the gifts

my heart breaks open and spills

sugar cookies and fighting words,

church bells and glass animals.

the war and peace in a girl.

there isn't quiet for the words

my life.

cinnamon toast mittens

well.. i had a good personality

the beautiful backyard i spent my childhood daydreaming in.  my father snapped this picture just this morning.  i would do anything to be there. i miss it so...

i

red gelatin leaves weighed the cold branches 

to curve

i saw things in my dreams. like this and like that.

like you and like him.

like nothing happened.

i saw a believer once.  sold for rain.  for winter.

for smoke rings and for teeth.

gnashing teeth.  

and i bid him fare freedom

and i saw it in my dreams.

how words dropped from words.. 

three became two 

became one.

I still know things.

i was born in a field. fully clothed. but naked on the inside. and disappointed. i was brought up on horseback. i had no men or women near me just ponies and faulty wiring. i eventually learned how to walk on my own legs, they showed me how the first time i fell off. i never ran.. not a mile or a day in my life. i believed every thing they told me and they told me nothing. eventually i had to leave the herd. i was so lonely. i ended up here. and there...

Fruit

i'm thinking about things that have happened

furniture lived through

a backyard i called france

a wedding that i never planned for

a heartbreak that i was unprepared for

a million dollars

that ruined everything

your lion eyes never meeting 

mine mine mine

i'm thinking about things that have happened

since i quit the drugs

since i lost my horse and my house

my husband.

how love always feels like some great surprise to me

i never expect such lemon trees

with it's fruit falling and bruising around me

i thought about myself so exclusively

and i knew it and i'm sorry.

snow is haunted