Things you write when you are in love...

When I'm in love,

(and I will be in love)

I'm going to leave little notes.

In small places,

like the glovebox,

or the produce drawer of the fridge,

the hot water tap,

the inside cover of your favorite book,

I'm going to leave little notes.

They will be dated

(so you will know that I loved you back then),

and they will be signed,

these little notes of yours.

If I left you one today,

I would leave it beneath the dining room table.

It would not be a sticky note,

or stationary.

It would be marker on the underside of the red table,

the one you love,

and it would simply say,

“The biggest way I could say this,

was on the underside of this.

I miss you

and I'm sorry about the table.”

This is what it feels like...

If you were to
fall
or leave with reckless
abandon,
I should think my
fingernails
would disappear and
clattter
down the drain
when
I wash my hands.

Or the blush from my
cheeks
would stain my
towels
and wipe from my
face.

The yellow, the
shine,
would vanish from my
eyes
and the sun would
blaze
only slightly brighter.

You  see, darling,
you are as much me
as my
fingernails
blush
shine.

I didn't realize the
ragged hole beneath my ribs
or my right palm
or my ear
where you fit so nicely.

For him...

Dear one,

Birds make me think of goodbyes.
The thought of that alone, makes me
Dress in the colour of grey skies.

I'm without what is mine,
intrinsically mine, like a wrist or vein.
Birds make me think of goodbyes.

Sadness roosts, swollen in my
throat like a bruised plum.
My chest is dressed in the colour of grey skies.

In the tangled weave of my
nestless hair, the swollen eggs are resting.
Birds make my think of goodbyes.

The weight of it, the mourning, drips by
my breasts like an overripe fruit, sticking.
The juice of it is the colour of grey skies.

When I think of you
under the bird ridden tree in summer,
I want to wear the colour of grey skies
and birds make me think of goodbyes.

Button

I wear a button on my wrist.
I wear a button on my wrist.
It keeps my skin closed,
Unravel
Into a skien
Of bones, so white,
And so broken,
Of paper, ashen,
And curling as dying birds,
Floating carbon-black,
Of mud
Sweeping, blood red,
Amongst my hair,
Between my breasts.
This button, my darling,
Small and stone-hard,
Is my last restraint.
I wear it to remind me.