Seriously?!

I'm a ****...

Wait. No you're not. Hold on.
I can't find...
I can't find my *******. Help me look.

blankets flung.
nothing.

You're...
you're laughing right now?
How could you not?


Can you see that
we're standing in a
giant pond of
ridiculosity.

a glasses lense
popped out.
hair a nest
of invisible
rodents.

his belt
all askew worried
face pursed
lips.

shirt tails- a crumpled
facade of the pressed
summer evening shadows
outlined behind
the lawn sprinklers from
the night before.

and in the cab
to work
phone almost
dies. 37 degree damp
heat pressing
against the car
like a monroe-type
kitten from the
50s.

the morning world
bustling awake
the driver asks
'you work this
afternoon?'

shake my head 'no'
slowly working the
knots out of my
hair

brace for the last
day.

And I'm
still missing
my underwear.

Sometimes, looking at you in the light of the kitchen  I want
to run a finger
Down the length of your nose but
I know you'd wrinkle it, and shake your head citing a tickle, but kiss behind my shoulder as soon
As I turn away

When my feet make ice pools in the bed
Toes accidentally brushing your ankle and you **** abruptly, but upon hearing
My sigh, trap them back with your ankles til, martyr that you are, I'm engulfed in
Warmth at your
Expense.

Sometimes the last trickle of milk is mine, for the coffee,
Silent with your eyes smiling fondly, you look on as I sip, resolutely stirring powdered
Dead baby souls into mug as substitute.

Even damp smelly socks
Greasy hair
Neurotic tears and
Intellectual rambling epiphanies

Even childish blunders, fudging the
Budget or burning the toast

You still call me fond Things.

And love Me.
The most.

A panacea,
the band aid word I
slap on conflict

A solve it all

Acronym for nothing and
Diffuser of
All scenarios.

the  more politely phrased version of
The mafia's cry.

But no matter how you slant the saying,
It's still salient- and a parched, bleached lie.

You just can't
compete with
**** Me
boots.

The leather-clad calves
that
whisper "come to bed...
I promise so
many touches"

Cardigans merely dictate
"shoulders maybe...
You  so much as peek
at my
collarbones, and you're
done for,
Mister."

Spoken -
Maybe I would
tease...

"Try only,
to kiss
my cheek
because I'm
on the
boring bus"
(and especially
in your Chamber)

Or so you
would suppose.

But inside this
sweater, I'm
a *Butterfly.

what.
And then I
said...
Oh do you?
Nod, that.
sip the
tea, eyes
wide you
agree with
everything
she says-
that is
the way
you rent
your ears
to a
friend.

can you stop
prodding at
my heart
disturbing it
like a rock garden
or pooled sand
my insides are
not so zen
can be disturbed
like cold waves
and every time
I still them
arrange my
mental hair
and tuck in my
theoretical shirt
you just come down the
aisle
and unfold it all
again.

balance
on the line
one foot
step careful
you break
your mother's
back and who
can have that
on their head

walk
forward towards
your toes
follow through
feel your hips
align to
move you

line up
your spine
catch yourself
like a cat

and take
all the arrows
in your shoulder
because everyone
knows that a
proper archer
will
aim to
miss your heart.

even the
arm of a
stranger
would be
could be
better than
the *** of
sheets that
isn't warm
not alive
just a sock
that slipped
out of the hamper
that isn't a hand
strewn over
mine, or
the pants carelessly
swung off the
side of
the bed
instead of
a hot foot
twined around
my ankle keeping
me anchored
to something
carnal
or real
to keep me
from floating
away.

no more words
I quit
no longer saying
the right thing
the stranger who says
excuse me fix
my child
that’s it.
you do it you
solve their
problems.
file it all
lock it
up to be
checked out
by someone else’s
savior
because I’m
done with
being your
solve-the-trick
einstein florence
nightengale mother
theresa
failbot.

Drove my sleepy heart...

Today, all I could give you was coffee

but you've already got more than that,

when you're ready to wake up.

Heart not
Of my heart
But still in my veins
Womb dweller, outside
my body
Me, a native invader in a constant
Place.

And [t]his will always be
A glass house

not a welcome home.

You said I
shouldn't
eat it before
dinner.
But I
did
anyway.
Sorry, Mom.

My gratitude is a girl in
a red dress.

