Weather for Headphones

Sometimes I have dreams where
I feel more awake than asleep
the cold, cluttered past melted
into sensation. I want to live here
in this dream, in this place
of red autumn and blue winter. You
are in that dream, and when
I catch the light you open
your eyes. My dreams feel like
closed eyes in summer light,
then opened, the sepia tones
rushing past with the wind. I forget
that sometimes love
is not enough. I forget that
I cannot be like the other birds,
singing, silent, singing in the face of
blue winter. I have spent nights
awake, wishing never to dream,
waiting on the sun. It always comes.

If we write words in the sand,
who will read them? How will we eat
with our dirty hands, our scuffed feet
buried in seawater, wiping shell and bits
of plastic pails, broken on the tide?

If we write poems, who will ask
what they mean? Does one contain
the meaning of life? A scribbled scratch
on the underside of a classroom chair:
bio 128. this world is too late.

If we sing songs to the night,
will they echo? How will we breathe
with the sound in our ears, our eyes
leaking leaves and fireflies?
One last song, the dark fades
and we hold hands beneath the stars.

i’m going down
to the place where my hands stop shaking
where snow melts in sunlight, tomorrow

it’s hard remembering
when I was little, I wanted to fly
i told myself the clouds were cotton candy

i remember
closing my eyes in the back row, pressing
breathing eye rainbows for home

somewhere between
today and yesterday, i died
i was touched, i died, i tore my body

i was born yesterday
is what they tell me under covers
it’s what i’ll know until i wither

i want to find
the smile in your fingertips
the kiss, your warmth-spread smile

i want to see
your face one more time, before
the lights steal me home

take me home,
to where the snow melts in sunlight, tomorrow
you’ll take me home, tomorrow

my sheets will never be silent
whispers trailed between your fingers

i’ve always wanted to kiss people
through windows my astral heart

every birthday i ask for cookies
the cakes are made en masse

i used to draw mountains
but people make better horizons

if you build a sea of night
if you hide beneath the stars
someone will find you

Last night, I was anxious about returning to school. I am living off campus, and my room felt empty. I wrote two poems- one is about loneliness, and the other is about hope.

sometimes i taste the stale marrow of isolation
a creak in the night is enemy or empty

and it’s impossible to silence the noise in your head
the tin-tin pitch black space which craves distance

some person some day may read my words with their eyes
the ones that never penetrate walls, though seeing everything

we wish for open air and box our hearts instead
a car door slams, lights flicker, with the air we think we breathe

if this is the beginning then the end will be between