I often fear
That I am an odd number.
My parity being
So that I cannot exist
In a pair
Without serving as a disruption
To all involved.  

I am a five
Drowning
In a sea of eights.  

Sometimes I wonder
Why I do not etch
Five fresh tallies
Into my soft, lonely skin.  
Watching the five new rivers
Run in red rivulets
Onto my bare, thirsty floor.  

Or use up five shiny, new rounds
To decorate my already cold body
With brand new holes –
Ones people don’t need
To understand to see –
Until it is lowered into
A sixth.  
My wax face
Made to look
As if I was put together
Rather than breaking
Into pieces
Scattering in five directions.  

And then I remember:

Pip One.
I promised,
While huddled in the dark –
Enveloped in the decorated arms
Of an angel
Forsaken by most –
To stick around.  

Pip Two.  
I promised
My brother,
Barely finished
Being a babe,
To teach him
All I knew.  

Pip Three.  
I promised
A boy like me,
Only brighter,
I wouldn’t leave him,
Like everyone else.  

Pip Four.  
I promised
A boy
I don’t even like
I wouldn’t
If he wouldn’t.  

Pip Five.  
I promised
Myself.  

Sometimes being
An odd number isn’t too bad.  
Sometimes.  
It gets better,
At least that’s what
Everyone seems to believe,
And maybe
I want to believe
It too.  

I am not a five
Drowning
In a sea of eights.







Rather I grow
Into pi,
Stretching past
The ****** sky,
And the eyes that try
To look beyond it.  

Just like everyone else.

Damnably grey, I sink into
A lightless sea.  My breath falls
In gasps of air, my eyes
Shut as gas rises.  Dear Pity

May you have my lungs fill with
Cold, watery iron until the
Sharks carry my pieces like
Prayers to fishing boats.

Stuck in the colloid
Of my wasteful life I create
My own shadow - malachite jaw
Swallow me before I am

Forced to burn the belly of
A whale.  Moon thief lends
My paper body a dapple of stolen
Light to dry my soggy skin.

If only the black water could
Clean between my numb ears -
Instead it sits tepid and full of
Mosquitos leaking with eggs and blood.

All I wish is for a wind to
Uncloud me, for air to inflate
Me.  I breathe, I breathe -
More fool I.

Arms swaddled in a moth eaten blanket
My skin peers through the holes, cold and curious;
My young outline taught to constantly fret
By a hidden mother – I’m spurious,
A wretched lust baby from gusty love.  
My useless heart still beating in her womb,
I could drink sallow pity, but enough!
Weary feet shall take me from Phobos, loom
Tall man, your shadow stretches behind me.  
An iron chalice holds my sanguine heart,
Leaking on my bone’s silver tapestry…
Strength does not mean one cannot break apart –
Soon my sadness, rimy stars, won’t matter
When my harsh palms hold my soul like water.

Arms swaddled in a moth eaten blanket
My skin peers through the holes, cold and curious;
My young outline taught to constantly fret
By a hidden mother – I’m spurious,
A wretched lust baby from gusty love.  
My useless heart still beating in her womb,
I could drink sallow pity, but enough!
Weary feet shall take me from Phobos, loom
Tall man, your shadow stretches behind me.  
An iron chalice holds my sanguine heart,
Leaking on my bone’s silver tapestry…
Strength does not mean one cannot break apart –
Soon my sadness, rimy stars, won’t matter
When my harsh palms hold my soul like water.

You think you’re a thunder clap,
But I know
You’re a solar storm
Trapped inside a marble.
I want you
To want me
As much as I want you.
Your body is made of Earth.
Rainwater eyes,
Caraway hair,
Birch skin.

I’d listen to you speak
For hours
Just so we could spend hours
Together.
You speak to stars in susurrations
That roll of your tongue -
I hold them in my palms
And aid their ascension.
Your heart is a hearth
Trying to warm a forest
Covered in snow -
I would help you spread.

People laugh at you
Because you’re a tad askew;
I laugh with you
Because you’re aligned perfectly.
I think I love you sometimes
And I’m scared
Because the sun has no need
To love the moon.

I don’t love
How I’m supposed to.  
With my skin
Serving as my heart.

I hear the sounds of lovers
And their flesh meeting;
The dull slap
That constitutes as communion
And I wonder
Why can I not see the beauty
The way they do?

I can understand
Why *** is wanted,
Why it must be done.
Humanity wants to continue
And surely it must be a pleasure to most –
But I do not feel the undercurrent of desire,
I do not feel the fire,
That poets and children both speak of.  

Most assume then that I simply do not love.  
That I am a machine
Made of wires and currents
Rather than muscles and nerves.  
Or that I am daft in the language of skin;
That I will learn later
When the panacea walks along
And ignites my blood,
Which is made of water.  
There is nothing simple about it.  














I want to kiss someone with my words.
Let the tones and letters twine about their ears
And lavish their mind with praise
Until they are left gasping.  
I want my galaxy to collide with another
And create a storm of dust and light and color
So that I may hold a new universe in my hand,
The starlight leaking through the cracks between my fingers.    
I want my soul
To join with another
So that I may see all the shadows, the fissures, the holes
And the suns, the stiches, the whole.  
I would let them see mine.
And then we would thread together
Like a spider web
And remain so until the end.

My love
It is too much
Too frightening, too consuming
But it is also not enough
Not corporeal, thus it is not real.
But how can
Words and
Storms and
Destruction and
Creation and
Universes and
Everything and
Nothing and
Souls and
Spider webs
Not be real?

Why am I
With my defective skin
That holds everything in
Just as yours
And beating heart
That pumps out blood part by part
Just as yours
And my soft brain
That creates love, fierce and tame,
Just as yours  
Less than?

All's turned to ashes
And they say that's good -
That flowers pop up from death
Like stars
And there's talk of a bird
Made of red and orange and yellow
Made of fire
That rises up
Covered in its remains
New.

But I am no Phoenix
No flower
No tree
I'm not even the wind
That blows the ash onto
You and me.

