I swallow your story and

I WAIT I WAIT I WAIT

as civilizations collapse and--there's an uprising in Egypt!?!
and Kayne West releases another album and I listen to it when I kiss a girl and all I can think of is man,

I would make a great celebrity

I don't want you to **** me, I didn't know that-that-that text meant you were announcing you wanted to bounce back to my ***** and I

don't think I would say yes at first, to spite you.

KVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVK­V
KVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKV

I­'m a mess. I love it. Everything is going perfectly and I'm b u s y torturing artists and dancing with queer girls in Oakland because I like getting what I want

        because when I was younger I wanted to be a femme fatale
and here I am. Playing the villain
has been far more interesting that anything that I can lie up
and it's laughable that all my stories are true and that girls spread their legs and hold my hand after less than three hours of knowing me if I want to whisper in their ear.

KVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVK­V
KVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKV

I­'m desensitized. I like liking, I like lust, I like love. I'm capable of human emotion, just let me wrap the world in a thunderous revenge for the piety I have shown thus far and I will show you a good time out in the Mission when you text

at 6 on a Friday night when I smell trouble, decay, *****, and light
and ask me what I am doing
right now

and I get nostalgic for the view of a smooth set of shoulders between my white sheets
KVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKV­KV
KVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKVKV
I­ am young, I am alive. I will take advantage of those two things.

                                                        ­                           ^^^^

I say, "hunger"
you say yes and I want to show that you are art.

I want to watch your compassion radiate a phosphorescent glow and your untrained talent play out in shaking droplets over plastic keys and strings

and honey,
you look like a god tonight

what's your name

Well.
Now wait, what, I feel dumb

not really, though. But still,

it's just all strange, this whole...
people vs people vs people
interlocked competition between bags of bones

(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))
           (((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))
                      (((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))(((( ))))

crosses fingers so I won't **** up

TOO BAD,
I probably will

When I was a child, I did not wish to speak as a child. I wished for adulthood.
I may have had a lilting laugh, but I spoke and thought like a child shouldn't.

I wished for adulthood every day, for the horizon's beckoning light--the guarantees promised by windows and my family's opportunities--of a life worth living and getting all I both wanted and needed, and I did. By the time I had grown in stature I had already put away childish things.

I find great satisfaction in being an adult, and a woman.
I belong to no one, but others belong to me. I feel whole.

I wish I could sing, play the acoustic guitar.
But I do not have the patience to practice daily.

I wish I could make really great art.
But I do not wish to try, only to fail.

I wish I could understand what they're saying.
But I cannot connect their lips and the sounds.

I wish I could keep them close to me.
But I do not have the stamina to care.

I wish I had a reason to be unhappy, maybe.
But I don't even know if I'm unhappy or not.

they stare at me and I stare back
they stare at me and I stare back
they stare at me and I stare back
they stare at me and I stare back
they stare at me and I stare back

and then I hold it longer than they think I should and they get embarrassed.
Don't stare at me if you don't want to get it back. I'll hold it longer than you.

I've stopped paying attention to them talk
and their mouth just moves, trite garbage.

FORCING//PROVIDING//WILLING

a dry-mouthed conversation.

I pull down my shades and **** on a cigarette.

GODFORBID
we sit and be silent

for like, one ******* hour.

I didn't realize there was a gun in my mouth until I heard the safety click.

I hate the sound of my teeth

on metal
on metal
on metal

and the way my tongue eagerly traces the muzzle, the safety, until I look up,
my lips wrapped around a barrel, while I beg like I've never begged for any other,

and I buckle

to my knees

teeth crunching against the metal in the process
                                          and I feel my joints rusting and breaking,
because my nerves have been trained like steel and I  have been waiting,
waiting in a way
                     that makes me ashamed,
                                                  just for you to pull the trigger.

                                                       ­              Please.

                                                        ­          ******* it

                                                            ­        *********.

There are many limitations sometimes. Of course these are only restrictions we place on ourselves, but we groom certain communities to fulfill a certain appearance and dismiss the breakers of unspoken rules. Don't drop the status quo.

Paradigm.

I want to write and not write about things. I don't know.
No, I do know. I want to write without the stigma that these topics bring.

I want to write a poem about Facebook. See how much appreciation that gets.
Poetry about Facebook won't be liked often.

Write about how it ****** me off that your ex boyfriend (that I dumped, by the way) has a new girlfriend with better taste and better photography skills than me. Remember how I made fun of his ex's for that? They're doing that about me now, I stomped on his heart. I teem with insecurity thinking about it. ******* selfish, I feel like a *****.

How I'm tired of being self-depricating because I don't want to seem like an *******. I've come a long way as a person and I'm not allowed to brag about it. I'm barely allowed to take a compliment or I'll look like I'm preening.

Write about how I'm tired of being kinda ugly sometimes.

Write about how I had *** with someone, how when I told someone else, I could see them and society drawing a big "****" crown of judgement, and how that's ******. I wish we could all grow up.

I wish I could explain that my apathy is, to a certain degree, purposeful. Because looking at feminism articles every day made me feel like ****. I felt like a victim constantly, and I alienated myself from making friends with normal people because I was an extremist. I got tired of constant misery and misinformation. The feminist community was cannibalistic too, and I don't think I wanted to make friends with such hyper-aggressive people.

Write about how I want to be a writer and how I can only write three sentences and then I look at the screen hopelessly. How lame.

