is god a body.

a teapot shaped like an egg. a grandmother’s rosewood crucifix. floral shirt tucked into green skirt. blood and pine sol. flesh. is god a body. do we want to eat it. all that is horror. all that is abject. all that is gross; fluid, soil, ferment. zombie.

zombie, i love you. eat fruit and pretend.

my friend's dad is dying. it's been slow. there's nothing (clean watch a movie hold the babies collect eggs save the blood burn ceder steal from god) to do. i'll never know this pain

don’t read in dreams.
it’s bad magic.


(one tree, two branches)

the city of dreams is a full moon over still water. the stranger in my bed wants a tooth. any tooth, he says. i think he is the devil. no magic, i say. no moth, no lightbulb. i can’t take it. but he begs like honey. he finds my many stars. are you the devil, i ask. are you the tooth fairy. the stranger speaks, but it’s backwards. his body grows snakes, but they’ve no fangs. there is a lake in my bed and i drown. when the tooth comes out, it comes easy. i think it wanted to go. i really do

a spider the size of blood.

softness in the middle of nowhere.

abandoned milk on dead grass.

sheets on the clothes line. all those

eyeless ghosts.

like a dial tone.
like a hole in the head.
like a weeping hole.

chewed-up ear full of sorrow.

the wild unnothing of gods face. pregnant dog in a plastic pool. flies gathered on a windowsill.  the dampness of a michigan basement. a concrete horse with wire legs. static. the sound of static. the feel

my pond was touchingly soft. my tail was milk gone blue. a chorus of whining dogs replaced the sun. replaced the moon. i didn’t believe in god. god, i am caught in a net of wounds. dragged into the mouth of a cave. flame tongue sharp; man made. the dogs vanished. my tail cleaved like a heart. i am sat on a nest of teeth. i am given jars to fill. i cry. i fill a jar with tears. i call the jar a pond. i will fill them all

the city of dreams is a blue motel. the rooms are small but the hallways go on forever. i go room to room. i change my clothes. i touch things softly. outside a creature is hungry. it boils the sky. it unravels space. turns things red. i will stay in the motel. i can't save a world

sadness in the city of dreams. i strangle myself for your viewing pleasure. whoever you are

at seventeen i crawled into a closet and swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. woke up, later, covered in *****. ruined mom's coat. left a note in the pocket of my jeans. everything hurts. i'm sorry. i won't do it again, but my body is full of spiders. reality is a watercolor painting beading off an oil painting. i lie to myself and i lie to my friends. my friends are dead and i go to bed in pain. i don't wear jeans. mom doesn't talk to me. there is art. art. i can't tell what is real.

tea party in the city of dreams. the table is dressed in guts. jars of fireflies. my earring is the devil. it speaks. i am a woman. there are snakes in my belly. my virginity has regrown. dog-dark and dog-hungry. gathered, before me, a horned god; a trembling fawn; my mother. i am to tell their fortunes. the snakes in my belly are mating. the devil burns my ear. the city of dreams is on fire. i crawl onto the horned god’s lap and begin to cry

dear diary. think of an earring. silver, small, piercing a footprint in the mud.

******, god says. and i feel it. the blindfold. the rumored virginity. the lore. all the dead bees. it’s getting cold at night. what happens when snow

carrion or cheap meal. consummation or feast.
god wants to know
how long it took to eat me. in girl years? winter.
in fish? in crow?

what can i say.
in one dream you ate my brain.

(does the devil get scared if she dies in her dreams)

my greed, pale as *****, fills a cup.

poor cup.

i’ve never been a rib (snake
that dreams

of an ankle)

when my friend's daughter tells me i look like pocahontas i say thank you. close enough, i think. disney didn't make a tejano land grab princess. they didn't make a mescaline priestess princess. never made the product of **** princess. they won't make the go back to mexico princess. but that's fine. pocahontas is cool

and this means two things; time travel is real, but god is not. an angel looks for drugs in the cushions of my couch. i pretend not to notice. i put on the movie about the vampire and the vampire hunter. my loneliness is rabidly soft. when the movie turns me on i take off my underwear. the angel doesn’t notice. the vampire describes violence. the hunter describes dawn. their bodies press together like a top and bottom jaw. when it becomes clear someone is going to die, i turn the tv off. the angel is sad. unsuccessful. i’m sorry, i say. let me look inside, the angel says. i tell the angel i’m empty. god isn’t real. the angel wants to try anyway. i turn the movie back on. the angel sticks their fingers in my mouth. i think god needs to hurry. i think, hurry, god. make the world. save the vampire. save the vampire hunter. put something inside me that belongs. the angel finds my teeth and thinks they’ve won. the movie catches on fire. i’m not sure who died

the city of dreams is a forest with one floating lantern. somewhere, in the dark, a magician; an altar he dresses in blood.

mom

i tried so hard
to be ugly

i hurt myself

i took pain to bed

i wanted to
scare people

with my words
with my

dismemberment

i don’t

think god
was listening

or saw

the horror
of muddy water

the cobweb
filled mouth

or heard

my ill prayer
my ill

ness,
made in the image

of my
un mother

my inside
snake

god
mom
ghost

don’t hate
me please

being here means nothing
means

there
exist
two animals

back to back

afraid
of one bullet

that may
or may not

be real

i do not wish
to write

costume party in the city of dreams. i am a moth. my wings don't fit through any doorways. the city man sleeps on a couch, dressed like a movie. the pictures on his chest don't move. i think this is a nightmare. the city is the devil's closet. the city is a museum on the moon. the city is a dragon's egg. a dragon's only egg. i try to find a way out. broken, my wings trail on the floor

i am terror heavy. i am chaos liquid. i am all spiders. the circle opens

for my body like the mouth of a titan. there are ways to live a life. i can’t find one

the city of dreams is persistent. a stray you fed once. i hide in a very large closet. a god-like stranger knocks on the door. his horns are fake but the snakes are real. he hands me a jar of spiders. i say, these aren’t my spiders. he says, you’re going to miss the tragedy. i walk through the door. outside there is a very small theater. inside the theater, so many corpses, all dismembered; all scattered; all inside-out. i step on something sharp. the stranger wants to dance but there is no music. when i wake up, there is a bruise on the sole of my foot shaped like nothing in the world.