I keep her in the palm of my right hand.

the wind blows, hard in her hair,
whipping it,
in the many directions of good fortune

but in my left,
the compass spins
with the magnetic compassion

of a broken watch.

and I fear my luck has
fallen bread-side up.

Where will you
refuse
today?

will I find
it in your eyes?
pupils widened against
actual rejection,
wildly seeking some small
life control

in the clench of your hands
gripping your seat as your
sneakers kick out

or will I distill it in the
frantic voice-
I'll smash you with
my will if
my fists don't find
you first

in your body
I see you carrying all
the weapons you can't
toss.  an arsenal of hope
I wish life hadn't forged
but I'm not the one
that made it so.

So you take that feeble
power and just keep saying
No.

she walks at trouble with her Jugular bared

Into fire because she likes the heat,
the way the flames play and flirt
with her fingers and her bones.

lips tilted around a cigarette
drags in the poisonous kiss
of a ***** cloud,
upturning her palms to strangers
to give them her hands and her ways.

That girl is Brave

diving off every cliff
and caressing the rocks
as she floats down
harmlessly to rest
upon the filmy waves.

but when her little soul
becomes golden at the edges
I hope for her that a hand
will catch her balloon string
and guide her back to earth.

We had hope as she closed us up tight.
Mama, will it hurt?
"Hush," on her lips and she sent ants to
kiss our anxious tears.
And she whispered
Just as we fall, so
We grow

I sit by myself
My feet fit in the space
behind the rows
my boots feeling
the stick of leftover
pop
residue of someone else's
night out.
when the blue and black
of this giant space
comes up and the
sound invades the air
around my shoulders
I settle
and let the thinness
of fake light
triumphant music
and the emotions
of beautiful
sociopathic creatures
fix and fill
the holes and
crannies in
the road of
my lonesome
soul.

a snowman eraser smiles at me
smug, despite the pencil end shoved
elsewhere....
it's hard to believe that jolly lie
especially when delievered by
office supplies.

silence presents a focus
problem.

there's space to echo
clicks, slides and bangs from
a cliche school hall-
a distracting balm for
productivity.

the number of cups
of coffee I've
forced past my lips
does not add vigor to
my smile
no matter how much
it may taste of
synthetic vanilla.

I want to smash
this apple across
the knees of my employment.

since floricide is not
an option, I instead crawl
to the corner

and cower under my
dunce's hat,
and just wait
til the bell rings.

I see you in myself
in the way that your bones
are completely different and
the same as mine

I make your mistakes
in my future
and I made your decisions
in the past

and where you are the opposite
we are the same
uneven twins
upside down we are matched
mirrored and shaken in our
own steps
that even jive.

when we fall.

but are mirrored
in even greater synchronicity,
in endless silver halls
when we win.

Love is a whip
and life but
a flogged target
plump cheeks rosy with
regret
Anticipation
and defiance.

fate is the grease-
and the fire

And we are feeble
wicks
thus, as the candle flame
falters and spits-

I grow afraid.

I mourn for skunks.

The squashed, flattened masses
***** mashed, their stripes scattered
Matted  masks disguising unseeing eyes
Through how many fields have they run?
Once sweet babies, small noses, downlike fur
fleeing to their final place from green leafed bowers in a terrible act of asphalt bait n' switch

Let us all grieve the sacrifice which,
Unto the motor gods
Has been served.

When did I start
writing 'Woman?'

Always a ******* the
Inside.

Took two
glasses-

To See.

So Stuck.

Mire of Muck.

Inside my Blood.

On top of my Soul.

it only ticks sometimes,
passing the hours at its own whim.
but still it measures-day clock. life
clock.
relative minutes.
replaced from sand
for the grim grains fade translucent and slick
after
a time.
yet glass ultimately shatters,
flinging shards like dangerous paint across our mortal floor-
and inevitably-
we all cut our
feet.

I became unexpectedly aware
of a
magnet in my chest.
an anchor under my
breast bone.
soft, quiet, almost
unnoticeable.
until later pondered alone
in a dark room.

your polarity,
being opposite naturally,
drew me slow
through the aisles in
the theatre
past people carrying
jackets
into a park
where city stars
were streetlights and
our human discoveries
were serenaded
by the spring song
of homeless men pushing
carts up the street.

