Heaps

I’m floating on saltwater

my hands the weakest oars

splintered with stinging words

sickened by the steady tumble

light swish and heavy drop

my stomach clenched tight

I look up high but

clouds loom each night

and shroud the North Star.

"Don’t stop now!"

they tell me.

"You've come so far."

After Four Years

I’m picking hearts off the wall

pink ones and yellow ones
made of construction paper
symmetrical and scattered

and with them go my postcards -
Spain, France, and England -

my portraits in red ink
(in constant self-revision)

and love poems and bumper stickers which say concisely
precisely what I believe.

I’m picking stars off the wall
each one filled in sharpie ink
with words of the greats

and then I take down letters
and cards, decorated so artfully
by people who were even there
through the tearful nights
they never saw.

I’m putting all of this in a narrow box
that fits every shape, size, and color

and I’m leaving it open

because I know nothing will fall out.

I’m sitting on this sheetless bed
and staring at walls I forgot were white.