I used to sit in midnight rooms
lit by dying cigarettes which glinted
off emptying champagne glasses

I used to scrawl sonnets at the bar
amidst rowdy afternoon daytrotters

Tucked soundly into solitary daydreams
I beat drums with palms
burned by the failing sun,
shook my head releasing
glittering hairs onto dusty footprints

At sundown I would paint my lips
and scorch my hair in perfect loops,
imagine myself a half-starved woman
with the most incredible appetite
for words that drew blood
and secrets that dug graves

I’ve spent a thousand hours
floating in your silent sea
filling your ocean with words I swallowed to keep afloat
waiting patiently for you to send me a raft
or a lifeboat
anything to let me know you remembered
I was out there all alone

Somewhere along the way
I managed to convince you that I basked
in your quiet waters, felt warm
in the dark waves which wrapped their arms around my torso
All the while I waited for you to wake
from your tidal slumber and see me gasping for air
beneath the lonely waves

I spent the month of November filling my lungs
with synthetic smoke trying to exhale
the smell of ICU chemicals and gift shop flowers

I drove too fast to the wrong destinations,
wrapped the wrong arms around my waist at night
I covered your scars with battle wounds, and slept
in half my bed to make room for the demons

I watched you become human, a creature
filled with tiny fractures that could trace their lineage back
to invisible grandparents

I worried that you would only ever be mine
in memoirs, that my mother
would lose her name
and feel too small in that ocean of sheets

You spent your birthday in a wheelchair, silently praying
that your fingers would remember how
to press down on metal strings

And when you sobbed things broke in places
we didn’t know existed you said
never and hopeless and
for terrible moments we believed

Every seven years
each skin cell in the body is renewed.
I can't muster the patience to wait.

I stand under angry faucets for hours,
hoping that the scalding downpour will wash you away.
I rip and tear at my own arms
my own *******
my own lips,
like you did.

I take razors to my hair
till every strand of golden silk lies beneath my feet,
ready to be swept away,
joining gin bottles and day-old untouched dinners
maybe even the remains of a pretty girl
like me

When I can almost make believe
that you are no longer sticking to my skin
I can still feel you seeping out of my pores.
Taking off layers wasn't enough
so I tear you out of me from the inside.

I shove my fingers between my legs,
clawing up and inside
till red warmth drips from them
I scrape my insides with monstrous hungry fingernails.

Once I've gone too far
I keep going,
puncturing liver and lung,
finally reaching the carnivorous red thing
I want out of me more than anything.

I grasp it in two hands,
seven pounds of ripe, contorting muscle,
sending blood through arteries and now to the world outside.

I want to show this creature its own sins;
I rip it from its place behind my breast,
severing vein from vein.
It continues to thrash like it knows what's coming.

I carry it to the kitchen table,
find your knife in my hands
and press down gingerly,
sweetly carving your name into this demon which betrayed me.
Squirming, writhing, it tries to get away,
but it is me and I am it.

I destroy it as it let you destroy me,
relish the sight of you rushing from my own veins.
Satisfied, I walk to the sink
and rinse you off of the metal blade.

I watched you lose yourself that summer,
heard you curse as you stumbled through brambles
and blindly crashed into trees.
I saw you fading from the map you had drawn for yourself,
forgetting which direction was North and which was Nothing.
I felt you move further away from the center of your earth;
I fashioned a compass with my hands,
the needle pointing back where you'd come from.
I slipped it into your pocket as you blindly passed me by,
then wandered off my own path, mapless,
no needle to point me back to myself.

I’d like to run my fingertips through thickets of dark hair
rest my head on the soft rise and fall of your earth
plant kisses in the soil of your neck, repair
tiny fractures in your branches, grant a small rebirth
I’d like to water your roots with whispered secret words
to nourish the pictures moving through your mind as you sleep
hoping my face might materialize behind eyelids as you stir
my leaves would weave a blanket, my buds would graze your cheek
Someday you’ll wake from the wintry slumber of her arms
take timid first steps through autumn-fallen leaves
you’ll grasp at my voice whispering like the wind, race toward my charms
where my branches will stretch out, waiting to receive
For now you’ll stay encased in an ice-age dream
and I’ll wait for you just out of reach, taking root downstream.

1.
Inhaling poison like it’s a sweet spring breeze,
an antidote to the pounding heart and aching stomach empty of comfort or substance
Meeting with pavement in a tiger’s crouch
fingers float toward parted lips
awaiting the taste of relief in the form of smouldering leaves.

2.
One tentative epidermis approaches another
tendons and ligaments straining, aching for contact
attempting nonchalance in the lamplight privacy of early morning,
cocking ears to detect voyeuristic insomniacs
who would disturb the disorderly expressions of early experimentation.

3.
White lady dusting the concrete path, sterile and unconfined
laid new before careful feet making their way to shiny metal boxes
bundled in seasonal expectations they trudge through stardust
on their way to blood borne obligations,
leaving behind careless tracks in ****** flesh

4.
Blazing sun presses down on shoulders hunched behind compact table tops
peddling penny prologues to unabashed strangers
bartering unwanted pocket change for rejected trinkets
haggling over half-dried finger paints and unfinished chess sets
rescuing garish afghans from dusty closeted life.

