a poem. we walk, slow and quiet, these days.

spider-catching girl

spider-catching girl,
she watches,
closely.
signs of life and knotted strings.
birds, in the trees and in the windows,
singing, quiet, tire treads
move in her like water
and black rocks.
spiderwebs make creases
in the air, skies unfolding,
like paper cranes with minds of their own.
quiet. like coffee.
full of colors, she walks
everywhere. sidewalks wake up,
feel her fingertips,
but they never say so.
they are quiet, too.
a funny kind of understanding
full of smoke and clinking bracelets,
clinking leaves.
spider-catching girl, she walks,
she watches,
deep breaths and dark corners,
breaking,
listening too hard
and dancing hollow.
listening
like two sparrows moving,
darting,
crashing
in the dark.

bones

once, in the dark
with black and white collisions
melting softly into grey
i heard your voice
quiet and still
in the yard, behind the fence
in the smoke you spoke
and in the silence
below sufjan’s voice you
told me stories of stories
stories of secrets only spoken
in lies and poems, never said
i will, i will not shout this,
it has been shouted many times.
we have walked here, many times.
the sun has set here, many times.
and this storyteller’s visions
are so true because they’re not
are hidden beneath the untaught
are tangled up in knots
that never were to be untied
and so we sit, you and i,
in the dark across the fire
telling secrets in the silence
our voices drowning in unraveled threads
in the knots we should have left alone instead
of things we should have left unsaid
but we were honest, if we were anything
and it will be our end, in time
if not in moments or in days
it will be the years that catch us
we knew that all along.
so sing with me a new song
while we can
while we’re still here
and breathing deep.
we speak in different tongues now,
our own, personal, torturous babel
of changing winds and shifting sands
of restless tectonics, long plane flights
and tilted kaleidoscopes.
but i will now, as ever, breathe your fire
drink your pearls
and lose myself in your reverie
of good intentions
and eyes open.
the sun crashes through its own eclipse
pushing midnight off its throne
and stirring visions
that will be lost in this new void
but we remain here,
as we ever, so
for old thoughts, if for nothing,
sit down and have some coffee;
stay awhile,
show your bones.