I haven't been honest.


Chaz only sends me snaps of
bunched rosettas, I want to tell
him, move your pitcher back
as the stacks form so that you
get a more elongated pour
but I don't want to deter him
from correlating steamed milk
and espresso with my name, so
I don't. And he has a new girlfriend
now with slim fingers and defined nostrils
that make me think of Audrey Hepburn, so
at first I tried to insert myself into their bubble
to be a part of their happiness or maybe just
Audrey's beautifully sculpted features. But
to be honest I stopped talking to him
back in May or March because we had
this sort of thing that I didn't know
how to handle and so many girls
had handled his **** since then,
since me, that nothing felt like
it held any concrete significance,
pursuing whatever it was that I
was pursuing, would not make
me feel any more whole, which
was what I was aiming for.

i get lost in the
valleys but You
always bring me
to a clearing

I have always
kissed first,
unzipped first
nuzzled into
your hip bone
first, while you
hid your face
beneath my pillow, first.
the nervousness evades
me with it's wispy fingers
too afraid to be afraid I
live by first come first



serve.

over the summer
I had a brief romance
with a boy named Ty
whose tennis shoes
were six years into
a can of Grizzly
Wintergreen
on the Kansas
plains. I thought
about kissing him
a couple times when
he told me about wanting
to go to college but his
interest only went
as far as my arms
could reach, the
length of my
hair down my back
and the 5 minute drive
up Skyline that I never took
with him because he only wanted
to hotbox in my car to breathe his
past down my throat. And after
that, he told everyone I was too
much of a good girl and



left.

oh but I'm
searching for
Cat down the
street alleys
without a
Paul Varjak to
tell me I am my
own cage, *Cat?
Cat. Cat!

you bled your blues and
greens, outstretched on my
bed, you backstroked through
the stars and the planets fell in
line with your vertebrae, swept
the centauri beneath your elbows
and comets swam thigh-high like
sharks or pistols, armed by your
disgrace, I think, you always
expected me to shoot first.

w h e n  w a s the
last time you drew
me I can almost swear
I'm the first thing you
see because your pencil
always wants to draw
my nose, you know
exactly how it feels
with the ridge on
the end, and
your charcoal
sticks will always
find my eyebrows
because they're the
blackest things you've
ever had , So you've
fo r g o t t e n what
my lips feel like
but not how I
kiss always
trying to
grab your tongue
to absorb the words
you never said. So.

tell me, when was the last
time your portraits sped off
for her but turned into me?

we threw down
with clenches and
all I could think about
was how good you
smelled when i
hit elbows first

I miss the things I never
did, the ferry ride I never
took, the brittle cold that
sunk to the depths of my
toes and the sushi place
down the street from my
house. You can whisper
that I'm doing the same
thing but I miss the leaves
at EDCC and the rain,
quality frozen yogurt
and the front row at
Loews Theater, I miss
the sound of my wheels
privy to the Boeing freeway

You can whisper that I'm feeling
the same way but I miss things I
don't recognize, the drive past
the lighthouse and the neighbor
who had music too loud, the
shy cashier at Fred Meyer
and also their apple
display that was
aesthetically
pleasing.

I crave the dens,
the brick caves strung
with lights where no
one is above the murmur
where girls come to leave
necklaces wrapped in lined
notebook paper (here, take
this, take this from me, please)
and the various spaces are lined
with a thick aroma of espresso
and the burberry perfume from
the woman at the table over whose
thighs could stretch across the atlantic
but ships could never sail across her
in the way you can't tread over hot
coals, climb mount everest in a day
or ask her out for coffee.

i had a dream I
was loving you
but it was not
that           simple            for
you
and i left
wearing a hospital
gown

La Liberté Guidant le Peuple, or,
Liberty Guiding the People is a
painting by Eugène Delacroix
used as cover art for Coldplay's
Viva La Vida and Liberty seems
to guarantee life above her head
with ample ******* that seem to
tell me everything is going to be
alright.

