Our laughter shakes the tables while we pray our bodies are record-players where the needle runs the grooves so deep we can’t move. we smoke cigarettes even when it’s raining so we feel like our lungs are apart of something bigger. We lie still on the grass, letting our bodies collect drew drops to wash our hair with and hold rocks in our pockets so not to get carried away

We are embarrassed by the women who fall out of their chairs, crashing through the floor, covered in the dirt of our thoughts. We are embarrassed because we are not them nor are we the children with skinned knees, missing teeth and eyes. The ones who fall out from the trees, buildings and oceans- the ones dangling from the christmas lights we once hung in our own souls. We are embarrassed because we forgot how to fall.

We keep our socks over our hands so we don’t hold on to each other too tightly and we paint our faces onto bottles as we cast them to the sea of our sorrows -letting go, pushing through the cracks of our teeth- forcing them from our bodies we thrust our neighbors into the darkened corners of the world. The waves carry our broken dreams to a distant shore where the women are topless and the men grow out their finger nails.

The bitter tea we drink from the throats of our teachers leaves our breath reeking of the dead bodies left in faraway lands so far we don’t have to think about them. But the currents of the waters tear them limb from limb, skin from skin, finger and hair, nipple and wrist -to be eaten by the fish we are fishing for and place in our stores. So, that we become one of the other becomes one of the other becomes one of the other becomes me.

The moon-that hangs heavy above-is a son of a bitch left behind by the stars to remind us they are not ours. We are looking for caves to sit inside of where we think god might be hiding, marking the walls with colored pencils so we know where we’ve come from. Our thoughts are only books for the burning- from a fire we set our selves. A fire we just want to warm our feet by. A fire to make the shaking go away.

Spray paint our bodies. Spray paint our bodies the color of the trees. Let our roots grow deep into the earth. let the worms be our veins, the weeds our hair. Let us crazy straw suck up the universe till its tentacles tickle our lungs. Let our words cut our strings that hold our bodies and let us dance.

Dance river, dance sun rays, dance cheap wine,  Rise up with the waves. We’ll put all our senses into a jar to toss up in the air like growing children and when they rain down again we will taste our words and smell our colors. Lets be the birds, lets be the bridges, the ferris wheels who reach for the heavens only to crash backdown to earth but keep on spinning.

I hang my dreams up in trees like birdhouses
and watch as my feathered friends come to take
a taste and fly away again.

“You cannot write” she says
But my dreams are in the trees!

“You must work, you must marry
you must be thin” she says
Just watch me and see.

“You cannot write” she says
My hope will be the warmth of the
sun on your back.

“You must be pretty” she says
My words will leave a wet kiss on
your cheek like the steam from your tea.

“You cannot write” she says
My poems will lift our souls,
we will cast shadows on the clouds.

“Have children, look down when
you walk” she says
Revolution will leak from my pen,
peace from my tongue.