I once praised you with fingertips
I wrote you sonnets in the curve of your hip.
I let us slip
and sigh
into tomorrow
And kissed your lips
with secrets.

I once loved you with a look
One that at the smallest glance took
Away fears.
And you were a king in my eyes
For more then just a day
Did you miss it?

I once kept you with a word
Whispered, and yet you heard.
I cradled you on our shared bed
with hips and lips,
eyes and secrets,
I kept you
In the dark
Close to my heart
And never wanted to let go.









The first time I loved you
I loved you with only three words
I said them in a casual way
lightly rolling them off my tongue
Iridescent bubbles of thoughtlessness

The second time I loved you
It was more serious
I said them timidly
Wanting to be bold
Standing naked before you
Wanting to be so much more.

By the time the third rolled around
I knew loves ceaseless game
I had been led around
And stripped naked
One by one
But this I saved I just for you.
I presented it as a gift
when it's the last thing on the shelf
Maybe it was worth it
Or maybe it was just what was unwanted
But I said it
Earnestly
But with heart
I love you.
And this time after all life had taught me

i meant it.

Growing Up

I never saw a man
Except for once on a hospital bed
The light was gray and he asked me to touch him.
I was four.

That was the year mom took me into town
For new shoes and hot chocolate
She gave a dollar to the man with the cup
but wouldn't let me look at him.
Dad used to smile and swing me around
And called me his little girl.
And there was always paper to color with.

When I was eleven the men came.
They gave daddy white pills
And he didn't call me his little girl anymore.
Mom took me into town
And pinched her face at the price of training bra's.
I ground my toe into the dirt and pretended I was 30
When men used to look at me.

By the time I was seventeen I was drifting away.
Familiar with the touch of wanting hands.
Mom never smiled
And I was never home.
Dad looked at me like I was a Satan
with a bible clutched in his hand.
And I wanted to apologize
for what, I'm not sure.
It just seemed like the right thing to do
And these people who were strangers now
Raised me to be like that.

The year would go by
And they would see me holding hands
With several boys.
But never a man.
Until the year I turned nineteen.
By then the leafs were melted off the sycamore
And nobody used the swing out back anymore.
Because it just wasn't the thing to do.
Mom would scrape together her last bit of flour
And smile over coffee.
And I thanked her for that
With a $20 in her palm
Because I knew the price of flour these days.
Dad was steve now.
And we barely talked
Not that I minded.

Words were never spoken
And the house was often silent
And cold.
I would lie awake
Staring at the night light
In a room of an unfamiliar town
Feeling more at home.
Wondering distantly
Why that was,
But not really feeling in the dark
For an answer.