I'M SO ******* NAIVE BECAUSE
I want so badly to be different in a better way, but I know I'm just the same.
I want to be able to change the world and I know I can't,
it doesn't matter anyway.

I haven't been able to cry in three months. I'm tired of trying to find my brand of catharsis.

I lick the tip of my paintbrush and dip it into the black
I line and curl the tips of my eyeliner with a flourish.

Mismatched.

Art.

And my eyes have forgotten how to read with avarice.
And my lungs have forgotten how to breathe in smoke.
And my lips have forgotten how to form good lies.
And my fingers have forgotten how to wield a brush.

And I try. And I try. And I try to remember.

And it is not easy to remember every step and so many others are better.

I am weaker.

What happened to me?
I don't remember.

plants do not require papers that state from where they came

they are caught and pulled by the bite of birds,
        seduced by the between-legs of bees,
            seized on the legs of the wind and animals by thistles and burrs

and the blessed are pollinated by the hummingbird

I do not know where I came from (really?) (really.)

or where nature and nurture intertwine within me, precarious balance from discipline and my genes

I twist bunches of grass between my fingers, feeling the good in a strain

racked on top of white bones, pushing sheets of freckled skin
out, spreading cancerous aluminums under my arms because
an artificial flower smells better during *** than human sweat,

what a pity, we are unable to reveal with the bursts of Walt Whitman (!) in
our own organic mechanism's ability to produce salt. The ultimate flavor.

I grin. Inhaling deeply while alone and unwashed, Whitman would've been into it.
Maybe I can find someone into it too. Someone who'll read me Henry Miller.

But instead I'll wear expensive perfume. I grin, again. Sardonically.

And I've been told I have a beautiful smile.
I should,
that smile cost blood and five grand for something cosmetic and quirky,
train-tracks over teeth, I now stain yellow with obsolete cigarettes.

I wait in the tropical heat, languishing while I bake, a freckle factory
and tan--adrift--awash with memories recalled by the smell of green
and the fearful hum of bees.

Why did I start smoking again?

I look at the red hummingbird feeder, and wish I could trade
          
             standing still as a hummingbird, I lie and say I cannot wait.

I
sleep

and

drink

and

brave dark nights


I
cope

and

seek

and

wish for fights

I wish I could live that panicked fever dream of being an artist in the fifties or sixties,

where I am writing, in Greenwich Village, in a barely-furnished apartment at three in the morning,
the aching howls of human animals and screaming sirens attending to laws and emergencies floating through an open window.

A black cat creeps in from the fire escape and jumps up to the desk, lazily, where I am sitting
with a bottle of something cheap next to an overflowing ashtray, and I am

biting down a cigarette, while clicking-clacking on a typewriter.
"Ding!" shrilling puncturing the air whenever I come to the end of a thought,
and thats when I pluck the cigarette out of my mouth, ash it, go to the next line,
and then fervently begin again.

It's okay. I brush my hair. I can listen. I hear the cars that have replaced the crickets and frogs.

I light. I **** in smoke. Hold. Exhale.

I always plan how I'm going to kiss someone I'm seeing, and it never works out like I think it will.
I mull over plots and tricks and pick up lines. I smile, giggle, and have conversations with imaginary figures by myself--on a bus, in my kitchen, in the shower. I noticed one day my Dad does that too.

But planning for the kiss. Versus the actual situation of the kiss.
I haven't gotten to use the move that I want to, where I try and give someone a palm reading in a cute and enchanting manner and then I seem to fumble. I "forget" what to say, I bite my lip and look shyly at them, telling them it's hard to concentrate and "I seem to have forgotten what comes next because it is very overwhelming being in such close proximity to someone so. . . cute". Then I'd giggle and blush.

I swear it would work, but in the situation where I had planned to use it, well. . .

We were sitting on my old apartment's couch, making dumb jokes about this berry juice I was drinking because the ****** tension was practically palpable. He took the juice bottle from me.

"Beet juice." he remarked casually, examining the ingredient list.
"That must be why it's red," I said, "The natural dyes in beets."

Then I looked at him and he looked at me. Then Jesus-*******-Christ, that set off a chain of events.
But beet juice. Really? Really?

But.

What happens in my head versus real life.

It's both nice and exciting, but it's always disappointing when I have to throw out a box of memories another person and I never shared. Gritty and distorted, I had imagined us (so many us's) laughing with warm and tanned skin, freckled shoulders and a night where we both look at the stars sitting somewhere cold, and nervous. Accidentally bumping hands in a manner reminiscent of most starts of young, summer love.

I can't remember the last time I looked at the stars with someone.

I can only remember one clear night in July.

But, I can't remember the last time I got a warm, unexpected kiss from someone who made my belly flip once-over, twice and my cheeks blush. Who made me look sideways, shyly.

I know it might come again, one day. But I have to be patient, and that is not easy. I don't want to finish, because this is unfinished with a pointed effort of not concluding with poignancy.
I don't want a flourish at the end because I haven't ended this thought yet.

scraping my belly until it is raw
along the ground in a slow crawl

(road rash)

gravel, close, I smell the rain on the asphalt, crawling,
the grey and brown--pull--skin (away and away) now
it's embedded in my skin, while membranes grow off

brown splinters

sliding under layers and layers of thin skin
visible, when they puncture and break out

repiercing

Where is my redemption for my (in)action?
Why must I be such a sadist to all?

