i'll make mixtapes we can lay down rubber in parking lots call out our joy and anger which are almost the same thing anyway i will cry at night but you will lick the salt like a wild deer pepper me with small bruises drive in our underwear just to feel skin sticking to something make contact with your hair as it billows in and out of the car in and out of sight make contact with the only part of your body that is not warm stop only in small towns that keep their stories close in those towns press silky moonlight to the warm parts of your body like poems like slits of light to let the light in through smoke and eat hanging out of the windows pretend we are leaving crumbs to find our way home with but never come back anyways anyways

it is unseasonably warm
from across the neighborhood
"******* ******!"
the rumbling masculine undertones
of his voice compress my heart
i crawl into my stomach
seeking shelter from a nonthreat
"liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar"

he spits
and i cringe
his anger pulses
every anger
that has ever been shoved in my face
whispered in dark rooms
the anger i have witnessed
pierce the skin of women i do not know
the rejected wounds i have absorbed
all wrenched from their hiding places
pulled in pulpy fistfuls
from the crevices of my body

he shocks my system
of sympathetic nerves
like lightning
my palms sweat
i close the window

my body
has rejected me

too quickly ripened
in the scorch
i am twisted off at the stem

bursting
running streaked against the ground
skin broken by the first hesitant
scrape of teeth

the state flower is the dandelion
a persistent ******* who pushes out of concrete
lifts the earth up over her head
as if to say "look at me too"
i have driven down too many roads
where rich people build fountains but are never in
and have felt that i am about to be murdered

i walk to the top of mountains to pray
and cleanse my lungs
i give my jealousy and greed
and shame away freely
to the tiny alien flowers
and the ferns
and the cities of moss
and i ask them to keep the damp rotten bits
safe until i might need them again

an old woman in the city
gives three pounds of breadcrumbs
to five thousand pigeons
and coos as if she is protecting something
the essence here is grey
and hits the back of your throat like an ember
like your first cigarette

the state faith is loss
we bury our lovers in the mud
and wait until the rain grinds us to bits
drives us into the soil to decay
and become new life again

a forest grows roots in my scalp
a baby touches the soft short bits and laughs
like there is no greater delight in her world
my spirit swells in her beams
i walk shoulders forward
collar popped
half-sneer that says “yeah that’s right
i’m a badass”
nobody sits next to me on the bus
once this bleach-blonde spent half an hour worrying
nail-biting, foot-tapping worry
before setting the clippers to my head
like she might hurt me
i intimidate the thing in me that is vulnerable
staple a wig to it, put it in a dress
build it safe bridges out of my body
so that on the street
the people who do manage to worm their grubby fingers
through the cracks
are ******* psychos
and i can imagine driving their nose up through their brain
without feeling guilty
or shameful
even though that is scientifically impossible
due to the density of bone
and this charred twisted gargoyle on my shoulder
who tells lies as long as the mississippi
like “you deserve this ****”
on really bad days my hair turns and shouts
“back the **** up gargoyle! you make no ******* sense!”
even when i decide to trim it
when i’m ****** out of my tree on sudafed
and haven’t eaten solids in five days
and it looks like, well, this
i am a magnificent peacock
swanning down the street
and everyone is a little bit better
for having walked through my glow
now if only i could make eye contact with the cute **** on the bus

i.
my first idol was gene kelly
i wanted to tip my hat to frilly women
creases in my trousers so sharp
they could be used as weapons
i would smell like cedar
shaving cream
cigarette smoke
dank alleyways where bruises are bestowed
and everyone has a second
stomach-down on an orange **** carpet
chin in hands
til my elbows were rubbed raw
watching a gender i could never perform
pressed into the seams of a slate-blue suit

ii.
my grandmother equates food and love
but won't try anything green
or tomatoes
or bell peppers
or brown bread
or breakfast
but grandma, the waffles
the frozen cinnamon ones
you had to wait long excruciating moments for
drenched in syrup, not even the real stuff
and cookies after lunch
and ice cream for dessert
and white bread
with a wink, a "shh don't tell"
to this day i cannot eat
without the long fingers of guilt
counting my ribs like beads

