the view from one of my windows. past the last row of palm tree's is the venice beach and the pacific ocean. i'm home and i feel like i never left, like nothing has changed, and early-mornings in my sea foam green bedroom are still the same. i'm finishing the last of my packing and out of the thousands of songs in my ipod, only the ones that have meant to me most seem to coming out, reminding me of so much, too much, that i sit here longing for los angeles. for a clean slate, for empty walls, for the chance to pick-and-choose who i want to become. i've learned so much the last five years of being back, the last six years of being with you, that it would be impossible to not completely turn my life around. i can't believe my luck- this job i want, the apartment that i swear was built in 1926 with me in mind. the hunger in me is subsiding, you know? seeing you, laying there with you, kissing you, looking at the corner of your bedroom and wondering how many accumulated hours of my life i have spent doing all those things, that's when i asked you about our matching square tattoo's. what i didn't say is this: we will always have that square together, and a little piece of me will always be with you and for you, but beyond that is me, all of me and only me, and i will always leave it empty and blank, for you. i guess there was more, but i was higher than any kite i have ever seen and no matter how much i blinked and breathed and opened up all my senses too you, i still wasn't high enough. not high enough for leaving, for seeing you for who you really are, us for who we've become, and myself for who i am and what it took for me to get here. who knows, who knows, who knows? but i had to put that distance between us, i had to give myself a world with out you and give you and world with out me. a true test, i suppose. but i am not concerned with our relationship, i am concerned with me, because at the end of the day all i will ever have is me, and i have had very little of you.

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Slow Leak - Ellen Dore Watson

I don’t know how to wish you well.
Your hair is out of control, you are downgraded and strange.
You used to be the man who whopped open his chest,
wandered on a happy shoestring, made a nearly
perfect girl. Times we were electric.
Our talks teased out newness, mixed surprising
pigment. Our battles were not over ground
that mattered, so we walked away from them
with invisible limps, beautiful sticks
with no blood. Thinking ourselves
a perfect fit, we began to forget each other.
The way the roots of a perfect lawn watered too much
get lazy. You thought you should not
have to ask. I thought my private fizzings
and stirrings weightless, but you got sapped.
Your secret began as a scar and turned
to a decision flavored with payback.
The size of my thirst, your silence!
Between us now is the continent we didn’t
finish, and one person’s regret.
Because you have none, this is what I will never
tell you: I took too many days off
from loving you. And: I thought we could both
get larger. And: Neither of us was the right one
to unlock the other’s body. My iron lung
of a father has become soft tissue,
joshing and washing the woman not quite still
my mother—a long tack in a small, hand-made boat.
You and I were so full of beans and promise—
I’m ashamed we failed at forever.