Storm-girl says today's a bad day,
rolled out of bed too late
(I guess),

she still prefers green bananas,
likes to paint with skin for canvas

what i mean is
skin-peel, nothing's real,
how dare they tell me how to feel.

this is my poem
and no one can make me let go of it
cant take it, cant hold it
I can live here, inside it
taste the salty freedom of its vastness
reach my arms up, fingertips arching
curl up around it, warmth
because its mine
belongs only to me, and I , only to my poem.

I, the earth, have been neglecting my soils

//

Turns out- you were mostly whole with a few ruts, and I, a smattering of solids, was just enough to fill them in till they'd grown out.

I do not ache with your absence.
I do not ache with your absense-
legs walk the same stride, tongues flick syllables,
Air is pressed into lungs and eyes see. We were never the same. We were never.

i look for you on city sidewalks, fourth floors, and various astral planes - you
aren't one to make yourself known but
leave clues like
                               1.    leaves in the autumn wind
                               2.    period novels
                               3.    the occasional lottery number

Daisy boy, (rote eyes, hand-me-down lips)
you could
open your sugarsnake veins to me, polish my silverware,
outline my edges.* If you listen a bit harder than not at all,
there might be a cha
nce for us to paint our skin with sunrises or
make it to the movies.

Last time I checked, there were arms attached to shoulders and teeth studded gums (yesterday). The sky was if one were to look ^up^, and, when passing food trucks in the alley, the nose would  envelop ***** scents with its own series of flares and snorts. Yesterday

I came across your bones in the backyard~ they'd been crusted over by small, cloud-shaped lichens. I fed them with holy water and met no response. The sky may have been purple but it probably wasn't ( I didn't look). With one deep sigh, I lobbed a femur to the neighbor's dog.

I’m all in, all ears
(You skip a beat)

/

As gull lifts from land, I will leave you to find kinder winds, subtler seas
-The earth has received my dues and thus sceneries come to pass.-

Fridays are for drowning.
Tipsy, tipsy, let me ~shell out my kidneys.
-Says he works at the smoothie bar, looks at me, has a heroic jawline, I

stumble.

Waves lash ankles, steer comatose foams - my waist is grabbed at as i slog into waters.

Smiles, nods, propels with wide eyes.

I ate with a fork.

Its a sea pebble sky that looms tonight and it reminds me of how very gatsby my innards feel
2. Hah, its darkened to a deadly velvet in these few seconds- what passion!
3. It was in the dairy aisle yesterday that i added the need to incise my skin to the shopping list
4. I especially enjoy times at which the snow has yet to cloak the sheath of a frozen lake- one is able to see perfectly the rocks and withered leaves strewn beneath
5. She always apologizes the next morning.

I was sitting with the lights on when all of a sudden the last person left the room and you came out of no where you ran me over you looked into me you flicked me off your earth with your eyes your eyes i always loved your eyes id always tell you how they were sculpted wings turbulent seas winds birds you stopped looking.

these hands have quieted their wobbling, id have hoped my heartdve as well.

Oh, head of mine, dearest, darkest

We were crazy.
he and i.
We'd cut ourselves with rocks to see
whose blood would run the fastest,
It was hailing and we went for a swim.
Nuts.
He said he had a rope. He said
there's two Smith and Wessons in his ******* closet.
I kissed him.
No favorite colors,
We'd lie in the shade of synagogues and under the blaze
of search lights, a couple of lost springs. Picking me
up around the corner so they wouldn't see, he'd
tumble his bike so that we'd fly and i'd scream.
Beautiful.
He said for us to run away. Never sweat. He said let's
run, let's ******* run. He said shut the ******* door.

I run. Run away. He doesn't like me to. He had a rope
and there's two Smith and Wessons in his closet.

I see the veins wrapped around my bones
Glimmering blue bonds restraining me
The meat of my self, pulsing in attempts to break free
But I am held in place
Like a fishing net, they catch up my expression
And I am grateful
For without the restraint, my essense would everywhere be spilled
Still, life seeps from the the grating
Down my limbs it streams
As a river fresh cuts through the swamp
or is it my plain?
Collecting to pool, then dripping in my wake
So trailing the source
My bridal veil will never be disembodied

and i think now id be happy to
stand behind you as you say 'yes' with
waves in your throat
and mountains in your eyes

Now,
In light of past dawns there is

bound to be no horizon (there are
   birds
                         up
            flocking
                                         ­    into
space)

Stragglers
p
      l
   u  m
  m
e
        t

down and one
lands on my
toes.

