I want my heart to be twice as big
as my body.
i want to fly you to the moon
and kiss you
on the moon
and pretend that we are lunatics
and pretend that we are martians
i want to have a picnic on the moon with you, to
play hide-and-seek in the craters
cuddle straight through a fourteen-day lunar night.
i want us to be so bright that we glow;
i want my heart to be seen from outer space.

what matters: your arms
these lips
our palms together;
laughing,
soft skies,
the sweetness.
ta voix
tes yeux
tes mains
tes levres
empty cupboards are filled
empty stomachs become full hearts
in this space with you
i am never hungry.

who are you at six am
twisted soft into your bedsheets
face pressed into the pillow
half-asleep, sleepy          night-dust settled into your eyelids
I am not a poet, a dancer, a murderer
at six am
sleeping by your side I am only a human being
I only want what I have
right here.

take it at face value
2. feel it.
3. notice the hidden allusions. poets work ******* those.
4. apply it to personal experience
so it means something to
you.
5. don't ******* analyze the author's psyche.
seriously.
6. cry over it, float in it, smile through it
7. show it to someone else
8. don't tell them about it until they've read it
9. tell them what it meant to you.

you were my Snow White baby
locked, pressed into sleep
with apple slices stuck in your throat
i prayed at the altar of your nightstand, an offering every morning:
pictures          chocolate           small dolls i sewed from scraps
in the middle of the night, sitting by your bed when i couldn't sleep

i read to you, just in case
you could hear. once
i held a mirror above your mouth, because
you were so still           your skin was molten, crackling with heat,
a jumble of just-hardened lava bones
bright cherry mouth, cheeks blooming          but so pale.
my Snow White baby, i didn't know if a prince would save you
but i wanted to be your knight in armor. i wanted to armor you--
but you can't protect against attacks from the inside

i remembered months before, lying in the grass with you
          sunlight           reading books in trees
muddy, you fed me croissants mashed in your fingers
and oranges that fell from the branches. how precious i held you,
your tiny body braved against mine, the smallness of you in my arms
we were children then.

that Christmas you woke up for just long enough
to crawl from your quilt-nest
and sleep instead under the christmas tree

your fever-sweat and the coloured lights
made your skin into rainbows
i remember thinking how magical you were, how
much i'd miss you
if you never woke up.

she sighs.
he left his ritz crackers in the back of my car.
he loves his ritz crackers.

he probably does not care that much
about crackers.          she buries her face
in his favourite shirt, picks
his boxers off the floor          stretching the waistband--
look at this skinny boy.
holds the clothes as if they are the outlines of a body
          ghostboy.
this is a song, she says, turning up the music,
about being in love with a ghost.

****, jesus
they call it
the passion of the christ
those muscles and don't-care hair
stretched out for us and our Sins
and who doesn't like a bit of rough-edge stubble?

they call it
blasphemy
i say
let him come to me
that i may feel him upon my breast
if you know what i mean.
the elderly women at church says when Christ comes
we must be upon our knees.
gladly.
****, jesus.
you're the first nice boy
i ever wanted bad.

i want to work harder than i ever have in my entire life.
i wanna wake up hungry
with the flavour of possibility in my throat
i am exhausted
from all the mediocrity
i am tired
of not trying hard enough
this world is too **** splendid
to let go to waste
i am starved
for the taste of satisfaction
i am not waiting any more.
i am a verb
not punctuation.

he looks at me as if
he's never seen anything quite so wondrous
as if he doesn't know what to do with himself
he tells me my eyes are full of stars           and that my smile is a galaxy
my head is full of comets and i've never met anyone
that my soul already knew
it walked from my body and embraced you as if we had been lovers for a long time
your bright body is a sunrise melting into mine
i can't hold you any more precious than the feel of your skin under my fingertips
or your chest breathing into mine          we are one idea
you are half my soul
already i have stopped missing you because
now that we have looked into our eyes and seen these reflections,
how could you lose your own body? the heavens are in our faces;
the sun and moon may be distant but light
travels so fast that there are no light-years between us;
your luminous skin touching mine
is only ever ten minutes away.

do not dare reach out
and stroke the cheek of that sad face
it is not your head to hold in your lap
anymore.
another's. it is another's
as if you have given it away, it is not yours to repair now
the luminous eyes
the roundness of the heart--
they are not yours. perhaps
they never were, perhaps that time
was a fierce wish aching within your memory
a desire to touch the face, to kiss the eyes that do not see you
do not go into that home
it is not the one that you lived in
anymore.