iii.
there is a house
rising out of the backyard of my grandparent's house
it is one story taller
and fifty years newer
it stands on my grandmother's rose bushes
it stands on her pansies
her snapdragons
the beauty bark paths
and the small trinkets that defined their edges
i bet you can't even see
the patch of grass where grandpa parked his truck
for twenty years and plants grew
all sparse and yellow and shriveled
that house is built on top of the three or four trees
we played in, thought were a forest
the hundreds of pinecones
some as big as my head
some as small as my thumb
once i drove past this malignant mansion
and wanted to throw fists at it
to challenge it
i waited for a long time
waiting for it to grow while it thought i wasn't looking
for it to engulf my grandparent's house
which suddenly seemed tiny and brown in comparison
the next time i am there
i expect i will tiptoe
and wait for my child-self to appear
so we can warn each other
of the coming ruin

the sky is keening
grief is heavy
and clings to me
i am humid and slow

my mother kisses me and there is desperation in her movements

i come up to the precipice
and cry a hymn
throwing it
against the vaster loneliness
that is pushing
its fingers
through my mouth


-


i bit
a hole in my
own skin

the walls and land
pilfer what leaks out

i cannot touch anything
for fear it will drag
too much from my body

at least

i will never forget
how i have travelled


-


i turn in the sunlight
blinded
arched against the warmth
joy glints sharp
draws as much blood
i am waiting
i am kept dull
barely open
the brush of a sound
will tear me from here

i want to cut the men out from underneath my skin
my body bucks and shakes
another place
pulls at the cords embedded in me

i am not of here
your language is not my language
and the way you move your hands is strange to me
your people peer at me
and their eyes show me to be transparent

my form careens and wavers in alternation
i cannot record or observe myself
the air here shrouds me in plagues and sensitivities
my body is a battleground

i dreamed that i vomited out of my nose
and the space behind my right eyebrow collapsed
if i am only a shell for regurgitations of my surroundings
where does my image exist in full detail?
where did i hear this?
who do i hear now?

i feel like cutting off something beautiful.
grasp thick stems,
crush petals and leaves til they weep
dewy and full in my palm.
leave a patch,
the size of a man's fist,
the size of your fist,
the size of each fist that has torn
something out from my throat.

anxiety is a dog whistle.
a hand on your knee
tastes like tin:
sharp bright lingering.
a survivor,
threatened
will begin preparations
for ten times their past.
in this way you can name shadows.
your body knows pretense
registers his walk
before you do.

close your ears

anxiety is a dog whistle
you are a dog

the earth wells up with light
at my eternal touch
great springs of it
cool and smooth and gentle
at my rushing face, closed eyes
the swoop of my body
silhouetted against the dark wise ground

the trees celebrate my hair
strands darting and playing
in the alternate shadows
patterned sun drapes me

the slap of my feet
solid and known
freed by the endless forest

i leave my body vibrating
in the ground
in the thick vegetation clouding your body

the silent ticking
of digital clocks
cracks my skin in increments

round
a sun heavy in a wet mouth

i am so imprecise a silhouette
that i waver in the midst
of swirling seas

i am so detached a soul
so unfocused and blinding
(a galaxy, loosened)
that i cloud and distort the senses,
stand between a body
and its needs

the garish outline of my necessity
grinds landscapes to a neat
unforgivable dust

we must be gentle
especially with each other

the earth is growing
through our petty trinkets

and our shame is uncovered

my palms hold no water
yet i am
a sack filled with rivers
a sack in the river

the looseness
of solid flesh
is unsettling

the sun is wine,
round in my stomach,
shrill in the beaks of birds.

clover muddles your fingers,
muddles your teeth and breath
and skin. you are only
a spot in the trees.
planted among trillium,
stalks thickening your limbs,
my limbs dappled.

i taste summer
all through you.

i entangle myself in the sky,
grasp and tug on breezes,
expect grass to be as thoughtless
as my skin.



i am complete, here,
amongst the feelings of stones,
as april folds me,
intricate, in its madness.

pale lavender half moon
freshly bloodshot whites
dried pearls clotting in your jaw

wobbling on legs
thick with fluid

i cannot clean
this taste
from my mouth

a finger in my mouth:
rough sound from above,
from somewhere in the dark.

my skin wrinkles,
sags around these heavy joints.
i am so much noise.

evening dawns
my hands wander,
unsure of their purpose.

my fingertips bruise
along the imagined
arch of your mouth

i am sorry i never said
anythi
ng wort h mu
ch i’
m sor
r
y

i carry your bones
the sad smooth curve of your ribs

i cleansed what was left of you under the tide

she is organza and rough, nubbly raw silk
that tears your fingers
and bleeds you purple, sweet.