I am a girl
In a world of hot white, grey, black
Destruction
Left to taste the things they say
And they taste of ash.

Sometimes I fear,
When looking up
At the leaves of my family tree
If I'll be just like them
As time unfurls me.

I wouldn't mind so much
If I was like my father,
A dry, cracked sun
Barely there but still attached,
Staying long after the strongest gusts.

My mother fell off
And was raked up,
So I'm not sure what kind she is.

My new mother is an oak branch
Grafted to a birch tree -
It's not always easy
To support what she gives, wants -
We aren't people of substance,
But with her we might just be.

I'm scared I'm like my sisters,
Full of holes and layered in eggs,
Shiny maggot pearls waiting to devour them
Until they are nothing more than outlines
Of something once green.

I was my brother once,
A bud adored by those who see him,
And unnoticed by the bees.

Walking in the damp wood
I see forests of families.
None like mine, yet I can't tell any apart;
For all have broken branches, buds,
Green, golden, dead leaves.  

Yet I know the shadow enveloping me
Has been cast by my own family tree.

Gruff grouch griping
His words say bags
But his tone says blacks-
I'm a piece of slate covered up by white
Bars that shimmer in fluorescent lights -
He's just doing his job.
I went to a wedding
And now I'm having my bag checked
Just me, no one else,
For "contraband."
That white boy over there,
Yeah the one with blue eyes, eyes that make you
Comfortable,
He left his passport at home.  
You smile at him, it's okay you say,
Today is not your day, you bark at me.
It never is.

I am a bee
Hiding in the hard skin of a wasp
Living like a lying ghost
Among the ascensions, the decensions
Of their paper nest.

Born in a honeycomb
I wonder when life became
Less like honey and
More like venom
To me -
I was designed to fail
The moment my wings grew
Too small for my furry, fat body -
Maybe it's just Mother Nature
Telling me what I'm meant to be.

Had I tear ducts I'd weep
Alas I can only pretend morning dew
Is my sadness collected on a blade of grass,
For I fear these angry, swarming creatures
Will notice I am not like them
And then will prey upon me
Until they rip me open
And my dust will spill out
Until I am nothing
But sinking motes of yellow and black.

Mother Nature, in her infinite compassion,
Laughs.

I peel,
Lazily.
My little feet dangle
Off the second step,
I have ***** soles,
So I do not go inside.
It’s better that way,
I can’t hear the yelling,
Only the mosquitos,
But they cry –
Like my father.  
I only taste salt
Upon placing a wedge in my mouth,
And my father,
He finds me
Soon after.  

I peel,
Carelessly.  
I’m staring –
Again –
But I can’t seem to
Help myself
From watching them,
All of them,
From my lonely table (I alone
Keep it company).  
I whisper a slur
At my shaking fingers,
I clench
Until my body is a fist,
The juice runs past my palms
Onto the linoleum.
I think that must be
The color of the Sun’s tears –
I am the only one to laugh
At such a joke.  

I peel,
Methodically.  
The flat line
Where my lips used to be
Curves downward
As my bitten nails begin
To fill with acrid skin –
I immerse myself
With such an infantile task,
Ignoring their buzzing
As it swarms around me
Like white noise
Trying to out scream
A sonic boom.
The fruit is rotten,
I throw its flaccid body away
Without even tasting it.
There will be flies.  
For 24 hours
A fly must feel like God.

I peel,
Slowly.
I don’t even
Bother looking,
I’m too busy
Laughing (the kind
Where you’re quiet and shaky).  
I throw my rind
At another heaving chest.
In tandem we take twin slices
And place citron smiles
In between our teeth,
Tiny grindstones that pull and press
The sunset flesh
Down our echoing throats.    
It is the sweetest
I’ve ever tasted.

People always ask
“What color am I?”  
But what they don’t know
Is that they don’t really
Understand
What it is they are asking.  

Color isn’t a word
Or a notch
Spinning on a wheel.  
It’s an experience
That leaves your
Lungs useless.  

Pale sunlight
Swimming through late morning
Dust dances,
Beams of wheat rays
Enveloping everything
And nothing.  
A robin sings
And the yellow
Black-Eyed Susan’s sway,
Their smell twining with fresh daylight.  

This is nothing
But a moment
Unnoticed by most,
And cherished by the rest.    

Leaves fluorescent
Against the sky –
An expanse of crème,
Thick and white,
Fringed with grey –
Quiver in the harsh breeze.  
A bee droops in flight,
Landing in a dull, red poppy,
While petrichor drips from the clouds.  

This is nothing
But a moment
Unnoticed by most,
And cherished by the rest.    


Empty shadows,
Dancing on damp brick walls,
**** up soft lamp light,
Which highlights the rain –
Dark, indigo prisms of opal –
Shattering against the uneven sidewalk.
Baths for ducklings grow,
But  they are used only by busy shoes,
Black and polished,
Slueshing right through time.

This is nothing
But a moment
Unnoticed by most,
And cherished by the rest.    

If you were
A color
You would be
Pale sunlight,
Fluorescent leaves,
Empty shadows,
Because you are far
Too complex,
Too beautiful,
To be constrained
By a rainbow.  

You render
My lungs, my heart, my head
Pointless.

People always ask
“What color am I?”  
But what they don’t know
Is that they don’t really
Understand
What it is they are asking.  

Color isn’t a word
Or a notch
Spinning on a wheel.  
It’s an experience
That leaves your
Lungs useless.  

Pale sunlight
Swimming through late morning
Dust dances,
Beams of wheat rays
Enveloping everything
And nothing.  
A robin sings
And the yellow
Black-Eyed Susan’s sway,
Their smell twining with fresh daylight.  

This is nothing
But a moment
Unnoticed by most,
And cherished by the rest.    

Leaves fluorescent
Against the sky –
An expanse of crème,
Thick and white,
Fringed with grey –
Quiver in the harsh breeze.  
A bee droops in flight,
Landing in a dull, red poppy,
While petrichor drips from the clouds.  