what if your face is not real
what if those beautiful eyes and lips and cheekbones are something that i made up out of images in magazines
what if you are not beautiful
what if i don't love you
what if you are not real at all

once when i was seventeen i tried to buy cigarettes from the stop-n-save in the middle of the night
because the boy i loved
didn't love me any more
i wanted my mouth to taste like his, toxic, intoxicating
i wanted the stars to cloud out in the curls of smoke
the man behind the counter asked for my ID and i gave it to him and he said
sorry, sweetheart, i can't sell you those
and i said please my birthday is in a week
he looked at me like he knew how it felt and i said
please i'm dying for a smoke
he handed me back my license and said,
i'm sorry
and he really was.

when i think of you:
i feel first. that is all.
thought comes later, after one thousand nine hundred and twenty nine kisses
five cups of tea
the golden late afternoon
suspended around us as we move through space and not time--
i feel you,
as your hand clasps softly around the back of my neck
and my fingers explore the muscles of your back,

i think i knew you before we met. before i looked up at you,
saw your soul was electric through the night, and it was inviting me
to dance--           you are the first time i was hesitant to love, because
you are so precious.
my eyes are full of stars, you tell me; i think
i pulled them out of the sky
just so you could see them.

so here i am, moving forward
grey mornings bring progress
that's what they said
when Leland Stanford was condemning the Chinese
to slavery
for a railroad

i want that one thing
i want to hold it in my hand like the beating wings of a tiny bird,
or the fragility of a baby's trust
to have it, to say; this makes me worthy.

i'm jumping onto the box car
with a knapsack and a sandwich and my hat, hoping
to cross the country
and be okay at the other end.
here i am.

some places get under your skin
like the ink of a tattoo;
they force their ink into you,
so beautifully-- you think only of
how lovely it will be

to be here, love
to be lovely here
the taste of the sky, the length of the cathedral shadows
the cigarettes we smoked around the fountain
the plaças that we ruled with our infinite youth--
all this
i am leaving.
my own skin, i am leaving it here
to soak in the sunsets on the beach, to wander the tall stone alleys
to drink coffee on the ramblas
to dance drunk in steamy crowded rooms

barcelona,
i leave to you my heart.

my mother does not believe in things that hurt her.
bad dreams
sad things
brain chemistry
i wonder
if she just has her eyes shut
or if she's opened them
and we're the ones in the dark.

i feel restless and i pace the apartment,
i want to dance
i want to scream
i want to throw these glass bottles
off the balcony
i don't want to do anything. the music's playing and it's
good, very good. everyone
is sitting with their laptops, as if
             they aren't listening. maybe i should take something
                          just to calm down, to
get on their level.
no, i think, ride it. feel things.
feeling things is good,
right?

everything narrows into a tunnel and
                       explodes.
whole body, buzzing.            the air vibrates like it can't decide
where
             to
                       sit.
what is breathing? what is thinking?
tickticktickticktick

they're all
dancing

it's too much.

not all loss is intolerable.
there is a feather caught in the fan
whipped round quickly

--some loss leaves you with no breath,
tied to the bed in a tangle of knotted regrets
falling into the hole where there once was
something.

you are fine.
you are not caught in the pull
of a sinkhole. wake up.
shake the mud from your eyes, kid.

it will happen again.

i hate ice cream.
but when i was a child, ice cream was my mother's
band-aid
apology
celebration
reward
treat
synonymous with a cool rough hand on my forehead
far away now, in brown-dusted
cactus-studded hot hills
in baking cobblestone streets
between tall crooked stone buildings
i'm reaching for her hand
it melts sticky under my fingernails
and the taste is wrong in my mouth.

i told my mother
this place haunted me in my sleep
feverish
sweet-syrupy, drowning in other people's memories

he reminds me of someone a long time ago
small and broken
tough, i even remember
that other person saying
if he ever got a tattoo, it would be a smiley face
on his arm--
exactly the same as the one this boy has.
he wakes up with the dust of last night's numbness
in his eyes, washes it out first thing with a warm beer
and stumbles around the ***** glasses, tripping
over the bits of broken rules on the floor, fumbling
for a slightly crumpled cigarette.
he says good morning when it's three oclock in the afternoon,
because bedtime was nine am, and creatures only come out at night--
because he feels safer in the dark,
because there's something
inside him that cracked once
and will never grow back, something inside him
that i bruised and made him give to me, made him hold me
as if i were the damaged one.

