shameless, this want. like a hickey. god tells me to knock it off. snaps their gum really loud. i want a piece but i'm shy. there was a moth but now it's a corpse. i draw circles around its body with chalk. they don't live that long, i tell god. some of them don't even have mouths. seems ****** up, doesn't it? god pretends not to be surprised by this. while i'm not looking god makes a moth out of gum. it has no mouth. it makes me cry.

god says hurt tonight. shoulder blame. you, cup of fault. you, ***** of hackborn lords. devils. wore you like a mood ring. god says it's always the fortune tellers. always the carvers of eerie scrimshaw. tooth fairies. one's idea of ****. god says, mourn, grotto posing as woman. mourn, for the devil is dead and you have killed him. you grotto. you will not wait for another, for i, god, will tell them the tales of your hunger. what it has done. what it could do. you will soon be myth. not dead, grotto. unborn. unknown. don't be sad. it is my will.

granule
a glint
then, in love
a grenade of sunlight
the morning is sharply taken
bathing off of shots    from the reflective snow

you were
a girlfriend
a lover
a woman
the perfect couple
to the outside world

but in my arms
you were a child
anxious fearful
of being alone
for even a moment

i held
reassured
whispered
in your ear
that I loved you
like a man loves a woman
like a father loves a child

spaceship, bubblegum, chapel.
-
i can’t hold this much pain.

years. as many years as angels. as many angels as dreams. and the angels… how deep the sockets of their eyes. how sharp and summer their smell.

(god the fruit is hungry)

you’re so b (beasted? bound?) eautiful.
did i do this to you? did i create you? did i pluck you from the soil? did i feed you the milk of goats? the first mestiza born with snakes for hands and a vulture for a soulmate...!
did i do this, swamp, swamp, ghost…?

(old lovers, and old gods i wish were lovers)

did he know the weight of words?

god says meaning lies not with words but with baskets of fruit. bouquets of wildflowers. we are calm in the garden of my mind, but that is because neither of us exist. not in the garden, not outside of it. my body is a carnival tent. god wears a shawl of pain. it’s my shawl. it’s my pain. together we cry and together we collect ashtrays. together we **** our fingers and dip them in the ashes. together we draw circles on my stomach. together we darken my ******* and my eyelids, and only then do we take turns writing words like cavern and winter inside my thighs.

god left that night.

i scream like an animal. i sleep with the tent and the shawl around me. i try to make them a sky. i ask why, my hand holding the circle of my belly... but it’s my fault. i symbolize everything. circles. crickets in the quiet. i only draw circles when i want to be held. i only hear crickets when holding is near. and my answer to loneliness had left- left and placed a new door in the every-room. a door i watch but never try to open. once i asked the door if it could hold me, but i asked it quietly. once i asked if it could hear the crickets. once i almost knocked.

1

blindfolded woman
humps a pillow

2

sad man licks
a sad spoon