I thought of
breaking up with you about
a hundred times tonight.

I imagined you
cheated on me in
one scenario- nothing
too lewd, but enough

To make me nearly
hate you. It seems the only
way I'd ever go through with it.

I throw
the *****
like a tantrum

He say my
name like
a mantra

I throw this *****
like a tantrum

He say my name
like a mantra

Slappin clappin ***
like a hand drum

Had him so thirsty ask him
"Don't you want a fanta?"

It must not
have been
you
-I didn't seem
to miss much
of that today-

Bust
your
chap stickless
lips -still
soft- those
I miss

All you had to do
was take your head
out of your ***, give
a **** for ten minutes,
and give me a decent  
apology

But I'm not worth that

I trusted you because
you told me to, and
I shouldn't have

Now, almost all the balloons
are cut and gone already,
So I guess...

It's a good thing you
were never afraid of
losing me

I try to avoid
writing about you:

I consult with
deep sleep and music
instead, but

They lack what
poems have:
a permanent place
in performative space,

A sight full shape: like
the scent of your name exhaled
from the back of my throat.

I admit: time did not
properly permit love to
become anything more than
a thing that could have been done,
But

I've missed you,
                              -somehow-
I missed you,
                         -there are times, still-
I miss you

It's 4:53 and
I've woken from my
sleep to think of you and how

This whole speak
when spoken to thing
isn't for me and I've run
out of reasons to stay except
for bad timing and fearing

your immaturity and the
paltry amount of love
left I guess

I would stay if I
thought you wanted me

It's a strange feeling
not wanting to be pretty and approachable

but wanting instead to be
celestial and vaguely menacing

It's your
birthday today

I did nothing
different and
told no one

Dad texted me
-as if to remind me-
"Today was a special
day for your mother"
And Alex asked only
if dad texted me about
you too

The same plain message.
What else?

I took a final
and studied for another
the rest of the day

Thoughts of
other things
keeps me from
thoughts
of you

But anyway,
happy birthday

I've heard
words

that herd
words:

a shepherd's dog and
his sheep--

"I love you"
corrals an
"I love you too"

with a few frantic barks,
and fast feet

I've less
patience than
I remeber,

and my day
is sufficiently ruined

I've not been
writing lately.

I've chosen in
its stead to take
up wanting:

I want pastel
waist length curly
wigs, and acrylic length
nails filed not cut, crystals
galore, herbs, flowers, moss

And a poem to write
and publish itself to
earn some money;

at least enough
to afford a wig.

I've not been myself
lately, I've been some
other archer firing off
blanks at a wide target

What's a poet that
doesn't write?
A thing that jot
down drivel before it
got down off its pedestal

I wanted so much
to write some
ranting
angry
poem

Then I remembered:
those were the
ones you
liked
best

I wanted to make
you happy and feel like life
Bright like mine, not yours

I want to
write words
in hasty brush
strokes,
-messy yet
precise and
in its right
place- smear
and blend two
words into one
to create new
hues

How can I
paint a
poem?

How does
one display
indefinance
with definite
things?

I was
raised Catholic
after all,
which means:

I've been
tenderly pruned
by the

Shears of
Catholic Guilt

I was going to
do an obnoxious
blackout post but

Decided against it,
because who really
needs or wants it,
anyway

And it's in these small
ways that you affect me

I was once a classically trained pianist:

My nails cut weekly down to the bit
and internal tongue ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-tee-tee
ta-ta, tom tuned to the metronome.

Daily hours meant:
bent stick straight up
scales and etudes then
sonatas and scherzos and waltzes and nocturnes and preludes and arias

and movements memorized
by fingers that knew the way
and weight of adjusted arms.

What is the value of
a wrong note alone

or amongst many,

of memory incapable
and fingers fallible?

I was shore
that could not
leave the sea alone

The waves floating
my way while
I think of how it
flows and the way
my loose sand goes

The sea waves towards
the shore for the
calm in her:

He waves
onto my shore
-incessantly- calming her

I will put you
first
--which tends to
be the fatal flaw--

He doesn't know I will
write poems about him,

since I've stopped writing
and have stopped writing poetry:

and what is a writer that
doesn't write? a scribbler,
a note taken and thrown away.

He doesn't know I'll write
poetry for him,

and my mother and grandmother's
voices chorus warning in my ears:

don't be the one who
loves more

I wish you didn't
have any problems

Which is why I don't
tell you about them

I woke
withal
the rain
-like snow-

It fell in
ablutions
around me

Paris
est-ce que
voudrais
boire une
verre de vin?