Our quiet dispositions made for a double-edged sword, as we sat on blood-stained sheets, littered with stems and shredded tobacco bits.

Listening to "Blowing It" by Dinosaur Jr. I realized I, too, didn't know a thing to say to you. We seemed similar, in a way to a certain extent.

He had a stick and poke on his thigh that said "NO"
and we ******. Casually.

======================================================­==================
"I think you're cute and I like that you're tall."
"I think you're cute too and it's nice that you like that."
==========================================================­==============

We smoked spliffs and talked about how it was nice to be dating multiple people.

And what it's like to have a sugar mama,
And that crack is an underrated drug,
And that I should meet more people who like The Velvet Underground,
And how we both like beer, IPAs,
And how I smelled nice,
And how I shouldn't have chosen "Women" of Bukowski's to read first,
And that he should read "Slaughterhouse-Five", and I was willing to give him my copy

(The blood on my sheets wasn't mine, he had skinned knees.)

It was odd, but also nice, to meet someone with a similar disposition to me,
but there was nothing incendiary to hang on to, more just a slow warmth.

I finger the edge on a dull knife and don't cry over white hearts of onions
as I cut them silently, and more easily than I can cut through the white fog
that has maintained permanence in my head, daily-daily (maybe-always).

in the slow tempered, pull of a dry heave and tugging
slackened lines of sail being held up by beams of brown,
a ream of paper is spread, out, like a sheet over the cities
and the needle pulls through with thread, between beats

scratching my scalp
itching my shoulder

all for the meat underneath,
covered in barbecue sauce
come to me, so sticky, sweet

my words are hollow (a promise cannot be kept). my ears are muffled (this beer is warm).
my head is dead (I abstain from meat). don't come for me strangers (quickly, pulled pork).

I close my eyes,
while walking,
remembering

"To Autumn" by Keats

and how it feels to crush an acorn under my heels
and how it feels to pluck a red leaf off an oak tree

and how it felt to be young
and how it felt to be young

and how that every memory is shrouded in fog
and how every recalling warps their accuracy
and how it felt to be an unwanted outsider

and how after I was wanted, after some some summer, heat faded, I came

it was marked, everything changed, because I chose to be different and difficult,
and that was better, like the dry leaves, it is delicate, crunching easily underfoot
spidery veins all brown and beautiful, thin and papery, but it is interesting, and

red, and orange, and purple, and leaves sweep up in the pull of the breeze and

I have never truly believed in God, but I have always believed in the wind

I felt it on the nape of my neck in my youth it held me
by the scruff, but with age it was covered and my own
and my hair grows long, brown, tumultuous, tangled,

it is my trace, billowing, behind me as I walk, steadily
facing the against wind, neither breathing nor praying

because the wind in my face, swaying
filling me with smells of earthy decay
as the machine of leaves crumble, that

is more beautiful than all
and the ending of this is
all my beginning

I look at my broken purple-tipped fingers, holding a cigarette drawling with ash
cupped around the ghost of a brown beer bottle, the smell permeates my fingers

painted purple with polish named with "no more film"

No more film. Huh. That's not a question.
I click the shutter, but nothing's there to capture the permanence. To project onto.

Nothing will be lacquered with a gloss
a painting of time with a smooth finish.

There might be a flash, but still nothing.

I might have disposables, they're costly to purchase, costly to develop. Same-o. Same-o.
They cost around ten dollars to develop, that's cheap, but expensive, in large quantities.

I balance a beer off of the white mound of belly that holds my food baby
I have named him Alberto, and he is tacos

and I am hearing, and but not really listening
it doesn't matter, we're having fun, it's alright

as the chatter of girls and boys, joking,
and full of charm and giggling, poking fingers
I look at their beautiful faces, grinning

smile stretched ear to ear, tan and freckled, lightly pink
on my striped bed with good food, good beer, crumbs in the sheets

ready to kiss faces, to break in my bed,
to blush scarlet, thanks to them, me too
and I am an amiable animal, for now

they want me to be serious, to take it seriously. To look at sunrises calmly and seize coals and watch over red-blooded, man-fueled wars about bravado, integrity, and land. To look at money, a simple representation of labor, and see what it drives other to do, to do for me.

to crush cigarettes and testicles under my boots,
to crawl through mud and barbed wire, smiling

with grit in my grimace
salt rolling, sweaty brows
twisted locks of dark hair
tobacco-brown spit, ground
and filthy, caked in mud
teeth bared like an animal
white eyeteeth crunching

Scorching earth where my feet touch down.
A cigarette put out on a tongue. No more talking.

They want me to see and that, in the dark of the night, in the light of the day, when the sun rises and sets, there is pain, always, elsewhere and everywhere. So I will not tarry or joke or be frivolous with the battered souls of others and to think, to think about applying anything I know, to run along with the vigorous social constructs they ask me to dissect and then revolutionize, because I am young, and I will sprint faster, against accusations, and only briefly.

They want me to look at the world like a runner looks at the red track,
with their toes and sinews coiled as hard as steel, a pinnacle of human
at the height of athleticism and possess the ruthlessness of a rabid dog
drool rushed into foam and mad from dehydrating, my brain swelling

with my hormone driven
red, hazy, athletic rage,
gunning my ambition
for some organization.

No.

I will fight, yes, but I will not fight for a name on a card, shield, or building.
I will fight for the sake of fighting because I am contentious and I am wrong.

