I'd want to be a ****. I don't
want to be a colorful blooming
thing, fanning my delicate
petals, waiting to be plucked
and pinned for others'
viewing pleasure. I would be
a ****, no better
than anyone else, a flower
so persistent
I'm a nuisance. Go ahead.
Cover me in concrete.
I'll grow through it, cracking
the black, my face reaching
up for the sun.

we're not really meant
to be, but it's fun to think
that we could be.

you develop a skin
for it: porous peel
sponging up
affection until it's sopping
-slick, gushing excess, saturated
with him. then one day

he decides he doesn't like
the rind: takes his paring
knife and splits you
pink, scalps you
like an animal & thieves
the hide for himself,
leaves you

with the carcass: mangled
bones like barbed
wire cross-stitch, unraveling
& red heart slow-throbbing.
but you develop

a skin for it: scaly
& oil-slick like duck
wings: no sponge this time,
he rolls off. Epidermis
cells cluster into silver
scars, rebuild you, stamp

stitches over your heart.

he cut
open my underarm
flesh with a razor
blade, filled my veins
with heavy sand
till it mixed into blood
-mud, hardened to red
cement, body weighed
down
because of him

The love
bite on my neck
from where
your lips last
lingered
is fading
with my memory
of you.

I wish our love was a circle,
because linear love is no fun.
A circle goes 'round forever,
but a line always stops when it's done.

You said you decided to kiss me
when you saw the way I looked
at you. I wonder now
what my stare betrayed - what glimmer burning
there ignited yours. When you looked
in my eyes, did you see my heart
squeeze, veiny arms wrap its valves and chambers in a hug so tight
it ached? Did you
see the promise of the tulip
bruises I'd leave on your throat, slipping
and catching the breath from your chest?
Or the way you'd tangle our legs like bouquet stems, until I forgot
what was me and what was you? I don't know
what you saw in my eyes that night,
but I know what you didn't:
that I could have loved you,
if you let me.

Everyone looks pretty when I take off my glasses.
I blink, rub twin bruises from my nose, eyes
narrowed like the tip of a Dali paintbrush: melting liquid

color on a pregnant canvas. I let pigment run
into faces: heads lumpier than hand-rolled *****
of clay, black mouths rippling like asphalt

puddles, bodies quivering like overcooked
linguine: blurred, as if viewing them without
prescription has stripped and censored

their naked bodies. Sightless, I see
with my ears: watch the tone of their voices, taste
the words that unfurl from the breath

on their tongues. I see with my skin, feel
the atmospheres that slow-boil under their own.
I see from the depth of my stomach: absorb

the energies that hit my belly-button: third eye.
And when I've seen, I replace my glasses

                                                        ­                  blink.

Sight eclipses my vision: stubborn
lines and harsh contrasts framed
in unforgiving black boxes. I think maybe

I'd rather brave the world blind –
nose bare, eyes squinted, and belly grumbling
– if only so I could see with clarity.

Sometimes I think maybe the world needs more empathy. So I buy some
ice cream, try to imagine what it’d be like to be so cool
I’m dripping sweet, so sugary that I make people’s teeth hurt when they smile.
At first I want to be a big sundae with hot fudge
arteries and the candied-cherry heart no one really chews up.
Then I decide I’d better get two scoops of fat-free bubblegum,
because nobody likes that junk and it must get awful freezer burnt
waiting for someone to notice it behind the chocolate chip. I dress it up nice
in a waffle-cone exoskeleton so I can get a good hold on it, but it looks strange:
two violent colored plops like a flamingo and a blue parrot are mushed  
in a khaki tuxedo, snazzed with ice crystals and sprinkle bling. Tastes weird
too, fluorescent and sour because someone made it that way
by using artificial sweetener instead of the real stuff. My lips pucker
like a drawstring bag tugging shut: I've had a taste
but it's too hard to swallow. Just as I begin my bubblegum death
march to the garbage some kid whizzes by, abstract blob
of bone-dry hands and sharp teeth glinting: whiter than a deep freezer frost and dentist-approved, spiraling my cone into a lethal nose dive.
Wafer tip fractures on asphalt and splatters: open-cone
surgery. I watch sidewalk cracks ooze neon blood
as I try to wipe my fingers clean on denim pockets.
But even when the ice cream is gone my hands are still sticky.

