Of magic
You cannot prepare for magic,
it is an irrational disaster
of joy.

Luck's parade
is a marching band blowing up horns,
tumbling pop cans down pavement..
all flags.

This justice is for lovers,
a wedding of runaways
three to a hula hoop
nine to a star.

Magic is a circus,
a surprising shower of clowns
a pink stampede of horses
and sleepover clouds.

my first blue ribbon in black and white.

                                             love

i'm building a boat out of my heart.
a ship to voyage.
you are invited.
i will need your long arms for sails
you can be king
of the animals.
the maps are drums

the charts are in a lonely language
 i prefer being lost.
let's listen for direction
let's see in a blind faith
a twin compass of clouds.
no wind between us
everything behind.

Voices
the first time my heart spoke to me
it said things about god.
i was a little child.

before that my heart mostly mumbled
i heard it through a swaddle
then later in a very old and ugly man's lap
that was before fear of things like elderly lips
and dried spit and the thin skin of the ground calling
to a human that the end is waiting.
back then i didn't know why i loved.  just did.
or why i curled in the lap of death.  just did.   for a cuddle.
or why i wanted to feel wind on my bare chest.
just did.

after i became comfortable with the voice
it became my own.
and then i said a lot of terrible things
and then i sang a lot of pretty melodies
and then i told people i love dearly to go fuck themselves
and then i cried out loud
and very loud.
and then i laughed like in the movies.  the wild girl.
and then i told stories.  lies.   jokes.
i told men i loved them.  men i didn't love.
i told myself to be quiet.  but out loud and everyone heard.
i gossiped.  i whispered in class.  i told the truth.
i said i was sorry.  i said i was leaving.
i made promises.  i read bedtime stories.
i shrieked.  it was so scary.  i moaned his name.
i asked for help.
i told myself i was beautiful.  in a mirror.  in Indiana.
i told him i love him.  i love him.
i prayed.  the voice of a child.  the voice of god.
my heart.

"Write Him Off" recorded May 2012 at Flipnotics (courtesy of DaveTeeVee).  That's Ray Prim and Patrice Pike with me!

A supermoon
the baby owls whinnied in the trees.
foals.

exhausted,
i reached into bed.
i held onto your fear.  a commitment.
i sheltered your imagination and
considered what i knew to be true.
i hoped for a train to scream
from the other side of the greenbelt.
like a lap steel.  night sounds.

you pulled me close,
feel.

             when i wake up with him.

Mute
when did this silence come?
my languages
in locked lungs.
where did this muting
come from?

all night i sift
daydreams.  flies to swat.
they come to sit
and stay to rot.

then quiet
like birds
-caught.

                                                         smiling in her sleep.

sometimes the train is 
not on the track.

The Filling

i am full of words and bones and puzzles
i am full of thread and foals and pencils
i am full of metal and cancer and crashing
i am full of dreaming.

i am full of laughter and lemonade
i am full of boyfriends and summer
i am full of shit.  and full of arguments.

i am full of hamburgers and highways and lamp posts
i am full of acid and disco and dime bags
i am full of my family, my mother and sidewalks
i am full of my father
i am full of luck and terror
i am full of tornados and pond water.

i am covered in scars.

i am full of sad songs
i am full of 1976
i am full of Sheba and television and quarter horses
i am full of fences and birch trees and bb guns
i am full of fireworks.

i am full of fight
i am full of light
i am full of prayer and liquor and love
i am full of voices and courage and back roads
i am full of friendship...
and questionable stories
i am full of blue ribbons
and pickup trucks.

i am full of lightening.
and emptiness
and earthquakes and sex

and saxophone.

i am full of myself
i am full of him
and them
i am full of beginnings
and the end and God and guesses
i am full of questions and piano lessons
i am full of suitcases and jasmine and trumpet
i am full of clocks and train tracks
i am full of kisses and woe
i am full of strangers and sorrow
i am full of ideas and triangles and gutter balls
and dance halls.
i am full of tears...

but when i spill
i spill my heart.

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.