i know these small dark spaces so well--
i sleep right next to them, try not to roll over
and fall in. these cavities dark like
dilated pupils, huge and haunting, pulling the light away
i remember this face but i don't know
where have we met? you couldn't be the boy i knew
and yet
you're so familiar.

on the table there is a knife and a small pile of *******
a lighter, a bottle of cough syrup, a shot glass
three empty beer cans
a worn copy of Hemingway's best work.
these are the times we live in.
this is our place,
reflecting our lives--
this is how we live.

we spend a lot of time
outside.

my eyes are rimmed in gold
his hands, strong warm firm           around my throat
surprised me. i felt
golden           liquid          liquid gold
in that instant i wanted
more.

He and I go up to the roof, the narrow stairs and low door. The tiles on the terrace are orange clay and slick with rainwater. He opens a new beer from the six-pack he's been carrying.
"Do you know the story of the Lady In Red." He slams back the cerveza and doesn't give me a chance to answer, but then, it's not a question.
"So you know, in Aladdin. When the genie's offering him everything, anything he could ever want. And those three **** girls appear, in red dresses, tempting him. And in the Matrix, they're walking down the hallway. Neo stops to look at the lady in the red dress and when he turns around there's a gun in his face.
"This city is my Lady In Red.
"She's so beautiful, so passionate, you don't even see. I don't even see it until it's too late.
"This city is killing me", he says. "She's given me everything I thought I wanted, and taken everything I have."
He finishes the can and kicks it across the rooftop. He laughs meanly.
"I'm a ******* alcoholic." He laughs again. Opens another can.
"Twenty-one years old." He shakes his head and coughs harshly, hacking up spit and sending it off the edge of the roof. "I am actually ill because of her."
"She's so perfect, but it's not real at all."
He looks so ******. So lost. I look out around us.
The skyline is so beautiful.

tell me again, darling. she laughs loudly, lipsticked mouth open, white white teeth. how charming! heels off, hair up, stockings brushing against the bare floor. her accented voice, the room takes her in as if she is the painting we have needed, but never had to grace the walls. now she is dancing with her shoes off, her hair coming down, untamed, unashamed. drink in one hand, the sun is rising through the window. the sun is always rising with her.

picture this:
clear glass rectangle table.
i am sitting
on one side, away from you

our feet touch
and i recoil.
you tell me again that you love me and i think
how drunk i was
how you still carried me home
even after all the others
even after i treated you like
less than nothing.

picture this:
in two years,
clear glass rectangle table.
you are on one side, away from me
i am halfway across the city
in a taxicab with your best mate

the phone is in front of you on the table
and you look at it
knowing i will not call until morning
knowing danger is the compass i use
to find you

in two years,
clear glass rectangle table.
bank card, a tightly rolled bill
lines like scratches and a glass filled with poison.

in the present, you tell me
people learn from their mistakes
and one can't keep helping people
but i tell you
the holes that we dig for ourselves
are far too deep.

Barcelona.
My love.
Mi amor.

Carrying butterflies
in the palm of her hand,
the dust from its wings
in her eyes.          In my eyes.

The sun rising over Placa Espana,
the cradle of her alleyways; she
speaks to me as if she is my soul, telling me
of her great journey
through summers
and in and out of long days,
telling me of her youth and beauty.           Telling me she loves me.
That she is always here.

Barcelona, mi amor.
Hold me now
through the night.

sainted, we martyr ourselves to the night, to the
hunger
and hunger
of lost ambition
sacrifice these glittering young bodies
to the smoke and
smoky air
to bright shadows and fogging memories
nail these hands with hope to the edges of castles
we are sinners dying with sinners
we are saints and angels.

