Every step is a time lapse
free falling through the waves
My home is on a shoreline
A town with a storm looming over the ocean
I remember getting laid on Labor Day
in my brother’s room
I had a machine gun for a heart then
My arms spread over the libraries and
wove pages to sunken ships
Growing up is a treasure hunt for broken mirrors
and moments worn to pearl
I remember getting high for the first time
Reality broke with a stone
the sky shattered and giants climbed from
the sun with violin bodies
The earth sat on a girl’s tongue before
another boy snatched it
I remember the night
most of all—
Wet ash on bare toes
Hugging the stars with conversation
on a rusted trampoline
I had long breakups that turned to floodgates
Weekends were untouchable
frozen for the boys to drink blood from necks cut
open like troughs
We did our best to become wolves
picked my scabs till they came back glowing
I didn’t think of umbrellas then or the way a woman can
turn a look into a fire alarm
I measured myself with two cars and an ocean
Time goes faster and lily pads grow from
the dust bowl of my appearance
I’ve learned you can’t fix a person
the only thing to do is love them or
be a dark cave to climb in when crows pass
I too have climbed in the bowls of
many ships
The water breaks to fine salt and cities crawl
from the shore
Every person I know is there sculpting
their bodies in a single face
that says This is where the sea grows old
I’ve seen enough storms to know
waves roll back before they hit the future
The shore grows farther each year
I traveled two decades to get
to this poem
On the way back I found a garage sale
on a desert island
Before returning to the storm I sold my memories
for a dream catcher
Six minutes from now
I trade the dream catcher for a trophy
that doesn’t belong in my home and I’m homesick
from my own childhood
The first time I made love
in a Toyota
The feeling of holding hands
on a school bus
My past is a sliding glass door
latched shut when I sneak home
Sometimes I can’t get into my own
heart
But I make love like I know
how much the furniture weighs
I’ve taken apart
my life with screwdrivers and pills
But every time it breaks down
the skin of my vessel thickens
like the plot does
I know there’s so much
ahead of me
First dates
Hangnails from playing in the wind
Most days I fear
love like a traffic jam
Sadness that fills the bow
of a soul and spills in the flowing
black
Time doesn’t stop
I’ve seen the swells that lay ahead
and I remember the simple stuff
That not everything is left at shore
I’ve taken days with me
I press my body on the waves
and go towards my destination
Clamor 