'All glory and honor', to You, bathed me with yellowed fingers. Father.
Whips me across each molar for penance, offers me glue in the morning- the kind he uses on letters when saliva won't seal the deal.

I, the cliché, trim my fingernails with a knife and mostly miss target. Slide into various seas, daily, with tincan pupils.

Knock,
knock, its time again

This is the coldest room in the
house, they say as we pull
out the fan with its blades a-
swirling and fill the air with
Friday night conjectures.
Her fears come out in
rivulets: red and black striped
maunder with thorns and
petals maybe rosy but I can’t
see it’s dark.

I love you when the sun rises
          and
when I breathe, which has been happening more often

I love you when birds fly
         and also
as my heart beats, races

I love you but it hurts when
I hold myself back, she said it wouldn't last if I fell

but I love you

the shadows on the ceiling diffuse as I watch
heightened nights and adrenalined days
I am alive, I live
Each day dawning anew,
my soul flies, I am a star.
But then the sun turns, the stars bleed from the sky,
bleed down onto my heart, and I collapse in the dirt
I cannot deny that a part of me will never relight.
the **** on my cheek will always linger
With one of the senses gone, others heighten,
the dark is clear, the cuckoos song intelligible
A jet roars past, and for a moment
in the deafening thunder, I don't feel the cavity's ache.

Leaves fell
          p
            er
              p
                e­
                  tu
                    al
                    ­  ly
                               as we
didn't,
BuT I (your ardent lo>er)
Choose to smite
                         the indigenous winds and
                         forests' unpledged palates with
: A Stony Subjection:

I prefer swimming
because I feel the water
and the sand and shells
carrying my weight, my emotions
Waves rock me to and fro like a lullaby
to sleep, sleep with lights,
snow, and no-promises on the
other side. O brethren, pick
me up with the unwanted jellies
on the beach. and wash me
out, swirl, away/Let us roar
upon far shores and
dance with the sharks and stars,
forever fleeing the drying-up sun

Been travelling rogue
It lights my tongue on fire, it
Suits me well, i find

Brackish thing,
with waves for eyes,
winks steely blue under
moonlight, manlight.

curvature of the thigh, smokestack scars and frothy seas.   so crouch with ready ears, involuntary vertebrae. sirens in the city-
Knock on our ribs and PRAY for us! oh, medusa,
mother.

(I mean it this time)

We could
fly to the moon or

have kids.

and I know that at this moment I am like the flapping
/for sale/ signs in the wind but on the inside I feel so
safe,        not       hot        not       cold        but this soupy
mix that only reinvigorates when that biting wind
reminds me of future engagements.

Delicate now, I lay my bones out one by one. The first is found to contain a colony of bees. Another is home to a sparrow which comes and goes through a hole pecked 1.5 inches in diameter. A third has fully succumbed to dust and is held in a cloud-shaped jar which fluctuates in ways of shape, as is the habit of cloud-like entities.

When time has come to dissect my skull, I call out one last entreaty of the physical world: a dinner invitation. Serving out a platter of ****** features, I cease to exist.

Allow me to
c o l l  e  c   t.
along tunneled ceilings^ and
unused bones.
They tell me that fire
is hot**
and lakes freeze [over in winter
but I can feel
china doll shar"ds underlying
skins. (Some mornings, when I wake up too early, they've protruded a bit so that they catch against my bedsheets and ensnare us. I grab a hammer from under the bed, pound out silt-size rubies and tangles of flesh)


(Oh, mother, mother, take me in, take me in)

There's a calendar on my ceiling that's not really there but I sit underneath and count the hours (which wouldn't be there either but (I count and while I count I hold my breath and I pray ~knowing no god~ I pray for and end, end, end,

yellow clouds
     kiss
          smokey skies  
          awake as I wait for you.
I swear
    there are lighter winds
    this time and that peach
    is not a suitable smell but
No matter,
You're gone and   ~
                                      I'm so tired. My lips have
                                      cracked in anticipation of
                                      your kiss.
                                      \
but ******* it, when you come back you will
love me, I've decided it. You'll be smitten,
You will ache.

