I don't like cocky guys
I tell my mom, across the
counter. There is ink all
over my hands and the
bleach has dried out my
pointer finger. *So i don't
want to be near him. and
the espresso machine hums
in the background, Sammy's
cup stained lipstick red, my mom
gives me a look and she knows,
she knows I'm cocky too. So
I'll wait for him to come to
me.

so strange
to be jealous
so strange

Stage lit by one light
there i am, my only line
I love you the most

i'm finally
starting to
look up at
other faces
I was scared
to do it, as if
it were a crime
to put the visor
up and let the
sun see my
face.

they say that bronze was
the prime component in
the Equestrian Statue of
Marcus Aurelius, or the
stone of the Ajanta Caves
in India, but will my skin
keep me alive? I once said
something interesting in
a classroom in regards to
immortality, when a girl
picked out the flaws in
For the Love of God a
piece by Damien Hirst.
It seems to say that we                                              must realize our mortality
but do skeletons not last
the ravage of time? Exactly
what part of us is mortal
aside from our skin, first?

this feeling is familiar
why i haven't responded
how i romanticized the
notion of kissing you
but there it is, I've
locked it down,
I've had you
before.

Does your own breath
sound like the wind on
the sea, low blue static

shhh

it's raining outside--
out of no where like it does
here most of the time, sometimes
without a single flash of lightning
just a few raindrops on the frigidaire
and then the whole lot of them echoing
in through the vents and seeping through
the crack it leaves beneath the window, soft
wet drops pulsing in onto the sill,

that's when the thunder come, on page 167,
sounding something like truck wheels in
that thick snow during the dead of winter
punching lines through the driveway
rollin' out onto the street, not too
much like it did last week when
all of 15th St North was flooded
up past all the hubcaps of every
church-goer and The Daily Record
posted pictures in the following day's
Shopper of grandmothers waddling past
the post office looking dismayed as ever--
but they didn't catch them teenagers
swimming in the ditch of a parking lot
at Taco Bell.

And it's a little too hot in here, but i'm not too privy
to open the windows, because the pitter-patter is all
too deceiving, we're still in the mid-slump of summer
when it gets to be 82 degrees by 9am so the best I can
do is sit still and not turn my head too much---

Sunday's on full-force, already cooked my chicken tenderloins for the week and I'm busy watching #103's shadows shift behind the door
ever'time he leaves his apartment for who-knows-what just that
it makes me real nervous when his thin silhouette lingers or his
jacket buttons brush the door-**** an' make me jump.

but it's alright, living alone. Me and God got loads to talk about but he knows that sometimes I'm just quiet and I'm tryin' real hard.

He knows.

I left my
windows
wide open
and every-
thing dried
up, the organs
in the cabinets
the lilies on the
ribs, the weekend
was the worst and
monday is just an
empty cup.

No,
I'm sure of it.
you are more
beautiful than
you think

everybody
inside your
head is real

I walked out
along the river
today and thought
about the time I tried
to make you wear red
gloves with a the christmas
deer on them, I should have
never tried to make you wear
the red gloves with the christmas
deer.

She
didn't say she was
sorry; in fact she said
she didn't understand what
happened.  After that I impressed
upon you that since she "hurt me" you
should avoid her too--and perhaps some
of that was true. But then again, maybe love
lets others see on their own and if they don't see
then maybe it isn't the
right
time.
right
place
right person

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 had this dream
where he called and said
he didn't know if he was
mad or why he was mad
but he laughed and asked
how I was and the clouds
were hot air balloons and
birds tossed red ropes from
the  sky so that we could fly
with them. So I knew---that
even if this were a dream, it
was all fictional. Not because
birds couldn't toss ropes from
the sky but because I know
you'd never call me.

should it bother me
that I care for you
more than your
family? those
who say, oh
yes, we
raised
you


right?

I don't want to see
you the same way
chaz wanted to see
me for three years
so we could mutually
brag and brazenly
wave our accomplishments
at one another, I don't know
why I want to see you, maybe
just to hear you talk, watch
your fingers look moist like
they usually did, take notice
of how many times you blink

is this how our love was different?

queen of your backseat
in overalls and grey skippies
mom said just ask him out
and risk getting rejected? please,
i'm hardly in any state of mind.

Every pair of
eyes has the potential
to stare lovingly

I mop up an old me
and forget why I fell
in love with you, how
sad, but also how entirely


grand.

I can't put
everything into
pretty words.

you know what?
I am sorry.

but it doesn't last long.

I've pried every finger
from the tail-end of your
shirt, but my eyes are the
only thing left. To be sure,
hands aren't the only thing
that can grip, that can hold on.

it wasn't snowing
but there was snow
falling from somewhere

today someone said I have
a good name, and I do.

Today, I finally let go of

you.

i started biting my nails
when i moved here and
in the meantime I have
gotten a job and gone to
school, i still think i'm fat
but i
have stopped biting my nails.

i will try to remain as soft
and warm as I am when
the days are long and the
river is high, because I seem
to take the winter into my
pores and the snow pack
in my thighs, let my fences
run for miles and miles
but I'm trying.

it will not last
forever, but I
am hopeful.

reneged, reneged
like Matt Nathanson
all those nasty poems
I wrote about that one
kid are only half truths
because I realized I can
fall in friends and not
fall in love, would you
believe that kid, reneged
that kid, reneged would
you believe that kid I wrote
all those nasty poems about
made me laugh today, enough
to make me think I was burning
calories being happy instead of
the latter.

we are the outliers
the ones with plain
souls, the girls they
loved before they
were found, we
are the hearts
before the
discovery
we are
not
the


discovered.

God spoke
to me today,
barely a thought
hardly a whisper

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.

sometimes I realize
I cannot save every
one, every thing, I
can't save the brok
                                         en

I remember once
your dad was nice
he put tiger balm
on my elbow and
bought me socks

i found an old picture
of you on a forgotten
camera, how we never
cease to remember the
sweet things.