I'm trapped

between the complexities

and the

simple

girl

underneath;

how

you and

I

made

love

once

but

now we

can't talk

or touch.

Everything

about the world is wrong

except

maybe this.

If I was meant to be a broken girl

why then

can I always fix myself between words.

Is my simplicity too complicated for you?

Or is the complication just a simple thing to fix?

The rain

is starting to fall;

day

after day

and summer ends against the pink sky

(scorching paleness-

it all faded so fast)

or like the house that burned to the ground off the freeway

on the drive home;

(or how

we can't touch anymore.)

If I whispered

my words here:

"how I fell into the bathwater

to swim

in all of my clothes

like girlhood

I want to stretch my arms out across the Cedar River

and swim

to wherever-

just because I can,

or how

I found the shiny pocket knife

underneath the waves

wrapped

in leather-

leather

like

you

and

me."

"Tomorrow is a ghost of: "what if things had been different,

and how we don't talk when everyone else in the room"

like

heat

we burn alive

(Me! I hope you to?)

We don't speak,

the silence:

"Do I love you? Did I love you once? Yesterday I made love to you? Love is whatever? I really do love you?"

(at least

before

the fallout.)

I just hang around

the stillness

tinsel, tip toed, and trespassed

with my boyfriends kiss

sticky

apart from yours.

I go back

to the house

burning

on the freeway;

red inferno

a life full of dreams

dying

in the heat

while we stayed in

to let the phone ring.

That room

with its green carpet

and flicker

frying

beyond us;

"does love always hurt this much?"

I'm trapped

between the complexities

and the

simple

girl

underneath;

I don't want to write about

the way that you look at me;

crooked eyes

stolen looks

and how

like a thief

I steel one back-

the rain started

days after

the fire snuffed out

(us?)

over looking the freeway

I felt

his burnt hand burry me

once

and I liked it in the silence; (his silence)

is so loud

under his ground

where once

I rooted myself;

it was only for an hour

but long enough to feel the hurt

once I was "freed"

uprooted from his foundation,

or words:

"lets just stay here forever!"

Little girl

promises

(don't go there, baby girl)

or so he laughs

(don't make it worse, baby girl

just come over here and make it better,

make some noise with me in this silence

surrender to time

and be still.)

(do it)

(don't do it)

I want to do it all over again, now that I can't.

Instead I just run around

with my skirt

tongue tied

from Seattle to Portland

(Portland will always be a dirty imitation of Seattle for me,

even if it was where I spent my time with you.)

I huddle

next to the hush

and

liquefy

when he brushes his fingers past mine

(we are friends after all,

I'd steel a moment

if I could.)

I'd steel that day back

and so much more if I wasn't trapped

between the complexities

and the

simple

girl

underneath.