As our magnets gradually
synched
I felt the heavy slide and click of
understanding
coded into songs and on the fronts of
cards

and when I let you-
I saw colours in
your kiss,
noting that some matched
your eyes.
I found home in
your arms.
like a final orientation...
like being on a road trip my whole life
without even knowing.

Became afraid.

Because really,
who understands love,
when they've never been properly
introduced?

My body is not
a wonderland.

there is nothing
sultry about
A Cold.

'Come hither' with a
red nose?
Oh Baby...

Commentary on
Modern Music,
nearly halted by
an almost snot rocket...
Authority tempered
with a rasp.

"Did you know you could
DIE if you hold in a sneeze?"
9 year old anecdotal prophet's
looming outline, right up close to
my face.

messy  half-dreams under the
futile winter-hat Reality Shield in the
backseat of  Homeward bound
Economy Wheel Gathering.

**** Man Voice to
telemarketers.

No sir, that's Mrs. White.

I walked in, careless,
to my ankles.
It seemed all right.

the water licked smooth,
around my lower bones.
the tickle of cold
the bump of rocks
silty sand,
squishing up into
the spaces around my arch.
another step, and the pull.
the tease of the tide, lap-lapping
like a hungry feral kitten at found milk.
the snickering of the current
told little lies to my calves
about the depth and its strength
seducing and tugging.
Comecomecomecomecomecomecome
I looked upriver. Dark sunk
into the trees.
Crows sailing up, over the line of evergreens.
Solid.

I awoke suddenly from my murky forward-trance.
Halting my progression.
In over my knees.
Violently chilled.

Clarity dissolved upon my senses,
Remembering my native element,
I spoke my rejection to the  liquid Rake.

'This is not my place.
as long as I have breath.
and I will not lie with you upon your bed.
You have no thumbs, for coffee,
you have no heart for truth, although
secrets, of this, I am sure you hold, many.
No mouth for reading,
and trust-
I already have circling my finger,
and am tied in my heart, to one with eyes and lungs.
Some marry the sea, but I have married a Man.'

So I placed my heel behind my shoulder,
yanking hard against the rules of the moon,
up-tripping
backwards across sudden boulders.

Feeling the sick squirm of a game
almost lost,
a hallucination perhaps of-
the gurgle of a defeated laugh
chasing me back to the bank
I pushed away.

On the  shore, damp-dry grass of another month
lay beneath my feet

The River showed me shimmering calm.
nature just nature again-
a  vast. sleeping creature with no possible interest in Eve. but
From the droplets of water on my legs dripped a separate truth.

I turned away from the leaves and fish.
drying and donning shoes.
And went all the way back
a Flower still,
to The Land.

like ******* crumbs you're
still on my tongue the
stomach ache I can't
escape

the old haunt I missed
before ever stepping through the
door

the scrape on my knee ghost
of which still stings

and for a while still,

I  may cry at normal
things.

I could never
write well about
the city
as if the place
completely rejects me
from the surface of
the sidewalk up
like it reaches inside
my brain and says
no you don't match
you just keep your muse out of
here.  she doesn't have the right
boots.
and to them I say
I will keep the green inside
til I can fly again
in a field
grass making
my back itch
the smell of everything
that lives in
my nose, tickling my temples
and reminding me of
where is
really
Home.

bone traitor.
Skin viper
Edge Stealer
Ridge maker
Health reflector.
Mirror- you liar!
Rogue on the scale...
Signs that my brain has duped me;
Floating oily in the
Basin
Phantom aches
Blood test lies
Powdery remedies pressed almond abandon all cows
Bean curd body snatching
**** the doctor to get a clue

Girl in pain this isn't me so-
Who the hell are you?

Open
Then, shut.

vital *****...
closed for
repairs until

further notice

I was Loathe
to use a cliche
like 'dying
inside'

until I saw
the Ashes on the
snow

Alas-

this time, the genesis of
my own words
is  just not great enough...

having to reach out to the rhetorical masses might not have been the protective net I wanted-

but it's here to catch me,

unlike You.

Reshape the void-
add a backbone
form my lips
mould my sentences
build my breath.

make me human again

pain lacing my
back is
normal these
days

pressure at
the edge of my
throat- an
old
friend

I am
strong I
am strength

a mantra
that's losing juice
like a
battery in

the attic late
july.

if eyes are my
windows,
I need new
shades.