This is nothing
But a moment
Unnoticed by most,
And cherished by the rest.    


Empty shadows,
Dancing on damp brick walls,
**** up soft lamp light,
Which highlights the rain –
Dark, indigo prisms of opal –
Shattering against the uneven sidewalk.
Baths for ducklings grow,
But  they are used only by busy shoes,
Black and polished,
Slueshing right through time.

This is nothing
But a moment
Unnoticed by most,
And cherished by the rest.    

If you were
A color
You would be
Pale sunlight,
Fluorescent leaves,
Empty shadows,
Because you are far
Too complex,
Too beautiful,
To be constrained
By a rainbow.  

You render
My lungs, my heart, my head
Pointless.

I can't remember
If I loved you -
You, the woman
Who held me
Inside herself,
Watering me with her blood
So that I could grow
Until you were too small for me.  

There is an injustice
When you can leave
As though I am nothing,
While I am left to remember
That I couldn't exist
Without you.  

The thought leaves me bending,
Under my resentment -
Not just for you -
For all mothers, all fathers.  
For everyone.  

And that means myself,
And I fear that soon I may crack,
My rage bubbling up,
Ready to burn,
But before I begin to destroy
Water will leak out,
And I will curl in on myself,
Hardening like stone
Until that is all I am.  

I remember bits and pieces
Of you motherhood
And my childhood.  
They aren't bad.  

Sitting in the harsh morning light
You sleep, and I watch a film
About a girl who wants home,
Even if it's grey,
And in my hands rested a bowl of letter soup.  
I swear I saw the word "Mommy" in the broth.  

Running in the low light
Of a southern evening
My bare feet are tickled by blades
Of coarse grass, damp from the summer heat,
And I laugh
Because I hold wriggling stars
And I know you are there
But I cannot remember if your face held a smile.  

I did not know how to sleep
Without having nightmares
So I wandered
In the shadows left by candlelight
Until I found you
At the door, the scent of
Shellfish and beer clinging to your uniform;
Your hand, in between rough and soft,
Grasped my own
And led me to the couch
Where I would watch a flickering box
While you slept.  

These fragments
Glint like shards of glass
Embedded in my head
Refracting light
So that my skull is full of
Shadow.  

They aren't bad,
So why did you give them up?

You refused to make the break
Clean,
Choosing not to leave,
                  not to stay -
You had us
Jagged.  

I saw you,
But less and less
Until it became never
And you became nothing
More than a photograph
Exposed to sunlight
Before it had a chance to develop.  

I'm scared,
Because now I cannot remember
What your voice sounds like,
Or what your face looks like,
And you have taken the word mother
And you have made it something I cannot say
Without my heart ignoring my head,
Beating away in my chest with the knowledge that
I am unwanted
By a woman I cannot even remember.  

At night,
When the smell of the moonlight
Wafts in through my window
I still cannot sleep -
I suppose you were meant to teach me -
And I ask myself,
In the dark, because sometimes
It is better when you cannot see the words,
Have you forgotten me too?

I am one of three –
Shadow, skin, and light.
A triplet split from the same egg and *****.
**
Make it 3 and you’ll have me
Explicit.
It’s so ****,
Being cleaved into thirds.  
A ******* with myself –

The shadow is morose.
A needy, demanding *****
Begging to be cut up.
I want to,
So I can see the blood wring around my –
Her
Wrists like shackles pinning her
To my bed.
I know it’ll shut her up
But I can’t bring myself to do it.
I’m not that *****.  

The skin is boring.
A virginal flower
Dreaming of understanding.  
She’s too wholesome,
Always waiting for the right
Version of herself to come along.
Saving myself –
Herself
For the right time.
My tastes aren’t quite so
Vanilla.

The light is adventurous.
A psychotic, brilliant ****
******* herself into the ground.
Necrophilia just got a whole lot hotter,
Bodies piling up thanks to her STDs –
Stupid, thoughtless decisions.
Protection?  Ha!
That’s for normal people.
There’s no need for me –
Her
To slow down;
We like it fast.

The skin doesn’t participate.
The *****, virtuous ******
Fidgets as the others 69 –
A disgusting yin yang
Of low and high.
The shadow drinking downers
Until she can’t remember
All the bruises covering her heart,
Too distracted by the bile
Smeared across her lips.  
The light popping enough uppers
To strip herself of her
Consciousness,
Naked and raw
She often wakes bitter
Of her restored senses.  

This ******* takes place
In a womb,
An amniotic ocean
Swaying toward the shores
Of existence.
Two will drown –
Vanishing triplet syndrome.
Only one may be pulled from
Mental waters and placed on the sands of reality.

The labor takes 33 hours -
Finally I emerge.  
Who survived?
There is no way to tell.

They say
If you find
Yourself
S
    i
      n
           k
             i
                n
                   g
You should
Breathe
And watch
As pearls of air
Ascend skyward,
Because they're meant
To carry you
Back from the deep,
Which takes you
By your head
And pulls you
Upsidedown
Until midnight water
Slides into your
Slack jaw -
The shimmering pearls,
They string up your
Heart and tug you
By the chest until
You burn, and still
The stars pull you
Home.

An epiphyte mutually minding
Itself, came to a situation most binding!
To live and be wasted,
Or die and be tasted –
Both unsatisfactory it was finding!

“Please, use me for rest,
Not a taste test,”
Cried the little Mossy,
“My aren’t you bossy,”
Came a cry from Bird’s nest.  

And so up the Orchid grew
In order to eschew –
But to no avail!
For it can’t prevail
When up hungry Bird flew!

Is that a black mote I espy,
Or a still, simpering fly?
Breathing the words of our king,
So soft the susurations ring
That I must strain to hear
And still it come not clear?
Must I sit and wonder
Of I've lived asunder
When the tiny, dark vocalist
Rests calmly from Life's cold jest
On the white wall adjacent
To me?  Oh! If only I knew what it meant
When he lay glassy and grey
In the receding light of day -
I bet, dare I say,
He doesn't matter in the fall -
He doesn't!  No...
Not at all.