You used to tell me that the first
half of *Death and All his Friends
reminded you of me, so, when I
hear it, I am you, listening to me
with Chris Martin telling me to
come over, just be patient, don't worry
and I am seventeen again, beneath your
dim desk light, in those acid wash shorts
knowing you for the first time, knowing
all winter we got carried, oh, let's get
married, all through summer we
hurried, so come over, just be
patient...don't worry.

So come over, just be patient, don't worry.

be slow
be heavy
be gentle.

in Urdhva Dhanurasana
you can see your heels if
turn your head, also called
the upward bow, or, the
wheel pose.

Yesterday, the wind
blew me uphill when
I was trying to go down,
I've been trying to get
closer to myself, to
my heels, and too
often do I ask
the wrong
questions.

In a devotional by Oswald
Chambers he goes on to say
that god is unimpressed by
earnestness, so then what?

I reach for my heels.

they say you should
fear flowers for they
grow in adversity,
adapt, and face
the sun, and
when we
were little
we ****** on
the stems of gardenias
like honeybees with our
nimble, sticky fingers. And
today I learned to ride a bike
with no hands and a sweat
plastered shirt clinging to
my spine, so, instead,

shouldn't you be afraid of me?

Moby ***** was a humongous
mess of religious garble that threw
everyone for a loop in the shadow of
Typee and Melville was publicly shamed
for writing such a flop so outside his genre,
supposed.

But bound by blue canvas, inscribed in
gold, would you find failure to be subjective?
oh, don't be scared to reach beyond your known
talents, beyond what is said of you,

beyond your genre.

swing out your lanterns
I'm no longer afraid
out on the river I've
learned how to
navigate and
this paddle
is a weapon
bring me to
the rapids.

Kendra posted a
faded picture of
you with the blurred
swatch of evergreen
at your shoulders,
I'm a universe and
a half, more pigmented
than I could ever be
at your side, at that
window, would we
have lasted? It's not
for me to tell.


Happy Birthday, Chris.

(but will you) love me
in pigeon's pose when
my tummy rolls over
like rice paddies and
the dimples in my
thighs are as moon
craters on that 27th
spoonful of peanut
butter, orbit on my hips
squeeze the fat beneath
my arms to relieve all
your stress, when I'm
singing zee avi in the
shower and you realize
I once told you a choir
teacher said I was a high
soprano but my voice is
so low on that ceiling
mingling with the steam
in the silver vents, don't you
know that

heat

rises?

It might be your birthday today,
honestly, I never remembered and
I had to sneak your license out of
your wallet to check, something
I always felt infinitely bad about
and I hope you don't read this
because the conglomerate of
poems I've written about
you seems a little bit
obsessive. I had to
talk myself down out
of calling and the neighbors
continue to be weary of me behind
their little peach windows with the cream
lampshades because I regularly shake my
head at myself and my lips move in quick
stripped, phrases. Do you think, that maybe,
I should stop feeling guilty?

Maybe.

you are
still my
writer's
block.

it's been eight months.

I pulled the clouds straight
out of the sky with that one,
brought my fist down on your
sternum, with my face buried
into your ribs, a shirt draped
over your face. For the first
time you sounded mad, your
voice was a thick alarm,

I ask you why it took so
**** long and your guitar
falls to the side of where you
never play for me like this
again and you say you're
sorry. And those clouds
that I tied down have
finally wrung off,
and I tell everyone
that I still love you.

i have forgotten
that i am all sharp
edges with blunt
letters, that these
arrows are shot
with arcs but
s
t
i
c
k
in the ground,
sometimes I fancy
myself honey but
I am all vinegar
all salt, no soothe.

see,

when I listen
to the smiths I
see you instead
of Morrissey and
you are all golden
apple glow with a
crisp blue profile
a stark outline
against the
saturated
red fade
the mic
cupped in
between those
grand fingers
like a steel face.
how silly to
know you
never sang.

oh but we are all
divine in that we
have souls, the
way that fills
my mouth
is stupendous
they say that
your fingertips
can feel nano-scale
wrinkles on a smooth
surface, a new level of
sensitivity not previously
recorded and I think that is



beautiful.

