men touch me
like auctioneers--
with moist, fleshy hands
sweating for a bite, grazing
my scars with excuses, *******
the succulents on the coffee table
all under the rug with their
dusty presumptions,
hawking beneath
the skylight
with a hunger
for the bedroom
seventyfiveeightyeightyfive

Your dimples like the ocean,
carved out of the earth in perfect ovals,
deep, pale, and inviting
only present themselves
when I need their warmth
most desperately and
I've always been kind of
uncomfortable with the way
I look in my bathroom mirror,
absolutely soaked in flaws
illuminated dramatically
by daunting white fluorescent lights
but I have to say
I like the way my face looks
kind of soft and easy when
I catch a glimpse of it
all tinted green in the reflection
of your eyes

You are smoking a misty rose
with your legs crossed in front
of a sliding screen door
and the way the sun hits the
small blonde hairs on your thigh
makes you seem kind of
vulnerable but then again
you are breathing fire,
quite literally
and the biggest star
in the sky has
come just to
touch you where your
strength collects most
vividly,
I think it is absorbing you,
I think it will be so bright today
that flowers will break free
from the earth & grow
at rapid speeds
because you are in the sky now,
or you've always been,
maybe only for me
or maybe for the entire world,
I can't decide

yesterday you cried
on the way home from
center city
right in the back of
a ***** taxi cab
and when we got
to the north side
you said the rain
was just so pretty

I don't always understand
the contents of your skull
but I know that it all fits
somehow with the decor
in my house
and you are more than
shower *** on Friday night
and you are more than
pancakes on Sunday morning,
cause I could stare at you forever
and die thinking I'll live forever

am i so wrong for wanting to feel right?


am I so wrong for wanting to feel right--
to go without an ounce of distress, to feel
like the corner of a couch was a cove and
not a prison, or that the ***** of his nose
were the side of Humboldt and not a cliff
edge I want to throw myself off of

because i feel trapped.


because I feel trapped--
i alluded to a rabbit in a cross-hair
when my mom asked. The rabbit knows.
The rabbit knows it's been caught, it doesn't
feel right.  She freezes. She tenses. She's unsure.
She's grounded amongst the long weeds and bulrush,
is he waiting? is he watching? When he touches her
shoulder, what is he saying? When he stands between
her and the door, is he a threat?  Is it presumptuous to
think he can enter without invitation? how many
doors in a house require a request to entry?
just the front? the bedroom? the heart?

I feel small.

I feel small, like my body has shrunk and consists of
significantly less matter, less much, less stuff
which is scientifically impossible, matter can neither
be created or destroyed--but I can certainly be rearranged
in space, so I melt into the backboard, become one with
the paisley pillows, find solace in holding my own hand
solace in my unassuming nature, in my rapid bunny
heart--
and
therein
lies
the
problem.

this would have been my year
had i not given up
could've answered all those emails
but i let them pile up
now im in a purple room
with wooden floors,
avoiding certain boards
cause im sick of splinters
and im staring at my apathy
staring back at me in a
pocket mirror,
from a mattress
full of metal springs
and im wondering how
one can be so ******* full
of misery and yet so ******* bored
cause i thought if i learned to feel again,
id go for a walk or a drink
but i haven't moved in three hours
and i don't think i want to
cause as far as i can see
there's not much to see,
not much to see
so ill keep calling
and hanging up
cause i don't actually want to talk
i just want to wake you up,
i just want to know that you've got
your pretty face in that bright yellow phone,
cause that's not much better
than where ive been lately
"where have you been lately"
i can hear you from three states away
screaming into your pillow
and if i focus hard enough,
these black sheets
are the navy blue ocean
and if i focus hard enough,
my lungs are collapsing
and if i focus hard enough,
i can feel calm
maybe for a minute
or two
cause if i focus hard enough,
i sink like an anchor
and where the sun can't reach me,
neither can you

i really never could cope with
the idea of an infinite universe
no matter how many nights
i'd lie in the grass
counting the stars,

sometimes i'd sit up
thinking i'd found some peace in it,
perhaps made some sense of it
or maybe it just didn't matter
but it always came back
to lying down in the grass
wondering endlessly
until i'd frustrated myself to tears

i guess i was just never meant
to feel comfortable
or content
under a sky
that illuminates
millions of homes
filled with people
who understand
so much more
of life than i ever will

i am so much like
the tide and sand--all
there and then not a trace
each grain pushed up and
dug in, washed away by
a smooth hand, pulled
up and dredged out,
separated by skilled
fingers from the
muck and ****
swept out of my
hiding place where
i clung to the rocks
and crevices with fervor
only to be cast upon the shore
water-logged and soaked in salt
i am each mote of feldspar and quartz
drawn and then flat, riddled with color
and grime, pulsing day in--day out to
the heartbeat of an ocean, to a master
as a servant--fighting the flux where
it doesn't go

all the bits and none at all, against the
water then all at once, all at once, all at once
out into the sea, into the furious evening
to weather the storm or weather myself


all at once
all at once
all at once.