We slipped into the same cold
March, forgetting each other less
than a mile away, shifting
life from death:
some sobbing blue, some receiving sun.
You took lemon and salt
to salmon, oil and a cube of sugar
to dry skin.
I wear hats on bad hair days
and don't drink enough water.
Did you know all our spoons were wiped clean
from our kitchen
in a blistering July?
I can hear God's small voice
in a rare fantasy
before I realize it's your favorite
show on the television set
in the living room thirty feet away.
The calendar's propeller
brought us to December.
Iris petals are tucked
into journals. All the cable lines are down.
The lemon trees,
uprooted.
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 11:26 PM UTC
My scalp is hot from ironing my curls out. My skin is burnt
from the callous on the tips of your fingers and your nicely kept nails
while mine are brittle and broken. I pick at the fire for a second or less, fall
asleep to the touch you left
so I wake with warped skin, pink and wrinkly
at the surface. You're not there yet. You keep your pores clean
while mine will fill and flush. My knuckles are paralyzed:
you, fluid.
Four years of collecting kindling, of poking. The last of May is in my
sweat stains. There is bonfire in your hair.
Our joints move to mold
, your world shapely with straight lines and perfect
acute angles. Mine, obtuse.
You're the only one to ever tell
me I was beautiful, and look at what it's done.
Feb 7, 2015
Feb 7, 2015 at 9:05 PM UTC
i'm beginning to wonder if i'm making these things up in my head
from boredom or maybe because i was socially misinformed on the
ways that one responds to advances and putting i in you and yours
did nothing other than let me know that i'm a fool, my god, every
memory i tried hard and fast to forget comes to surface, and it hurts
but more than anything it makes me wonder when the **** i'll learn
the lesson you and yours have been trying to teach me all this time.
it's more than just banter and it's far more than just the loneliness on
both our ends, it's all in trying to fill the voids that were left by the
coldest of weather and the memories of our ears bleeding when we
didn't know the time or day or place but we knew that it's not supposed
to feel like this, as least that's what mom always said - no, no it's not,
but i think i’ve come to terms and i think you’ve been forgiven but i
don’t know quite yet so don’t hold me to that for i’d hate to turn into.
i was chugging a beer the first time i tried to forgive you but freud has
a name for that, i think, even though freud is an idiot who says that one
day i'll find someone just like you and fall in love with the emptiness
of the promise for the void that you left to be filled but everything is as
hollow as the straw i sip my *** through, rum's my only connection to
you and it's the only thing that i remember you being so committed to
and the only promise that you ever made was to *** every night, until
every other promise you made was forgotten because you fulfilled the
only one that mattered in the way you and yours could never do for i.
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 12:52 PM UTC
in the middle where I start,
dark ebb, dark flow.
The Alice in Wonderland:
a washing machine on spin -
weaving this and that 'til
it's just dips between the strings, just perforations in the canvas
that tear and break night into
pounding pavement,
bringing ocean's hairline to itch and flake
and radio waves booming
to tear mesh 'til texture.
a post-sodapop hiccup.
the jump and stumble of a green button-up blouse
whose brown buttons blend slowly
until, on either side in a landslide
of springtime pollen on the sleeves and
slowing to a rinse draining dark with a single
highlight of white drizzle
left on shingles and on Monarchs' wings
to drip to soil with the dark dip of horsehair
into the ***** watercolor that’s left over
from the spin where Alice got lost and began.
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 5:15 PM UTC
are the walls talking?
it’s the neighbor’s dog across the street
wailing over your ugly unkempt lawn.
is the staircase creaking?
you forgot to take your coffee hot this morning,
get a grip.
is my kielbasa burning?
you put plastic on the stove.
you put plastic on the ******* stove.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 9:08 PM UTC
I've been cracking my knuckles since I was six,
but back then my bones were still practically cartilage.
My mother could only make me stop during dinner.
Her brass voice echoed through the house,
like the trumpets in a marching band on the Fourth of July.
(Although not as patriotic.)
My mother didn't know about all the times I cracked
my knuckles when I was by myself.
Sweet sixteen and the joints between my fingers still
crunched secretly under my skin and between
what was now developed into hard white bone.
I've only broken one bone in my entire life.
It was my nose during my homecoming soccer game,
senior year, under the lights and across the street
from the stone-cold brick building that housed
my Catholic education.
Soccer ***** have hit my stomach and my chest countless times,
leaving hexagonal imprints in scratchy blotches of red
over an empty envelope of acid and oxygen.
This time it hit me and I fell to the cold and frozen dirt,
my jersey conforming to the brown-green of roughened grass
and the blood from my nose providing contrast
and complement all at once.
Someone picked me up and I became conscious and self-conscious
that someone’s hands could touch my skin and
that someone’s hands could feel my body.
My hands hung off the sides of the stretcher I didn't need
(I thought it was crazy, all this fuss over a broken nose)
and they swung as I was carried, bringing blood
to my knuckles so that they could swell and expand.
My mother tripped over her questions
when she asked if I could
breathe or eat or speak or if my choking was cause for concern.
“B-b-baby don’t d-d-die,
I m-m-made rice and b-beans.
B-b-baby don’t d-d-die,
I m-m-made your f-f-f-f-favorite.”
You tied me in a robe and stuck a tube down my throat.
