go anywhere but to the movies.
show up to a party,
sip ***** in the kitchen,
at midnight let lips rest for an instant
                           --then draw back.

the boy in biology class
has wild curly hair
                           --be careful.

when lips brush against cheeks
                           --tremble.
when pale timid fingers trace spines
                            --sway.

never stray too far from home.
never sacrifice anything
but once
make a journey.
turn away from civilization.

shake the sweaty hand of a bald, tan man
wearing sunglasses,

claw through the huddled masses,
yearning to breathe free,

step out
onto the cool gray platform.
feel awkward in your brown leather
jacket amongst black windbreakers,
lean back against the rumbling doors,
search drawn,
blank faces for reactions.
find nothing.

exit on the wrong end, the far end.

do not to walk on the left side of the street
-- that’s where the bad **** happens.

do not to look anyone in the eye.

do not think.

if you must think, think only
about lips and brown eyes and star-shaped sunglasses.

look around and realize
that this elevator's button don’t light up anymore,
and the number thirteen has been scratched out by someone’s keys.

let your footsteps echo against tile floors.

let your eyes catch,
briefly.

and inhale deeply
because you like the smell of his deodorant,

just this once.

I have so many things I need interventions for.
Like not taking enough showers,
Definitely.

Q called me an eccentric genius yesterday.
What a label. It might be my favorite one yet.
Better than ****,
Said R.

My life is a disaster.
It’s perfect.
No one knows me.
I have friends.
They don’t know me either.
I don’t know them.
They are strangers.
I love them all.
But I can’t help them.
I can barely help myself.

Sometimes I just want to stop breathing, but it’s too much effort to hold my breath.
Sometimes I just want to scream at the sky, but I don’t want it to scream back at me.

And don’t try to tell me that dogs aren’t people.
Of course dogs are people.
They are more like people than we are.
We are not people.
I am not a person.

I am a little bit of a person, a sliver of a person.
I am a mug, maybe. Fill me up with caffeinated beverage.
Brown sludgy liquid. Let’s all pretend we like it.
It makes it easier to accept that
We don’t want to get out of bed in the morning.

What if we stayed there just,
Forever?
What if we lied on our backs,
Pressed ourselves between our
Sheets like people-paninis
And waited and waited
Till we starved half to death?

It would be the new crazy
Weight-loss miracle diet
And everyone would suddenly want to come over
And take pictures of us but
We’d too proud and dignified
To allow them to publish the pictures in magazines.

Only we wouldn’t be able to stop them
Because we are technically considered public figures
Which in this country means
People are allowed to take pictures of you
And make up stories about you
And print them on sheets of paper
And hand them out all over the world
And then people read them and think
That the words on the paper are little bits of you,
That they are true.

And the funny thing is they are,
But we try to pretend we’re not.

We all do it.
We all say we aren’t things.
We’re not judgmental.
We’re not mean.
We’re not worried about superficial aspects of our faces and bodies.
We’re not going to go on a diet.
We’re not going to stop smoking and drinking and hacking all over the place.
We’re not.

We’re independent beings.
We are women!
Men!
Androgynous beasts!

People get so angry about things. It’s hilarious.
Things that are
so
so
so
so
small.
Like the color of a shoelace.
The time on your watch.
Countries with arbitrarily sketched borders.

Why not just erase them?
Who would care?
Certainly not me.
I think
We should all be more sexually active with one another,
Or without one another, and that
We should all start wearing helmets.

You are a fox, she said.
I looked down and saw that indeed, I was.

Your hair is pretty and red, she said.
I looked behind me and noticed that indeed
The red from my hair was dripping down my bare back
And sliding down my shoulders and forming
Pools of vivid red beside us.

Suddenly everyone wanted to touch my hair
But I began to cry and said stop.

Fay found a frog.
It was green and bumpy and shined rainbow in the sun.
It was actually a toad.
I cried because I thought it might die
And if it died the world would most definitely be over.

I held it and I felt its heart beating in my hands
And I thought there could never be a more beautiful precious thing
Ever
In the entire world
Again.
The heart was beating louder and faster and I couldn’t take it
Until I began to cry again.
Fay came and the frog disappeared.

My heart felt heavy.
My mind went “Hm.”
It went “What should I do now?”

I should eat a cherry, I guess.
So I did.
I ate a cherry.
I didn’t feel satisfied, so I ate another.

Meanwhile Melinda,
My golden haired friend,
and I couldn’t talk because of my purple shirt.
She said, I can’t talk to you while you are wearing that purple shirt.
And I said, Do you want me to take it off then?
And she said, You look like a grape.

And when I laughed I couldn’t stop
and I couldn’t stop stop stop
until I was crying again with my head in my hands.

Then my heart felt heavy again so
I went outside and looked at some trees.
The sun was hot and my arms were getting tired.
But I wanted to get burned.

At nightfall I went upstairs and looked in the mirror.
Makeup dripped down my face and I wanted it off.
I began to scrub.

You are drinking yourself red-eyed and crumpled
on an unmade bed meanwhile I
am hating the world’s promiscuity and signing
autographs that serve no alternate purpose
subsequent to their ink-blotted conceptions and silently
my heart scratches and claws and penetrates
bone, muscle, and choked fat
to get to you

How will we know
when we’re no longer
young enough
to inconsequentially
rot our bodies
from the inside
out?

If I could
I would search for a space
impenetrable
by ants molecules and medium-sized atoms
that exists between
my pale finger tips and
your freckled
bare back moving
slowly up and down

If I could
I would be somewhere where nothing
is the tarnished byproduct of anything
where no one will remind anyone not to
clog their throats or minds or eyes
when they
shiver and choke on scarlet inkblots
and chug gasoline
and wipe away dirt stains
and drink each other’s shame
and form cuts on the soles of their feet
after rushing barefoot through beds of sharp stones
to reach other

It unraveled slowly
turned us into
broken lamps and upturned end tables

My birth equaled the demise of all his pretenses
They dissolved in the spaces behind walls
They filled the cracks of the yellowed plaster

Once I was small enough to hide there too
Concealing myself among the decay made sense
When ugly truths burst forth they swallowed us
I cowered unseen and thus forgiven
A silent witness to my own life
I wish now I could do the same

I do not miss the brown faces of sun-dried Marlboro men or the mall, or the
Empty soccer field or those lonely black streets that echoed weary
Footsteps or our faded green awning nor do I miss the smell
Of your fifth floor apartment or how my knees would
Tremble and disintegrate and I do not miss your
Taste anymore or that your lips were large and
Soft and swallowed me because I’ve
Concluded there was no choice but
To leave our pile of muddy
Laundry and bloodstained
Sheets in a dusty barren
Apartment on the lower
East side where
***-filled brains
And metal poles
Collide

I came to the rocky shores of Greece
To stand amid the rows of stark white houses
To find your face in a mirage that spreads across
These seamless gray skies

And even though you are gone
I felt you
In the pin ****** of sand on my soles
I felt your heart
Breathing deep beneath the earth
I heard the crash
Of your head against hot metal and
I tried to stop the blood but
It seeped between the cracks
In my fingers and I shuddered
And plunged
Into the icy green foam
And my thoughts converged like clouds

I have oft wondered
Why we clutch
The calloused hands that strike us

And why our blushing cheeks lend such
Easy passageways for
Graceless tears