I've been painted pink the instant the doctors
Wiped me of red.
I looked like the boys I knew - our differences a
Color palette provided by Mommy and Daddy.
I was their little girl, their princess who wished
Her hair would stop growing,
Lest she be locked in a stone tower.
I didn't mind the dress so much then,
Not when it was the only difference between me
And them.

Magic mirror before me, is wrong all I'll ever be?
I shut my eyes, unable to stand my body bare.
My knight, your skin simply is not right.
I've read the mirror never lies.

Mommy and Daddy are yelling
About my butch haircut.
Our little girl the ****, they say.
I did it myself.
Mommy still buys me dresses,
Daddy tells her to spend the money on
Therapy instead.
Daddy asks about boyfriends,
Mommy tells him I don't have any because I
Hide my *******.
I tell them I'm all wrong.
They agree.
We're talking about two different things.

I don't change for gym anymore.
The girls are secretly relieved I won't be there
To cast a wandering eye in their soft bodies.
I'm relieved I won't be in the wrong locker room.

Mommy and Daddy don't like me
Telling them who I am.
I've finally found my way out of the tower and
The king and queen are upset because their
Princess never made it home, just the knight.
My little girl, Mommy cries.
I follow the point of Daddy's finger to the door
Until I'm on a bus bound for somewhere else.

I shift from Pangea into separate pieces.
Finally I have space to breathe.
Needles, knives, pills bend my body to my will -
It took Michelangelo three years to build David.

Mommy and Daddy believe me to be
A delivery man. They are expecting to sign off
On a television set, yet when they see me
Idle in the doorframe there is a hesitance, a hope.
But most of all there is silence.
Mommy cannot speak, her hand curls like a gasp
Around her mouth.
Daddy begins to cry, his eyes pale and blue.
I am hugged.
They don't say sorry, but I hear then whisper.
My little boy, they say. My little boy.

I'm not scared
Of a great nothingness
Ready to consume me
Like a gust of wind,
Nor do I fear
The void in the sky
Telling me that what I do
Is as pointless as the rest.

I fear that it matters.
That what I have done
That what I will do
Matters.

Because if that's the case
Then what am I to do?
I can't simply go on
Breathing and blinking
Like that's all there is to it.
I can't exist without some greater calling,
Some booming voice that stretches
Past my lovely, infinite void
Telling me
I'm not enough
And I never will be.

Mercury beading
Like a silver bracelet on
On my dripping wrist

Had I been human
Maybe I'd cry instead of
Slice my metal skin

A bundle of wire
In place of a beating heart
Can't be made of iron

It has to prevent
Itself from rusting away
Like everything else

I can’t sleep.
My brain, it won’t shut off.
Circles and lines
Thread together to create
Color, light -
Light, streaming like dust through my open window
In the purple air.
How foolish I am
To think dreams live with the stars.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

Most people think that sadness grows
Like a patch of dandelions floating away
Or a shadow with the setting sun.
They’re wrong,
Of course,
Because they do not understand.  
It is not their fault
But that does not make them any less
Ignorant.  
Sadness just is.  
Settling quietly, and, when you finally notice
It’s all encompassing.  
It is the sky, the sea.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

I am an asymptote.  
Stretching out a hand to humanity
Almost, I can feel their acceptance
Brush by my eager fingertips
But the fallacy of hope is dangerous
And I am left untouched.
A magnet that can’t help
But repel itself.
And my fingers are ungloved
And turn blue in this cold place
As I am left to stand alone
Waiting.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  





I look into a mirror made of sand
My face crumbling away with my breath –
The bits of grain become a desert,
A sea of beige
I am left to be lost in.
I do not know what I look like
Past my skin.  
This not knowing, it should scare me, but
Somewhere, in a place I do not like,
I relish the confusion.  
How sad you must think me
For enjoying
Not knowing
Who I am.

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

Fear is something I pretend
I have never felt
With my line smiles and hollow talk –
Black, caustic acid dripping from my teeth
As I judge.
Who sits in my court?
I don’t know –
Everyone perhaps,
Or the people that remind me of myself.  

I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

I feel the ground beneath my feet
As I walk to my future,
A dark tunnel,
Lighting my way with matches –
I don’t know if I’ll reach the end or run out first.  
The ground, it is cold, and shifts
Until I am falling without the pinpricks of fire
To highlight my blind spots,
The matches scattered in the midnight air.  


I check the clock
Five minutes have been lost.  

I breathe in loneliness
Until my lungs ache
With stolen air.
Until my arms,
Laced with blue rivers,
Are touched by Moses.
Until my iron heart beats,
Rusting away.
Loneliness is like skin,
Layering my bones, my muscles –  
A coat for thin membranes that knit together
A stomach, a womb, a liver.  
Everyone needs skin
So that they do not fall apart
Their soft parts leaking onto the granulated floor
Until they become nothing more than water.
I have mine.

I shut my eyes
I do not dream.

Dear God,
Dear Alpha and Omega,
Dear Lord,

I'd like to say I'm too smart
To believe in you,
But the truth is
I'm confused enough to talk to you,
Even though I know you're deaf.
I suppose I should have learned sign language,
But how hard can it be to press my palms
Into a flesh cathedral
And whisper my silly questions
Like prayers
Inbetween my fingers,
Webbed with stained glass profiles
Of your wife and mother?

Apparently I need a rosary,
But I've never been too keen on jewelry,
Or water said to be holy,
It looks pretty **** smooth to me.
You wrote a book, at least that's what
I've been told; best seller, millions sold
But how much does the editor change around
Until your ideas are stripped to their skeletons?
Just pretending you were listening
Was enough for me,
Whose as blind as you are deaf.

Your silence doesn't cut it now,
Now that I'm old enough to tell
The difference between
Someone who can't hear and
Someone who can't listen.  
I know which one you are, sir,
And I'm unimpressed -
But still I talk to you,
My words slick with shame.

