Fingers Crossed

We are crossed fingers

Not meant for telling lies

But only to be close as

Rings sliding past knuckles

Cigarettes in-between

And pressed to soft lips

My hands are little

Fingernails like flowers

Baby daisies growing out of palms

Your hands like tall palm trees

Down long LA streets

At night

And we cross like fates

Like Hollywood & Vine

Because a woman isn’t always the muse

I am inspired

By crossed fingers

By crossed paths

By romeo and Juliet

Star-crossed lovers

Because I’m overly romantic

And love poems are always bad

Unless you’re in love

And hate poems are bad

Unless you’re breaking up

But I’m selfish with my pen

When it comes to you

As I hold the grip with crossed fingers

Imagining us like

Kindergarten fingerpainting

The messy mixing of colors

In heart shaped palettes

Legs twisting in tangos

Heartbeat to heartbeat

Making compound time

Counted on fingers

Crossed when hands kiss like lips

We are crossed fingers

Like yours when you left hoping

I was as pretty as you remember

Crossed fingers

Like mine when I wished for affirmation

That you were here

Crossed fingers

That we could meet halfway to

Cross our fingers together instead of

Alone in crazed hopes

Because it’s juvenile

When your heart beats pop songs

And walking feels like jump rope

But it IS juvenile

Because you’ve tripped and now

You’re falling

And all you can manage to do on the way down is cross your fingers**

Bicycle Wheel

You make me hate

With every lip curtain drawn to show bad teeth

You make me hate

With the same unwashed jeans and the pompous walk you place in them

Swaying hips like panties that you wish you could wear to wrinkle

You

Make me ungrateful

For how truly good everything is

And everything I’ve missed

You’re a broken bicycle wheel

Squeaking with skids

With wishes to be holding couples and children

Jealous

That you’ll never be a ferris wheel

Because you won’t

Despite how hard you try and you know it

Lying while you sleep, eat and breathe

Until they turn into lies you believe

You live in shoeboxes on garage shelves

Confining yourself

And constantly complaining

That you’re not somewhere else

I don’t know if you wish you could go back

So you can rectangle stories

Or hope to restore some kind of former glory

You make me hate

Because I see how much you do

Everyday

In the way you caress

The womb you’ll never possess

A childless mother always

Because instead of pride

You own curses

Crumpling up who you are

And throwing it at everyone you meet

Fucking everyone who bends over

To pick up that crumpled sheet

Because you only believe in who you think you should be

Instead of owning yourself

You’d rather own me

Plastic rather than rubber

Discount training wheel

Just embrace the fact that bicycles are beautiful, too

That’s all I want from you

You shouldn’t long to be wheelbarrows and Michelin men

Because you are spoked Huffy black

With no need to pretend

So just stop

And enjoy once around the block

Instead of gathering spider webs

And sitting in the same spot

Wear your webs like royalty robes

And rust like unique coloring

You deserve more than you give yourself

Because you take more than anyone else

All this life is

Is give and take

So don’t stammer on empty mistakes

Stop taking

Long enough to give

You are the wheel of someone’s first bike

And that should be enough

Stop taking in hate

And give in love***