civilizations rise and fall
in the curve of her mouth.

and they'll be sun, and fresh pages, text spilling, twisted, frothing at(out of) the mouth, they will be ghosts, transparent, don't touch wet paint, fingernail ghosts. symbiotic isn't smooth, biological, organic twining of vines you could cut with a nail, picture frames of postcards of gilt china and five sixteenth caviar plates. rhythms follow their own pattern, a set onetwoirresponsiblenumber of a monday pattern, rash birds, ink birds beat in the thrumming warm alive of you. curled, embryonic coats in white and grey form three barriers in notes of bibliophilia. sleeping aniseed furls sails of pretty youth and immortality, secrets -hush!- in a tiny box of a hand, palm first and shining.

a slithering urge rips up my appetite by grass-like fistfulls,
an urge to condense
falter every thought that has the audacity to contaminate my psyche.
the gentle thrumming under-skin is knotted firmly
to the drum of words tapping.

a shell, its contents,
tearing, perforated and utterly whole.
wring the rag
gulp the freshly stolen, assimilated goods
and spread the contents of your stomach for special exhibition.

she leaves pauses,
pregnant and lingering,
until the route to the next unmists.
a familiar pang gasping,
urging now shout and dare and spill
spill invent a new word for the pulsing
of yourself rising within yourself,
like so much bile,
**** as you please and leave careful notes
until the entirety of your vocabulary is spent,
burnt to a nub.

lingering,
dab, we’re spitting,
moisten our fingers
and spread an understanding fear
quickly on our foreheads,
a mark of thoughts unread,
drenched neatly
reading themselves and tying
knots in chewed, spat-out
hair, textured thick and tuggable.

my my,
how you’ve changed,
apologies accepted and regurgitated,
bruises healed,
a roughening granite pattern
pressed on your skin
for attention purposes,
a knowledge bank.

a scream flips itself,
fetal in the wires of your words,
read underneath, through the sickness
there’s a density
gentle and curved,
it waves funnily at strangers
and cowers in front of that black dog,
she sleeps on the porch
because of her lack of emotion.

my loose hair hides in the pockets of my clothes
calves and elbows jumbling tiredly along the gravel path
that leads to the road
that leads to the only quiet place
left in a city

the strands close their eyes individually so i can dress
the blinds are plastic
and it's too bright to nail a blanket over them
so i make pancakes
and sleep

blond hugs the black of my coat and declares illness
washington doesn't have a secretary of commonwealth
which means the question is blank

the concept of death lies parturient in your mouth,
swollen and festering, writhing in itself,
as weighty as a missing molar and just
as visible.

retch and gag,
spend nights fishing for your soul
through your stomach,
you are beating bus seats
for dust, for dry little particles
that will hopefully soak through
your skin.

so you sit there,
your awkward little hands folding awkward little birds,
as if you could inhale your own paper wings.
so you sit there,
and you think
about you watching the people and the people
not watching you.
and i whisper darling,
darling the only thing you're good for
is reading walt whitman out loud
to your used-to-be-white walls
until your throat chips, and your eyes dust over.
and you just shift your weight
and shake your head
like something
buzzed in your ear.

i am a thing dug of poetry,
labeled *****,
and mangled into death masks
for the tortured,
burnt, and drowned.

if i slept, i would sleep
between your fingers,
then twithe down to the padded
things that hold your words,
bend them in a kiln
fired hot by the breath of
my hellos.
if i were to eat,

i would consume the entirety
of your vision, swallow
the rods and cones
to curl in your tear-ducts
and taunt by holding
back the curtain
just long enough for us to smile.

if i drew, i would outline
myself on your forehead,
as a stamp, swim under your skin
and carve each bloodcell's
name into their limp, cracking
foreheads. if i breathed,
i would

breathe in your humanity,
and char it, exhaling
only the cinders to
gift on the outstretch of my palms.

i am the death that
encapsulates some,
only weighing
in the mouths of others,
tacking their days on my body
for a high. i am
more tired than you,

but i will be around for longer.

the people look like ache,
shriveled and lost inside
their twisted interpretations of movement.
we're tired here,
spitting out apologies and
niceties, the things expected
of a well mannered member of society.
looking at the hands passing by,
wrinkled and lined with everything
they've loved-
it's exhausting to think of every life you've contained.