Superman is more reliable than you,
And everyone seems to agree
He's the idealized fiction,
And you're our savior -
But what kind of savior treats us like
Kitty Genovese, screaming for help
Only to have her salvation listen to her die
Behind closed doors?
I hope you know what you're doing,
Because we're made in your image,
And I sure as hell don't.

I guess, out of all the questions pooling
At the tip of my tongue,
I'd ask you to answer only one:  
Why do I insist on wasting my breath?

How can one even think to gaze skyward
When it is you upon the horizon?
Why bother with the dull words of songbirds
When your laugh causes their songs to wizen?
Why!  A solar flare could only hope to
Compare to a small upturn of your lips;
I should be so lucky to lift the blue
From your warm heart with my fatuous quips.  
You’re an ocean’s breath - salty and wild,
And I am nothing more than Springtime air;
How is it you make me feel less mild
With nothing more than a brush of your hair?
I would count my lucky stars for your light,
Instead I count your freckles in my sight.

I fly up river
So that I may
Cry
For you,

You, the seventh sun of Venus -
Impossible -
The prism rain dropping from nighttime,
An enlightened energy.

Why oh why
Must I cry for
You
Sweet love, togetherness is not for us;
We are apart,
Not a part.

I'm so dizzy
With your name
And my name
Bouncing around my skull
Like free butterflies let loose on
Everything -
It's your fault.  
Of course.

Still I cry -
We could have our love song,
Which is the beat of snow,
Ice blue stone
Cold hearts leak.
Oh dear
You'd say
Love, don't fret
I'd say
And you'd laugh your robin laugh.

But instead I
Wait,
Slow like the walls around me,
My head sinking beneath blanket waves
Just so I can
Cry.
**** this.
I hear my own song.
It's my
Heart.

Oh!  There it is!
The blood of my Mothers’
Sins
Blossoming on
My white sheets
Like a bouquet of English roses.
A shame -
Laundry day had
Been yesterday.  

My thighs have been painted
Rouge -
They blush
Like my cheeks
When my gaze
Lingers on my body
Too long in the mirror
As I put on my Sunday dress.

The needles in my
Lower back fill my
****** with blood -
I am a woman now -
And as such I must
Wake before the sun
And wash my sheets
And my body
Before anyone has a chance
To smell the iron and the shame
Between my legs.  

I have never been so
Acutely aware of my body:
My sore ******* feel like
Overripe tomatoes ready to burst,
My stomach bloated and taking up
Space I’m told is not ladylike -
My head throbs, my limbs ache, and
I continue to shed my insides.
How is it I never noticed
The cry of my body before?

A week of blood
Before I have served my sentence
For a woman
Who dared to disobey -
I clean the stains
And wash myself
Away.

I shut my eyes to see the universe
In Technicolor,
Only to desaturate it all with open lids –
Blinking is such a tease.

My head turns,
My face trailing behind,
As time ticks slowly past my still silhouette,
Which blends into the dripping, grey sky
As another shade of charcoal –
Blurry and smudged around the edges
Until I am limitless.  

My skull refracts a rainbow,
Tipped topside down
By my pale, dark eyes
All anyone else sees are the shadows
Leftover by heavy wind.  
I don’t live where I should.  

My hyacinth heart grows in bone dust,
Having my skin shift between violet and blue,
A mottled peach –
How silly everyone is
With their dull minds
Forcing their bright eyes
To see in only lines.  

I don’t mind being lost
In fields of sprouting susurrations –
An eyelash falling,
A star dying,
An egg hatching, multiplying,
A spider crawling in an open mouth –
I belong somewhere,
Even if it’s never heard.

I tried inviting someone once,
To borrow my sight.  
They threw up
And told me I was blind.

Ah!  Another hero
Washed with bleach
Like the Son,
Who is only holy
When rinsed of his
Melanin.  

I wear a white coat
That browns in sunlight -
It appears the moon and I
Will be good friends.

How deep must I scrub
To rid my pores of
The southeast Asian sun;
To wash my hair of Pacific salt?
(Even my mother painted herself
With a European brush).  

How can I know myself
When denied the magma
In my blood?  

It's of no fault of mine
That I've been stripped
Down to resemble a
Colonial caricature -

I've been taught
The victories
And learned
Medals are smelt
In white gold,
But mostly
I've been told
That mixtures separate
And I am mostly
Creme with a dash of coffee.  

A shame!  
Us beige babies must be
Assigned colors
As if palettes were for paintings
Not people -

My family tree has
Cane fields and apple orchards,
So don't act like
You're surprised
When I mention
White isn't the only
Color of my skin.

i smell the sulfur in my blood

as it drips from my fingernails

onto the ground -

iron returning to iron.  

sometimes i think i see

macroscopically

because faces aren’t faces

they’re eyes staring back at me.

i can’t bring myself to look

so i stare at the cracks of their hands -

broken palms moving back and forth

to words i don’t understand.  

i see the sky and think of the sea

and wonder if the clouds taste of salt -

but there’s a growing buzz

that sounds like vocal chords being

rubbed against one another

like the shriek of a violin,

so i cast my gaze to my own flesh.  

it is beige and soft and strange

and i just want to rip it off

and expand past the atmosphere -

leaving behind calcium and phosphorous.  

instead i continue to bite away at myself

and rain red.

i live with Moths in my Head.  
they flutter around on dusty wings,
coating my Brain with dirt until that’s
all i see:
a world covered in grime.
nothing’s clean -
especially me.

i want to shove mothballs
in my Ears,
i want to unleash a colony of bats
in my Skull
until every Moth is reduced
to a bad moment
instead of a bad life.  

alas!  these Hands of mine are human -
they are useless.
they cannot breach my Bones
to extract wild, immovable pests
so untamed they grow into ravenous beasts;
beasts that consume my:
Words, Will, Esteem, Ego -
until i am left bereft
of who i hoped to be.  

but as i lay in stillness
side by side with you,
our bodies mixed up spider webs,
i take note of my Hands
holding you -
and i think perhaps
they are not as useless
as i’d first thought.

