I wonder if "writer's block" refers to a block like
a kindergarten alphabet piece,

or a

long

building
that slimes up the street
like an unsavory garden creature.

(you only have to walk one block...)

Sometimes it feels like writer's monolith,
a monument puncturing the sky,
collecting clouds like cotton candy

Mesmerizing

like watching a black hole devour a star.

Have you seen
how that happens?

First, the star inches closer

(not a smile from the abyss,
not even the flash of teeth),

and stretches its arms out,
strings of light pour from it's body,
reminiscent of silver spilling
from a fairy-tale character when
their soul is stolen.

It smokes and stretches
into the hands of the beast.

You blink, and a mere
millions of years later,
the star is gone.

Barnacles crunch like fast food under your sneakers,
my gnawed-on boots.

We pass over cat-eyed shards of glass
still spicy with beer bubbles
and still fizzy with teen rebellion;

It molds like an infection here.
In a town nicknamed "Little Norway." ~

This place hoards candy-colored suburbia in its pockets.

Houses like skittles weigh down its pants
and it belches out tourist traps weaker than expired pepsi,

yet it still manages these moments
where I can trot by your gazelle legs
and blast Julie Andrew's confidence.

And I want to heap myself on the oyster shells, say
STOP
Put this moment in a snowglobe,
sigh into it before we move on,
do anything before the wind whips it away.

Etch it into your hand if you have to.

But breeze dimples the water like a golf ball
and rips at the seams of the shore.



Please don't forget me when you leave.

Desire woke,
carried football kisses
and barnyard blushes

The great American pastime,
getting ****** under the
bleachers with a towel spread
over the grass during the game

Voices rip through the halls
breeding rumors strong enough
to plunge shame so deep
into the heart of a person

that it may never crawl
back out through your throat,
the venom spewing from your lips
as dark as the blood spotted
on the backseat of your
father's car, that night

Through the cracks in the
armor, every girl carries this
burden in her chest: *** is shameful,
it's not to be talked about, and
there are boys out there who cannot
wait to take advantage of your
one warm and vulnerable heart

She found her own monster, one
with blue eyes and a blonde ponytail
like the cowboys in the movies, an Idaho
farm boy with hot breath like the smoke
of a gun, she gave him her secret when
she was fifteen and at night she screams

when she thinks of it, his ***** hands
and where he put them, lightning sparks of
the pain she can still feel, it sticks inside her
and twists, the wound growing larger
every day, she knows it will never leave,
her own ****** spot to carry

Patterns forever crawling up her spine
in the shapes of his fingers, and someday
when the one she loves drags his fingers there
she will never lose the memory of that night,
her promises to herself left broken and bleeding
on the mattress, her crime of passion shattered
in the wake of what she's done

Engulfed in shame like ink dripping dark
from her hair, she's ***** and she knows it,
she's filthy and she swears they can see it
in the bright ****** of day where she can't
hide from the pushing and the smile on his face
split wide, it's the Joker with his ****** grin

She spent years falling for wisps of dreams
she could never quite grasp, those fleeting Sundays
fuzzy outlines in her mind, lust comes with a price
she says, and she means it when she says that she
will never love again. It was a contest, who could go
the farthest without taking that final step.

She lost.

July 29, 1976*

Eighteen, skinny
as a whip, all curving bones
and freckled knees
Your curled hair, that timid
smile balanced above the
pearls of your jaw

The city is dark at night,
you were never afraid but the stars
were diamond-sharp that night
and you stopped, shivering in the cold

I can hear your last words
frozen on your tongue,
"Now, who the hell is this" -
your hand on your hip
voice a knife

A bullet to your chest
breaks the silence, folding
yourself in half, a paper crane
crumpled on the pavement

The papers said you were killed
instantly; I don't think you were
I think you knew, a bullet buried
in your best friend's thigh -
did she watch you die?

The petals in your hair,
they've fallen, years ago
This woman lying here,
the scarred pavement of a
New York City street -

She is someone else, not
the starling you were
in your father's eyes
Wings outstretched on
a fire escape, waiting
for a breeze to pull you
over the edge