jesus,
when will i learn. nobody writes their own bible

the city of dreams is a dead mall in zombie winter. there is no getting warm. all prayer happens in the food court. the city man brings me a cherry slushie, then tells me to stick out my tongue. we won’t get married. my crush is a lake inside my chest. i ask the city man if he knows how to swim. we kiss in a closet guarded by two blue dogs. when i emerge, i’m pregnant. i’m terrified. i touch my body obsessively. i name my baby rock land. i name my baby thunderstorm. i don’t stay much longer. when i wake, sorrow fills my bed with hot water. i touch my body obsessively. i’m wet. i’m empty. i taste cherries and snow.

the city of dreams is one long funeral. the ruin of my youth returns to bite my face with subtle teeth. to make me heel like a well trained dog. to play pain until- i- puddle on the floor; the strange water of worship. i hate you, i tell him. for dying, he asks. his mouth is full of blood. his eyes are the moon and the reflection of the moon. no, i say. for not coming back.

my doctor’s eyes are the color of sun burnt grass. her cheekbones beg for a tongue. i don’t want to think about how i know her. we’re both uncomfortable. in my defense, her husband isn’t my demon. his need has no teeth. but i’ve seen him, the villain in many movies. i want to know if she loves him. if she has, for love, another. a knight with a flower garland. a fortune teller with hot hands. i can’t say any of this. we’re here to talk about my body. my body’s death wish. i don't know. it doesn’t feel like it matters

in hell
i obsess over a very large beehive. the devil takes his time untying knots. we don’t do this for fun. i’m hungry. i think i’ve stolen the devils hunger.
the bees

sold my soul for a box fan. for a heart shaped ashtray. throne of teeth. a fishhook. the devils flytrap tongue. corpse of a praying mantis. thunder, i can’t sleep

am i poison.

god says
my son has many wives.
all of them
virgins.

(special death- mirah)

tell me a story
that bleeds

and i tried to prepare myself. windows covered in blood; white silt on the floors. to let it in would be tragic. i consider it, acting bored. i smoke a cigarette. i peel an orange. inevitable, i think, as i open the door. it is a thrill not unlike a late summer storm. there is the smell of fall. and i do, fall, through many worlds. through many incarnations of fable. through many roofs of pine. i enter the other side swimming. i am able to convince myself i have always been swimming. the demon cheers me on. it says it knows what i want. more than god, i ask. more than all the mermaids. the demon thinks this means i want to be a mermaid. my mouth is suddenly moth. yes, the demon says. yes. look at my claws. i can give you gills.

fauns and angels and their bad dreams. in the end a blue apple. a cup of spiders. bread? bread, i've been starved

to the god who put minds in meat
i hope you see it all

ghost of the lazy river. god put a moat around my house. i didn’t hate it, but i wrote many lamentations. i performed them, at night, in my bikini and my snorkel. the birds and the fish called me star- then god let in a dog to teach me hunger. suddenly, i knew loneliness. my lamentations paled. the birds and the fish don’t call me anything. i can’t remember how i died. is the dog still there

(flightless bird, american mouth- iron & wine)

dear god. i’m thirty years old. i still love vampires; still love yellow moons. i thought, by now, i’d have my own monster; byronesque and ******; doomed to my side. ****, god. don’t cry. sing me a song

dear god
why did
you put
this bone
in me

note to poetry. i don’t know how long i can exist
here
in my stubborn non existence. the weather hurts.

gone woman
under god ask
ing if there ev
er was a plan

i've run out of wishes. some things are owned. my breath

my breath

adam and eve try to find heaven. along the way they go camping. when night falls adam begins to cry. later, adam says he can't tell if eve is a princess or an alien. eve is less confused. adam is the seed in her throat. the watch on her wrist. she doesn't think they need heaven. she won’t admit it.

green rock asleep between my legs. medicine that stains the demons palm.

gutting the villain below the dock.
i think he likes it.
our bed in the mud
glistens. i think,
all of a sudden,
i’ve made a sad mistake. the villain
understands.
there’s silence inside.

the demon tells me to **** on the clover. to hide between my legs. i am full of poison. i’m on the diving board. the barrel is in my mouth.  everyone can see me in my yellow dress. i wore the yellow dress and hell let loose it’s hounds. i run from them. god, i’m almost tired. god, i need to be touched. i need to be run through like a field of flowers. show me your room. i have questions

my
nemesis near the river

, i kept my shoes clean

bees. future bees/
itsy bitsy spider
on my knee/ god,
set me on *******
fire.

the dragon swallowed the sun. became a different sun. bolder. the field died. i’m sorry, the field lies. i don’t know why it’s like this. who cut down the trees. chase the shade.

it is night
in the salt and star center
for guilt counseling

a headless man pours coffee
a suit of armor cries with their back turned
i smoke like fire

and we talk
for hours
about god