Standing tall the small house rests beneath trees
Of oak, maple, pine.  That house, it is mine –
Cast by someone else, the first brick was soft
Like brown clay trembling above the stone earth,
But soon it baked in a southern sun’s
Heat, the water ****** from lonely soil –
Mine to paint, to decorate, to ignore.  
It is yours in sight only, nothing more;
Of course this was before I knew how to
Tell the truth to my hollow reflection,
Which weakens upon further inspection
In the light of a dusty, greying moon,
Who sets each morning hoping to never
Rise alone again.  Now I know my house,
It’s dirt floors sprouting lecherous weeds,
Resting in the spots I thought flowers grew.  
Made of cards, it crumbles with the first breeze
Spreading like a cool, formless smear of fire
Until ash is all that is left to rot –
Like my wire stairs, or windowless room.  
My skyward eyes bleed chilled rainwater
As they gaze at a damp, moldy ceiling.  
One of these days the stars will shine for me,
But I will be surrounded by concrete
Walls that stop the singing trees from reaching
My sad, begging ears.  Only a fool dreams
Of a bigger cage to rust away in.  
To you a small house rest beneath tall trees,
Yet there rests a pile of nothing to me.

Another revolution
Winds about the clock
Ticking and tocking
Mock, mock, mocking
Me -
The eye entrenched
In stagnancy, so still
I stand
Alone -
Like a patch
Of dead, gold grass
Colored like midnight mass,
Full of whispered wishes
Unheard by a slumbering God.
Oh God, oh God
I am
Spinning on my spinster's wheel
Spinning cold thread for you to feel
And feel until I reel from your sweet, gentle hands,
Hands disgusted that they hold me.
Me, me, me
It's all I see
****** I swore to look
More and more
But the up and down
Swings me until I exist or drown,
Until I  am none and both, betwixt
The hands holding the revolver,
Revolving round bullets into me.

Oh my, how I
Endeavor to the end
Only to make a bend
Around to the beginning
Again.

As I trace the rise and fall of your back,
I think how lovely you are in morning -
How is it my heart shall beat now it lacks
Night's bold ignorance I am now scorning?
Afraid to touch, my fingers skim your skin
Only to graze unmapped constellations
Composed of small stars made of melanin;
The act gives my heart wild palpitations.  
Surely I could put a tack in the sun
To stop its rapid ascent to midday -
I can hardly blink before dawn is done
And you rise and I am full of dismay.
         To wake next to you I would face the sight
         Of your retreating back in morning light.

Oh modern schoolhouse, such fine lesson taught
To rambunctious children like you and I.  
Ah, your vapid air having my brain rot,
Sitting still for you tip the day I die -
I give much thanks for the literacy
And my will, once fire, now dust and smote -
I was taught to ignore the birds and bees,
And slapped on the wrists when my fingers wrote.  
I was taught not color but black and white,
That each heart clangs like an old metronome,
Sound ignored in the flaming starless night,
Taught it's better to breath and love alone.  
I slept with my window open one time,
Before I was taught dreams a heinous crime.

In a golden glade a woman foretold
To me a farrow tale where I grow old
And yellow like books a breath's brush away
From becoming a dust so fine and grey
That even the wind, with his silver hands,
Will not carry me out to sea from land
Lest I demand it with my empty throat.
Ha!  Laughed the lady, then she took her leave,
Violet light now falling from between trees
As I had nothing but my mind to cleave
And my skin to scratch free of biting fleas.
I left soon after, hearing her last words:
You are not alone, I collect all herds.

I can't stand
Smooth sidewalks,
With their smooth skins shedding smoke
Like a deer sheds velvet,
Made up of the leftovers, liquid rocks
Made to pool in little, wooden rectangles -
It's not real.

I prefer the crumbling, the cracked
The spiderwebs lacing up grey arms
Like deep, black veins - granular and gritty
Like the air I take in against my will.
That is the earth I want beneath
My calloused, weary, walking feet
Because then I shan't fear
It fading into emptiness,
Leaving me to fall -
                                                                              A fool.

You are fire,
Wild, without shape,
And volatile,
Always on the edge of engulfing
Both the delicate apple blossom
cradled in the tree’s strong boughs,
Or the butterfly’s wings,
Which are nothing more than painted dust,
And rotting bones,
Calling flocks of flies to forgotten flesh,
Or weeds
Spreading their tainted seed
To drain an already empty world
Until all are nothing but ash
Waiting to cool.  

Yet, had Prometheus not stolen you
And given you to man
Then where would we be?
Shivering in the dark,
Pale and blind like cavefish
Staring at our neighbor’s,
With our pin needle eyes?
At the specters of man’s potential
Serving as our reflections?
Living off of roots covered in soil
And meat still bleeding onto the stone ground?
There are better ways to live.  

We breathe fire,
It is only sometimes that we burn.  

You are not invincible,
Not like you would lead us to believe
With your searing touch
And hot tongue.      
Take away your air
Smother you with sand, with earth
Drown you with water
And you are reduced to nothing but smoke.  
A fire must be tended,
For when left alone,
If it does not destroy,
It will fade away.  



I used to think of myself
As the cold –
Not the snow,
For there is beauty there
And I didn’t believe myself beautiful –
No I thought of myself as ice
For ice can burn,
But it does not give back.
Then I met you,
You and your flaming heart
Running at a temperature hot enough
To thaw even the coldest
Patch of frost.  

When I look at you
This is what I see
But my words, when they are spoken
Are incoherent, meaningless
And I am left angry
For you will never know,
No one will ever know,
That past all the blood and flesh
You are fire.

Poppies blossom like open cuts.
Ripe and red, they fill the air
With a cloying sweetness
So potent anyone downwind
Must shut their eyes and breathe
Through open mouths.  Tasting
The breath of flowers, they grow
Nauseous and afraid.  