I side against hero and villain, because I am the ambiguity,
that languishes, resides in no-man's land, antagonizing both.

Being disliked in purgatory is sometimes more easy than chomping at the bit,
for blood and the power of cracking a black bull whip, so I can avoid this terrible avarice and corrupting beauty that comes with working hard, especially for the greatness
                        that I did not ask
                                       to be ****** upon me, while I wished to remain enigmatic.

I am a wee banana slug with a broken shoulder
crawling with my train of sparkling slime over

the caracasses of horses I've beaten to death,

twice, for each, at least.

I
beat them to
death

beat it. beat that horse.
and I will bless it with my sparkly goo

I have not earned the clichés.

I cannot, but do, make generalizations, judgement

I have no debts to pay, those who I hold and hold
me in ill will are hardly warranted to do so, really

I blankly stare, blink,
and then I move fast.

I am not sad,
I can assure,

I am just not here.

because there is nothing, there is something
an engima, some colorless-genderless name
that holds me by the scruff-nape of my neck
and pours me a glass of water that now fills

fills me up more than a garish kitch thing-y
with a name and a brand and a plastic case

I sweep up the broken glass and pay,
to make it better, I'll pay for mistakes

I wish I could have a big cry or a big bitter laugh
or bind up a wound, but, they would be falsified
it'd be fake and contrived, all crocodilian in ways

but there is just nothing, which is something,
which is to say that in here there's not a thing

I will wait on the banks, I will shine my little scales,
and I will be golden, and not be a thing really, at all

I cannot put my finger on my dissatisfaction

I cannot slake my thirst
I cannot sate my hunger
I cannot itch this scratch
I cannot imbibe it better
I cannot forget it, worse

deaf--dumb--blind--limp--sad--stupid

I feel I am seeing in the second dimension
when I know the fourth is called for, now!

I cannot expunge this record, these memories, or the lack thereof
I cannot remember the effort, or, where things stopped or started

I cannot describe this inexplicability,
I cannot remember the introductions

criss-cross logical thinking
twanging words, tungsten,
copper, and sheets of steel

sautered, bolted, shorted
circuits crackle and spark
blue like the ocean water
burning the water in skin

and I find nothing on an endless loop around the
Möbius strip, no, nothing, neither starts nor ends
I'm stuck in some Escher stairwell, so frustrating
I feel like an imbecile that knows not of a named
thing that stands before me, if it were a snake, it
would bite me, what, (                    ) it is so close?

boy, this stings,
this ***** to be

struck by something, and
                             I don't know
                                                             what

I cannot find relief from catharsis
no, that hasn't ever worked at all.

dizzying, myopic thing that keeps me awake
show yourself, show me how, or what, wants
this thing thing thing this thing of something.

I cannot find my (          ), no,
I cannot find anything at all.

I want to smush my face in a big fat delicious frosted cake,
and blow out candle after candle and watch ice cream melt

as I dig through the moist sugary cake-bread with my fists,
and I eat everything I want in this delicious, nice restaurant

I want to pout at anyone else who makes grumpy faces,
I am the **** queen so it's my gosh **** party, dang it

I want to drink until I almost throw up and then do drugs
and grab ******* and scream with laughter and true fun!

I want to flash strangers and get birthday kisses and hugs
I want to smear lipstick all over my face, I want GLITTER

I want to roll in checks from relatives in far-off places
with the clothes and money and drugs that I will buy

I want to cry big crocodile tears over wrapping paper
and wear a pretty crown and take pictures, please yes

I want to smile so hard my cheeks hurt, ouch, and get away
with being a little ******* because I'll say sorry tomorrow

I want firecrackers and free things and fun fun fun fun fun fun fun
because it's my birthday, and I get to do whatever the **** I want!

Please give me a woman with at least the *** of Brigitte Bardot
or a man with a silver tongue, in speech, amongst other things,

who will kiss well, be as dark as a sunless cave, clever as a fox,

and let us be infatuated and watch French movies in the dark,
until we **** each other into oblivion and become enamored,
and set each other on fire with the incinerating aspects of love.

Yours Truly,

Glasser
aka Kay
aka Glasser

the roots, ripped from the earth, with veins hanging like hairs
curl, without the touch of dirt and water, from exposure to air
the red hide of bark hide whorls from burrowing black beetles

I am brushing my mother's hair with a plastic-bristled paddle brush, and
she closes her blue eyes. The very same ones that would shake in anger.

her mother, her sisters, her brothers, a red grove old
the survived burns and poverty is slowly collapsing,
under the weight of age and illness from what is new
and they stand silently and watch each other just fall
one-by-one they fall, surrounded by helpless others,
that can only watch with barren arms, little movement

She used to be, so strong
but, age makes all weak.

She had howled and screamed like a wretched tiger at young, quiet
me, who would keel over. I'd shut down at the sound of her gold car
as I shakily held red-marked papers that proved my name was mud
and I had finished nothing except a hollow swallow of deceit, found

when a tree collapses it gives a fragrance and a life to decay, then it
is the mother of life for all the creatures that need sustenance from
to every insect and fungus that feeds off it's fibrous flesh, that bores
into the bark until it is stripped clean, dissolving, into where it once
held prominence, where it once darkened growth that it fosters, now
it is gone, it has given all to plenty and needs nothing more to hold.

I wonder if that is how she is now,
she knows she is sick, succumbing
to the loss of energy that comes to
with a too-swift fall, scraggly roots

she is the mother to the decay that
feed him, feeds me, feeding us all
until, she returns her other grove.

