in an aquarium and breathing water is not so bad and i would give anything for you to be a fish here with me. we could kiss beneath the fake ferns, and sleep inside the castle. i have restrung my spine. it holds me up higher now. i am trying to teach it your melodies, but it is hard without you. i am trying to grow my arms longer so they can reach you. so far i've only gotten an inch. but it's progress. my biggest hope is that you know, that you know about the garden, the way the trellises stretch jasmine up, the tulips who nod, and the begonias waving at you, the treehouse with the sleeping bags, and the turtles i've met (they would like you), also the photo-booth that's latched itself onto my heart, and the way i've been teaching my skin not to get so sad because it misses your hands, and how all the rum on this island reminds me of you, i hope you know about it all, all the stuff i'm collecting inside my chest and saving for you, i hope you know.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

all the doorknobs to the house are in my stomach

i am lonesome and psychotic. it is a helpless feeling, the waiting, the not knowing. i am frantic with it. the heat is growing palm trees in my blood as i porch sit and wait for thirty days to pass. i long for the gentle cave of her voice, and her porcelain touch. meanwhile i try to let the ocean soothe me, but i can feel the tears hiding behind telephone poles, waiting to sneak up on me.