The fields sway in the hot breeze
Until they resemble an ocean aflame -
It is here, among these poppies, I have
Found the blood of the Earth.  
It is moist and toxic, an acid eating away the soles
Of all that wade through it.  
How many gaunt, pale bundles of bone
Rest below these soft, red petals?
No one dares to count.  

People do not fear such
Lovely things - if they’ve only seen
Pictures.  How nice it must be
To know nothing of poppies
But their color, their shape.  
They seem almost beautiful -
But you know better.

You have stood waist deep in the
Malignant fields, breathing the air
That slowed your limbs -
Turning your arms and legs into pendulums
Swaying to the beat of the buds
That encircle them -
Until you knelt, weighed down,
Nearly submerged by saccharine terrors,
And cried, hoping the water leaking from your heart
Would put out the fires you find yourself embracing.  
After all, during the darker hours
Any light is better than no light at all
(Or so something whispers in your tired ear).  

You know the horror of poppies -
But  still you have yet to plunge
Past the black eyes of those red beasts -
For when the wind blows clean, cold
Air to you what do you do?
You raise your arms and let yourself
Feel as though you can fly -
And one day…one day
You will look down
And see yourself above
A ground free of poppies.

There is a rain, rimy rivulets ripping
The canvas of air; how is it I can breathe
When glass sinks with the setting sun –
An eye afire, I can’t stand the look of it,
Burning the sky like a charcoal
It’s pale, it’s blind, it’s alone –
Until all that remains are clouds
Made of cotton ***** and floss.  
Only giants may clean their teeth properly.  

Tree bark shines with the rain,
Contemptuous, wretched water  
Fit to feed our Belladonna,
Meant only for our Madonna –  
Why I fear you a mystery
Lost to the shivering trees and me.  
Green is drowning, I relish its fade
From my face, bloated and white
Like the shining, terrible moon, sitting alone

Alone to weep wistfully, pathetically
Until she fills the burns with leaking
Stars flooding barren hillcrests –
It’s what I’ve always told myself.  
It’s all I know.  
Careful now, the sidewalks hold mirrors,
It wouldn’t do to crack one with a fearful foot –
No, no, let their diameters grow…
It’s not as if I’ll see myself if I bothered to look.

I don't know why
I bother with my voice,
A soft, pale thing,
That doesn't stretch,
No, it falls far and fast
And quietly.

I can't bring myself to
A single utterance
Worth my breath
And the world's time -
God!  There is no time to be
Loud and brash and fiery.

Not when you can seethe
Silently.

They say a choking throat
Shuts you up.
If so then
Will a slit to my throat
Let my voice pour out
Like cold, sad blood?

Yes?

Sign me up.

Acedia
My god it's 3 in the afternoon
And still I have yet to move,
My slothful torso
Curling into a comma
To hide my face from what rests
Beyond my maroon sheets.

Avaritia
I want to enjoy this moment
Without feeling guilt
For letting the sunlight
Filter through my black curtains
Onto my fuzzy, outstretched legs.

Superbia
There are some days
When I refuse to let myself
Have this
Peace.
Today is not that day.
The knowledge makes me smile.
Softly.

Gula
I rose only once
To make orange spice tea
And to eat sugar cookies
With lemon frosting.
They're delicious, and I can't be
Brought to care
That I won't be burning
Them off later.

Luxuria
I sometimes wish,
Fleetingly,
That I had someone to share
This feeling with.
Someone to curl into
Quotations with.
I sigh into my pillow,
Slowly.

Ira
I grow upset with myself
For wanting something -
For wanting anything -
I see red,
But only for a moment.
I couldn't have this peace,
I knew as much,
So the heat quickly fades.

Invidia*
Still, the people who
Allow themselves such
Simple pleasure,
Such halcyon,
Are who I wish to be.

my fingers are like insects -
twitching flies ready to live
because come nightfall
their bodies will fall
still.  

but the night never comes -
there is always light here
unless i’m forced to see
just how disgusted
others grow
with me.  

dawn breaks into starlight
as i am cast into the dark
cage of my body being
forced to bottle
my motion
until i  
burst.    

to bottle a supernova
is as foolish as it is
impossible.

“Why does the moon follow us?”
I asked my father
As we drove past beige houses
Mixing with white mailboxes.  
I couldn’t see his face from the back seat
But I knew he smiled when I heard him
Laugh and shake his head.
“Honey, she’s following you,”
He said, and I looked out the window
Smiling at my new friend.  
I was five.  

Now I know that without the sun
The moon is for the blind to see
And that it orbits the earth
Not me
And it doesn’t chase cars down southern highways
It sits lonely in space
Surrounded by nothing,

Scientia potential est
Is what I’ve been told
In my own tongue –
And I agree.
Never have I felt stronger
Than when I am bathed in light –
Filling my pumice skin and crater eyes
Until I can happily walk around
With as much certainty as a human can.
That hasn’t happened yet,
But the day’s coming
I know it.  

Yet I find myself wishing
The light immersing me
Was that of the moon,
Which cannot be,
How could it
When the moon only reflects
What the sun emits?
That knowledge doesn’t stop me from wishing
On the stars
I know to be dead ***** of plasma.

As a little girl I always slept with my window open
To let the dreams,
Made of fairies, roses, moonshine, and lullabies
Funnel through my ears
Into my empty head
In a stream of dust –  
I had nightmares sometimes,
But every shadow is a product of light,
And I was happy.
In time I went to school,
Now I know of dreams and nightmares
What they are made of, what they are not –
But I don’t have them,
And I sleep with my window shut now.  

Understanding is beautiful
Yet mystery is magical
And school takes magic and twists it
Until you’re ashamed for believing
In anything.  
I want to learn, I yearn for it
Like my head does air –
But why must I be mocked
For listening to the five year old on my shoulder
Who whispers fantastic dreams
I forget upon waking, blinking, thinking?