B-b-baby don’t d-d-die,
it’s your f-f-favorite.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 9:05 PM UTC
the first time i smelled your skin against mine it was tootsie roll sweet,
just as someone i loved popped into the room to turn my senses sour,
but you didn't see him.
it was a tuesday in the winter,
a day when everything was very hopelessly frozen
but your skin met with mine was fire to the ice on your window
and all on the outside could see.
all i had said was what i thought was obvious
but you met me with pity and a sad look that said "no"
before she showed up outside
and her skin froze the ice which ours melted away.
then someone shoved a blanket to my feet
because i had forgotten how cold it got this time of year
and he came with open arms to replace the jacket i didn't have,
but it wasn't your skin meeting with mine
so i was very cold, still.
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 12:30 AM UTC
there was a slice of chocolate cake in the fridge
and my sister asked me if i wanted it.
i didn't respond, stared off into space
and continued to smoke my cigarette
in the kitchen because mom was
asleep already and it was 1 am
on a saturday in july
and it was hot and we were both braless and hoping
the single fan on the counter would circulate the air enough
to make us comfortable in the cottage that we called home
that didn't have air conditioning in the middle of the woods.
the three of us hadn't moved for three more hours,
instead spent all of that time talking about nothing
and everything the way sisters do
because sisters eventually end up saying all the words that have
to be said
but each time it sounds new even though it never is.
we're all different but the thing about sisters is
that other people always see you as the same.
we all eventually grew into having brown hair
even though i had been born a redhead
and she had been born blond
and she had been born the same shade of brunette
that still graced her scalp but was thinner than the rest of ours
and fit in an elastic pony tail comfortably
unlike mine, which broke those things immediately
and she, who cut hers all off in hopes
to cleanse herself and
keep herself from being weighed down.
Jul 23, 2014
Jul 23, 2014 at 4:16 PM UTC
I looked out the kitchen window to see the new springtime grass
But fog from your tea on the sill blocked the view.
Rain came pouring down
To expose a sunny day.
You complained your green tea
Was over steeped. It was brown.
Did you open the (cabinet
To get the sugar) from the top shelf?
I used your mug today
As a bowl to hold my soup.
You were raking outside
But there were no leaves to form a substantial collection.
The grass was frogs’ legs
And told you to jump, jump, jump.
Did you open the (shed
To get the fertilizer) from the top shelf?
Jul 23, 2014
Jul 23, 2014 at 4:06 PM UTC
i am thirteen years old and i think love is a hand
because that was the first thing that made me feel good
and i think love is supposed to feel good so
love is the hand of a boy four years my senior and
love is a hand that holds a joint and
between puffs of marijuana smoke touches my face
before telling me i’m beautiful
and makes promises to call on the weekends while he’s
away at school
but i’m only thinking of whether or not i
made ninth grade honors english
and he tells me he hates his parents
for expecting him to go to medical school
after college
and for expecting him to become successful and
for expecting him to have money
and a family
and a white picket fence
and i wonder what it would be like for parents
to expect anything from me other than
to stop slicing at my skin and to please finish what’s on my plate
at dinner
but when he asks what i’m thinking about
i just tell him
“love is a hand”
and he looks at me funny with squinted eyes
and i know that his mother does not cry at night
trying to hide bruises from her daughters that already know
that love leaves burn marks on your skin
when love is a hand.
now i’m sixteen and
love is a hand
that shoots up when it sees me
in the hallway between fourth and fifth period and
i’m not one for hugs but when love is a hand
i’ll take two around my waist
to lift me until i yell to let me down, let me down
leaving my cheeks burning red
and flushed from embarrassment
because love is a hand that has never touched me
between my legs and *****
and love is a hand twice the size of my own
that dialed my phone number to tell me
“i asked her to be my girlfriend and she said yes”
i am seventeen and my skin has burned
from staying in the sun for too long
when we went to the beach in the middle of august
and played thumb wars for hours but
you always won because your love was a hand that
was much bigger than mine
and after you kissed me you told me about her.
you always left your windows open, allowing my skin
to freckle and for the sun to leave his
hand prints across my face because you were too
scared of how i’d be if you had left your own
so now i’m 18
and i’m crying
in the mirror because i can’t make out my memories
and i can’t tell which hand print belongs to you
so i cry until i can’t cry anymore and my mother comes into
the bathroom and looks at me in the mirror
and rests her hand on my shoulder
and silently says “i love you”
the way you always did on mornings over my stomach with
your love that was the last hand that burned my skin
on that tuesday night when we watched the ****** suicides
when you told me there was someone else
that there had always been someone else
and that i was the other.
and your hands went frozen and numb and stung
with frost bite to ease the burn that you had left across my belly.
now i’m nineteen and all the boys are the same
they all bite their fingernails
because they’re trying not to love so they chew and they gnaw
until their fingernails are bitten down and bleedy
and your love is a hand that slapped me across the face
because you didn’t have the nails to scratch.
i should have seen it coming when i saw you
bit your fingernails
or when i saw you didn’t touch me except
between my legs and
*****
or when you got burns on your fingers from joints of marijuana
just like my shoulder blades in the sun
and when you got paper cuts all over your palms from
looking at photographs of people that you hate
and i can see that your love was never for me
because i could not love your hands.
and love is a hand.
now i’m 20 and my hands are cold
because in the winter they hide in mittens
hoping that the heat might burn them just a little bit
but it never does
and my love is just a hand,
hiding in a mitten hoping to be lit on fire.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 1:05 AM UTC