My blue plastic lighter is glued between my left palm and thumb, the cheap piece of shit
and the wind is cackling, watching me like I’m sixteen and pregnant; doubled over in a
fit of mean-girl giggling judgment.
For the love of Jesus Christ I cannot light this cigarette.
Already I’ve torn up a perfectly polished nail in my attempts. The skin is slowly being
grated from my fingertip because this stupid flame Will. Not. Hold. My beautiful, bloody,
frozen cold thumb looks about as pathetic as I feel sitting on a damp patch of grass,
huddled as close to the building as I can get, contorted inwards to form a human shell
at ten in the morning in my pink snowflaked pajama pants. I am the only sentient being
on this campus right now. Nobody is around except one very persistent bumblebee who is
convinced my face is a flower. I keep telling him I’m not: I promise little bee, there is no
nectar here for you, but he just keeps coming at me, hungry. I can’t blame him; my hair
is the color of a California poppy. But we’re not in California anymore.
The bee is confused. He doesn’t know how he ended up so far from home. And now the
bee is my best friend so of course, he takes this moment of supreme spiritual
closeness as opportunity to buzz on off, away.
This is a strange place. There are many trees, a whole lot of grass, but no color to be seen
other than green and dark red brick. I don’t think any birds have yet flown North for spring
as literally the only thing I hear besides my inward (and accidentally outward) cursing is
the wind. How would the birds even manage to get here with wind like this? They would
be tossed about in the sky like itty shreds of paper and come crashing down just like that
poor baby bird that fell from its nest on my birthday and landed, inextricably, on the
concrete at my feet.
This wind is volatile. Heartless. It massacres baby birds and blows out my lighter-fire,
all the while laughing to itself with sadistic delight. I’m frustrated. So I flip the finger to the
world just as the only living creature I’ve seen today walks by and looks right at me—
I am a gem, I swear, a perfect lady—and I pick my damp, whip lashed self off the ground
to go inside.
I’ll just light my cigarette in the hallway. There's nobody around to tell me no.
Don't look at me
that way now. Please
I am a flower; shake me too hard
my petals weep. They fall
and your eyes shake me
I am not as lovely as you think,
not as good as you've seen of me—
please. I would
love you if only I could
when you’re hungry
don’t eat
drink some water.
go back to sleep
don’t call
him
when you’re lonely
stare at the ceiling.
scratch at the walls
go back to sleep
when you’re sick
try hard to be alive
then
change your mind.
go back to sleep
if you’re sad, don’t wake up
but if you do
go back to sleep
and
when your
pulse shakes you up at night
(it will because
it always does);
don’t panic
it’s thunder
just the radiator. keep calm
go back to sleep
We lay
foreheads touching, knees touching
and feet entwined—
we kiss like eskimos—
I love you; my fingers
wrapped tight in your hair
I’ve been reading, I’ve been painting
I’ve been watching the rain collect in pools
from the safety of my lofted bed
The sun won’t rise for forty days;
I’ll be older then. I’ll be weaker in body
I’ll be stronger in soul
Yes, I called last night just to hear your voice
because I was afraid. I crawled into my
cocoon again and slept barely at all
but this morning I shed my skin.
I was asked to by the pounding water and I stretched
my many legs, I rubbed my compound eyes
So I’ve been reading, I’ve been painting
I’ve been dreaming. I’ve been flying.
I’ve been decaying more slowly
every single day
Did you know pandas
are not raccoons?
Neither did I.
I’d be more willing to open my chest
and pick through membranes
to the base of my heart,
swollen, irregular beat
I’d be more willing to cut myself to bits
than just say
I’m scared, I’m sorry
apprehensive maybe
you’ll see
when I tear open my ribs
that my blood is tar
hidden by a pretty shell
you’ll see, I know
and once you know
you won’t look twice
I don’t believe in god
but I don’t smoke on Sunday
I honor my mother
standing at the bus stop
in her collar and jeans
and I pray in the dark at night
alone, my eyes clamped shut
I wake myself laughing
or sobbing
and I talk to him;
he never responds
and I see him in the sunrise
over highway 26, when
the clouds break and the rain stops
for just one breath
more often I seem to miss him
I suppose I blink too slow
I don’t believe in god
even when I feel him beneath my feet,
I do not believe
but sometimes it doesn’t hurt
to pretend
that I do
can’t help with every drag
the images that come to mind;
sweet and sour, together
pictures of where I’m not
and where I want to be
You’ll come to find the floorboards creak.