tell me about the last
time he ate raspberries
off your fingertips, the
last time he stuck his
hands beneath your
bra just to keep warm
the last time he made
you apple cider in the
**** summer heat,
but it's fall and you
miss his sweat, his
bad breath, his
distaste for
sweet things
that you a l w a y s
forgot, and the kiwi
body wash that sat in
his shower, you've been
saying Jesus Christ lately
and you want to stop, but then
again, you still want to be the kind
of girl he might come back to.

i put traffic
cones around
my body, pull
my own rug
out from
                                         under
me,
ten pounds
like an anvil
on a string,
153.43

is there are a way out of the blue?


when we are buried so deep in our
own bodies that the surface is just
a dream, try to live for today but
you are living for next summer
count the worries off my back
like notches in wood or welts
from belts don't need no
father figure with his
strap because I am
my own abuser,
I laid myself
o u t   o n   t h e   t a b l e   t o
condemn my
parts against
the stained
oak, white.
palms. white.
knuckles. Each
draw back is a
word

love.your.self.
love.your.self.

34b
8.5
20
36
29
140
5' 7"
18
16
8:30
6:00

can you see
the candles
f  l  i c k e r
through my
sidelights, I
am trying to
let that light
shine before
them.

the sparrows
followed me
down the hill
wrote scripture
in their trails
and the wind
blew against
my skin.

chuck said a lot of
things that should
scare me but it was
only when he said
I must find my place
in the ministry and
i wanted to cry out
and tell him I don't
think that I have one.

found my old
heart in a candle
from bath and body
works, could you
see me by the closet
hunched over with
my nose inside the
glass, because this
scent takes me
back beneath
the cold seattle
rain, a mist that
never settles and
clammy toes that
never warmed up
a cranberry room
                                         and a life so                            unreserved
without obsession,
I can hardly remember it.

my dad
leans down
to hug me and
says you've been
gone for a few days,
I missed you and
maybe he means
I have been gone
but maybe he
means that
I have been



g    o n  e

I'm sure you all know that
having patience with your-
self far outweighs the need
to love yourself, b e c a u s e
loving yourself is hard but
knowing that everything
takes time to accomplish
is harder, and so I wake
up and ask myself when,
and if I do, will it be all
inclusive, as in, will I
love myself at my
worst, too?

when Helen tried to
commit suicide I didn't
know until she told me
at the Oklahoma! premier
when I said I hadn't seen
her in so long and she
casually stuffed her
hands in her pockets
and said Well, yeah,
I tried to **** myself
and was in a place
so I took her face
between my palms
and kissed her forehead
which was out of character
for me, back then, but I wanted
to pull the black out of her brain
with my lips.

sometimes I imagine myself
deep in the ventricles of your
heart, a small figure planted
in flesh, and I gingerly touch
the walls, where everything
seems so raw, I whisper that
I am so sorry, and you absorb
my apologies.  B        u          t
I am just another echo, a heart
murmur, that is exactly what i
am, a heart murmur.

she said: love the boy who paints.

And I think of your hands.
Your hands with fingers
like Grecian pillars stretching
across the divot between my
hip bone and my bellybutton
your palms that were shockingly
dry but extraordinarily smooth
cupped around my *******
while you slept, a single
foot peeking through my
calves, your sweat seeping
through my cotton shirt
a drawn out


b

r

e

a

t

h




So, love a boy who paints
and think of his hands
the only things that you
can remember vividly
all the things he did
with those fingers
during The Kids
are Alright

but

it's not your
oil on his skin
anymore
and someone else
loves that boy who
paints.

The way i ask people
to hang out is kind of
predatory, if this were an
act in two parts, you
would see all of my
acquaintances board
a carousel, and then
watch me grasp at
their clothes as
they flew past
on their steeds
the camera
film would
shutter across
my face, and
a pair of arms
stuck out like
prongs or jaws
or claws or pincers


trying to catch on.

catch on?

