The inherent eroticism of religion,
How red the little g gods bleed
By the soda fountain

And all the women who devote themselves to their gods (plural)
Gods like those that ruled over Greece
The flawed ones
The ones that made monsters
and humans both

Is that the neck of a coke bottle or
A glass skinned girl
Between those teeth straightened by mettle?

I’m telling you, if you’ve ever met a priestess
The real kind, the wild kind
You’ll know well enough what it’s like to be eaten alive
And I’m not talking about by the mosquitos in the swamps of Georgia

I’m talking about
How the glass breaks
How it shatters
How it cuts the mouth of that little g god ******
By the soda fountain
And he’s left wanting for more

The taste of blood is acquired like this; early

There’s no such thing as a benevolent divine

Nations and nationalism;
Religion and re-legend

Grandmother killed the wolf, didn't she?

There is another, separate story
the retelling of an old legend
(all things important are lost in the retelling)

The man turns into a monster at the sight of a
full moon,
turns back again only when somebody loves him.

I think about that grandmother often,
sitting by the fire with a
rifle in her lap-

The things she's seen

The wolves she has left to ****

In the other story, the other legend,
It's the grandmother who loves the wolf
and turns him back

And I think that this one is truer, somehow

Because we are really all just fury things
with barred teeth
that need to be told to come back into the house
to eat the dinner on the table
to stop howling at the sky

all of it, give it all up, for the sake of somebody you love

and if that is not enough, at  least for the sake
of the old woman in the woods
who loved you before your bones were thought up

(hide the blood on your claws, little wolf/monster/thing,
she's just washed the sheets
and they're bright white
the color of the moon
the color of her eyes that were blind all along)

The air always smells of rain
somewhere, right?

So somewhere, you're always knocking on a door
And somewhere, I'm behind the same door
And somewhere, somebody is saying,
'It's for you'

Even though you're not for me, and I
can tell that
just by smelling smelling the air

(Which does not smell like rain)

But these words are for you,
They'll always be for you-

And maybe someday I'll open the door.

It won't be you,
or maybe it will be you
and maybe you'll be here for me

Isn't that a nice story?

You wouldn't believe the stories I tell
myself
while I sit here in the sun
and dream of rain.

There’s a story about Calypso or maybe it’s a legend
or maybe it’s religion

Daughter of a Titan, seducer of a hero
Maybe she was actually the hero

Must it always be about princesses and dragons, girls and ogres?

Anyway, we’re the dragons and the princesses tonight
Summer whites instead of white
wedding gowns-

There’s a bachelorette party a few tables down and the bride looks uncomfortably close to my age

The four of us, the dragon girls, around the table

There’s a story about sisterhood
or maybe it’s a legend
or maybe it’s religion

Daughters of regular men and students of 4 different subjects, citizens of three different countries between us

Sounds like a bad bar joke: a Romanian, two Americans, and a Chinese citizen walk into a restaurant on a Saturday night...

We laugh at ourselves before the punch line hits (and these young women actually liked themselves!)

When you’re the princess, ogre, dragon, girl
When you’re the prize, villain, hero
you get to have all the fun. That’s the secret to all this, I think: have all the fun you can

Have all you can. Have all of it. Be all of it. Complex human beings with complexes of our own behind our eyes- we laugh

The bachelorette party orders more alcohol

China and Romania plan their trip to Greece for spring break over
the side salads and
COVID-19 travel restrictions
Americans try their best to help navigate the travel website

Imagine this: history happens and we live through it anyway.

We plan through it anyway.

Once upon a time, Calypso trapped Odysseus.

That’s the way the story goes, anyway, but every dragon knows
men only come to the lair looking for a prize
he must not have been expecting something that looked like us
he must not have been expecting the dragon to be the prize

And she looked at the man mostly named for a color

He had a real name, of course, but the color was so much more true than that
Names are just sounds, identified

“Oh, you.” A smile, recognized
Maybe she knew him from his own words
or a long, dark wall filled with names from a war from before she was born
or maybe it was more than that

“Oh, you.”
Homecoming
Cliff jumping
A Bildungsroman novel in 18 years

Here it is, hear it coming? You have to listen closely,
it’s in the whisper between two friends
then and now

When is it that we realize we are all just mirrors of each other in the circle of time? Soon, very soon-

We’re coming around the bend of it now, hold on tight and-here: immortality

Oh, you: immortal.

