You are a sincere tornado.
You are kinetic energy.
You are a crystal hanging heavy from my neck.
You charge in leaving my covers in a bunch and my heart in a tangle.
(And where's my ******* blanket?)

But this is not your bed to make.
It is mine.
I gave you permission to coax my ears with your talks of adventure
                                       auras
                                               and hemp.
I also gave you my popsicle -- the one I'd been saving for days
(An intended treat for myself)
I offered, you accepted.
But I still wanted so we shared.
You liked the cherry, I the lemon.

Funny how that was probably
the closest I'll ever come to
kissing you again
And ironic how there was
no joke on the stick,
like maybe all of this
isn't actually that
funny.

But we (can i say we?) laugh.
We laugh so we don't cry.
And I still run my fingers through your hair.
It is so long now.


2:24 a.m. The sun will be rising soon
And you will be with her
And all I know is
she isn't me
and
I am not her

in a room full of peacocks
i am now an ostrich
and i don't know if any of you know how it feels to be a splash of grey in a room full of brilliant blues and greens
it's like being a lonely, pitiful cloud against a blue sky with leafy trim
maybe i have my head in the sand because i don't want to be shallow
but you'd be right if you guessed it's because i actually don't want to be seen when my face looks like this
which is such a cowardly thing to do
(i really shouldn't care)
i read Journey to the Center of the Earth in middle school,
and the only thing i remember is that it was the volcanoes that erupted (like the hives that erupted across my face this past week) that led them to find it-
the heart of life and natural beauty; more breathtaking than the flawless plumage of the peacocks

I am of a strange alchemy.
Iron and tarnished silver,
with porcelain hands.
The rest feels like glass.
Fragile.
Vulnerable.
As though the smallest tremor
could send me falling
to shatter.

This thing, the words and all?  I was trying on a new skin.
It was made of the old -the familiar, too, but transformed.
Something added that could take root,
Take me out from the norm.
Take on a new identity.
Perform.
Squinting at a light, held at arm’s length:
My own spotlight.
So you could watch me act it all out,
Over and over, forever on the page.
but nothing ends as it began.
My troubles, my worries, my lust, my greed,
All fictionalized and petty.

Disgust and shame.
Anger and fear,
Are not advisable
Unless they bring about change.
Even those, now left behind.
Moulted.
Shedding my old skin.
Toughening up the new.

artifacts arranged
chronologically -

flint and wood
allied with cordage -

sharp-edged bronze and iron
- a skull with cut marks
beside a copper
-tipped alloy bullet

on the shelf between
war and peace
and anthropology -
an anthology

- details emerge
in the painting
- killing is our nature
and dying

- a still life.

r ~ 10/26/14

I keep finding bullets stuck between my teeth
The same ones you bought the day you decided the ceiling would look better covered in blood.
Maybe that’s why everything I say
sounds like it’s is trying to **** me.
But what do you do
when you stand in front of a mirror
with a gun to your head
and your reflection smiles back at you?
What do you do
When you stand in the middle of a busy road
And every driver is a different version of yourself you’ve tried to ****.
Every version of yourself
No one could love.
My mother used to get in fist fights with the mirror and expect to win
She says I look just like her
Maybe that’s why I wake up and can’t recognize who I am.
I checked the obituaries this morning
Trying to find myself again
It’s a habit I picked up from you
But I never thought your name would end up there before mine.
Sometimes I imagine what death feels like
Sometimes I imagine kissing you instead
By now it feels like I’m imagining the same thing.
Someone once told me that begging you to come home
Isn’t the same as praying
Maybe that’s why God stopped listening
and started smashing the windows of every place I thought we could be happy in.
Your smile looked a lot like the light at the end of the tunnel
Right before the train hits you.
I used to squint my eyes when I looked at you
Like I was looking at the sun
Or a car accident I wanted to be part of
I’m sorry I ever thought you could be anything ugly to me
You were the only beautiful thing in this hideous place.
I couldn't look at you clearly,
because I knew I would see my own face staring back at me and
your eyes were the only place I never wanted to be dead inside of.
You can only break your knuckles so many times
Before you cant hold yourself together anymore.
My hands haven’t stopped shaking since you left
I don’t know how to tell them you’re not coming back.
See, I used to say I never wanted to end up like my father
Now I have to say I never want to end up like you,
Which means I can’t leave without saying goodbye
But I tried to write my eulogy last night
And realized it's hard to write about someone I never knew.