My mother was a writer.
I remember her,
papers spread out upon a bed sheet in the sand,
stacked pebbles protecting her work from the wind
as I made drip-castles at the water's edge
and braided crowns from wild poppies.
I would run to her so she could
rub grape sunscreen into my sandy shoulders
and I asked her once,
“Mama,
is that poetry?”
and she said “No little one,
you are poetry,
this only tries to be.”
and I thanked her,
and ran back to the water
to search for flat stones to skip,
and thought no more of poetry.

On the floor of the river styx, frogs burrowing peer over muck duvets to watch me press like a violet between the cookbook pages of the water and the land. I went overboard-

I am addicted to the darkness between worlds.

Somewhere above me, I see the moon. She doesn’t try to warn me, she doesn’t bother reminding me that I can’t breathe. Heavy currents like snakes blur her face into fractured crystal tears that wash me over with sweet exasperation.

Sedated by the salt toward the other side, where the ferryman flips my coin and hums a tune without words about all rivers rushing toward the sea.

He doesn’t ask me why I chose this route, just grins a toothless grin
And winks
And tosses my coin into the water
without

So much

As a wish.

when I was born, I had
nine lives left, I was bereft
of scars, delicate as fireflies
in a jam jar
(the kind I’d punch holes in the lid for,
the kind I’d bring indoors
and set on my bedroom floor as a fairy nightlight, until I got bored
and one by one they died silent as the pollination of fornicating spores.)

anyways.

9 lives left, age: 2 months
but then one day daddy looked the other way and splash!
the baby’s in the *** and the ***’s still hot
(there are witches in the air but we don’t care)
looks like soup tonight! yum yum
third degree misery etched on her body,
one life done.

And nothing to show for all of her fun
but a twisted left arm and a ***** of a sun (burn)

One life down, eight to go, you know
because she’s a fox, which (if you peek over the ledge of your punitive box)
is like a cat. And that, as we know, means
nine lives, and that’s that.

well, eight now.
if you want, I’ll tell you how she (i) is (now) down several more.
worry not little one, fate always evens out
the score.

The second was me and a boy (THE Boy, if you know what I mean)
it would seem he and I had climbed two stories high
hand over foot over hand over foot over
the parking lot right up next to the sky
and then oh-
wait.

I’m falling.

(breathe in, breathe out)

(the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout
down came reality and washed the spider out)

and there are
butterflies on the tip of my tongue and there is
a word stuck in my stomach.

he held my eyes just like I couldn’t hold
the pipe as I fell, right towards the earth between heaven and hell
now there are hot knives in my ankles and I think (I can’t tell)
I’m alive.

(stop drop and roll)

yes I fell from the roof through the sky. No I’m fine.
just one more life gone, I saw it flash before my eyes in a short space of time
that was roughly
the shape of a stop sign, or maybe a wind chime, or maybe
it was the shape of the sunshine.

Whichever way, that’s two down, seven to go;
the next one I lost when I rolled off the road.

We were going seventy and
the love of my life was sitting next to me and
his skin was beautiful in its caramel coffee complexity and
he wasn’t
paying
attention.

There is air in my lungs when I should be history
but the SUV only bruised my knees as it rolled, glass shattering
pit-pattering over the pinwheel of perfect destruction
around us.

I felt myself decide that it was okay
if this was the end.

At least I’d go with my best friend, there’s some
good stuff. That, I conceded, would be enough,
I could die young
if who I was in that moment
could be the freeze-frame of my song,
the thing that’s left
after I’m gone.

Three lives gone, only five left-
the next one is casually snipped like a price tag
after a theft when I fell
(again)
from the banyan tree and flipped my pancake
(click-clack) like a jacob’s ladder
I should have broken my back.

As I fell I yelled in my head
there’s nothing to fear but fear itself
(till you’re dead.)

four down, five to go Indigo.

Here we go.

(to be continued.)

You are the
         liquid sugar
I rub into
       my skin
soaked
through to my
pores so
deep within
on a cellular
level as I
gulp it down
swish in saliva
in liquid love
          sounds
washed through
my system
in textured
              spin    
you balance
out the thickness
of my insulin
           you
pique
          hot
energies
into blush-fused
                crush
swirling
endorphins
and hormones
in maelstrom rush
my cheeks
on fire,
ripe fruits
drip
          juice
I must
    breathe  
in staccato
to control
         this
  sluice  
But when I
get peak-high
and then
            *****
      so
           low
you harmonize
the taut,
        slick pull
of my
       undertow flow
It's just a matter
of a few
words, syll-a-
bles spoken
velvet-voiced
             cool
smooths
the rough      
of my
     broken
So please
        inject it,
fresh
into the river
of my blood
     Bring it over,
   hot sugar,
before  I
surge
   into
        flood

"Oh, yes. That hurt.
That hurt like a thousand slaps from a
Thousand teachers each. Like

Dragon claws dripping with bile and
Venom into male ego exposed. Ego
And pride and the nature of the bottles

Of labelled **** that you threw back,
Chickening out on cold, hard reality.
Once again.

Friends and lovers lost, some long,
Some not. All gone with the wine. You
Could have written volumes by now.

Recorded legendary albums, created
Art like few others.
Yet, every millidrop of your

Blood screams for someone, or
Something rather, to take you
Away from all that's everyday.

Be it even war." Well,
I want peace, now.
Battleworn and

Empty from facing all the same
Demons. Chainmail shredded,
Body worn on the inside from

Aqua Vitae and ale.
It hurts. It hurts like a thousand
Freshly sharpened pencils carving

Into the exposed areas of my love
For bad nostalgic habits and
Days after days with drink, laughter

And inhaling
The air of temporary excitement,
Picking at scabs and naming myself

Surgeon, letting the hearts of others
Pick up my tab when one of us
Inevetably leaves;  

Those freshly sharpened pencils
Carving mantras to keep me alive
And wake me the Hell up, like:

"The people I
Need do not
Need me like

This," and
*"I have
Pride."

I want her to rise up again
like when she lifted her blue
skirt looking at how brown
I am taking off my shirt
and there are somethings
you learn if you were born
on a farm where I watched
her shadow in the middle
of the night overlooking mine
in the dark where we hid
from the light listening
to the wind, that sad poet
of the unknown pulling back
the dead eyes of those singing
sweet songs in the long night.

Come on girl
it's time to fly

Don't let this gray sky
hold us down

The water may swirl
but we won't drown

Ain't nothing but the wind
and the rain keeping us in

Let's get on out of here
and get some air

Driving sideways
through this storm

Running its fingers
through our hair

Like a swarm
of honeybees came

Singing Love is like a hurricane
and Here comes those tears again

Writing words
upon my window pane

Come on girl,
it's just the wind and the rain.