Oh Yorick, you little crunchy skull, tell me, baby,
answer all the questions in "Blowing in the Wind"
on pacifism and what-is/how-to-be a man, please

and then play the piano while I lie on the lid of it
and let's sing the blues about being and nonbeing
and get drunk on scotch, as old as little young me

and the places, faces, and names we've forgotten
all while my rusty-stringed guitar gently weeps,

and geese run in droves over my grave, shivering
up and down my spine as my ears just burn alive

with the sword of death on a frazzled dried string
hangs over our heads to remind us we are young

we must not waste a second of life with "frivolity"

we are young, dead, all roguish,
we are real, but not broken--yet!

I squeeze the white flesh on the underside on my arms,
gently, I account for bruises, counting each one by one.

like spilled ink congealing,
under my thin skin, purple,
yellowing, blue, and green,
= the colors in nature found

I stretch like a cat, testing my arms for reach,
and I wince, tears brimming in my eyes, hard

something has been pinched, broken, or ripped
inside, some muscle is not connected to another

some tick, hair-thin mark
graces my red colored rib

ripped muscle lies against,
some useless dying muscle

I want to go home
I want to go to sleep
I want to go home

to sleep, to heal, to die,
wherever home may be

All the boys and girls I had ever kissed were screaming together in a chorus, lipless, with open mouths, sharp little red teeth, gnashing.

In my head
In my head

And then I went to the green woods
For solitude and silence, and shame

And there, under the green boughs
I pulled the curtains of membranes
under their tongues, and my own,

over their heads, with thread
I needled, sewing up mouths

then I kisssd their faces like their mother, "goodnight"

and then they were mute,
and only could whimper

and then I left, feeling, yes

"Hey, are you awake? Do you want to talk about it?"

No.

If anything, "it" would be a negative space,
really, the absence of something, maybe (?)

I exhale, smoke, look at the fire, slump down,
sinking into my aching, strained shoulders.

(wait please, silently, after I hit pause, until I come back to San Francisco, at least until after Yosemite)

I'll be able to articulate in 24 hours,
anything and everything I want(ed)

in the language only John Muir
and dappling sunlight through
the green can truly understand.

I called. Once. Today.

a snap shot of the dark:
I deleted your number.

do you ******* remember me
do you ******* remember me
do you ******* remember me

??????????????????????????????

if you call me, if you return,

I will answer you
like a stranger, "Hi?"

It is only fair
because you keep pretending.
as if we don't know each other.

Please, stop.

Please.

****, dude, help me
I don't know any better

Stop it. Call me back.

grown too big for my britches,
I run my fat, fat mouth until I
look like a fool--a happy one.

flirting up a storm with his friends,
antagonizing my brother, my friend,
until she yells, and he kicks my ***.

I went for a hug, and he kicked my *** (!) physically pinning me, I can't move
I rolled him over once, at least I got that, and he later apologized for be a ****.

I mean, he's got three inches
fifty pounds of muscle, and

actual fighting
training on me

How long could I really last?

I am a woman, I am weaker.

Kate told me that in Nepal, the men backhand the women and children, very easily, and she was backhanded for not remembering how to say her name in Nepallian. That must feel awful, to have a feeling of power handed over to big fists because of strength, not money.

I watch the trees, I break a beer bottle on accident
I flash the cars over the bridge, I wasn't even that
drunk, I am just sad--very tired of feeling nothing.
It's just sibling rivalry, and we'll both get over it.

my family makes a tall crowd;
my mother is 5'10", the shortest

we were raised to party, hard, and we entertain, flamboyantly
we were raised to clean it up, efficiently, to take responsibility

I might be a fool, but at least I'm going to be happy later.
That's not guaranteed though, I am sure of that, certainly

He might be too jaded to be as successful as he could be.
That's not guaranteed though, I am sure of that, certainly.

conceited and overconfident of knowledge, but, poorly informed and immature*

embodying the definition, I lie in bed, quiet, thinking,
face down, shirtless, in a pair of cheap purple *******,
breathing in a smell--cotton sheets, sweat, and coconut

I am not nothing, not miserable, but not happy
I am not frightened or bewildered by anything

I am an elder amongst the young
I'm a youngster still, to everyone.

all trash talk,
                not new news.

I just sort of quietly revel in the experiences
unravelling above me in a floating memory

adding up my mistakes,
until all pressed into me

+ that doing the right thing hurts, sometimes,
+ people are going to do things that you can't

and still that's okay, but don't get discouraged
if you work hard and get nothing out, that just
means something, that if you like it, fight for it

I don't know.

I also learned this year not to trust the bad liars,
that sometimes people are bland, but even still,
it doesn't mean death, and it's really going fine.

I learned this is as smart as I'm going to get,
so maybe I should try a little harder with it.

turning on my back, I flick an imaginary cigarette,
I put on a little blush + a long-sleeved black shirt
then I did what I was supposed to, maybe for me.

red jawed, aspirin(s)
waxy swollen gums
grinning white teeth,

grinding down to spiked nubs,

^^^^^^^^^

little points,
chewing up.

;'.',;.;';'.,';.','.';',.

all the better for spitting acid.

dings turn into a cacophony of squabbling in
letters, messages, calls, and texts, piling high,
unanswered and housing banal pleasantries.