So he sleeps behind his fathers counter,
little prince of a general store neighborhood dynasty

Is he a king, that he should doze on the throne?

Kings and boys- they’re all the same, anyway.
Anyway, make it three if a kind: kings + boys + Gods

A full hand, royal flush, this boy-king-god in his palace of cereal boxes
cheekbones polished by the flickering fluorescent light
the type flies are too afraid to land on, the type they land on anyway-
and here, he sleeps on; unbothered.

No one will believe you but me.

He will keep sleeping and you will keep stocking the shelves of his domain and nobody will believe you but me; justice passes by

The fly gets fried by the light overhead.

You saw it, he slept, and who would ever believe you but me?

Red boys worth blood
listen to the things they can’t hold in their hands
like sun and color
and the supposed shoes of a Cinderella girl
who was really their sister
and didn’t run away from them,
just the angels in the front garden

Burn the house
Burn the garden
Take the gut-punch
Grab the slipper

The watery grave she finds herself in-
tears shed by parents over the rejection of a suitor

The boys are only red because they faithfully cling
to Cinderella’s heart.
She gave it to them for safekeeping

Oh the things that brothers find themselves holding
past midnight.

The garbage truck sends noise crashing through the air
A plane adds to the din overhead and there-
A helicopter, hear it?
Thwup-thwup-thwup of the rotors
For a moment, there is no lockdown
There is not even a college or a crew team
Just me on the back porch in the mountains, looking up
Time bending full-circle.
I am eight and eighteen, looking up
The helicopter passes and so does the plane until all that’s left is the garbage truck and me on the back porch and my college professor begging the class to please, please pay attention over scratchy video feed.

Body politics
Is this my flesh or yours?
Hard to tell, since I never loved you
I just wanted to be you

It’s not your shoes at all, actually.
It’s the way you tie them: firmly, decisively

You have good, strong hands:
Van Gogh’s starry night,
Michaelangelo’s David,
and your hands.
You have a very specific way of holding onto things
all at once or not at all
The mountain ridges of your knuckles.

But how could I explain a thing like that?
Instead, I say: “I saw someone with your shoes,
the purple new balance 360s,
and it made me miss you.”

But what it is,
what it really is,

is I saw those shoes and I saw hands that were not yours tying them.

That’s the truth of it, isn’t it?
Scuttling and sliding down
trajectories of our own making-
easier to go down than up.

Here it is: fear in the face of courage
Legends hanging upside down by their ankles.
Are they smiling or frowning?

Turn yourself upside down to see and suddenly you’re the one who’s trussed by your feet
Hands reaching out and grasping at grass, at straws.
You will see, then, why Atlas shrugged
why angels fall.
It’s right in front of your face, reflected in the eyes of an unassuming rabbit
looking up at you looking down:

Alice through the looking glass, indeed.

Beg for forgiveness where there's none to be found

He says: do not ask me for mercy, I am no god

yet he certainly bleeds like one

Red and red and red
all over his bruised knuckles;
the price of freedom
the riot in patriot.

Cracked mirrors on a Sunday
cracked bones on a Monday
will Tuesday be cracked teeth
or is that his off-day?
Do gods take off-days?

He's on his knees, now,  
offering up squinted-eye smiles
I am no god
He promises, parting the sea of peace, anyway

Perhaps gods never set out to be divine
perhaps they do not know who they even are
since peace and war mean nothing to them

It's the human condition, to hurt.
He hurts all the time, you can see it in his shoulders
in the way he bleeds

Red and red and red
just like a god.

Come, faith
Steady my doing
And bless these thine crooked paths
That they may never lead to ruin
And if they do, that ruin be as breathtaking as the walls of Jericho before Joshua
Or Bathsheba’s smile

And if we be but mortals
Take my hand, anyway, dear one
And we will walk the path together.

The air feels like poppy seeds
ominous and warm
clouds heavy with yellow-green thunderstorms waiting to drop.

True love is a woman's color-
haven't you ever wondered why all God's angels are men?
Boys with wings that come and go and go and go
Ephemeral, fleeting

Yet mother earth continues to turn,
hiding her children in the folds of her skirt
a dance as old as time
older than the sun

And a weather girl laughs up at the sky
twirls in the image of her mother
pulls up the flowers

True love is not red
the sun is red

it is brown like the earth
like women
and it belongs to them more than it ever belonged to Gabriel.

