If Pluto’s a planet,
or some sort of moon,
or even a comet; it doesn’t much matter—
not for my purpose—
I feel I should live there.
Just pack up my suitcase,
and move to that snowball that’s
orbiting something,
or just flying solo.

Down here on Earth,
the sun is too warm, and
the light is imposing;
whatever’s concealed is
revealed in the morning,
and I’m left to relive my
memories over.

But Pluto is darker
for most of the day;
the nights will last longer
as life hibernates;
and I can be hidden beneath miles of snow—

Where I’ll be
           forgotten,
                    as I drift
                          
                                ­ alone.

My grandmother taught me
how to rinse period blood
out of my *******
taught me how to sweep
the veranda with my clothes
sticking to my skin

My grandmother taught me
how to hang up soap-water-soaked
house dresses, frocks, slips, and bras
on a clothes line and take them all down
before the sky turns too gray with almost-rain

My grandfather taught me how to recite
the times table as I read from a small school book
my writing is small and quiet and does not yet
demand to be read or known

My grandfather taught me that disobedience
means a stern brown eye, a grim mouth,
a sharp snapping crack of leather belt

My father taught me that not all men
are men, that some men are boys
and they will leave their daughters
waiting, legs folded underneath them,
toes curled as they watch for their father's
car that never drives down the quiet road

My father taught me that some men,
some boys will leave and they will close
your front door, leave your third text
unanswered on your phone, and you
will taste their lies on your tongue

My mother taught me to be loud
assertive, that every word holds heavy
resonant power and can be a piercing bullet

My mother taught me how to bathe in water,
burn papers scrawled with ex lovers' names
rinse my mouth with salt and water
flick my clean tongue over white teeth
how to write love into my palms
ritualistically pass it over my body

Those who believe that
words cannot ****
have never read
the Second
Amendment,
or witnessed the blood it has spilled.

Now I lay me down, in bedlam—
nighttime stories never end well—
and I can’t think to breathe,
the sweat is soaking through the sheets.

Streetlamp lights send shadows skittering
wild and wicked through the blinds; they
cast themselves like hieroglyphics
upon my walls: (is this a sign?)

But no, it’s just a fever dream,
I’ve seen these lights a hundred times, and
I’m always contemplating life:
(a radar blip; a satellite!)

On nights like these,
when, wide awake, I
hysterically search for some escape—
(the heat in here is overwhelming!)
–and as I feel my center slipping,
I look to you; your picture framed.

Grounded in an iris, carved—
or crystallized—out of ice,
(my favorite way to meet destruction
is to be frozen when it starts).

But Frost was right, in his desire—
(you know, the world will end in fire)—
and so I will not sleep for days,
as hidden flames rise ever higher.