Friends, family, acquaintances, oh my!
Tugging at my ears, begging for words,

always always always always always
asking asking asking asking asking

"how?" "how?" "how?" "how?"
"how?" "how?" "how?" "how?"

always always always always always
asking asking asking asking asking

enough.

I push a finger to my lips, hushing them, reverently
then I steeple my fingers with the grace and dignity,
deserving of my hands, the church. "Quiet, please."

Solitude is bliss, and isn't. Incessant whispers rising,
chirps turn to caws, claws to screams from murders,
for attention. Clucking at the hour, every single one,

ATTENTION. ATTENTION. NOW.

I will return, again, when my energy is regained
and I can sleep, and I can even dream of things!

then I will have food, be rested, get my strength,
a little flush in my cheeks, red marrow in bones,
and then prepare for a flood of fronted devotion

They say every seven to ten years you replace all your cells
you shed your skin like a snake, in the night, making dust

these dust motes swirl, a swirling in mourning of stirring,
light filters through glasses on a table, in another's home.

I think of you often, and now, presently, I lie wondering
if you are okay. If you will be okay, if you love me still.

I wonder how badly I broke your heart, and if I will feel it
echoing, if and when you cry out, for me, from little sleep.

I wonder if you will remember my name as good, as clean,
and whole in your mind, untarnished by devoted cynicism

I wonder when we meet for coffee, if you will ask me back,
I wonder what I will say. We said we would meet, will we?

Should we? Would it help us with anything? Will it hurt?
I'm afraid if you hear one word from me, you will unravel

like a spool of film, with you going over and over and over
every memory and analyzing what happened where, when.

I can't tell you where I stopped loving you. I remember one
night, and many of them, each all unforgettable secrets, that

I will tell to my own daughters, maybe, if I am so lucky, of
when we saw the shooting California stars. They were ours.

But, I will not tell them about the night we spent together,
you watched as I cried clutching--scarring--skin with nails,

you didn't know what to do. And then we ran out of things,
and I didn't know if I liked you, or even if I liked me, really.

But, I still hear you, sometimes, with a ripped and raw voice,
that screamed, like an animal, that you only wanted me! No!

I didn't know what I wanted, but, I knew I couldn't stay,
that is how I felt, after so long, with the city impending,

pressingly. I felt forced to stay. I left because I couldn't.
I left you, alone, because I didn't know if I wanted you.

I wanted what I have now. I wanted art. I wanted the city.
I wanted new boys, girls, drinking, laughing, and kissing.

I wanted to know the taste of others that weren't you, and
what it felt like to truly be unsafe, alone, and dependent

on nothing but my own wits, gumption, and self esteem,
I have it. It is rough, but it is more worth it to me to know.

I remember all the weekends in bed, sweetly spent tucked
in the crook of your shoulder, the smell of your neck, us all

talking and laughing, enamored with each other and feeling
of love and euphoria. We'd tell each other our futures, and

we said we'd meet in Paris in ten years, laughing bitterly at
what we all know; that our relationship will come to an end.

That's the thing about first loves, that you are sure of an end.
You were a better man to me than others, that I know surely.

I did not need the roughness of a cruel person to know it then,
and having felt the cruelness of others, I know the real sounds.

But I do not think I can return to you, and be the same woman
that you once wanted, needed, and saw. I am just not the same.

Something in me grows, feverishly, and maybe we will meet,
but I am moving fervently, and too quickly for your nostalgia.

You would be chasing a whiff from a stale perfume bottle,
and a wisp of a will that is just barely out of longing reach.

So my question is, still, will we ever meet again, and if so,
where and when will we each be, and will you want a we?

antagonized, sullen, and unshakeable,
I rest under the shade of a heavy tree,
a crepuscular creature who lives most
at edged breaks of sun, dusk and dawn

my stamina grows in strength, as does my patience and durability,
but I know my insatiable pursuits will fade, or they'll be yielding;
if I want things, I will get them, I will have them, and they are mine

I look over, past the horizontal thing, "edge"
with all the weariness of a battle-scarred lion,
silver-striped with the accumulated congealed
****** flesh of foes under my scuttling claws
that scamper down the ridges of the slower,
quieter animals that I have singled out as mine,
until I am done with games and rip out spines

I am not long in tooth, but I am experienced enough,
to the point, where I do not want to fight very long
for what I have earned, and for what is entitled to me,
and if I must fight long, afterwards, I am vindictive

I look at the horizon, with all the prowess possessed
in my being, in my breeding, ingrained in my bones
I have a greater strength than I have even begun to
even actualize, and I just only started flexing, slowly

I am greedy for the world, every bad beast and cur,
with marrow in their bones, I wish to tussle with,
I will be ready for you, I await you with a sly grin,
come call me at home, for I will be biding, till then

Acrid stenches of contrived action
stain his sloppy, uneven speeches

gallantry is unnerving, obnoxious
to me, even in the grandest favors.

I sniff with all my offended senses.
To a bloodhound nose, it's cloying.

He smells like he's trying too hard,
trying too hard smells sour, biting.

I prefer challenges from a cunning,
a silver-tongued fox. Let me chase.

Subtle while retaining the ability to
remain brazen, aye, there's the rub.

Chomping at the bit, the overeager
and easily pleased are not my kind,

the authentic and untamed always
give me more rise than an easy bait.

my lungs hurt from the ashed bowl
this **** is purple, what a novelty
too bad it's as dry and not crystal-y

shakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshake

I wish I didn't have a ugly glass pipe
but it'd seem silly to invest in a ****

I don't like your dog, he smells.
You're twenty-one.
You can't take care of your dog.
What if they eat something bad?

