unwrap my ribs. carefully,
like a present you've been waiting for
since october.
smooth out the wrinkles
along my forehead, sip
the lines from my palms.
write letters to constellations
along my marked calves, and
stain my upraised mouth with
new words that don't
belong to me. sketch
characters inside my
elbows and draw their faces
down my stomach.

take a microscope to the pores
between my vertebrae, set
original sentiments and
grow them carefully. look through
my corneas like window-panes
shattered by heat from
a church fire. clean
the bridge of my nose of
headaches and bottles and bottles
of asprin, vicodin and something
nameless and strong.

snap my tibiae over your knee,
assemble a tired face,
put it over a mask, tie the
words to my lips and send
me out into the world a refreshed,
taken individual.

she wrote words in
between the cracks of
sidewalks, so people wouldn't
step on them

she scribbled in notebooks
and left them at bus stations,
where strangers took
them home

she wrote her words in
aquafresh on the bathroom
mirror, and the next
person would have the
arduous task of
cleaning her mind off
and flushing it

she wrote on the stalks of
wheat, which baked into
bread fed rich and poor and
stealing orphans who became
trancelike

she wrote in red sharpie ink
across the train platform
and up the handrails and across
the 90's patterned seats

she wrote pieces on the graffiti
boards in skate-parks
because they were covered
by *** leaves and ying-yang
signs that are anything but balanced,
smiley faces more crooked
than the person who painted it

she scribed phrases into
candy given to children, sitting
in stomachs and spit on the
ground

she wrote everywhere so
someone might remember her, and
they didn't

they remember words across
their cheeks, maybe a glimpse
of beauty in the
twirling joy of a child in the rain

they do not remember a girl with
cropped hair and eyes
that pierce, they do not
remember a writer, only a

book that spans the entire world with a page

i want to peer inside your beating
veins, copy the colors off the
walls and write the names down,
so when the aliens come there
is something worth saving

i want to sit on windowsills
with you and squawk at the
birds from inside,

and on tuesday i will take
you grocery shopping and test
the tomatoes, i'll show you
how and you can laugh,

and i will write commas on
your tongue and scribe
underscores on the throbbing
veins beneath your wrists

there is settled ink
in the curve of your chin,
graceful arms shadowed
on your wall when
you decided, hey, let's
dance to the music of
morning birds. there is
empathy in the way
your tongue slides over
the word "we"
and tastes it like coffee
with cream and no
sugar. i took your
wondering fingerprints
and gathered them
against the wall,
placed so like the
direction mattered,
the colors fairly
blinded the tigers
sleeping under our beds
and they screamed
because there are
things too beautiful
for here. tomes
draw inspiration
from your voice and
write god words in
english so normal
people can understand
how some people
do not understand.
i typed you necklaces
and you wear
them on your skirt, taking
glances from strangers
and tucking them into
a deep pocket
for later and dark
and thoughts.
you set ransoms
for the autumn leaves
and put them in your
hair, i only left
them there because
nothing
is as good.



yet i am afraid. i am afraid of your willow-branch hair that raises the ones on my arms, i am afraid of your cotton ball eyes that flay open my thoughts, delve into the things i don't know, the things i didn't know, the words i should have said, the words that got stuck somewhere between my epiglottis and my lips. i am afraid that you are a violated temple, that you are an unholy goddess and i am deathly afraid of the fact that you might be human. i am afraid because dandelion seeds leave after you wish on them, eleven eleven turns to eleven twelve and you have missed your chance. shooting stars are only in the sky for so long, and i am afraid that you will only be in the sky for so long and i will miss my chance to catch you, i am afraid of your words that slip between my headaches and relieve tension. i am afraid that the sky castles that i built are only cages and no one can really live in them, including you. i am afraid that my list of requirements don't fit people, don't fit you, i am afraid of your beauty and afraid of your humanity, and so i wait. with my mouth closed. and smile when you stand to get a drink, as your skirt brushes softened legs, knowing something that you do not.

i am young and wish to be
younger, old and wish to be senile. i have
blond hair and wish it auburn. i have company
and wish to be alone.

there are things that gallop all over my
neurons and leave muddy footprints
in my thoughts. unholy things that should
be stricken, and i encourage them.
i shudder when i leave the shower
because other people have stepped on the mat.
my hair is usually *****.

i throw pennies into the fountain
and think oh if i had no money,
if i had some. i wish for an envelope
to mail me somewhere in northwestern
greenland, lay on the ice and
stare into the brilliance of death.

how remarkable a thing it is, to be struck by lightenings of words, torrents of ideas, chokes of emotions and then stop. and think how is it that i got here, how is it that i do this and say? how is it that i say? and to be overcome with a two year old sense of imagination that does not die until the wee hours of the morning when the birds peck on your window and say hello. you are here, i am here.

and how wonderful it is, when there are leaves on the ground to be kicked aside and cursed at as an excuse for the children, or the dog, or the spouse who left because things are too complicated. and these leaves hold every human emotion, set there by words spoken to them and no one else, set there by a small child who holds the beautiful colors up to a mother that is too distracted to realize that this is the defining moment in a life and you must grasp it and hold it up to the light and wonder through the stained glass effect.

and how it is that we choose to let the world wash over us and over and over and slowly rub away all the pretty age spots that told us we were human, how it is that we do not give all our change to the men sitting on the street, how it is that umbrellas are used every day because some people do not like the rain. when you could open your eyes and pretend you are three and every glimpse of light is a rainbow and there are monsters under your bed and someday you will be a grown-up and do whatever you want to. how it is that people do not become children and stare at the world.

how is it, that when the wind rushes through the trees and rattle, that we shudder? how is it, that when the storms desecrate houses people cry? we could live off moonlight and sunshine and we could go back fifty years, start the movement over and this time do it right. and it wouldn't matter. people would still ignore the warm colors on the ground and focus on the cold, people will still put up brightly colored umbrellas that do not save anything but their wool coats that cost more than a years worth of food for an orphanage in asia, people will still be blind and there will be others who try to open their eyes.

slip your hands down my shoulders, and memorize the pattern of markings. press your soul in fingerprint markings down my calves, make me feel as if i take up space. i need to be reminded of my existence or it might fall away all together. spell your name onto my collarbone in swirling font and count the cubic inches i exhale.

take the mid night hours and spread them apart, find more time in-between and use it to write your animation onto a sheet of paper. drop your words into my mouth, feed me like a starving cub, my palate is dry without your recited weeping.

wind telephone wires around my hands, dig them into my wrists and leave indents not unlike sleep marks. those leave though. contour yourself around the bridge of my nose and seep carefully into my pores, it's refreshing. glide through my hollow middle and decorate my entity with your pretty, pretty being.