Poetry and Prose

I am still the Cliffs of Moher  And you are still the vastness of the sea I just let the love of your loyalty  roll over me again and again Your tide is now ingrained into my rhythm  And your waters have found home  In the deepest parts of me  You still whisper my name  I still crumble into you You see the fault lines where I think I lack, And tell me,  “There is no part of you I don’t want back.”  I watch your sea as it does not weigh my faults It swallows them  And makes them belong There is still this cave system hidden inside of me Still leading to the part I once hoped you’d never see You tell me this is the most thrilling part– To know me, to know me, to know me You see my eager heart that causes earthquakes  When I swear, my very foundation is shaking,  You hold me steady  You help me stay whole You still gather the pieces I drop  Stitching them back into who I am And I listen when you speak I watch as the sky above...

Feelings often come easily to me  Words are a harder feat  So I often let silence translate for me  Though I don’t think it ever sets the tone right You, see, silence only tends to be my friend at 5:00 in the morning Any other time, I find that silence creeps it’s claws along my neck Like a boyfriend who is a tad bit territorial  It’s been a while since I’ve felt it’s comforting hold  When it think’s I am learning to stand on my own two feet  It will tighten it’s hold, crushing my windpipes The air that wants to scream for help is silenced  The voice I once had removed  It see’s tears that prick the corner of my eyes  Silence makes itself at home in my ribcage  It lingers right above my womb I think sometimes it tries to claw its way out  It takes every inch of my womanhood  It crawls out my throat in loudness In abrasiveness that screams 

I inherited soberness the day you got sick. It knocked on the door before sunrise And solidified itself into my veins on the ride to the hospital  I have this clot in my heart when I think of you I try to swallow it like a shot of whiskey  You always told me I couldn’t take a shot straight It’s no wonder that I stagger in your absence And can’t breathe when I smell car grease  Or if cigarette smoke wafts through the air  Every time I think of big dogs with kind hearts  I see a glimpse of the man I once knew  Dad, I still see you,  in every sad girl, and in every good man  I keep drafting myself into letters I can’t send  My hand shakes, like a man holding a gun with terrible aim  I am sorry that my words often ricochet off the walls  Directly into the gutter where I tend to lie my head most nights  I wore your shirt today Two sizes too big and still not big enough to…  Make up for what I lost in you Dad, I still miss you I...

You call it humility and starvation  You don’t realize it’s a poor disguise  You don’t realize that it’s self-hatred prettied up in a broken mirror And I get it! I really do You look in the mirror and see pounds of fat  You wonder why God hasn’t chosen to prune that one, and that one, too You look in the mirror, and you see the scars that have gotten you to the place you are today Each one He looks at in awe and says, “Look, you are just like me…”  You look into the mirror. You see a crooked grin with big eyes And when He looks at you, He must think, “My father’s work is so beautiful.”  You look into the mirror and see every misplaced hair that started your day off wrong  And he thinks about how that is number 4,298  You look into the mirror. You think “the world would be a better off place if you weren’t in it”  He looks at you and says, “This is the part of the world I died for.”  You don’t realize that you were actually made for more than ...

I know you. I think that’s the saddest part I used to quote your favorite song when things got hard I can’t really remember the chorus now Ever since you left… It’s lingered on the tip of my tongue It’s a bittersweet thing Like hot tea that has gone cold from too much conversation  And ghosts that stutter over broken hearts and too much good But I do… I mean, I do stutter when I hear you say “I hate myself.”  Because I don’t know how you could hate someone who looked at me like  I was the sweetest thing you ever pressed to your lips  I know your smile, and the tilt in your head when you're confused  I know the hollow in your eyes when someone swore they would stay I know the secret link between sharks and coffee, too It’s something that lives in the cracks of my knuckles  In the weight you never admitted you carried  But now-  You sit across the room  A shadow flower-pressed against the wall  The ghost is still stuttering over not enough...