left the lid off and it molded over
night, let it sit out a little too
long, the taste is a little off-- I hope you got my message.

my aimless fingers, are spinning webs of websof
whatif's
whatnow's
you

probably won't answer.

I have no direction, only
intentions and a bowl full of hope, Ihave
an extra   spoon.

a little past noon, now.

and I find I have trouble
taking you in all at once, there is
a pink-like hue   to all of your newness,
like I'm looking through
rose-colored glasses

like there is always a 'Theme For A Pretty Girl Who Makes You Believe God Exists' playing in the background when you cross the street or
stand, waiting for a friend.

I'm not sure whether it is you I miss, or
the coffee-stained pages of music (at least
I thought it was music)     we made when
we were together.

I often over-romanticize, but
I just thought I'd ask, just thought
I'd see if the breeze I felt was
from an open door or
from the inevitable cracks around the door frame.

I just thought--
I don't know.

oh god.

there's a picture of sunflowers, my favorite
by far. one
leans apart from the congregation, rests
it's head on a wooden fence.
a visible sigh in it's face

it's posture affects --
and though time accelerates,
there is still gold in the lines of my face,
some days    the light catches

and warmth Ihold in my pockets
for days like today, I drizzle it on my tongue.

&my; insides are wrapped in dusty glow
from eons before
I began to wilt

Swallow and go. Something I can do, like pace myself or *******. You ask me what I write about. I say
famous people, and discrepancies.
Simulate applying mascara. Stainless steel reflections play tennis better than I ever could. [Yesterday] I read something that intibated me,
preformed a lobotomy without a drill.
I had a dream that I forgot my work shirt at a friends house and ran through downtown bare chested to see it serve as a shroud for the most recent saginaw st ******.
At the bottom of a heartbeat you explain the grandfather paradox to me. Why wouldn't I go back and shoot the man who ***** my mother? I could have been a time capsule; could have been a light saber,
could have been a different poet who wears a lot of tank tops but calls them camisoles. Late at night my
boyfriend is more treasure chest than in the afternoon, his drunk, swollen face hooked and dark like his indian mothers.
I tell him I am unfaithful every day at three, in the afternoon when he visits the crows nest to regurgitate tequila and recyclable fibers. I wear camisoles that I call tank tops; let some neighbor feel me up over a periwinkle floral pattern when I was trying to change my life. We then shared an avocado sandwich and
peddled the fattest grams on the east side.

i woke up to stars fluttering around my head
and a strange operator of crude remarks,
protruding my thoughts as if they weren’t
real enough to see-
i feel dimmed. i hope you don’t.
yesterday when i saw your mother in
the grocery store, it tripped me up
my mind distracted from my sample cup of black coffee,
i lost all focus, i threw it out
i found myself 30 minutes later in the restroom
talking to the mirror
i hope you don’t, ever, yearn to be alone
every passing unconscious fragment
clouded away
i hope you still know how to sleep
without me, haunting your dreams from
time to time. don’t awake in a cold sweat
of memories glued to the back of your mind
you thought you amputated the things people
couldn’t see, the things you didn’t need.
i told myself once
i would read the dictionary
yet i never found the word that accurately
depicted the way it felt when i left you,
no, not even regret,
i threw it out.
my definitions are blurred, i can’t decipher
between heart and
head and
whether or not your name still tastes like home
in my mouth or
if it stings like the oil I drop under my tongue
to love myself and
i’m learning to walk, broken.
all bones cracked.
i left.
i told everyone i didn’t need crutches
and i didn’t need you either, i threw you out.
the irony was in the innocent way
they believed me,
i am bleeding,
i can’t walk unsteadily. a part of me missing
too sunken to scream your name any longer
a bit too bruised to pretend i’ll
ever be the same

while the work-a-day-mind slept
you got to me in my dreams
searching out my weakness for love
animal in its want and need
a flowered blouse and smiling
the sunflower spread her seeds
across a limited horizon dipped
in the red raw red sunrise day

My tailpipe spewing acid rain
I am M-i . . . on my way
To s-s-i-s-s and be ******
What I say . . . i-p-p-i
Memphis coming home

Crossing state line is heaven's door
I'm released now hit the floor
Old lead foot is on his way
You'd better believe it
I'm Memphis coming home

Coffee and whiskey my mainstay
Haul'n fast and reliably
No matter what my dispatcher say
Memphis coming home

Tupelo . . . past it's gates
New Albany approaching , now it's gone
Holly springs was a pleasure passing
I'm Memphis coming home

Cotton dust
Taste bud stuff
You can call them hills
Now if you must

Pine or oak , whatever's your choice
Tunica technically kicked your dust
Ole snake eyes soiled your luck
Broke , Memphis coming home

78 or 55
No matter I feel alive
Inside I'm outside myself
As I glide between the white lines . . .
I'm Memphis coming home

I'll take your breath in
my lungs,      have it ready for la petite mort

your many
little
deaths

exhale &giv;; you
la vie     again,