I scroll through pictures of us in the mountains and I hear her voice so clearly
Written on a crumpled page
Years since she left the flower city
For the glitter kind
And I only shone because of my honey gold hair
Not jewelry or bright eyes or highlight on sharp cheekbones
“I’m lost and I only knew myself when I was with you, and I was only with you when I went outside so I’m going kayaking in Alaska. I’m sorry I let myself get so lost. I’m sorry I made myself too hard to find.”
An apology in vain

I had already forgiven her.
I forgave her the moment she left me barefoot in a field because
I knew her heart once
And I knew she had to go

Girls like that, they grow up half money and half spirit
Bound to want to taste what paper can buy them at some point
And me, always in the field. Safe.
She left and I never blamed her and I still don’t

She makes contact now
“How are you??”

Oh, my dear.
I am living out the dream I worked for
Cried for
Laughed for
I cannot ask for anything else
My feet feel good at the school I’m at, do yours?

I scroll through pictures without me
Click on the girl with her instead, before she went to Alaska to lose herself and find herself again
(She didn’t have to, I could have told her exactly where she was. In the flowers by my hand all along)
And all of these girls are so lost and lonely

Money in New York and parties every night and ten thousand comments
And still, they couldn’t escape it
Couldn’t escape what we all feel

You can see it in their eyes
It’s the reflection of glitter
Golden fear

Go stand in a field, I want to say.
Go stand in a field and take off your shoes and rest.

Raindrops on the toe tips of brown leather shoes

It smells like I should be inside, reading.

She comes in a jeep I know well
and when she and I collide in a hug,
the engine still running
I can see the old thing winking at me like it knows
she is the steadiest ******* this planet

A fellow sunshine swallower
she chews up the moon
and eats the mountains, too
eats up all the blackness in  my chest, too

Two schools states away
she hugs the same, always.

Some things, the soul cannot forget, no matter how the hard the heart practicality begs it to
things like black motor oil water
like freckles against light green eyes
like the last time I saw her, the last time there were raindrops
on the toes of my brown leather shoes
and she drove away in that jeep
and I got on a plane

There is no other pain like heartbreak.

Heartbreak is not falling out of love, it is not loneliness
It is the addition of somebody else’s story in your mouth, with no one to tell it to;
Silence in it's worst form.

But as she stands here, holding me, it is quiet
quiet relief

Imagine it:
Raindrops on the toe tips of brown leather shoes
the smell of a grey afternoon
an old jeep
and a girl



--But she is states away again, today--

I don't like to read your words-

A wry smile, bittersweet.

They're too real, too mundane for a dreamer.

This, whispered to me.
What is that supposed to mean?
I was not born with wings
I am from this earth
What is that supposed to mean?

Would you rather me forget
about the blood stained teeth of an old god
the ruined smile of Grace

What is that supposed to mean?

I am not even a writer,
I am only living
and I have never once seen life
walking around without dirt in her nail beds.

This isn't to make you feel bad
it's just to explain
that I don't make compromises
because I know how quickly
a smile can swallow a girl whole
chew her up, spit her out
and keep on bearing perfect chiclit teeth.
So don't think you're pulling a fast one on me-
Let me tell you something: I have value and I am not for you to spend

"I thought"- What a dangerous phrase, goes both ways;
I thought they liked it/I though they wouldn't
Compromises desire and safety at the same time, corrupts them both
but the world moves and I've moved, and I'm older now, less compromising
now.

I don't care if you think I'm just another girl lighting things up
because I've ruined your good time
because you don't want to hear about "things like that"
I told you already, it's not to make you feel bad,
It's just my experience
it's just my life.

So, no, I won't sleep with you on the first date
and no, I won't feel bad about it.

Can you codify a feeling?

Is the question bouncing around
the study group meeting a few tables away
from where I write my government paper

I think maybe you can't
I think maybe that's what poetry is supposed to be for:
to codify feelings
to make a container for a color

the color words taste in my mouth
when they make my bones ache

the color that leaves when you leave
that leaves when I leave
that spoils when we both leave-

Can you codify a feeling?
No. I don't think so.
And I don't think you can codify two people either
so maybe
we should just be.