You roll in like a vaquero to the Wild West:
water galloping the earth & black clouds

rippling: the foaming flank of a stallion.
Tip your hat & get to business: charge

the air with cactus-prickle shivers, slip
your Zeus fingers from holsters and lightning-

rod them to the sky. Rumble your spurs
& order me a sarsaparilla—lid-crack

carefully; an effervescent gale will brew.
Breathe slow at first: electric hum through bone-

white grass: bows as you ghost by—
clear your throat, lasso tight my attention

with guttural echoes pressed heavy on
my chest. Then rip open

the constellations with gunshot blows,
explode wide saloon doors & take

no prisoners. Oil-lacquer streets
& ride off blazing: leave the women

but take me, saddle-swing me high
in the catatonic static of a ghost town.

You’ll vanish like you came: I know
what they say about red skies

in morning. But I’m never awake
to watch you silhouette away.

Maybe memory is a crossword puzzle: seven hollow
squares for his favorite baseball team, ink-bruised
from the chamomile spilled by Vaseline marinated,
jello-jiggle fingers (like the cherry cup on his tray—

grapes brain-shriveled & bobbing on the meniscus). Memory,
choking off, tight: a casual turtleneck
strangling—well-intentioned yarn knit round his jugular,
but maybe if it loved him it’d slacken. The nurse says

You have a visitor, & his dark-lipped smile looks like an Oreo
shell missing its cream. He wants
to play rummy & I wonder how that swiss-cheese
cortex, that grey walnut graveyard, can remember:

Queen of Hearts is ten points, Susan. My name’s not
important: for once the word isn’t alphabet-soup-snarled
as it thrums from his chayote-crumpled mouth.
He always cheats & never wins, but he shuffles

the deck anyways: muscle memory, he winks,
tea-defeated & varicose-gnarled hands
jitterbugging over the Queen of Hearts.

a zit—(white iceberg tip
                                             infection-floa­ting)

a heart (yours was always lipid-
                                                      ­  slippery)

an ember (firefly abdomen
                                                exhaling in black velvet)

a full bladder—(toilet-bowl relief:
                                                            a temporary prescription)

a bag of hot chips (extra habanero
                                                             for a spicy explosion)

a sink pipe (domestic artery rupture
                                                             ­     of your sledgehammer swing)

a water balloon, (concrete-spiked,
                                                              insoluble rubber jigsaw)

spaghetti in the microwave: (blood
                                                               stain pattern analysis of metal walls)

a seam. (sewn ending
                                       frays: leave the stitch, re-exposed.)

I want to run
Run really fast
Fast so the trees blur
Fast so my breath
Is desperate, heavy
Is all I can hear
Is all I can feel
And it lets me know
I am alive.

All meaning, no motion
Leads to the gallows of regret
All motion, no meaning
Walks the plank of unfulfillment
Sentiment and action must be wed
Though they exist in a divorced world.

I am consumed by your presence
the tap tap of a nibbled pencil
the long legs languidly sprawled
the silent sighs and scribbled sketches

And I envy your indifference

If only I, too, could master
the art of being aloof.

Grubby little hands
and sugar encrusted mouths
leaving chocolate hugs and kisses
on a white Hanes t-shirt
in a late summer sun

the man in the stained shirt laughs
telling stories until you laugh too, so hard
you roll in the grass with your brother
streaking your denim knees green

and you beg him to play with you
just one more game, please!
because he is the best at everything
as close as you can get to invincible

and when he picks you up at the end of the day
tickles you, herds you inside
you can smell the lawn mower grease
and the shellac from his shop
and the peppermint, always the peppermint,
from the gum that snaps! in his mouth

then before you know it
you’re sitting shotgun in his rusted pickup
the radio singing classic rock
like always

windows rolled down
hat perched back on his head
whistling through his teeth
like always

but you’re on a new road
and your boxes are packed in the back

and when he hugs you
you feel like the little girl
that you’re not anymore

and you’re not quite ready to say goodbye

"She's not you," he said
as if I didn't know
as if I wasn't aware at that moment
with every fiber of my being
as I sat shotgun in his Jeep
that she was everything I wasn't

"I thought I'd be able to forget you," he said
as if I'd forgotten him
as if I didn't remember every stolen glance
every accidental brush of our flesh
every moment I thought I'd imagined

"I'm so sorry. This isn't fair," he said
as if I thought it was
and I had to remind myself to breathe, breathe
to blink my eyes clear
as I watched raindrops hit the black windshield
trickle down the glass, washing it
clean

"I will always care about you," he said
and my will was not enough
to keep my heart from splitting
along the scars and stitches of its past.