i forget what happened next:
i fell asleep and woke up to them also waking up.
the pillows were sandalwood,
and the covers were of sweat,
the carpet was a friend i lost,
and the doorway was my pet.

i fell in love again with a mouth
made out of agate, and a nose from
quartz. Saliva that is rose scented,
and pleasant non-newtonian skin.
We ate rocks on beaches made of
linen, and skies crocheted of barley.
I whispered with the help of a bird
whose feathers were made of petals
and feet made of stone: I hate to be
alone.

When I used to fall in love with rocks I
admired their smooth and jagged cuts.
The way they stuck up from their earthly ruts
or how they rolled evenly inside of caky sand.
Rocks were really my only love life plans.

Yet always still a rock.
And always from the earth, the rock will
form from violence into chalk.
When I used to fervor rocks

I would notice with great care
the way they curved and bent, allowing me to stare.
Indeed, I feel deeply in despair for my romantic love affair
with the always quiet rock
who would always fill me with hours of endless empty talk.

And after some years of this chatter and also through
witnessing the secret
violence of a smooth and steady stone
against soft and brittle human bones
I agreed that I would no longer fall in love with any type of rock.

The conclusion is now that
I no longer fall in love with any type of rock: a stone.

Love and power.
Bodies materialized.
Bodies that matter.
Pariah.

Pariah, on the subway train.
Pariah, speaks in her ugly name.
She is power: Pariah.

She is love.
Pariah.
She is power.
Pariah.
She is this:
Matter.

in high school she ate two slices of pizza
and an apple
and i ate pasta with butter
and nothing else.
sometimes nothing. we would eat nothing
and study latin
for no reason.
the pizza was disgusting
and latin was very boring.
we would bicker she said

that i looked like
jesus i said
that is rude. i don't like you.
i don't like
her.

i wish i
knew
like
her.

one time i went to the lake and i saw many dead carp fish lining the sides of the ocean
their big mouths lay open, gaping ways to their bloated bodies
i hated seeing that and their
collection of scales:
blue and or maybe silver lining scales
orbiting, having
fallen off with the push of the stagnant water,
the loosening of cells from the massive host.

She pressed blue flowers,
She lived for love,
and smelled of emerald roses.

Narragansett Bay,
July.
Probably 2005.
Flowers larger than her head,
their meat pushing
up from the depths of the green,
housing rabbits, sparrows, small
salamanders.
A small girl
maybe seven if the math is right,
buried deep in the dirt, searching
for sand
from the strip of the
Narragansett beach
probably in July, the year
most likely 2005.
A New England Paradise:
July in 2005, all skin, all bones, all relishing
the warmth of the sun, her easy connotations of the familiar word: "brown."
Brown house, brown sand, brown dog, brown, the easy color
"brown."
A composite,
a mix of The Narragansett Bay set somewhere throughout
A July, the year of
2005.

It's been seven months since I have last heard your voice,
your soft ticking; your pacing; the click of your mouse;
the way your mouth pressed
on the cigarette, pushing air out;
your descriptions of the moon: complementary and rotund;
the way your buttons popped off, ripped not undone;
the praise for your mother: a hardworking *****;
the disdain for your father, doesn't matter which;
your sighs; your cries; how you **** in your cheeks;
it's been seven months and I have not heard a peep.

The noise I missed was when you left.
No ticks, no puffs, no descriptive monologues;
Yeah, you left like the sunshine in a
nuclear sky.

Kindly disappear if you care
about the pristine status of the grass/wood
that you refuse to walk on.
Only suns should sparkle.

There is something really calming
about the idea of
a sweet barley field.

With the wind moving slowly,
causing a very slow stir.
A scent that is different
up close--better far away.

So far away,
you can see an entire sweet
barley field,
and you can also see the stir.
And you can especially smell the scent that is better
from far away,
but not up close.

That sounds like it would be very calming:
the scent and stir of a
sweet barley
field.