the windowsill is hilled,
shoved into lumps and valleys,
too frothy for flight,
heavy to be held.

the pane of glass separating
twenty degrees from a cool sixty six
would shatter neatly,
somewhat like poured sugar
or the skin of a balloon,
stretched tightly and then
released.

the asphalt is stubble,
unshaven uncleanliness, blackened
by ages of rain and snow, seattle slush,
still elastic when a rubber
ball hits it, throwing
material back,
to be clutched in a moist
chubby palm.

calm, pale,
smoothed by the run through air,
skin traced by blue (ish green)

my stories are writhing under your hands,
remember when we shed
everything of us in portraits of airports
you'd never flown in, in
descriptions of raindrops i'd never tasted,
remember when i twisted
sideways, fell smoothly out of your mouth.

the expectation of sanity
as you emerge from a nine-month womb
is commercialised.
a waving sensation of breathing
overtakes instinct-driven lungs
and that is when your humanity begins to dissipate.

do your invisible friends get recycled
when you decide that society is more
important than imagination?

if we're all hiding something,
why hide?


-


people are entirely too polite
when you sing loudly in their inane
faces. sometimes expression
is the best way to get ignored.


-


stuffing cotton and paper
down your throat, does not,
in fact, shut down your emotions.

shrugging off your body,
in an attempt to be god-like,
even subconsciously,
is human.

on sundays i ask myself questions without question marks.
like: how did you figure out that i hum when i'm afraid.
like: why do my parents call themselves christians when my younger brothers sound racist at the dinner table without knowing the term.
like: how old is the term 'hipster', why do people name themselves after spit-upon-ground-up words, what is the number of swallows you could conceivably snap the necks of in an hour.
like: why
am i writing this.

do you remember talking about mental disorders and broken beer bottles on railroad tracks. do you remember wishing we were younger and then forgetting that in the haze of 'growing up'. do you remember asking me why i never wrote i with a capital and spewing on about the underlying self esteem issues that represented and why do you say that, you don't have any self esteem issues, do you shen. do you. do you remember talking about rubbed pink thighs and ladder arms and elbows too bent out of shape to hug someone. do you remember the month when i would only eat rosemary and olive oil bread and you didn't speak, not once.

some people write about bones and teeth and the skin scraped under nails when you blackout twice in a row. some people write about the decay of humanity, and some people blather into the air on buses, the stale air between business men and crying single mothers, some people blather and whisper and write about the space bar and aluminum foil and finding themselves when there is nothing to find, because that. that is quite a feat.

volcanoes and thunder storms, bolts of lightning and heavy clouds, heavy eyelids, lead coffin words and the whirling dervishes that spin holes into your palms sometimes. these are the things little girls are made of.

i was going to write a piece using the word we entirely too often. talk about the slip of your palms down my cheeks, the floaty high after you don't sleep for forty-eight hours and then skip gallantly through the albertson's parking lot. i was going to write this immense prose with weaving metaphors and phrases that begged to be spoken. a piece with a moral, about a boy and a girl, or maybe two girls, or an animal and the voice that haunts it. about a willow bride with gauze wrapped firmly around a puncture wound. describe the inner monologue of a park bench. but maybe not, because that would be deleted.

i could write you a letter, because you know who you are. or the empty waterbottle that is staring mournfully at me, or burlap sacks, or the words that i speak of constantly but never speak.

a house in your palm, roof and glass windows taken to a microscopic level
and destroyed in the name of philosophical reason.

dear sand,
today my fingernails are finally growing. nobody noticed, but i haven't bitten them in almost a week. i'm very proud of myself. last night the letters in my notebooks swam. maybe putting off writing is a good idea. the christmas lights are starting to go up on the apartment sills out of my window. mine have been up for two weeks, but it's exciting to think that the holidays have actually started. soon i'll get a tree, and breathe pine and lights every day.
love, waves.


dear sand,
i walked on my roof today. all the people scuttling on the ground gave me a headache, so i sat and swung my feet over the edge. you'd probably say it's too dangerous, but it feels alive to thump the building with my heels. my tea came in the mail. it smells really good, but i put it away until you come.
love, waves.


dear grains of rock,
my cat died. the last thing i said to her was get off the bed. i have only ever cried over you.
sincerely, wild portions of the ocean.


