When the astronaut told me she needed more space
I dropped my pants in the floor of the grocery store
Hoping I could moon her into staying.

Most of us will do anything to try and prove we are enough.
To prove our shine is no Hollywood
Our stars are not just actors
To prove the twinkle in our eye
Isn't an infection.

I can look in any direction and say "that's the way to go",
But I've learned this is how to stay.
Skipping moon rocks across my own puddle dive
Even when I've been clipped from the mothership
So I can still say
I bet you smell like butterfly.


But I bet you dream cocoon
And I bet you never say the word ‘fuck’
But we all know you do

My heart is a runway
I’ve been staring at this sky since my love took off
Will you be my friend?
Will you poem me a porch swing?
Will you punch me in the tough, just once?
I'm ready to reset my bones
Ready to swing set my ribcage
So the next time somebody pushes me away
I’ll swing right back to that chisel with my marble spine
Go ahead, build me

Do you ever think about God’s ears?
Wonder if the levee broke her promise?
Wonder if the wrecking ball was trying to run its fingers
Soft across the bricks
But its head was just too heavy?

Before you become my friend
Picnic with my rubble
Road trip with everyone I left in the dust
Do the laundry from the last time I was loaded

How she found my trigger and we woke
With the sheets pulled above our heads
Praying the mortician could make us pretty
Y'all, none of us are pretty.

But our ugly has an alibi
And our gorgeous has a sand collection
Or two harmonicas we keep blowing off
For that flute we carve from our wrists
Put your lips here
Tell me there is music in my blood
Then tell me there is more in my light
Hang me chandelier from the last night
I believed this life had to hurt so much

I am done kneeling in the church of steepled smokestacks
Done stargazing my own train crash

Give me wind sprints
Tell me my fingerprints are the shape of ripples on a frozen lake
Tell me my coal mind will never collapse on my heart
I’ll tell you these poems
They are my birthmarks

And I came this close to having them removed once
Even kept that voice-box cutter hidden in my shoe the day that flight took off
But the runway
It’s made of marble
Made of gust
Made of windmill
Made of salt

And there is a sea of hope-chest in every word I speak
Praying to be open by the night
With its belly full yield
Pull the shield from my wingspan
Teach me why the candle wax says thank you to the flame
Tell me how your mother says your name like an orchard going bloom
A doctor once told me I feel too much
I said so does God
That’s why you can see the Grand Canyon from the moon
We are a telescope, a riverbed
We are empty lockets melting into gold
We are hearts breaking bread

Fold me in your napkin poem
Pull the tinsel from my hair from all the pasts I cannot let go
My gills are adjusting to the air
The story husk peeled from my bones
My bones know the song of our tears
Dripping from the faucet
Tick-ticking like a metronome

I know there is better music
Even in this cabin full of fever
Tonight I’m catching nothing but the lightning bug
My body is a mason jar
Transparent as a jellyfish

I wish for a heart you can see straight through
For a voice that glows in the dark
And a few really good friends to skip moon rocks to.