I like the way I hate the Boston metro subway train.
It's actually called The T, I think short for train, but
I know it doesn't matter much to me anyway. I like the way that
subway train sounds: The Screech, The Dust, The
"HEY! Do not touch my ****!" The question:
"How could they possibly have put another advertisement up there?"
There's a person at the counter saying "ma'am, your ticket didn't go through" and there is a baby crying
and someone else who's rich and
probably, they're whining.
There's a person reading something and I crane my head to look
and I'm disappointed it's just another stupid John Grisham book. It's all the same:
the way I like to hate the Boston metro subway train.

I still have the USSR on the globe
in my room. Remember that time when it fell on you?
And you skirted away like
it was a bomb?
I hope it didn't scare you.
I didn't mean for it to drop on you.

I still have the blue nail polish
on my toenails. It doesn't have anything to do with you.
At least not objectively, you know?
You probably don't since
you are a dog.
And also because you are dead.

I keep it on because it was there when you were here.
And now you are gone.
Which is ok.
Not bad.

Because I still have the USSR on my globe.

I told my mom that I have a:
I have a corduroy hemorrhoid.
       She said that doesn't make any sense.
       What are you confused about?
       Corduroy? Hemorrhoid?
       You know, just because things rhyme doesn't necessarily mean
They Have To Jive.
I know. I said I HAVE A CORDUROY HEMORRHOID!
       I don't care about your Cor-Dur-Oy
                                                Hem-orr-hoid.
  ­     Only that bear called Corduroy could possibly have a
                               corduroy
                            hemorrhoid.
       Anyways, like I just said
       they barely even rhyme. So who really cares?  
CORDUROY
and
HEMORRHOID.
       Stop with the poetry nonsense.
Okay. But seriously, I have a corduroy hemorrhoid.
       Who made you like this?
corduroyhemorrhoidcorduroyhemorrhoidcorduroyhemorrhoidcorduroyhe­morrhoidcorduroyhemorrhoidcorduroyhemorrhoidcorduroyhemorrhoidcor­duroyhemorrhoidcorduroyhemorrhoidcorduroyhemorrh
       You better stop. I'm ignoring you.  
       Oh, ****. You're late to school.
I can't go to school because--
       You have a corduroy hemorrhoid.
Yes, that's right.
       Okay. Whatever. That's fine.
       How would you even fix a corduroy hemorrhoid?
I don't know. I'm the one who is sick.
       Oh, true.
Yeah, with a corduroy hemorrhoid.
       Please.
No, I really am sick.
       Well there isn't anything to fix!
Probably
I think I will just need a
nap.
       God, you always make Tuesday's such crap.

When we speak,
often brief,
it is only in vignettes.

One episode he told me that
he wanted to Jump in The Ocean
from a very high ledge,
and I am not really sure if he ever did.

In another I am a
Settler for the nomads,
Stagnant in motion: an
Uncommonly Beautiful
thing.

The first time I had *** I was wearing a pair
of army green stretchy pants.

I accept
that they were probably not made with my body in mind:
The army green legging pattern or design.
But I have rather wide hips and
somewhat larger thighs,
so I had no choice but to go up in a size.

The leggings, of course,
were not on during the process of the act, but
worn at the beginning, as I lifted my back,
allowing for a quick peel
down the unshaven length of my legs, the leggings indeed
fell smoothly away.
At least for a little while anyways.
They got to my ankles then,
the ripples of fabric slowly unfolding, smoothly rolling,
like frosting from a baker’s hand, openly curling.

Then stopped with a peel of bludgeoned laughs
as I lay not vertical, but at some kind of acute angle, hanging nearly
precariously from my small and dainty ankles.
Then I wondered, how many drafts?
How many moments of pondered artifacts that
would eventually come down to a
pair of army green virginity pants.
The anticipation: At last!
It was interrupted by a peel of softly bludgeoned laughs.

I welcome this fact,
taking a moment to pause
and listen to the noise of the fabric’s applause
as it clung to its last moments attached to my thick and heavy rods.
Stretched in spandex I felt them let loose, feeling my feet
curl up snuggly around you.

I came to decide that I love my virginity pride and
the pants that will wrap neatly around my open and gaping
thighs.
To me, it doesn’t even matter that you never said
Goodbye.