dear sand,
tums taste nice. they're all i've eaten today, so i thought of you. you'd feed me, wouldn't you? put a sandwich in my mouth with my hand. i poured my leftover tea into the street from the top of the building. black tea has zero calories, which is a pretty number. it almost hit a child skipping, but he dodged it and held onto his mum's hand more tightly. that made me sad, so i thought of you.
more love, waves.


dear sand,
the tea from yesterday isn't yours. the ribbon is tempting, but i shan't. shan't is another word i've learned from reading european fairy tales. especially that one about the sprite in a woman's body who falls in love with a knight. that one's pretty. i missed your voice today, more than usual. i'm tired without you, particles.
love, waves.


dear you,
be quiet.

i could not feel anything but your grassbeats under my fingertips, quicker in the anticipation of neck-snapping.

"i hope you know that we are so very sorry about the accident. there will be measures taken to ensure that nothing like it occurs again. freshly, our extremely sincere apologies."

the curve of bird spines decorated my eyelids, question marks displaying assumptions to the turnablindeye world.

"no, sir, you are the one who is incorrect. the blood you see isn't really there, look at it. look at the transparency of your hallucinations."

october grew three heads and shredded the chunks of grass it ripped from the ground, spreading you as mulch across stranger's flowerbeds.

"three hours ago, a messenger twicely found you screaming and ranting about various invisibilities on separate corners in this very city. can you explain?"

i stood on curbs and spoke for change, spoke through three woolen ideas to the desperately closing ears of people that refused to look quietly at themselves, look at their thoughts without noise.

"no. we have broken you. there are not voices, nor stars, no hexagons spelling curses onto your forehead. look at me! sir, you are undeserving of a name."

ghostings are immensely entertaining things. i hope you'll come on one with me, some time after i ***** my thoughts back into their shoulder-blade space.

i want to scream you through my mouth.
i don't have to exist any longer, as sun
shine or stretched clothing that doesn't
fit any longer, the shirts in your drawer,
the scarves fumbled with and discarded
underneath the stairs of a community c
ollege. if you want this, would you tell m
e. i don't have to step outside this door,
not once or twice without you. because,
of course, there are better things. i don
't think i make any more sense than pre
tty birds that cheep unicorn songs, and
grow shelters for their green-houses. i
could write you a song, if you'd like.

when the sun shines for the second tim
e, i'll let you know. right now the clouds
are labelled grey, and drawing islands i
n the discovering sand does not remedy
seasonal blues unaffected by the medic
ation of your smile and racing for play-g
round swings that cut up my thighs any
way. if i could put you on repeat, i woul
d, but life ain't youtube, and people ain
't paintings you can put in a frame and
hang on the wall, they ain't songs you
can listen to until you go cross-eyed wi
th giddiness. i'm not new anymore, i'm
words i've already written, places i've
already been, i am people unfamiliar b
ecause i've talked to them for so long.

stars are dying, not becoming supernovas, or hurricane eyes, just collapsing to sleep, shh, tiny bodies flickering over the outstretched palms of children with wide eyes and feet that won't stop moving, even when holding hands as nets to catch the quiet light of sprinkles, little cake sprinkles that fall from the sky.

the flowers are bending their heads to the ground, trying to hear the singing of the fauns as they dance around pre-formed groves in the forest to your left, the vibrations are travelling and amplified, if you listen carefully, so carefully, a wondering song of delight without words could reach you, stand so very still.

the rain-drops are soft, caressing the ground hesitantly, asking its permission to tread on the springy moss and look for bubbles to choreograph marches for, complete with full brass band, and pixies combing hairs into a fountain of wheat coloured spoken word.

fulmination wraps tendrils around your spine,
draws you under, into the suffocating center
of a thunderstorm painted violet and amethyst.

jewelry dripping of fear, laced around a
pretty throat and bent into the perfect
circles of soot-blackened pupils.

the air smells crackling and thick, heavy
through a thumb and index loop that
traces a life driven by weather patterns.

when the river dries, the rocks are
left slick, soaked and maybe a small
bit weightier. fog-smoke circles dilute
laughter into a painting of you.