Mornings bring [aches] that
don't go away with time, nights are
restless limbs, cold fingertips. Your lips^-
sunrise. Exhale. An existence of perpetual
sleep, yet I fear to close these eyes
lest your skin touch mine in dreams.
Pause. You'd think time would have
been enough to grow new bones (echo of
crunched snow, blooming sky), but you've been
hiding in the wrinkles of my
knuckles and laughing at me as I
stare too long at old houses, avoid
reflections, count the panes in my
bedroom windows again. Dear.
~
I will surpass you.

touch me again, I
dar*e
you. I will string out your
crown-jewel insides and bite
off your hands  ~or would, if following through was a strength of mine-

Sounds of him moving on from downstairs, bludgeon me.

Today i will resolve my emotions for the men I've loved who are incapable of loving me. I will fill my throat with things that wish to stay there. The water will rush to greet me with infinite reassurances, engulfing my favorite secrets, kissing them in recognition, stroking me into peaceful slumber, lasting. Oh, lake, love, keep me into forever.

even nights terrors visit me more , best friends ive ever had

*******.

This sea is non-believing, filaments unhearing. So, magic in hand, i become tremors in the waves, rust in the walls.

Doll snatcher, let me down.

Fiend he was and fed away my heart to the pack of nightscratchers in his wake - all the while looking me in the eyes, my superfluous pose, his wired,

wicked laugh echoing at me in my dreams, behind my nose and in every strand of

flitting, fleeting hair, like a mechanical fantasy of Mr. Poe, and It was Then, in that freakishly drawn-out moment of my life that I realized I am not a girl, this nonsense may have

ripped the veins from around that kaleidoscope dreamland of my interior but from now till on I will

live unreal realities outside the mind, bequeathing thoughts and sense but as a woman,

taking my fall with grace, gracing the light with a smile, smiling at the

dreams
                     I
                             once
                                         dreamt.

even
hold my hand in public but
said my name, first and middle, echoing it around our bed as if daring me to look him in the eyes. Swaddled me in beargolve spice, unstitched the painstakingly-put seams in my lungs while i slept, cut off fingertips once mine and rooted them to the fertile country of his gums.

I knew I'd never love him but
      tried to grab for the lining of his esophagus or the old-time winds in his eyes. I'd always miss, so I guess that makes me the lemon.

my favorite poems are
chapters in a story
I can watch as you
fall in love or
squash insecurity
I can almost say im
there with you.

Willows weep
Shadows grin
Mothers lie
Daughter sin

Feelings bleed
Hyped minds spin
Colors clash
Mouths of tin

Sleepless nights
Shark's black fin
Cracked up bowls
Want to win

Roses red
Smiles of gin
No fix real
Unwashed din

Honeyed song
Prideless kin
Jesus waits
Pull this pin.

Ask what their favorite colors are

Check in with them in the morning

Check out in the evening

Make plans for the next day

Follow through with your plans for the next day

Choose walking paths away from busy roads or large falls

Learn all their most used phone numbers

Help them get dressed

Laugh when they ask you to walk with them while near busy roads or large falls

Call all their most used phone numbers

Hold their hand

Hold their hand tighter when they reach for things to **** themselves with

Laugh when they call you a bad friend

Label them. If you don’t, you’ll take it personally.

I've been eating zebra cakes. Partly for the taste [creamed-up skies, maybe a swan or two reflected in a lake] but also for the animal on the package with his confetti and rainbowed smiles. Four days till Good Friday, lord.

In eveningtime, I sit inside myself and bang on the cockleshell walls with my ribs. Given time, the vibrations start to numb-up the cells of my nerves and lose effect -anyways. Sleep is with a machine who touches me through perfectly oiled axles and aching laughters. He doesn't hear me when i tell him I don't want his incisions and leaves knives by my bed to desensitize any qualms.

Last weekend, I didn't go home with the pineapple boys. I climbed through arms and fingers and faces, but my lover (machine) had since ascended - I kept asking which of the walls i could follow to find him, but They laughed and told me i was blind.