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

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

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

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

wobbling on legs
thick with fluid

i cannot clean
this taste
from my mouth

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'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.

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.