Returning

Just so you know it'll
probably take me some
time to unsteep
from where I just was

to have the dye of there
fade from my thoughts
like the freckles from
my skin in the winter

Until then I'll
probably be blinking a lot
and speaking in hesitant
tones as if I can't quite
focus on you or verify your
existence to myself

or really the existence of
anything outside of the
book I've been reading so
intently

the book
whose last page
I turned before finding
my seat on the plane whose cover
I thought I'd shut whose words
won't stay put

defiantly uncoiling
from the perfect loops
into which I'd coiled them

like an unruly set of tefillin

reblogged--"Unrequited Love Letters"

"What does one do with the detritus of unrequited love?"

Unrequited Love Letters

thanks but I'll stay cracked a little longer

I am sorry I can't go
out with you tonight for God
heals the broken-hearted and

binds up their
wounds and I'm not
ready to get a clean bill

of health God's signature
on a prescription order in my
hand as God exits through the

curtain separating me from God's
other patients and leaves me alone

to change back into my street clothes

how about you try me again in a couple weeks

8.30.2013-10.14.2013

Henna II

Swirls and flowers mark my movement
from one life to another

Pungent black the first day
soon a brick-brown stain
is all that is left of

a change a moment a
feeling I try to hold on to
as tan streaks fade

into the barest blush
that threads along my
skin cracks until it is

indistinguishable
and who I am now
is all I can remember