We should just be
happy
You and I, uncodified.

Sometimes, it is not about
rising to the challenge
because falling from grace

Just hurts.
It just hurts.

Teeth stained red-
This is not a smile
And this is not a success story,
it is just a story

about life

and it hurts.

There's a hollow below your neck
and a scar on the back of your head

easy. Trick or treat.

I know you, the way you move-
you wear masks all the time, one  made of rubber won't make a difference
I still know how to find your eyes

And that heart of yours that you wear on your sleeve
is not as disguised as you think

And besides, you're the only person I know who smiles
like that;

candy.

"Maybe you should write a poem about grace"

Well, She was anything but graceful
crooked smile and sharp eyes
more akin to justice
or liberty, even
except sometimes
in the afternoon on rainy days
Grace came to me and held out a hand-
angels with chipped nail polish
and girls with reckless souls.

"Maybe you should write a poem about grace"

Grace comes suddenly
but she lands softly
on rainy days
in the afternoon
sometimes.

Lucky charms with all the marshmallows picked out-
picture this:
rainbows and leprechauns
smiles full of gold teeth
angles on the ground with chipped nail polish
on call but for the discounted prayers
the poor neighborhoods
the not entirely righteous
demons of gasoline
guardians of the latchkey kids

I meet angels all the time
they put their wings on my lungs,
fly my breath away

There aren't any marshmallows left
guess I'll have to make my own luck.

and why?
because I've got to
get this thing
out of my chest

It's doing its best to suffocate me
or maybe just put me to sleep
but either way It's scaring me

because I know this feeling
and I know what the thing looks like
or at least
what it tastes like
and I know

I've got to get it out
I just
don't know how

We ate the sunrise for breakfast
water black like motor oil
before the sun had a chance
to wake up and ignite it
and a girl that looked like coming home  

The hands of a best friend
holding a sparrow-delicate flower-
could have been my heart with
how little it looked
in her palms

Fleeting, fleeting
and gone

I watched, standing alone on my island
as she looked back
winked
loved me
and left.

Back tomorrow, always
for breakfast
to eat the sunrise
and put the sun himself
to shame

The stuff she's made of
it's not any material found on earth

She was supposed to be me,
I think,
before we were both made
since
I miss her like I miss my breath
when it gets knocked out of my chest.

Please put your help back in the heart it came from,
mine isn't very good at holding help
isn't very good at holding anything at all-

People come and go
they go, they go, they go

And the second you hand over your help, I'll get back on my feet

I will walk away

You must know this.

Are you afraid yet?
Put it back, please.
Better I'm flat on my back with no air
than walking away lonely.

Put it back quickly, I'm ready to stand.

Tough pills to swallow,
all these little moments
sweet under street lamps
smiles between white sheets
white teeth
bared against
words too big to chew

Drink up sunlight
soak up moonlight
wring out lamplight
from the corners of the room
to make space for shadows

Hard to see in the day
what I feel in the dark

Drink me, Alice
See what happens when the bottle spills out
moments that add up too well

Hard to swallow down.

Heart cold
hands clean
words gold
tongue mean

You're a liar
You're on fire

So why's your heart cold?

Why're your hands

Clean?

Paper faces and silicone smiles-
Where’d you get that mask, little girl?
Looks an awful lot like

me.

Listen to me
Sometimes we cannot change who we are
What we are
What we crave
And what we don't
How we feel
And how we breath

Listen to me
There are going to be those people
Who leave holes in your heart
Bright sparks
Left over from ephemeral intensity
That's just how it is
That's life

And if you think that I am not one of those people
Then perhaps you do not know me
At all.

Listen to me

I'm sorry

For the unanswered texts
The dropped calls
The silence

Listen to me

I'm sorry

About the anxiety
I've got to have room to breath
I will never not need that; to be left alone
I have already made a life for myself
I cannot change that trajectory

Listen to me
I am not Cinderella
I am not Sleeping Beauty
I am not a princess
I have no desire to be one
I am a sovereign ruler of my own domain-

Listen to me.
I do not need anyone to complete me
I am whole on my own two feet
And if I have holes in me
Maybe I like them there

Maybe I don't mind being so light

Don't think I lack the capacity to care
I care. I love. I do.
But I am not made to make a home

Listen to me
I love that you are
That you like being close to home
Close to family
Sensitive, caring

But you must understand
That I am not.