Sucia
ciudad
llena de
las filles y
los hombres
y moi

Dans mon
chambre
-alone-
despierto

I write the same
old, nothing new,
like:

The sky is blue; not
how the ocean is too.

My melodic tune, and
yours a harmonic half-step
shift flows,

going brightly—as sunlight
glows into moonlight

Je voudrais
ecrire
un poème
en français

But I've
forgotten
it already

Merde

King Midas
has donkey
ears

The truth
-in a shallow
ditch-
covered by
a thin layer
of dirt

La llorona
mojado con
sus océanos
se ahogando

Laws are made
in the light of
its consequence,
written to be
enforced rather
than practiced

An active angel
abides by the
natural laws in
which it resides

Following the example
of the sun: turning
leaves green not
because they
lack green

In its essence emitted
allows for such
things to exist

Layer your love
atop me as brusque as
the strokes of an oil painting:
red over blue under yellow

Choral songs sung
in corpus mixtum,
perpetual rehearsal
within the cathedral
turned to mere stone
-only 1 or 2 heathens
in the bunch-

Liberated from speech,
pagans, and plainness
-like Liberace and his hair-
upperish limit: written
music, and past that?
Prayer

Life is a mandala!
Everything is a mandala!
-oh my God, I can use my lungs-
Nothing lasts and nothing
matters, however lovely
or terrible

Murderous fingers ripping
unimposing string of
yarn, row by
hourly row

Like some thread
upon a line,
I can't let go

Cast seaward then
reeled in- but not for
lack of trying

The spool too taut,
a knot in twine, to
set the thing unwinding

Like the
music
I listen
to:
sounds
sou
nds
wh
wha
t at ht
rhy
rhythm
thm to
follow ow
rep
eat rep
rep eating
loops like
hoops
oops

Lokah samastah
sukhino bhavantu

Oh Lord that I would
pray to in my youth,
be that you are as active
as when I beleieved in you,
there is still no affirmation
for if faith brings presence

Prayer being to rely
heavily upon ones
own self storage
of resources

Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu

Love is just a chemical
like aspertame or
sulfuric acid

Love or free
who you want,

they're gonna
die anyway

Lungs in the sink
mixed in with
the pink

smoke slinking
gray tincture
prescribed

Lying at the bottom
of an ocean

-enough plots of land
to plan on the
seafloor-

To make a home
where the sand
is strongest

Made a fire
made of fire
maid of fire
underneath

Lit made me
glow

Held a flame
helm a flame
held aflame
on the beach

Lit made me
glow

Memories—like things we
call stories behind the darkness
of shut eyelids—arranged themselves,

and I'm in choir,
and the song is in a key
too  high for me,

so I mouth
watermelon all the while.

It's years later now, and
I can't remember what brought
on the subject, but

he said he likes to spell
fruit—after a girl caught him
with the alphabet—and

says his favorite is
watermelon and slurps and
I think it's funny

Mi parte favorito
es cuando yo
puedo quemar
el trozo del papel
-poco linea del
rojo y ***** y
entonces gris-

Canción jugando
en el fondo

Mira al cielo
como un fuego
-con ojos apartan-
el sol sumirse
en el olvido,
en un sueño
profundo,

Mira al cielo
oscureciendo

Mojo LowJo:
not quite the
chimp in a
purple cape

No triplet of
enemies beset
against me

And still yet
met with demise:
thwarted poetry
on the rise

Moon princess
always- too volatile
for a prince or king-
stranded in a cold crater
created from some flaming
tongue lashing then leashed.

Some stupid *** quote says:
"If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best"
But it should really be:
"If you can't handle me at my worst then maybe I ought to go the **** away until you can tolerate me again because I'm not in any position to foist my shitstorm on anyone"

Or maybe I should stick to the original

Moon princess
prism power
activate monthly:
destroy everything

Music and poetry
are my composite

A glorified nautilus
shell-useless unless
inhabited-

God forbid they
should outgrow me

Music is the incunabula
-the first traces- of poetry

an attempt to put the sound into word,
not in the lyrical sense: some set rhythm and
rhyme and words, no,
in a biblical sense

in the shape and form:
in a transcription of
minor and major lifts
and dips

My bae has got
these loving arms
that never get enough,
and let me roll too
much

I've got it good, I've
got a good one who
makes me good as new
even as the new
moon rises

My bed is only
big enough for
just me,

three pillows,
my phone, and of
course my sheets