I can see the weakness
in my own words- their
weary Translucence,

even as I
wind my euphemisms and parry
****
snip the comma off,

attempt to catch my thoughts
before venom leaks out
of my em-dash.

but I can't.
Won't.
take back any
noun I flung

And So.

as you
walk down the hall

I see my adjectives
Just-
dripping off your
neck
rolling down the corridor

fat, black
and innocuous

and somehow feel
that I have
completely failed

at English.

popcorn venom-
no I
won't, you dumb
c----

watching you become
daunted by my
expectations.

truth-
can't let anyone
down if you

throw
back  the
catch
without eating
it.

Today it is ok to hold
Your body at pause
Suspend your animation temporarily let your bones keep
Their shape in peaceful unity to
Breathe in gentle air
Tomorrow
Tomorrow,
The big wide world will
Still be out there.

Heavy days and
Hollow nights
I note the numbers and try
To find the
Light

I know I ask all
the time, but
do you get
sick of my scent?
of my small hands
because they are
not larger?
Do you mind that
my lips are not
soft like chapstick
models in the
shiny magazines?
If my chest grew
melons, or a pine
tree
dates, an almond
plantation or
28A
would you hop
a plan to a
more beautiful land
and plant a
statue there?
I'm only questioning
your motive because
when I see you
I wonder if
you
Actually.
Truly.
meant to
choose a
person,
like me.

A harsh wind is blowing
Whistling and shrieking down
The peeks and ridges of our collective anxiety
Only live, only hope
I look at you often
Stare into the corners of your eyes and I catch
The tears that shine there
I examine your fingers wrapped
Over and around mine
The thumb that I labeled perfect
My own little spiders tucked under
The warm shelter of your solid bones.
We are two, you and I, but really we are one.
Farther than the sun
Way past the reaches of stars.
Deeper than the ocean.
You sink into my heart and I try to commit your face to a memory that can only exist while there is a vessel.
But no matter the Galaxy Path I am destined to take
The string remains.
This love Is Unmovable.

You love her
in her many
copies.
blue, beige
destroyer, creator.

You hate her
during some
hours away
from sun.
procrastinator
fighter, complainer.

You fear her
the control
you can assert
but can't reign
in. Boycotter
scaredy cat.

You're in her
swimming but drowning.

Your psyche should
not be a
tiger trap.

There should be leaves
and soft earth
not sticks.

As your fears sharpen
them, the pit
will become deeper.

So learn to watch
where you walk
in your veins.
Control your thoughts
your habits
your acts.

Or perish in
your own sea
of troubles
Hamlet's slings,
and arrows will be yours
And let's face it.

You just don't have
that kind of
thick skin.

they set me out here
on this island
with a fork, a spoon and a book

there was also apparently
a manual. it was lost
in the crash. my guides assured me-

a beautiful island. a bit scrubby
some wild animals, but admired by other
countries.

smoke signals will be
fine
they might not work
but of course- that's
what the book is for

in event of tigers
just use the defensive
position
words will be
enough

and if they are not
legs will suffice for
running away

did we mention
the sharks.

in the water.
please be advised.

you'll be fine though
monsoon season is only
a few months long
and it'll be over

before
you
know
it.

I was born twice.
Once out of my mother in the late winter of 1986 at 1:52pm in the afternoon.
And then again
the day Samantha Li died.

That may sound more dramatic than it is or just as dramatic as it was.
I wasn't a fancy baby. I pooped like all of them. Was a little underweight. Up through high school.
"Pointy."

I didn't know her well- Sam. Just a sweet-faced angel with a cloud of black hair and questioning blue eyes who went to my
University. She always looked like a china doll unexpectedly caught in a sale at a vintage clothing shop. She played the violin.

When you lose a skill you've had all your life, things start to morph and mutate. You feel superhuman and alien at the same time.
Waking up with my right arm bones in pieces was the start of my evolution- I became wolverine- flying through the night to
have metal clicked into my arm.
I was lucky to be alive.

4 years later, a surgeon told me people often lose their arms from such an injury. The irony of receiving such news was to
want to punch him in the face with my dominant hand.
That guy dodged a time-delayed bullet.