You were stupid to get a dog.

I  barely have the munchies
let's make something cheesy.

I can't even get high anymore.

It's boring.

I don't like that it doesn't do anything in means I have to cut back or something
or I have to get into it more, which costs money that I don't have, on things that
I don't really need.

Smoking should not be a hobby, it's barely an interest.
It's just like a background noise, like your noisy dog.

But I need to remember, in all of this,
that if I'm bored, I'm just being boring

old makeup spilled on my floor
***** clothes strewn on my floor

You can hardly see the carpet for all the clothes carelessly being trodden on.

Blue holiday lights are strung around the mirror.

I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
on a new, thousand dollar laptop, slick-as-a-whistle, paid with a magnetic swipe.

For the past six months,
I have had less than four hundred $
combined in checking and savings,
and that number dwindles by the day.

I have no groceries,
but I've got fistfuls of orange prescription bottles,
and I was handing pills out like treats and candy.

(but they are needed, much and every day)

Where did all these bills come from?
Money is paper, but it means things.
Suddenly, it costs money to breathe.

Eating? Oh pshaw, that costs money, time, and the store's six blocks away.
We can subside on government cheese, beans, and the fiery licks of whiskey.

I pout on my throne of ***** cotton, thinking
"I get what I ask for, when I ask, and it always comes--at a price!" I sigh.

It's always over a hundred dollars more than I could spare
and brings bad luck, moreso than a couple broken mirrors would,
smashed over a the front of your mother's blackest cat.

"Quick! Let's do designer drugs with the paltry change given by our parents, given as allowance!
I wouldn't feel like I wasn't nothing, nothing at all," I say, batting my eyelashes, "Wouldn't they feel proud of our feelings of entitlement to the greater things in life and consciously responsible adult-like decisions?"

I crack open my father's checking account with that swipe of a magnetic strip,
it makes me seem responsible when he sees I just use it for pills and foodstuff.

(I prove I love him, and he loves me in this way)

Now, together, we will buy strawberries with his money, until our lips are pink.
They must be four dollars, at the very least, then we eat like the bourgeoisie (!)

I kiss the cheeks of my reflection in the bathroom
"Como ca va, darling? Comme si comme sa. . ."
I lick my lips, put on red lipstick and then blot,
tousling my hair, tipsy, as I touch up my face by
licking the tips of eyeliner up like a cat's little tail,
the ends of eyes, coated with eyeliner as black as
my tightest velvet pants and dark, dark heart.

We go together. You and me.

Lying on the floor, holding hands, in vinyl bliss
listening to the crooning of sweet Francoise Hardy,
and the addictions of the near-dead soul of Lou Reed

You should move to a big city
and I'll come call, prepaid, with
a voice that is thick and ripped,
from expensive French cigarettes
chattering of sugar-white beaches
as I cross the seas all on a plane,
burning money all along the way
all the while drunk on red wine,
twirling my fingers around, with
bags under eyes, a little anemic

(I think it adds to the glamour)

We will go out to a dimly lit place
We will go out dancing then after

I will put on dab perfume under my ears and on my wrists,
I will wear black tights for pants, but first, do a little *******
and you will fasten the clasp on my silver necklace tonight,
while I smoke, before helping me put on my favorite fur

And we will go see Andy, at the factory
I hear he's doing something
with that Basquiat fellow (!)

I will go follow false luxuries, come with me.
I will gamble with you in Monte Carlo or Las Vegas,

just as long as you pay my rent at $695 per month,
and keep pretending,
until I die, or overdose, or something.

one of those mornings
where I want to lay on the floor with my legs in the air
where I want to smoke cigarettes as skinny as arms
where I want to wear dark sunglasses that spell out

C-O-O-L C-A-T

and these shades would allow me to be callous
and my apathy and I could make snide remarks

about you,
you little ******

Boy, I hope you can smell my contempt over there.
You deserve it. But I don't really care anymore.

I don't dislike many people, but if I could do it,

I would tell you that I look upon your character
with the same adoration that I would hold for a
parasite-infested rotting mountain of rat feces.

Which is to say not a lot.
Which is to say I dislike you.

It's just one of those mornings,
where I want to stop knowing you, and wish you wouldn't know me.
where I want to do something, but you see, I can't feel a thing, for you.

I have nothing for you, really,
I am fresh out of ***** to give.

I don't regret anything since I learned a great deal.

I wouldn't say I was heartbroken, just exasperated
by your contrived and un-authentic *******-ery.

I am better than you. I put on my darkest shades,
I laugh when I remember that this sunny morning.

I walk the fine lines
between
by choice
more often
than I really should

it's more enjoyable
than being strictly defined
by all these -isms

and there's a bonus
of having the threat
of extrem-ism
hanging over your head

the world is grey
my moral compass
is questionable/ing
and wavering

black and white
how boring is that?

I am lucky to be able
to afford more than
two colors

sugared fingers, the smell of Chanel
and I am flushed on red berry wine

and the charms of someone, dear,
who I would like to call "Valentine"

la vie en la rose
this red stains lips pink and
I see in pink, everything around me

as I dip my nose to my wrists, inhaling

Sicilian oranges, Calabrian bergamo
Indonesian patchouli, Haitian vetiver
Bourbon vanilla andd white musk

I giggle coquettishly and I am blushing,

For these sweet nothings
mean very much to me

I had a dream
that a man and I were making a painting together,
each of us making one quick stroke before sliding it back to the other.

