in the cloister, we had coffee
talking something about the soul
today in the cold but sunlit court
with a good girlfriend of mine
is when it struck me:

a pretty Christian girl kind of day
before me, a butterfly kind of day
winging the dark fantasies away
start obeying and getting good habits
would have stayed had i any money
to get the rest of my college degree
kind of day

filling your heart with my replacements
to match my false interpretations
of your expectations of me

Last night I
dreamt that
I loved
somebody
so much
that it
brought me
to tears
when I had
to wake up.


Why can't I
feel sincere
emotions
about the
people I
know in
real life?

I only love
as thru my
dreams.

The clock gets me.
It comes to me in the middle of the night
Pulls back the sheets and says, "Hey fucko."
Then it lifts open my sobby wet sand-encrusted lids,
It knows when I'm trying at sleep, pumping quarters
Like I was swallowing yawns, sometimes I try to squint
Harder and take a dream to the next level, whatever
The next level is. It's like Friday night when I wanted to go
Out to do something, whatever something is.
Because I know that if I don't I'll miss that thing that's so
Important that if I were to miss it the clock wouldn't come for me

Again.
And on Tuesday's when I'm knotting a dream around 2 o' clock
In the morning, my web-footed adventure, say, killing your

Boyfriend, say
Fighting the Nazis, say,
Rediscovering that you sent nudie pics to
That rando guy we met in that club that lives
in Prague-
I throw the clock at the ******* wall.

Because who knows, I make the bed wrong
Or maybe I don't cook right, or look right, or
Smile the right way at the right

Time. And you start thinking that I have to die.
The bane of my existence is an imagined feat in your
Walnut-sized brain, slowly numbing us while we're
Supposed to be, say

Listening to the rich, Oxford voice of
David Attenborough.

Instead you're thumbing through that index
of CVS cashiers, just trying to find a scruffy face
To flip your digits to, your homemade justification. It becomes
A feat, an unjust cause of mine to

Get it right, that imaginative and artificial bit you've
Been sewing up Monday twilight.

That's when I go out and jaw your sister, somewhere between
A smirk on your face and a bit of anger at the end of your sentences.

superstar of the lowest level of the food chain
they marvel at my wondrous acts
i am enticing, raucous, too loud
the prima donna of the freakshow ballet
they would pay
to be seen with me
the perpetrator of chaos

hoodies with spikes on them
batman tshirts
and too tight
skinny jeans
tired pink sneaks
from my wandering days
i am the queen of misfits

i put you under my spell
and it seems just as well
that yours has got me high

this love that we keep
together do we sleep
under this moonlit sky

we glow brightly in the dark
like streetlights or like stars
we both are made of light

and if you hold my hand
together we could stand
let us never say goodbye

in this thrifted sweater
and black and white floral skirt

in my soft and faded yellow
and on those pastel clouds
with my daydreaming eyes

i wanted a cheap ticket

you see,
i wanted a one way trip
to heaven
so i could stand protected
so i could stand behind
the holy gates,
bathing in gold light.
in my sweater,
wrapped in light
and safe.

little did i know i’d feel safer that day
that i’d taste some of heaven
in that sweater in late november
with your arm interlaced
in mine
like fate
had planned
for that to be
the moment our stars
aligned

you were a sunbeam
my sweater was security
and your arms beheld the stars
of the heavens
to me

and can i tell you something?
they were all
so
*yellow