she's not an artist, the only reason you say that is she eats less than 400 calories a day, without counting. she wears scarves and gloves in the summer-time: inside. her life mission is to categorize the vowels into three levels of hell. so far, she's found purgatory inside the tiny bowl she uses for an ash tray.
once, she spray-painted the wall that she passes on her way to the collective mailbox. it reads "send me peace signs in the shape of dying swans. love, me". she types exactly two words daily, ten point arial font.
she crashes funerals by wearing the only rainbow item in her closet. it made the local news one night, but her name turned inside out in people's throats and they ate without realizing they were different.
her eyes are green.
she sleeps on her back, straw-faced and shrinking.
she faked her own death to see if anyone would notice; then posted it on youtube. three months and 603 views later, she shot herself at an anti-abortion rally. they buried her with the reams of paper reading fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat. fox hat.

buying tickets, rip the stubs, hang them on the wall, scrapbook form complete with small pink hearts punched out of the children's cardboard.
gun powder paint, dripped on white mugs, heat-dried, upside down in cupboards that belonged to your grandmother, pour black coffee in the morning and sip.
t-r-i-b-u-l-a-t-i-o-n-s spelled in sign language, on the wall, across photos of sky, clouds raining, lightning flash, blind some farmer, smash some wheat, rip barns into pieces and set one half on top of 18333 sw 32 st.
salt the caramel, lick the spoon and put it in the dishwasher, contemplate the meaning of life, curse god three times because that's a lucky number, write the ****** mary's name thirty-six times across the tile backsplash, latin roots swimming through your head, you only took one year of it.
take wool yarn, knit socks for the kindergarden teacher, put out your cigarettes systematically down the arches, dye them pink, wrap the box in last year's christmas paper, drive four point seven miles to a place that would be better with blankets and closed-tight eyes.
toes say it's a long walk back, so jump the cliff and pray loudly to the seagulls.

i.
you remind me of drowning,
of bubbles floating upwards in a dream,
of a creeping pressure that threatens
to crush my hyoid bone.

you smell of suffocation.

ii.
you remind me of songs sung
on your last breath, when the
traces of air barely register
in your lungs.

there are ticket stubs flowing
from your mouth, past lives
in your eyes.

iii.
you are the sweet note in a song,
amplified until my ears scream
in an attempt to drown the noise.

broken glass and christmas lights that don't light up anymore, i hung you about with glitter and gold, called you art, kissed your face. there were tattered things on our clothes, i spit words into the gutter and they ran down the stream into the ocean where the letters got tangled with a sting-ray, a clown fishes fins. tiny fawns painted themselves across your palms, they sung me to sleep at night, wandering down my back and across my nose when i couldn't breathe because there was something knotting my veins into pretty patterns, stopping the bloodflow and shutting down my liver slowly. ric-rac danced two-steps and alcohol-drenched cakes infiltrated tea parties where lace was all the rage and ladies always wore gloves, *** was a thing never spoken about. the fifth most dangerous city in the us took me under its wing, tucked me into train station corners while paedophilia took hold of the government and shook us soundly. people held candles into the night sky when the family was killed, when the police asked if they were involved with drugs, when tiny bodies littered the basement because they were old enough to identify the killer. notebooks and traced fingerprints hung on the walls like christmas decorations before thanksgiving, pictures of you taken in secrecy, dipped in fluid that looks black in the dark room.

i knit sweaters. they have rabbits and bears and deer on the front.

i put my voice into a jar,
and mixed it with lightning for you.
your tears made the sun shine brighter.

i'm a frightened child, swinging
her fists anywhere they can land,
writing effigies across her
thighs with an inkless pen,
talking letters into the air,
addressed to a mother that
doesn't exist. i am a child,
and i want you to hold my
wrists steady, kiss my
forehead, rock me on your
lap and murmur into the space
after my face and before the
wall. i want you to wrap
me in a quilt, place another
steaming plate in my hands,
and listen to act one two
three four five six outro
final scene ending. sob
into your shoulder and unclench
my hands, i want to write you
letters.

so the editor found herself again
and decided that love never lies.
her parakeet befriended me,
but i didn't like birds.

i started out trying to write the world
and barely made it through the week.

she and i used to take walks
at three in the morning and
speak of the little things other
people don't notice.

i couldn't believe the crayon lines
were real and she didn't make us up.

she drew herself into the margins
of every book she read, then
returned them to the library
and hoped a suicidal soul would notice.

i screamed murals into a tape
recorder, and it only stared.

she had a collection of bird feathers that
represented each of her favourite
authors, because each time she read
another book, there was another feather.

we never sailed together, even
though the moon yelped for us
and she gestured for us, and

*(really, i was the one left hanging, empty hands and a broken neck)

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.