If you weren't there, I wouldn't move.

Even now - 

If you tell me that 

After we unpack my apartment, 

You're leaving, 

I'll go back to retail. 

I am uprooting my life for you.
I do not want to leave my friends

What little family I have

For someone who is waiting 

To feel okay about leaving me.

Please don't take the credit

For making me safe,

Just to leave.

There's no award.

Parenting I and II

I want my son to see a healthy home.
                                 joy.
                                 love.

I want him to hear
"I am so glad you exist"
instead of thinking I regret bringing him into this world.

I want,
more than I want my own happiness,
for him to feel safe.
                      strong.
                      unafraid.

I have been afraid for
26 years.

Afraid of being homeless.
                        hungry.
                        cold.

Afraid of being alone.

I have always said,
"Do not stay in impossible relationships 'for the kids'."
And I stand by that.

But I understand the impulse.


-----------------------------------

I learned how not to parent.

Don't have an abusive husband.
Don't be an alcoholic.
Don't abandon your children.
Don't lie.

But that kind of knowledge only leaves a void.

A child is a vessel that gets filled
with dreams
(theirs, and yours)
and ideas.

A lacking is not,
By definition,
And I do not want him
To be filled with emptiness.

low art

I can make World of Warcraft
into high literature
(If you would listen)
Or Ke$ha into a classic
(the ballads of my generation).
Because art that is for the unwashed masses
is still art,
if you are smart enough to see it.

"My heart sleeps in the Emerald Dream."
Is still the most romantic thing
I've ever heard
and Tyrande stopped saying it
seven years ago.

I remember falling in love
in Azeroth.

A timeless love
for a full-hearted woman
gave one brother the strength to fight for his people,
and drove one brother to madness
(the one who, all things considered, loved her more).

Maybe that was her objection -
To come before all else requires a certain level of
helplessness
which has always been beyond her.
This huntress, priestess, leader,
lover.

A man guided by selfish love,
propelled by the emptiness of being
the second-best twin
Searching, always, for his place
Is no kind of man for Tyrande.
With a destiny thrusted upon her,
she had no time to be his keeper,
or his guide.

Instead did she pick the man
who would leave her alone
(not expecting, of course, ten thousand years
of peace and quiet)
to rule her people,
only to be told "no" when it mattered most.
(She did it anyway.)

For a long time I was disappointed.
You wake her lover up,
Just to split them into their own stories?
Where is the undying devotion?
Ten thousand years of waiting, and wanting?
Have they fallen out of love?

Of course not.

The older I get,
The more I realize that love is not togetherness.

It is the coming together after distance.
It is the letting go when someone leaves.

Maybe she did love that second best twin,
after all,
And in ten thousand years, maybe I will understand.

And look, here it is -
A poem of love and loss,
pain, and growth -

certainly not low art.

starfall

I tried to sound smart. “The stars are so much brighter back home.”

“I know,” you said. You looked at me as though you’d touched one. 

A black bird flies by me. So close, 

I could touch it, like your outstretched hand,

if only I could get through this fence. 

Falling is a spiritual experience. Like flying, and a poem,

it leaves me with nothing 
except the whistling air. 

“I need to write you a poem,” I say. You look at me like

you don’t understand. But I don’t know how to say it any clearer. 

Once when I was crying you told me, 

“You are enough.” This must be how that star felt

As you held her in your hand.

part-time

I said
"there are some things I do miss"
I was stressed
and afraid
and hurt
but it wasn't all bad.

You became a cook.
I tasted the air up there.

(Maybe because of)
All that stress
and pain
and anger

I became a poet
You fell in love.

I liked working part time.
Getting to enjoy my time, there
- instead of feeling like it was my job.

I just enjoyed doing the dishes
Creative problem solving
Making myself useful.

Everyone misses what they're good at.
And I was a great
part-time wife.

two poems in a gastropub

lines

You said once
that I had to draw a line in the sand
and work backwards from there.
I couldn't wait for what I wanted
to neatly fit into where my life was going.

I want your line in the sand
to be me.

------------------------------------
return on investment

return on investment was
the poem I was trying to write
to convince you to
see me through to the end.

It was exhausting.
Trying to persuade you
without begging you to stay
or alarming you
with the depths of my attachment.

I don't want to have to walk the line
between how much I love you
and how much I think you love me.

I was writing a poem
to convince you that
I could earn you a large
return on investment,
and was worth your continued affection.

But I don't want to beat around the bush.
My heart is already racing from too much coffee
and I have work to do today.
What I mean is:

I love you
and

I think we can do this
for a long time.

last night I said
I want to write poems about your orgasms
(we were both pretty stoned at the time)
do you remember?
I said
You made me want to write love songs.

If you had kept fucking me like that
I might have wept
tears of exhaustion and joy
of pure love and emotion
But I didn't.

You make me want to worship.
I wanted to take you inside me
fill all my senses with you
breathe in the essence of you
tell you that I love you

your orgasms make me want
to whisper loving words in your ear
to kiss your skin
thank God for your body
and the way you make me feel.

When you are inside me,
pushing me through climax after climax
without even letting me come up for air
I think that when He looked at
all the pleasures on Earth and said
"it is good"
He must have been
talking about
this.