I am not.

Listen to me
I care
But I cannot be looking for forever.

I can see your ribs
Jacob's ladder holding your organs in tight
Count them up
Un deux trois
Cats on your socks
And the world on your shoulders

Are you a god that you can stand the weight of seven billion souls?

How many times have you seen night turn to day and back again?

You've got history stenciled into your skin
Your father's complexion and your mother's fingers
In a combination so significant that only the youth can relate
Hard to be, hard to grow
When your ancestors have already grown so tall behind you

Set down the planet for a while
Give it a good kick
Watch it roll
Time spun the wrong way
A million sunrises in a moment

Is this not better?
Teeth flashing in backtracked frowns
All the laughs before they happen

Jonah swallows the whale in this one

Maybe you should eat something too.

Happy Birthday

We cry all the time, you and I
Blond hair and sunshine smiles and anxiety and shiny grades

And love.
Love, love, love
Love; Family

You share, I share
I give, you take, we take, we take.

We take meanness and swallow it down, insecurities from other people and make them ours

You go to private school and I do not but you and I, we smile in solidarity
Sit at the family dining table in solidarity
I have a spot at that table and an extra mattress in your room

In solidarity.

A sister, a friend, a mirror.
Let me always be your mirror, for I love you more than you may ever love yourself
It's the least we could do for each other

Tonight we cry by laughing, spill sunshine across the table because what a wonderful thing it is to have something that will never scrub out of your soul

My dear, Happy Birthday.

You're an absolute menace
Who taught you to break hearts like that?

Who put a young man from the backstreets of a city in the 1940s into your body?

Not a care in the world, it's brash confidence, you love hard hit hard
All or nothing
It's who you are.

Young woman.

Braids and a baseball cap
Complexes piling up behind your eyes

You wear fake smiles like they're going out of style
Smile real ones at the people you'll grow up to hurt the most

Who taught you how to use your womanhood as a weapon?

Maybe nobody,
Maybe nobody.

Maybe you taught yourself. Dumb lucky teenager, scrappy as hell and ****** to boot

Sins on your shoulders, a good heart.
You're a menace, a freak

It's unbelievable, truly,
It's obscene, really

They worship the ground you walk on and you go home and cry in the closet.

You are sunshine

Just like she was

Born in July, you've got honey gold hair and blue eyes

Goofy personality

Darling, remind the sun to keep some of her warmth for herself instead of giving it all to you,

I can still feel the warmth of your hands on mine, admiring my ring, from this morning

You like shiny things

I've got shiny lies

You like me

I don't know why

But you don't make me anxious

And somehow you already knew about the last boy and you don’t care that I swing whatever way the wind is blowing

And I'm alright with that.

Midnight boys with sunshine smiles
Sunshine girls with stars in their hair

Who you are is who you love

You love funny kind reckless both

You love smiles dark laughing

You love

You love

People bleed, that’s just how it is

They say head wounds bleed the most; do not be alarmed

So what about the invisible gashes in the head and the heart?

How much do they bleed?

When do they stop?

Counting cars on the front stoop in summer

One, two, three punch buggy no punch back

Lemonade for me and sweet tea for you

This is The South, after all

Only it’s hockey instead of football that’s on the television in my house but

We don’t talk about that since

I say you guys instead of y’all but

We don’t talk about that since

Your daddy has a confederate flag on his porch but

We don’t talk about that since

I grow up and you grow up and we don’t agree on the racial nor gender politics of time but

We don’t talk about that since

I don’t use the term culture of amnesia or white paternalism around you since

We count cars on the front stoop in summer

One, two, three punch puggy no punch back

A tall glass of political awareness for me and a shot of traditionalism for you

and silence between us but

We don’t talk about that since

This is The South, after all

We’re forgetting the most important part, I think

It’s that the hurt is worth it.

It’s worth it.

If nothing else, it is worth it

To love with the risk of pain

Than to never love at all.

