our arms are windmills
always circling and setting like the sun across shoulders, around waists
windmills ache to spin
so we switch
your arm around me
then mine around yours
it goes on like this
we could power the whole city this way
your arm around me
then mine around yours
your arm around me
then mine around yours
the wind dies down
my wrists go limp
her face draped over my collarbone
before I can fold up
she turns to face the west
and each blade starts up again
reaching up to the sky
ticking up like a roller coaster drop
falling back like a wave
spin until I can see the sun
spin until her wings join mine
good morning, I say
we could power the whole city this way

there are ferns sprouting from my liver, my lungs, my tongue, my sternum
I'm worried
Am I rotting? Am I growing?

Trying to outrun the water but it's
Flooding the streets
Coming in under the doorway locked
Splashing over my feet
I'm at oceans edge
Somethings coming out of the foam

Pines grow here
And so do I
Roll the windows down
Let the rain in
On my sleeves and freckleing my face
I try to eat big bowls of fog
doesn't wanna stay on my spoon

***** in tanks tapping out an SOS
Lanterns red and gold
I walk up hill so I can see better
I taste lemon
Who was ever ungrateful to receive fruit?

There's dark figures of people behind glass
Looking like hieroglyphs
In a city built upwards
So tall it’s forgotten what the ground look like
Flags fly not as high as the rent so
You comb the grass for something sharp
You run your fingers through her trees
They are Green year round here

She is painted, she is old, she is pretty

You didn’t realize seals at the pier leave in the summer
so you **** up your chance at saying goodbye
Maybe I buy a fridge magnet
I move my body east but
The Gold Rush continues
Young men with pans sifting through gravel
Heaps and heaps of gravel
churning through land
leaving roots exposed to the sun

when I close my eyes I see her
her purples and her yellows
her greens and greys
her flamboyant spirals
and the birds that nest there
the first pigeon
that hatched outside my bathroom window had died
the second one didn't.

I found time
Sliding my finger under
the rind
between the skin and the fruit
There were whole minutes and hours to divide
Placing the little hand in your palm
I wished the earth spun a little slower

I found space
on the backside of an anemic paycheck
(The place where you put your name)
and in a little plastic bodega bag
And on the inside wrapper of my granola bar dinner
in between my *******
between the items of my growing grocery list
somewhere between carrots and eggs and bread and fruit
there was space

I found you
in a place of no space and no time for nobody
and certainly not for me
(who do I think I am to ask for space?)
on a crowded platform there were football fields of expanse for you
and seconds stretched out like taffy for you
the world didn’t stop
but it got a little bigger

she disappears in my arms
and for once I feel big enough
I put her in my pocket
I have no idea what time it is
and for once I do not worry
I found time

I never adapted to the cold and I think the wind knows
My knuckles are angry with me
But I’m angry at them
I yell at my limbs I yell at my feet
I yell until the kettle out yells me
And even then I am a little jealous of her whistle
What a life !  Made To Scream
I wait for quiet but quiet waits for very few
I am in love with the woman laughing on the train
I am in love with the woman taking too **** long to order
I am in love with whatever the **** is waking up after I
put that **** to rest
She used to make me tea
She also used to blame me for the weather
I became revered and feared
but I was not worthy of worship
too much destruction
God of chaos
God of things you don't tell your parents
God of you-only-prayed-for-rain-when-there’s-a-drought
but ******* for dating a rain cloud
Levys are breaking, my love
I am spilling
I am spouting
I’m a little tea ***
Here is my MOUTH
Here is my HAND
I’m a big bad somethingorother
I tell cautionary tales about a monster that looks a lot like me and lives in a little village that looks just like New York City.
Huh you say
Who is that
Not I said the mouth
Not I said the tongue
Not I said the hand
Not I said the feet
Not I said the shoulders
Not I said the stomach
Not I said the fallopian tubes
Not I said the esophagus
Not I said the inner ear
and by the time you started to recognize me
and by the time you opened the closet to assure me nothing was there
I had eaten away at all the sweaters
and the wind blew right through
because she knew that I never adapted to the cold

I’m learning how to be loved

I had a dog once
A big brown mutt
squiggly wiggly throw your weight around steal off the table brute
He had no manners
knocked over children like bowling pins
and yet
that day he found me crying
he laid his head on my lap and
was still

when they put him down
I left the room

I’m still learning how to be loved

We cook a dozen eggs
He buys me the right kind of milk
We don’t know what to do with each other
but buy eggs and buy milk
drink coffee and sing television theme songs
I can't look at him when I leave
But I do


I tear the paper along the tape
She’s watching me like a hawk
before I see them
She starts
It’s okay if you don’t like them. Do you like them? It’s okay
if you don’t.
I tell my mom I like them I love them I'll wear them all the time
I do
But she notices when I forget them on the table

I am still learning how to be loved

I call all the time
Every time it’s dark
Every time I google search my symptoms
Every time I feel a dead end
I call knowing he won't answer
I call just to leave a voicemail
One day his voicemail is full
I’m still learning how to be loved

in the first grade I used to spend recess picking little clover flowers for my teacher
even at the age of 6 i knew girls got bouquets of flowers and I haven't changed how i show my affection

once
she
drew me a flower
because she couldn't afford to buy them
couldn't climb the fence to pick them
i kept it too long
but no other daffodil
had stayed yellow that long