We were painting a pair of eyes,
blue, like I used to paint.

I would concentrate with my thin brush
and turned the hairs in eyebrows into
wriggling creatures of the sea,
with a silver shine to each of their scales
as they dashed and dove,
before breaking the surface

During our painting he tried to convince me
to run the company that produced these canvases
to run the art gallery that featured artists
to run anything, and he became exasperated
while I just smiled, squirming a little
for all I wanted to do


             was to draw a pair

                                           of great big blue eyes

                 as deep as the ocean

                                             and as shiny
                                                               as fishscales

A heavy-hipped roll busts out of my skinny skin
I am too thin and thingish to keep being so mean

I walk hard, long in stride,
having feet clad with iron
and black Chelsea boots,
stomping on hearts, hard

Deep, rushed, I howl into the city's summer fog,
like a hound with no home, no master, of his own
with all the flourishes of my cursive jarring scrawl

I am too ****** up, I am too ****** up dude
too ****** up to go back home. Toast?

For now, life,
but I will be dead by morning
still I am alive, awake, and sharp as a tack,
I die then six o'clock in the *******-morning-after
sober as the screaming birds, and I will rise again.

So for now, while I still care and can,
dance with me drunkards, but don't call me baby.
for I am sweet and clean, but belong to nobody,
with the exception of my dear vain reflection.

Then I have to kiss somebody that makes me laugh.
I have to kiss them because I am very compelled,
to do so now. I need to kiss you.

BAM.

Get in bed with me,
under the sheets,
but let's only sleep.

---------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­---------
IN BED, CUDDLING, WHILE HIDING HARD THINGS, LIKE HOW I WANT TO KISS THEM
------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­-----

Okay, well maybe, makeout a little
                                                          ­      but I swear I won't sleep with someone
as groovy as you because I like you
                                                             ­   and want you to stay a little afterwards
but oh, look, here we are, goodness,
                                                       ­         it's hard because it feels so ******* nice
when you, oh my neck and you, oh
                                                              ­  why are your pants and socks still on!?

-----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­-
YOUR MOUTH TASTES LIKE ME AND YOU FEEL LIKE I WANT TO DO ALL THAT AGAIN
-----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­-

All rumpled and giggling, tousled hair, smiling
Kissing your back, holding you closely, sleepy.

Light a candle, stay, pray with me, in our way,
through smoke and soft chatter, light touches

spilling secrets into the scruff of your neck
where I've stained you purple with kisses
affection for the aficionados, I love them
the boys and girls, who kiss me hard, back.

please do not judge me
for loving people before
you, if I love them a little,
and if I do not love you all

But

maybe I love you,
maybe I love them.

But

probably I love neither of them.
probably I love their memories.
probably from what I once saw of them, all made up in my head, from that one time.
probably, even though it hurts a little to talk about it.

But

I would bet my life on the fact that I am over all the individuals I have kissed before.
I would just say that I am in love with their embellished, immortal, and unblemish selves.

I painted all these romantic scenes in my mind, with all the boys and girls in my brain,
where we'd be in bed, frittering the day away, talking and joking, kissing every so often, unexpectedly.

They would look pretty and I would look pretty, both naked and all freckled, flushed, with smooth skin, holding hands and telling stories of ******* and bravado where they did some vandalism or something, and they'd be impressed with my tales too.

Then we'd just spend the day together making food and flirting, having *** in every way, and exploring each others bodies and listening to how everything we both say is endlessly fascinating.

My face would hurt from smiling, from how they'd make me smile, and from how happy I am from making them smile, and that they smile for me.

They would inspire me within every part of my being to not ******* them, but to truly be kind, and love them unabashedly, and show them the best of me, and be the best for them.

I can't force that, though, it has to happen naturally.
I had that, I don't love anyone anymore but I had it when I loved them emphatically
with new and whole innocence that transcended everything I knew about everything.

But
stop,
stay, please
because that was then,
this is now.

I miss them/that,
but I want you, here.
I want you to stay please stay
I will be yours, and care,
forever

till the end of this minute.
Kissing them until they comply, please

XxXxxXxXxxxXXXxXXXxxxxxXxxxXXxx

they stay,
a little while,
and I pray

that the sun will rise, again, on today
that we won't get too ugly when we're old,
that we will find somebody in the bed that is cold
that the sun will set in the east one day, that when we'll see it die,
that everything will be real quick and fast, and feel a little nothing.

repeat it repeat it repeat it repeat it
until I am scared and unless I am scared
and then until we're old and really that dead

until our youth is d-e-a-d,
then finally,
we can steal the contents of our heads,
that wouldn't go down on the paper
like my hands wanted them too,
so very badly

                                                          ­            then finally,

                                             we can curl up and we can sleep                                    
                                                                ­                  and we can

                                                            ­                            get some rest in this

                                                               ­                 very

                                                               ­               big city

comely youth beckons to me, curling,
as I trace a finger up soft thigh undersides,
slowly and easily.

you entertain me.

let's get coffee.

I'll listen to you, you can show me everything
in the nooks and crannies of your pink little brain

I will take it from you, and
then love you empathically

but,
maybe,
maybe not,
for I have fled.