Songs of The Moon

Sometimes, my dear, you’re got to give a man his space

I tell the kitten in my arms as she struggles to get past my fingers

It’s like trying to hold movement when all you’ve got is chopsticks

I tell you, it’s not that easy.

I hold my cats tightly, the same way the moon that we saw only three nights past

It holds onto light, like it’s the last time he’ll see the sun

Shining off his face like that.

From the moment I felt your nose against mine

I’d already promised you the best part of me, covered in scratches

With hands torn and bloody

But I learnt that love doesn’t always come wrapped nicely

In boxes with ribbons, but sometimes its just in the way that even though she knows it annoys him, Lady just won’t leave Seb alone.

My dear, I have loved you since the moon set eyes on the wolf

And called forth her voice to his eye

Since the first time we danced sideways across the room

Digging scratches into the floor and

Spilling tables and chairs into the sea of carpet and skin that we took off like shoes in the hallway

Letting it sink into the ground as we lay in the light wearing nothing but our scars and the sun.

I embalmed you in my life, like the gifts we give to the ocean, the stones and sticks we skim across palms to land in her stomach,

I wrapped you like an astronaut, padding you to hide you from my

Fingers, my heart, my tail, my claws: the stones and sticks that could really hurt.

I was willing to give you the scratches across my skin, but was scared to give you some of your own, too blind to see past my own torn fingers to yours

So I hid under the sheets until the sun had stopped coming in through the window

And told myself that ‘sometimes, you’ve just got to give a man his space’.

And when the moon comes around one more millionth time

With silver bells around my neck I’ll come to you like Lady does,

Leaping and crawling and not really caring how many scratches we both get,

As long as I get to hold you

Like the part of the ocean that holds onto the moons light like this is the last time she’ll ever see it like that

And I’ll learn one more time that love doesn’t always come wrapped nicely with bows

But with torn fingers and scratches.

Cleansweeps

If this is love, I’ll tell you

That I want it too much

I want it too much but I’m so scared that if I let you see

You’ll see it in my eyes and I’ll scare you away

I want it like the streets I used to walk after college on a Tuesday

Down dark alleys wondering if anyone would approach me

And kind of hoping that they would.

I’m afraid of wanting.

There’s a river that I swear once led right to my heart

But I lost it the day I lost my bones

I lost them because I was too proud it say ‘uncle’, or ‘mercy’

And I’m crying out mercy but my bones can’t hear me

Any more than the river can because they don’t have ears,

No matter what any poet tries to tell you.

I’m afraid of getting fat.

I’m afraid of losing out, of never getting lost

Of hiding away because it’s damn easier than talking to people

Because I’m afraid of them too

Because I know what it’s like to be them

And if this ain’t a poem then I’m god-damned if I know what is

Because god seems to have damned me since I’ve been seeing his face in the trees

And I want to ask them how may friends they’ve had to bury

Because I’ve seen two

And some may lift their fingers and call it peace but when its you that’s pointing to your still heart

I promise you, it won’t feel that way.

I used to be made of hoping

But I’ve wasted it away on tears for cats

and I’d tell you that you didn’t want to know me

But I’m afraid of dying alone.

The Cat Waltz

Because I know what it is to touch you

Underneath a street light on top of your roof

I shaped us into a waltz

One, two, three strokes, I’m out

Like the days of Christmas broken into quarters

I threw at you like you were a street busker

Just begging me to listen.

Because I know distance tinctures my lungs

Shaping air into crosses from which I’ll hang my shame.

The twelve sorry’s I’ll give before the ten promises say I’m too wrong

I will fold my heart into the ocean,

And follow you until the moon cuts like a scythe in the night

And with it, you’ll cut me apart.

Because I am a sucker for pain, and I know how to be wrong

I want you to break me to pieces.

I want to feel your fingers as they pull me into a tree

Cut me into a fence; bury my feet into the inner city suburbia.

I could never promise you

To dance as cats under the screeching of car alarms

Our silver bells ringing like a symphony we could never re-hear

And set the sky alight with the fire of birds.

Because all that I give is hollow, I gave you the space between stars

When all you asked was for the space between fingers

A distance I couldn’t close.

So you turned me into a wolf until the day

I forgot your name was something other than the taste of

Salt, the feel of snow, the sap of pines, the moon I

Sung my praises to each month, until I lost you.

Because I am a minor chord, trying so hard to be joy

I broke like a string and rebounded across your hands

Leaving welts where I should have left love

And of the twelve sorry’s, I’m down to the one

That I have here in the space between eyes and chin, hoping to spit it out

From behind these broken teeth, knowing that it’s just another thing to

Break, and unlike the vase, you won’t take the blame.