I grew up with a planned dream woven from music notes and CD cases.
I wore second hand clothes, I drank milk drained from a food-stamp fountain. The kids laughed at me in school. They
circled constantly, questioning my glasses, my shoes, my speech.
But the music inside me was something they never had. It was my boat. Violin was going to get me to the far off shore.

But you'll find- as we grow our dreams change shape. They don't fit into the holes for the pegs our parents carved.
I shunned the 6 hours of solitary scales and Bach.
I sought the Cacophony of improvisation and orchestral arrangements.
You'll never make it here- he said. You want to help people.

So I left Siberia and took up my own vision. As we do.

Now my dreams are putty again. Melted play dough on a radiator shelf.
I have leapt through hoops ringed with fire, smoldering plastic and lies.
Filed the paperwork for a better life.
In 27 I see the lines.

They weren't there that night.
And now they're everywhere. On my arm, over the Adamantium.
At the crinkle in the arch of my nose and eyebrow.

A grey hair at my crown.

How will it come?
When they go? When we finally draw the bottom line.

And when the metal leaves me
and all my bones are earth. That will be the 3rd rebirth.

I don't even know who
to pray to anymore

It almost seems like an
insult to ask You,

when you're watching us
burn our world to
bits.

So.
Universe, I guess you are
holding the cards now...

There are so many volcanoes,
all burning Rome.

I suspect even without my feeble
wish,

You have burdens enough.

there's something about
'****'

not scatological.
the edge.

the sacred,
bitter, hit.

deliberate.

of someone saying it,
spitting the
syllable-

while wearing a stolen
black leather jacket
and red lipstick
stubbing a cigarette
and cursing sideways at
'men and their...'
back handedness.

from an artist's mouth...
maybe a woman's...

but the taste
it's like metal

it always cuts-
just right.

today I severed the kite string
so I could
instead,
tattoo it into my heart.

when I take the xray
there it will
be.
I promise. The metal line
or silken tie, (whichever you prefer)
will lie there
on the light board

I will put it in the sky
or in a field
on a bus
I will show everyone

We will see it from space.
and when you close your eyes
I will dance with you
in my mind.

no matter where
no matter when
no matter how long
because our threads
are that strong.

kick your legs like...
coy tilt
to your hips just...
that, yeah.
hold it-

Now...
bite the red
lip, flash
your eyes.
hair curled into
an unlikely peak...
pointed toes align.

Oh,
*****-ish Skin,
slick and soft
I wish I could
wear you more often
but like so many
in disguise
the mystique thins
if viewed repeatedly

instead I will
keep myself in
a closet of
seduction and pull
out my pinup on
a rainy day.

the glitter and stars
will keep the gloom
away.

There are cycles.

My pattern.
Two and fall.

and Some.
and Days.
and Now.

Here I am.

Again

there's a door
I ignore it at night.
I can see the shadows
slipping underneath it
to some unknown place where
grabby things are living
and biding their time
til opportune, they can
****** me.

when all the lights are off
I am in the quick scuttle
to my bedroom, cellphone aloft
for the tiny blue glow
that will protect me
from monsters
unless they are in
the air, materializing in my
lungs to scare me from
the inside out.

and even when I
have ducked fully under
the covers of my bed
I lie, flat, rigid. No
breath, in case dark things
folded and slithering underneath
my clothes, in the
drawers, or twined
around the hangers
can see the movement
and take the opportunity
of me captive in my
bed,

to pounce.

Most days they toss me rocks.
I open the door and they
show me The Desert.

chairs litter the stage
and I carefully go
pulling the thorns off each
one of my cacti.

'drum sticks for you.'
'did you need a pick?'
'try that sentence again...
without that word...'

Door slam. Louder than the drums.

And during that time,
I am aware of the danger.
But it's not the kind you know in the
***** of a blade against your neck...
It quivers on the surface of
my reptilian brain
like a polluting film.

I go on blithely.
dancing on the concrete
jiving for education
slurs rolling off of
me like rain.

it's any day, in the midst
of the early morning car ride.
tears slipping onto my scarf,
down, into the lip of my traveling mug,
that it comes out to
my Father.

"Sometimes I hate this job...
but then they talk a bout love songs."

it's professional roulette
from day to day-
whether this afternoon
the trapped souls
will hand me coal
or diamonds.