I'm at work on my day
off, drinking Toddy and
watching the spokes on
the city commuter bikes
glint in the windows
it's so weird to want
to be everywhere and
then nowhere, because
everywhere and nowhere
require the right kind of people
so when my mom asks if I want
to see a movie, if I want to go to
the gorge, if I want to go thrift shopping
I tell her that I am restless, that in 1909
subatomic particles were fired at a
solid object and passed through
that humans could possibly
vibrate fast enough to
travel through time
but might end
up liquifying
themselves
but that the
atoms in my
bones are
firing so
fast they
appear to
be not
moving?



but that doesn't make a ton of sense
so I tell her I am a little restless.
a little restless.
rest.
less.

rolling through the
waves, beaten by
the undercurrent
blend in with the
black and blue, make
myself a bruise, let the
echo fill me up, a wavering
sonata in between the grains
of sand that chafe against my
cheeks, thrown like a strand
of algae, swept between
the coral castles, the
fish whisper that
it will be alright
but I have heard
that somewhere
before.

sometimes
i can see
myself
folding
in, they
say wear
your heart
on your sleeve
but I wear it in
my voice and
she so often
hides away
and gets
lost
sometimes
I even send
her away in
letters and
she takes all
the words with
her.

sometimes I
still taste you
on my breath.

They say a human
can spot the flicker
of a candle from 30
miles away, Hey,
out there, in the
dark, I can feel
your warmth
you're on a
train, I can
feel the
sing of
your
wheels
on the
tracks, lighting
rails towards me.

Paul told me to
******* as if
Brooke was just
an abbreviation
and I'm starting
to think that it is

i so often find myself
looking for a home
in men, in work, in
menial activities, in
angry runs where
I lose so much
breath my
lungs feel
like they
are

bleeding.

but I find solace in books,
page 3, page 10, 56, 145,
230, I don't ever want
to lose myself, i imagine
it's a sign of weakness,
or the inability to deal
with reality but the peace
is so alarming, it makes me
want to cry.

I will take the caps off all the markers in the house just to see you mad.


but I also want to brush the
oils out of your hair and take
take pictures of your forearms
in the early morning light when
your veins look like streaks of
minerals in granite, I cannot
promise I won't watch your
shadow behind the shower
curtain, or roll the windows
up and down in your car
is this what he sees
is this what he sees?
I'll ask myself,
I can't promise
I won't put your
shoes on to walk
around the house
all over your clean
carpets and change
your spice cabinet
so that you can't
ever find the oregano
but what's worse is
i'll never let you
cook in peace,
is this what
you do?
I'll ask.
is this
what
you
do?

All men are disgusting
(all men aren't disgusting)

I'm buying bananas at the store
trying to find green ones because
I hate ripe fruit (ironic) and an old
man with his wife stops to stare at
my legs. I want to break every banana on the
stand but that would probably turn him on.
Remember Derek? Who told me to *******
when I wouldn't go to the movies with him
you're like every other girl in this town
Well, yeah, maybe, but not every other
girl wants to slam your face into the
cash register at City Market (or maybe they do)
Remember Ty, who called me a ***** for not
wanting to bake thc butter into my brownies
I sincerely hope you overdose on orange juice, love brooke.
I wouldn't call it homicidal, but I want to slash your tires
and ram into your bumper four (or seven) times but my
insurance probably would not cover that.

I'm beginning to annoy myself:


texting the ex-boyfriend with daily
problems knowing full well his girlfriend
probably wouldn't appreciate that and
wishing Paul would fall off his high horse
as opposed to getting off it, I still shave with
hopes of someone feeling my legs but let's
be completely honest with each other; I
don't even let my own father kiss my
forehead, let alone say a word to me
I hide behind the pantry door whispering
go away

let's be completely honest with each other:

I'm not sure what's happening to me.

somebody left the gate open
and I am gone, past the fence
into the fields, in a blue filter,
naked and clothed in hair, snitched
by the call of a whippoorwill, ambushed
by tall grass and the merciless branches of
pines. Somebody left the gate open and I
am gone, yellow dogs peel from the bark
like old Cherokee tales and race my heels
with their tongues and big almond eyes



Somebody left the gate open.