thumbing through old photos he noticed a chem trail that split into two above their heads
cracked violently against an open sky

he hadn't truly faced her in days, though they were on the road and she was wearing white
and that's when true lovers meet
or so they say

that photo and the white and the path that broke open the sky
foretold everything that was

ani l’dodi v’dodi li

my body is my temple

cocoa leaf rings around your middle fingers//and your goddess snake protector wraps herself around your thumb (she tells you this is where I'll be when you need me)//blue eyes vibrant//feet tanned from walking the endless stairs of Cusco//heart open after yoga in the hills of Calca//cheeks red after hiking to las ruinas del luna//sense of belonging after wandering in Ollanta//hair ropy and rubia it hangs//manipura lustrous//the smile you share

You strike me at the most perplexing moments- when I play a song that you hated or when there is a silence that settles under my rib cage. I like the emptiness between the spaces you laid out for me and I wonder often how you hold yourself now that we don't have one another to lean up against. Then I am reminded of your spine, and the ridges we built so carefully around our beaten selves; how they imitate our arches. Lately I’ve been noticing how resiliency is something we can conjure up, like dreams of the dead and wistful feelings that lift us out of the dreariness of the day. And it saddens me because I think it shows how good we are at wasting time, and at night I dab the oil of my jasmine at the throat and watch it drip, and I find myself wondering how far have you moved on? When did you begin on that path, really?

three blind mice

She found herself ordering her days by the different men she chose to pay attention to. On Saturday she twisted herself recklessly, hair loose, in to the plaything Carter wanted her to be, she ate little and drank heavy and left black lace behind for him to stumble upon. Sunday morning she crawled out of his bed and let the interstate toss her home, rolling slabs of pavement hurried beneath her, mittens warming on the dashboard, a rash underneath the ring she wore to declare herself. She knew at her pit he made her heedless, and in turn she would make him hopeless. That afternoon she tied her hair in a knot at the nape of her neck to greet Nick-  they stayed outdoors all day where he listened to her thoroughly and stroked her face, poor thing, he didn’t know who she really was (how could he? Nobody did, not even her). She spoke of herbs and delighted in the snow and spun dripping tales of growth cycles and the waiting game. He promised right then to leave everything he had to follow her and all she had to do was blink up at him, pick the leaves off her cotton dress. When he left the next day he hugged her too tightly and she knew suddenly she would never want it to be real. The beginning of the week brought her lying through her teeth as she sat huddled in a booth with Brett, wrapped her fingers around a beer she never liked the taste of as she told him sweetly about the dream she never had. He wanted to spin her and then hold her so she pushed gently on his chest and played herself fragile, one long braid down her back. 

Told each one of them to wait for her and stepped out in to the unknown where all three of them, against their knowledge, loved her best.

its not that i wont let you in, because every day in some small way, i suppose i do

And one day she'd tell of the jungle and how, amongst all the wonderous beasts and fruits and wet, under the cacophony  of the selva, swinging from the vibrant ropes she clung to and the solid sweeping of the wimba tree, she unearthed the most dazzling creature of all