The only her I know is

trapped

in glass panes

throwing back

sun spun hair

and smouldering ember eyes

pomegranate seed lips

and watermark cheeks


One is enough

she said

staring into her own grey-blue pools

hungering for words handed back

and pressure applied

to long festering cracked wounds

pencil-thin shoulders
mess of dyed blonde hair and fake
strawberry grins
lost in movie ticket stubs stuck
to crowded multi-coloured walls stuffed
bears hidden under bedsprings, pent-up
energy like carbonation in sugary soft drinks
unsteady hands on composed aged shoulders,
unsure feet find their way on moving
slabs cleaning out bright blue backpacks
filled with words forgotten on
pages dried up like pens or discarded acquaintances
discovering heart-shaped cardboard tokens of February
infatuation pure unlike clandestine Friday nights,
pounding nervous with blood in pink seashell ears

In North Carolina I put on my mother’s wedding dress
passed down for four generations
my great-grandmother wore these pearls
now I walk down a petal-littered aisle
to wed the boy whose mother I call ‘Aunt’
Mother sheds only a joyful tear because he is a man and I am a woman

My university demolished a solid stadium
built a new concrete giant in its place
in the middle of a field where we used to lay and watch stars,
where we used to chase each other when it got warm outside
Meanwhile the arts buildings sink further into the ground, forgotten ruins

My grandmother wages war against ink on skin
and offensive words in books
we can’t burn them anymore
but we will lock them out of our libraries
so that the children cannot be corrupted

Old men picket outside free clinics,
demanding that wombs be held sacred
while the children they would save would starve in the streets
and then be sent to battlefields so we can call ourselves peacekeepers

Teachers and students alike label each other with permanent marker
all the while teaching tolerance
and having multi-cultural food day in elementary classrooms

The young run so fast toward the future
filled with shiny new iGadgets
equipped to tear apart the beliefs we thought we held dear

Florida tore us apart with its sticky lies and hot hot días
Benadryllic hazes in which I ceased to play a role in your dreams
I dreamt of dark tall hipsters who loved sandwiches on pan whiter than their skin
A last resort, you called them, and I disagreed

I fought sleep with weighty eyelids, forced you to prop yours up like tiendas
You betrayed me in sleep while I betrayed you in daylight
We both shed bitter tears over regretful pasta dishes,
then decided again to be a juntos (do you know what that means, dark-skinned boy?)

During the days I’d fill boxes de galletas with the remains of an expiring lifestyle,
wondering quietly how much of it would fit into my new brick bedroom
You and I dreamt a juntos, falling asleep to shared breaths in separate beds
Mailing tokens to hold instead of each other, pretending that word-heavy
paper smelled like tú o yo

Always aparte on birthdays, I learned to roll my r’s while
your grandmother cooked you mole
I boiled water for boxed delicacies in pale shades of yellow and brown
You stirred chocolate into glasses and downed them one by one
I looked to Saint James for absolution, but always found him *durmiendo

Dining Hall

The day that Darwin dies
you call me at lunch
surrounded by raucous boys
who would ridicule your tears

Milk

You’re downing a glass
as I sip my wine

Separated by years
and words you don’t know

Our preference in beverage
is the space between us


The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack

Lullaby redhead croons my fingers bend three at a time choking out two-syllable death trap.

Constellating

Sandwiched between
fresh books
spines not yet cracked

Secretive soulmates
sharing espresso-scented
pecks on strawberry lips

Hush Hush

Hands that aren’t yours
hold back my hair
dampened
tears shed
over words you threw
shattering
showering me with shards
of the way you once felt


Day Long Marriage

Air-conditioned summers
bare skin on leather couches
your hand resting
on blue ruffled *******


Happy New Year

Crouching
behind closet doors

your voice
at once comfort and affront

I’ll forget the words you say
still clutching my phone
wishing it was you


The Other Emily**

Purest form of you and me
Benadryl-induced delusions
refusing sleep
exhausted
warm and doe-eyed
in the glow of your fondness

1.**     Plant yourself in his mind, the smallest, hidden seed,
        slowly growing roots, winding noiselessly round his arteries.
        Begin to sip from his water supply, soak up his minerals
        become another branch of his being.
        Eventually he will cling to your cancerous leaves like your roots cling to his soil.

2.     Send him on a scavenger hunt for the many shards of your heart.
        Forget to give him the map so he stumbles through the coils of your past,
        ankles sliced open by jealous thorns, neck gnawed to bits by unseen insects.
        Grant him a thank-you kiss for bringing them back to you;
        watch him as he’s taping them gently back together.
        Don’t tell him that he is nothing but an aspirin
        swallowed to aid in healing a gunshot wound.

3.     Keep him grasping at your vagueries.
        Withhold comforts of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ even as he shivers in the downpour of your cynicism
        instead slip in and out of his arms like silk sheets.
        As his weak trembling hands try to pin you to reality once more,
        remind him that you blew in like summer, and leaves have begun to rust.