dear life,
you are not what i expected.  you have really screwed me over at times and then out of nowhere given me the most beautiful and precious gifts.  you have made me laugh hysterically and then outlined my face with the creases of happiness.  you have torn my heart out and left bruises under my eyes..  you have helped me to find soft kisses for those wounds.  you have taken from me youth and replaced it with gratitude and acceptance.  you have answered a few of my questions with questions.  you have answered many of my questions with love.  you have scarred my body and then led me to the most compassionate fingertips... they have traced poetry on my secret skin.  you have dropped war in my lap and left me stranded to decipher the rules.  when i was a loser you left me sticks to rewrite my story in the sand.  you have never left me completely alone for too long.  you made maps for me.  you wrapped the best presents in newspaper and hid them in people.  you left me clues..
.kacy

Landing
i awake
running down an aisle of stars,
a homecoming.

you balance at my vanity
listening to the trains,
an unloving warning.

you ask if i think you are falling
i don't think anymore i say
we can't escape this morning
it is everywhere we look
i sneak a blown kiss
and roll to the wall
you have come back to bed
you have torn your coat
you have told me the truth

i believe in us very quietly
i dream of marrying you
somewhere that doesn't exist.
in a sleeping city.
the streets made of shy moss
the streets made of soft music
the streets made of shooting stars
that have landed.

i don't know who my tears are for.
they arrive unlabeled,
teaspoons.
room temperature tripping
a child falling down the slopes
of this frozen face.

i cry for you
i think.
for your fire
for your disappearance
for your defiance
i cry for you
i think.
for your bold escape
daily
like a prayer.
i think.
i'll save you a tear
i'll write your name on it
in mascara.
i think
i'll say things to God for you.
i'll tell him about your hair
and how soft it is
how you clean your sneakers
how you hold my paniced hand
instinctively.  how you ask me to relax.
how you look into our air and see music.
how human you are.
how i battle my heart
to not love you
but i do,
i think.
and all these tears are for you.
i think.

Goodbye
goodbye is a language of it's own
it speaks in an absence
it puts tears on repeat
goodbye writes a name
on everything.
goodbye honks
when the light turns green
goodbye is startling
goodbye is anorexic
goodbye is starving.
goodbye speaks for itself
it lays you down
keeping you up
it dreams for you
while you wrestle with
unopened promises.
goodbye tells the same story
again to the same
friendly person
and goodbye is determined
to solve the problem
but it is as blind as you are deaf
to this silence
that goodbye left.

Flight

all my words are birds

blocked in a headlock.

snapped awake

like an alarm clock.

every curse

to demonstrate

i act

like an acrobat

and flip the switch

all my limbs intact.

the type shakes

but you don't react,

that is that.

bay hound,

hound bay.

bellow

to the

sorrowful

holiday.

overachiever,

rattling weather.

a simple blue sky

more beautiful then you

or them or i...

flying.

the rafters come lower.

the town is over dressed

in out of towners

and one lone dog

cries to the loners.

alone at Ihop

eavesdropping

numb stare of eyes

the blue of pavement, flecked

maple syrup on my elbows

elbows on the table

conversations like birds

snickering around me

"he was the one with the swollen throat... throat cancer i think.. smoking."

that's an elderly man. sing songy.

"my defects... well i haven't gotten there yet."

a young man. pride.

and then i hide my phone in my lap and play tetris

i pretend to be texting

a black haired boy across the aisle is snapping away at his video game.

not hiding. greasy haired. all in black. not hiding.

i contemplate bulimia.

but i'm already attached to my swelling belly.

i give up.

i twitch and tick. I mind less and less.

why does age take such caring, such pretense away?

screw it, i think. i'm interesting to watch.

i'm hiding and i fit in,

i fit into my hiding place.

there are too many poems in my heart

they waste my words on you

they make me alone

sugarless tracks in the snow

dragging my eyes

across bright burning cold.

i saw what i wanted to see

until the truth saw me.

a wave of stars

smashed up against your word

trash talk

dreams i can't remember anymore.

we were so long ago.

french kissing in the car

our eyes met on a thin line of lightning

our bodies jagged electricity

like how one travels down a mountain.

you are the son of your own destiny

and i am something else,

entirely.

Hurricane katrina

jesus loves whores

so you are forgiven by someone.

don't be flattered,

your sins are not original.

god did not put a third step between your two step

and my love. on blue and broken feet.

green fields you plowed through,

were picture windows blown out.

lives are so tender! i shout,

you broke the glass animal that was my heart.

smug bitch,

where are your words of wisdom now?

i divorce your quiet

with my own confessions

on this unsigned document

of the truth.

my superpower is love.

i have cramps
a couple of days ago the sky was a blue color i have never seen before.
it was an unrecognizable sky
i snapped a paranormal photograph with my eyes.
my heart is driving to the desert
i sigh
i curl into the italian
a short cry
and for dreams are his

i am not enough
he is not enough
there is never enough
enough is enough is enough is enough (song i danced to in the fifth grade in my bedroom covered in horse ribbons).
enough already
enough said

The problem with a heart
is that it doesn't have a brain.
I think a heart has limits.
i don't want it to..
 but i think it does.
when is enough enough?
when is it not enough?
when does love say no!
...stop and let go.
i don't fucking know!

dreamt my dad was off-roading in a cadillac, jumping it into an unswimmable river on the east side.  i had a horse in a hospital elevator.  the horse got nervous when i did.  he quivered and tensed..

i drove in circles.
narcotic romantic
circles.
my loves crashed
into me trying to swerve
away.

i don't learn
and neither do they.

how do you miss something you never became?

Afterlife

not often enough

are we speaking

in reference to afterlife

to the understanding

of our limits on legs

underfoot

the monster undertow

of tomorrow

is like a camouflaged submarine

barely crawling.

a magnet below us

pulling.

we laugh and scream

and finger cars

that cut us off

and slow our progress

to another meaningless

meeting of details,

sketches of something

we plan to goddamn make happen.

and every breath taken for granted

until this magic carpet is pulled out from under us

and we awake to the simple ending

ahead of all of us.

i want skinnier legs.

i am all human.

i am perfect.

i hate myself.

i thank God for what i have.

i am full of opposites.

i am in the trenches and high as a kite.

and low drowning in the river

and skating on fragile ice.

i am nothing

and if not everything

sigh. i want skinnier legs.

Clouds

we ran in tight circles

that stretched into serpentines,

ribbon candy and sparrows.

we parked behind the Toys R Us

in the air conditioned car.

we split a sandwich

and put our sunglasses on the dash.

we watched the greenbelt do the wave,

the clouds demonstrating their talent.

the trees like people in stadium seats

a sweep of shadow crossing the wooded valley

leaving behind a gulley

flush with light.

sometimes romance

is a surprise exhibition from clouds.

we are always who we were