Softly at first, but soon every step you take
will be drowned by thunder
beneath your feet.
You’ll discover none of the doors
latch quite right
hanging crooked on their hinges,
the walls are scarred by dips and dents
and scratches, too many to hide behind
any piece of art.
The stairwell is full of cobwebs,
will never be clean;
the moldings caked by a layer of grime
and the pipes are rusty—but listen
closely at night, they’ll whisper secrets
through the walls
otherwise washed down the drain.
The listing says:
full of character,
needs some love,
a bit of patience,
a lot of care;
but maybe you’ll think it charming
put in an offer today.
So if you’ll call me your home—
your worn-down, weathered home—
call me home, and I’ll call you the moon
shining through these
broken windows.
Thursday I spend alone
I read books and fly about
in compulsive
organizing sprees—
this week I color code my closet
and scrape the dirt
from my shoes
I wash clothes and windows,
I sweep the floor
I rinse sticky, smelly cups
I think too much
I don’t seem to mind
and somehow
I am not lonely
on Thursday
For now
my hands are warm
but my feet
are blocks of ice.
The stairs are plenty
and I know
one too many steps,
these soles will
shatter.
they all speak of loss
and of love;
for us I want only one
That night I spent with a friend
we laid together in more ways than one
suspended in air on thin
cotton sheets
the bed a river raft
or concrete cloud
He held me, and I liked that;
I have a beating heart;
I have blood slipping
through my veins;
I am human
it is nice to be held by
a strong set of arms
In the morning he woke before me
and he kissed me and said
good morning
and I didn't like that
He called me lovely and
he smiled
and I didn’t like that
I can’t sleep without pills
but I didn't count my steps
up the stairs this time
is that progress?
I can sit in the shower
for hours
but it’s not the same
as home, not right
My pictures are gone
no images
just words in my head
and they fail me
and
I can’t sleep without pills
won’t shut my eyes without
their help
Tonight the wind is silent
it has secrets
Mine are hard to keep, laying
next to you like this
in what was once my bed
but it's yours now, too
There is a moment I look through you
I see you and I know
this is something—I swallow
hard. Not afraid of what swirls in
my head this time but cautious,
wary and careful.
I won’t wake you in the morning.
Sleep as long as you like,
you can stay until I return
(please stay. the wind whistling
between us is really something)
She burned herself falling into a heat lamp
ass first, as a gash in her dress and scar on her left side can prove.
It didn’t hurt. She was drunk; she laughed and her boyfriend
(not her boyfriend, definitely not her boyfriend
but what else can we call him?
by name. We’ll call him Jay, not his real name)
and Jay pulled her forward and she continued to laugh.
He lit a cigarette. Marlboro Reds—
he is so very proud of that. By the end of the night he would be frantic:
“Where are my Reds? I can’t find my Reds.
Have you seen them? My Reds?” And while that haunted
him, what haunted her was more existential
(pathetic)—will I be drunk forever?
Who knows how long it’s been. An hour, five minutes but her face
was flushed pink and her only consolation came from looking
at herself in the hall mirror. I’ll be drunk forever
but I’ll be pretty forever too.
A boy from El Salvador would later be the first to vomit on the floor
but for now he sat on the same floor with them,
she and Jay. At every pause he would say, you are just so cute
you two are just too cute.
So she kissed Jay and thought about getting him home, undressed
wanting to speed up time. She would
stare at his body, put it in her mouth, all of it at once, he is just so small
but he would need to be blindfolded of course—
“But I don’t mean it like that, you know, I like it, you’re so
little and so am I and I don’t feel threatened or squished,
claustrophobic or anything, I feel big
and that’s good. I like feeling big.”
And I like your hair
—your big nose
the noise you make when I kiss you
—you like math, I like that
your poetry
—fucked up fingernails
both dimples on one side
Do you like this? Do I like it? Do we both? Us, we?
Can we sit down? The walls are fucking dancing.
They walked home, she stumbled, holding his hand and she was still afraid
and did he know? He must know. He has to know.
Nobody else, everyone knows.
I’m going to be drunk forever.
Shards fill the street
Enormous, volatile speed bumps
they pop tires
and stub toes
shades-of-pink rainbows litter the sky
I see them from the front door
gleaming still, laughing at me
pretending I had never taken the hammer
to that little stone, but I did
I decimated it
its death so long overdue
there's ash in my lungs
and on my clothes
should I say goodbye now?
but I don't want to
I don't want to
I don't want to