Our space doesn’t exist, friend

It doesn’t exist anymore

Stopped being a thing once your Y chromosome didn’t match

My double X

And we realized boys and girls didn’t have sleep overs

So

Take your sticky fingers away from me, dear

Don’t kiss me sloppily on the cheek in thanks for penny candy, dear

Please stop trying to wear my shorts, dear

They are women’s cut, dear, and the five inch inseam... oh dear

You have a girl friend, dear

And you will have another one next month

And the month after that, another one

Our space only exists in-between,

Where platonicy reigns supreme

But that doesn’t exist anymore, because all girls and all boys end up together, right?

Only I’m right here and you’re right here, so we’re togther

It’s just that you’re my little brother from another mother

And I’m your personal driver

Our space doesn’t exist anymore

Tell me, God, tell me

For real, this time

A good question, if you’ll listen

Where do the gnats go after they get zapped in the bug light?

Tell, me God, tell me

Okay, this one is a good question for sure

Very important stuff

How many times does one need to curse to loose their spot in heaven? Asking for a friend

Tell me, God, tell me

This is a kicker

It’s been keeping me up at night

Why did you decide to make sand? I mean, it’s pretty and all, but it gets everywhere

Tell me, God, Tell me

So, now here’s my biggest question

When am I going to make up my mind? Is that ever in my future or are we just planning on an indecisive personality forever?

Just let me know when you decide, because we both know I won’t

And hey-

Big guy in the sky, this one really is for you, if you’re there

I’m just wondering, you see

Could you tell me one thing:

Where does all the happiness go?

Grief is far from straight

It’s a crooked, winding line down half of my heart, half of my lungs

Permanent scars that make it hard to breath sometimes.

I hate that you’re fighting to catch your breath now, too

Is love, but with no where to go

Is that text "I'm not doing so good"

Of course not, because he's dead

He's dead and your house is so silent it might as well be a coffin but with your name on it

The worst thing?

It's that I cannot bring him back for you

The worst thing?

It's that I cannot take away your pain

The worst thing?

It's that nobody listens

Except for me

And we all know I can't process grief

So the worst thing is that you are there

And I am here

And I cannot make it better

Lilac girls sitting in the garden-
expressions once sweet and look how they harden.

Boy turned man and man turned mean, heart replaced by a grinding machine.

But rose bud boy, he aged young-
Lillies and honey dripping from his tongue.

And golden rod girl, she aged old-
they put her in an apron and she fit in the mold.

Lilac girls sitting in the garden.

Candy melts in the sun, but here it hardens

Let me tell it to you this way-

I have never been brave

I have only been afraid

And when people are afraid, they are supposed to do extraordinary things

So I have never been brave

And I will never be brave

Let me tell it to you this way-

I am the worst type of coward

and I will never not be

Just ask my own flesh and blood

It runs in the family

It isn't the night-creature's fault that you're afraid of it

perhaps it likes the dark

perhaps it feels safe in small spaces

like under your bed

or rattling around inside your skull.

it isn't the night-creature's fault that it's drawn to the whites of your eyes

maybe it's only ever known fear

and with a history like that, how can you expect the thing to know love?

Well go ahead and box me up, I guess
The funeral will be nice and they will not say
"oh, but she is still living"
in the literal sense

They'll use it as a metaphor
instead of the rallying cry,
the encouragement

"but you are still living"

maybe I'll never die, at this rate.

So box me up in glass ceilings and
social norms

We'll call it the practice run

And let's go ahead and put "here lies a person"

So I can practice being equal when I'm dead.

Sooner or later
you're going to have to realize
that the color of your promises
doesn’t match the silver
of your tongue

If you're going to bleed, bleed sunshine

Spill light from the cuts on your knees

Paint the grey thing in your chest cavity that looks nothing more than scarred tissue gold

Pretend you are the sun

Pretend you are the sun

Might as well scream some, too.

Only call it laughing.

And when you try to explain your sadness to them, let them not understand a word you're saying because you're supposed to

Be the sun

Even though you didn't ask for people to orbit you, they did so

Give them warmth, give them light

One day you'll burn out but

If you're going to bleed, you might as well bleed light.

Yeah well here's what you are-

Cold blooded

Gold blooded

They cut you on the truth and I swear I've never seen such golden youth flow from anyone's veins

Like ice water over a burn

You laugh it off, your voice cracks, body turned grey

You polish yourself on lies

You little gold blooded freak

And if that's all you ever are

It's still something.