I fall asleep in the late afternoon and wake up to the night kissing my eyelids, whispering the promise of bright streets and shadows, music and drunken laughter into my ears. Floating up from below are the sounds of clinking glasses and the hum of a thousand conversations, scooters and street-cleaning machines, skateboards and dogs and church bells; the city of masses occupied by ants. The breeze wafts in from the balcony and the marble floor is cool on my feet as I rise to go out.
The kitchen is full of Australians and the table is covered in small bags of white powder. There are bottles on the counter and someone is slicing up a lime. They are loud and happy and one of the boys empties a tiny bag out onto a plate, cuts it with his bank card and pushes it into thin lines like scratches. Someone makes us all drinks. Aussie spills powder on the floor and as I look up, he is crouched down, fifty-euro note up his nostril. We laugh, he is bent over on his knees, vacuuming the floor with his nose. I sit down to watch them, telling wild stories of wild nights, as they get more and more edgy their gestures become exaggerated and excited. I go to take a shower, Aussie wanders in and talks to me excitedly, laughing loudly. I laugh too, because he is fun, and attractive, and because he is so excited and happy and because he has a nice laugh, a loud one. I put on high-waisted denim shorts, rolled up at the bottom, and a half-corset. It is yellow with roses printed on it, and Aussie tells me I look like a pin-up doll. The girls come home and we all put on red lipstick and breathe in dust and dance around the kitchen with the boys and our drinks. There is white dust on everything, spilled everywhere. Everything is bright and exciting and electric and new, so we go out, piling into several taxis and speeding down the motorway to the beach. The line is not long and we get in for free, music pulsing through our eyes, our bodies, neon lighting up our hair and glancing off the pool inside. There are tall girls in rhinestone-crusted heels, long legs stretching from short short fluttery skirts, boys with gelled-back hair and printed shirts and their sweet-angry boy-smell. Eyes like saucers, skin like melting wax, sensual, ferocious. Aussie. Grab me by the waist, buy me a tall drink with a tall straw. Stroke my cheek, tell me I am beautiful. He disappears into the night, absolutely ******- *******, champagne, the rain of stars in his eyes, the reign of electric music in his limbs. Electric, wandering through the club like a lost prince, diving into the water like it was his home after all.

We are in a taxicab with a drink hidden in the space between our legs. We are skipping through the night. We are in the line wearing wristbands. We are laughing loudly with beautiful people. We are dancing all night under electric lights with electric music and electricity in our hair. We are slipping out of dresses and into blood-warm pools. We are being kissed, we are getting high, we are getting in for free, we don't pay a thing. We have stayed up all night into the dawn, we watch the sunrise, we stand on the balcony and watch the world pass under us. We are celestial. We are goddesses. Today the city is ours. The light sparkles on our skin.

how are you?
i am fine. i got wasted
last night. there is a boy here
in love with me. we are nice to each other
i suppose. how
are you? is it still hot
at home? do
you miss me?
i miss you.
i miss you.

last time i was here, we stayed
up all night together, talking
you looked like hell
and said you loved seeing
my face.
i do. miss it.*

i suppose i will come home
eventually
but i still don't know
if i will ever see you again.

The whole day, the whole night, we circle each other round the flat. In the heat he is on the couch and I sit at the table. I slouch on the bed, wrapped in someone's arms, he stares from the doorway. I stand by the window and he is at the stove. I can smell what he's making, he can smell my shower-fresh hair from across the room. He is in the bathroom in his towel, I am at the sink with my toothbrush. We are going out.
The hot night blows in from outside and then it stops. We shiver, he is in front of me, I am in front of him. Close. We don't touch but his skin is there, my skin is there, so close. So close.
Someone else comes in, the room is unstilled. The air moves again, I breathe out and someone's arm comes over my shoulders, leads me away. We circle.

you're waiting
at the bus stop for me
like a good lamp-post you have been waiting
all year
the moment passed but you're hoping
it will come back around,
that this time the bus doors will open
and i will reach out, pull you in close
back into the bus
where we could finally
get going.

you may as well
get going.
another blue-eyed, blue-jeaned bad boy
has strolled carelessly up,
slung an arm round my shoulders.

you may as well get going.

once upon a time
there was a beautiful duo
and when it was good it was perfect
when it was bad it was hell

there were bright candles and mirrors
laughter and cool drinks
and hot summer nights making love by the water

and then there were dark marks floating like **** under the skin
screams and silences
curling into sheets

The man next door cried for his wife
she treated him like less than nothing and still he called her,
every hour
to hear her drunken laughter shouting through the telephone
you're lying, you're lying, he cried
and still he called to hear her voice
to see that she was still there

the duo listened through the wall,
one curled like a kicked cat at the foot of the bed
the other calmly flicking through magazine
hearing themselves played out in bangs and shouts
the despair floating in the air like *****.