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

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

My roommate did a juice cleanse
He looked and felt so good So I did the same.
Chugged nothing but holy water for a week. Left the water in the beam of the newmoon. Tried to flush the bad out of me. I asked my tired liver to do more. Tried fire. Tried sage. Tried charcoal. Tried swallowing stones in hopes they’d grind up what I couldn’t get rid of. Tried pulling my teeth out So my bite marks couldn’t be traced back to me
I wrote I WASNT HERE
in hopes even id believe it
but these are the hands that hit and smothered and signed
these are the lips that cut and lied

there was nothing to clean but my body
and even then I sometimes like the way I smell without soap

I am re learning faith in my own fingers
Leaps of it through my wrecked knees
Trust falls into myself

Chug chug chug. Drown drown drown.
the good and the bad mixed into a dark chocolate batter
tonight I eat the whole cake

Got stirred up to foam
trying so hard to dissolve
all the sweet
back into me

When I am stressed I imagine I am a whale
In the middle of the blue ocean
I am not big - I am the perfect size
For a whale
I swim in water that does not fight me
My body was made for my home
I sing and it is always in chorus
I eat simple meals that nourish me completely
that I strain thru my gorgeous bristle teeth
I don’t own a toothbrush
Because I am a whale
I am fast but slow but moving at the exact pace I need to
I rest when I need to
I sing when I need to
I travel the globe and sometimes visit the beach not unlike people
It is my planet
and my planet is blue

I sit next to you
without
being close
And I can feel
my atoms start to pull towards you

Your gravity is stretching me open
Slow and steady and inevitable
the universe expanding

Man made fences
but with you
I am open pasture
Ever bigger ever green
Ever being

So I give my molecules permission
Every single one
To pull me apart

In highschool a friend dreamt that the apocalypse left hundreds of children orphaned
lo and behold in this wacky dream world
I was their chosen leader
The leader of the hobo children, they called me
we would go on missions
they were very loyal
She addressed me as such until we graduated

My best friend dreamt that I was dating the Pacific Ocean
but that one day we broke up
on the beach, as it were
but the ocean got angry so her tide pulled my car into the surf and drowned it
while I yelled at her from the sand
arms crossed
huffing and sighing and cussing out
my ex -  the biggest ocean on earth

My boyfriend dreamt I was dating someone else
who insisted on telling him that he wasn't a good partner
and while they argued and fought and people danced
he told me that
I sat there dying
and no one cared to notice
what a strange dream he says
what a strange dream I say as my phone buzzes

In my own dreams I am several people
in my own dreams I am often someone else
I am often watching me and occasionally I am myself
I never dream I am flying
I am often running and I am often getting tired
I am often chased and there is often blood
most dreams I try not to remember

I'd like to be the me in other peoples dreams
they are exciting, I tell myself
they disappear at the sound of an alarm
and I am still with me when I wake up

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

I raise my hands for
a toast to the void
to the big mouth no teeth emptied out colossus
casually stirring stars
here's to the ******* nothingness
THAT ******
that inthecloset underthebed undermyponytail question
cheers -
I don't know you
But I've been walking the plank for 27 years and I'm starting to think I've been in the sea all along so
cheers -
to the ugly fish
the ones on the sea floor
you're not ugly if you grew up in the dark.
wouldn’t you do the same?
attach a headlamp to your forehead?
wouldn't you sew it there yourself?
for a little bit of light?
Cheers -
to the mother who kneels to check under the bed for you and lies
to the unnamed hallelujah of a no-answer question
to the mouth that asks
to the fish
to me

you said
"snow makes everything pretty"
so the second it started to get cold
I went outside and waited

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

it's april
Feels like
i'm the fool?
maybe
a little worried at least
that I'm foolish

Ran out of money
throwing all my spare change into the fountain

Ran out of time
Picking up stray eyelashes like baby birds that had fallen from the nest
blew them away
To the tune of
I wish
I wish
I wish
whatever she wishes will happen
What’s another penny at the bottom of a fountain?

Is it foolish
Check my horoscope
Check yours
I look up
As if it’s written up there too
As if I could see any stars in this nocturnal city
As if I know how to read those far away dots

I hold the magic 8 ball in my hands
I don’t believe in this **** I say
As I shake
Shaking shaking
Praying just a little
Not enough to count
I don’t go to church, temple, mosque
I kneel
Not enough to count

Maybe the clouds will make shapes
And those shapes will fit together
In a way that tells me

I look up

I roll my eyes

Astrology.com says I should use my charm, that I’m compatible with Gemini’s, that I’m going to succeed but
check again tomorrow.
The clouds are all circus animals
The magic 8 ***** tells me: Yes, definitely
I pull apart my hands
A kid throws a whole quarter in the water
I rub my eyes. I don't even check
I look down
I see you

I'd forgotten what I was asking the universe anyway

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

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.

My roommate did a juice cleanse
He looked and felt so good So I did the same.
Chugged nothing but holy water for a week. Left the water in the beam of the newmoon. Tried to flush the bad out of me. I asked my tired liver to do more. Tried fire. Tried sage. Tried charcoal. Tried swallowing stones in hopes they’d grind up whatever I couldn’t get rid of. Tried pulling my teeth out So my bite marks couldn’t be traced back to me
I wrote I WASNT HERE
in hopes even id believe it
but these are the hands that smothered and signed
these are the lips that cut and lied

there was nothing to clean but my body
and even then I sometimes like the way I smell without soap

I am re learning faith in my own fingers
Leaps of it through my wrecked knees
Trust falls into myself

Chug chug chug. Drown drown drown.
the good and the bad mixed into a dark chocolate batter

tonight I eat the whole cake

I kiss my palm
wave it goodbye
place my hand on my heart
and swear


I am my own sun
I gotta rise eventually

two cups of tea
and two cups of restaurant water
separate us
don't make me eat
fuzzy purple sweater
places two bowls in front of us
we reach for 2 forks, 2 napkins, 2 spoons
i don't want to eat
i sip
i chew
i'm eating just like humans are supposed to
but i don't want to eat
i'm sitting
sentences sentences
i'm wanting i'm sipping
i'm slipping off my plastic chair
gripping the tea cup
bracing against the tablecloth
i don't want to eat
you drink your tea
your water
you chew
but I swallow

I am standing among footprints in the riverbed. An ancient walk, like the one we are doing now.
Something old in us tells us to walk down river and so we do
What paths we can’t find, we make
We take off our shoes and greet the cold water.

These fossils are my favorite -
Most fossils are dead things bones ribs skulls without expression
Unmoving action figures in the last pose they were put in
But tracks are fossilized life
Creatures on the move, going places, in this place, with me
Just at a different time

We have reunited for this day along the ancient river
Her and I and the footprints
While we trek through and around and over, the Texas sun tires and dips
Our shadows become long, just as the dinosaurs shadows did
I guess theirs are longer, I shrug
I begin to remember that we will part again
But I am going to a town you had driven through, that you had touched, that you had stood in line for coffee at
Me to my home and you to yours
But even at home I will rest assured
Even on the concrete, on the linoleum, on the marble
I am in your tracks
And you are among mine
We are together here
In the same place
Just not always at the same time