Thinking and dreaming
One heads, the other tails.
I’ve been taught to imagine
Is to forsake thinking,
That dreaming is the rot
Causing intellect to atrophy
So I stopped talking to the moon
Because by then I had been taught
It couldn’t hear me anyway.  










I want both,
And so I shall
Through fight, doubt –
The noose made of fear
Can be burned
And so it shall,
By the light of the moon,
My lovely friend,
Whom I know well,
And dream of often.  

I hope she chose
The right person to follow.

I'd rather I drown
Slowly, silently slipping
Beneath human waves

Than find myself burn
At the ends of their matchsticks
For I'll have chosen

When to cease swimming-
And I know within myself
*That I'll never stop.

Birds and bees rest lonely in the garden,
Suckling the milk of bleeding flowers
Until their mouths drip sweet golden sin;
Clear feathered wings piling in towers,
Reaching and ripping empyrean sky
To lick a relentless tangerine sun.  
How you take up but a corner of I,
While razing the grasses of all but some -
Outlines of spring buds painted with cold, blue
Reality, pooling beneath my feet
Ready to drown the air for me and you,
Washing green til it's the color of wheat.  
Serendipity fills me with unease
As I sit within rings of broken trees.

Sometimes I don't know if

I'm a lamb, an amorphous white cloud
Drifting across dry, green oceans.  
The bringer of dreams, of peace
Woven in my wool.
I live slowly, softly
Until I don't -
And that's okay.  

Or a wolf, a sleek slick of oil
Running through thick trunks
That I smear with blood
I've stolen
Because I can't help myself.  
I cry at the moon
And I live like a falling star.  

Am I hiding beneath sheep's skin?
Wolf's pelt?
Am I nothing
More than a collection of both?

How could that be!
To be both, to be both is impossible -
                                                 Tenderness
Exists only in the absence of
                                                  Ruthlessness. ­ 

Yet here I am
Stealing your dreams
With my blood covered wool
Crying at the moon
With a slow, silent bray.  

                                                        ­                                                           Perhaps...
                           It would be best
                                                            ­                                                       I not exist
                          No, not at all.

The world is too small for me.  
The land, with its palette of
Green, the malachite feathers quivering on the
Brown, rough boughs of trees, that sprout from the soft
Earth, dotted with flowers, their petals
Prismatic, broken rays of a rainbow -
Red dust stained with
Yellow grain crossed with
Violet air blended with
Blue seas that stretch into darkness.  
I cannot see in the dark, and the sky,
The sky is bright.  

I am compressed.
Filled with the need to stretch out my arms
And let the wind
With its opalescent hands
Carry me into the atmosphere
Like a meteor
That fell, the fire of its descent stripping away its rocky flesh
Leaving behind only bones made of skin
Returning home.  

I could speak to the stars.
My words traveling through the void of space
Silent, but not voiceless
And marvel at the heat touching my blue lips.  
I could touch the sun.  
The fiery eye surrounded by bright, unfurling rays -
I could pluck them
Like the daisies I had thought so magnificent as a child,
Their soft, white crowns served as the stars
To my younger shadow.  
Their tangibility comforting
In a large world.  

My, how I have grown
When the world has not.  

I would preform ballet on the bands of light
Being drawn into my own black hole.  
The ravenous hollow created out of destruction
And when my body breaks apart
It will do so with the light.  
I would waltz from asteroid to asteroid
Their metallic bodies cold beneath my bare feet
As they spun, empty and lonely -
But I would turn with them
Smiling and laughing silently
And I would feel free.  

There is so much
In my sky
Past the blue.  
But, no matter how tall I grow
Or how high I jump
Or how far I stretch out my arms
I will not ascend
To where my heart has gone.

The thief, the usurper
She rides through the black
With her white robes
And dusty, pale hair.
She calls
Minstrels and men, vagrants and virgins;

Singing to them about light
That is not her own
With dulcet murmurs, lofty promises.
Her children hide behind her
Luminescent skin like moths
Hiding from the blue nighttime-

Mother!  They cry, their tears streaking
Through the sky onto the Earth,
Leaving behind iron and fire.
This vagabond, she does not suckle them,
For she is lightless, left with only
A hard, round face

Full of silence and fear
Leaving men and me to reach for her,
And she, she spins away.
Umbridged is the king
Who reigns bright beams upon those
Living on the blue skin of his sister-

Ah, his sister, a lady of green
Dotted with poppy jems and violet jewels.
She is forgotten when the larcenist shows
Her hair.  Lost and lonely, it is made fair
By the light of the king.  
The pilferer is made to feel whole

And beautiful.  The green lady,
She is wrathful, spitting fire, spitting ice.
Still the **** is unknown,
Unknown to all the land
And the lords and ladies that reap it,
And the king whose crown stays lit

And warm on his sister's rough face,
And the Lady Green who curses and weeps
For the capture of the thief that creeps
Throughout the cold, cloudless night.
A reward for any who can catch her,
A knighthood for any to tame her.

Unbeknownst to her admirers the damnable ****
Is nothing more than a mere handmaiden
For the Lady Green.  A lonely *****
Hidden away during the light of morn
Til darkness descends and
The royals' house is torn.

May she continue to steal their precious
Gold and eyes and praise and skies
With her bright pale hair,
Long when the day ceases to be.
One day the king shall burn his sister, the blue *****,
Freeing the lonely handmaiden forevermore.

People think
That just because I don’t believe
In their God
Or Gods
That I don’t believe in souls.  
As if I am restrained by something as simple
As a security blanket.  
I exist outside of God
And I do so with a soul
That no one thinks exists.  

Sometimes
When I am deep inside my head
I pretend that I can see
The souls that pass by me
Trapped within soft skin
A tiny, fluttering bird
That hides away behind bars made of bone,
The sinew cells providing a comfort
Humanity has yet to offer
To themselves.  

I see yours
Past your snow touched skin
Gently puttering around its cage
Lighting up your eyes
Until they are like the summer sky
After a thunderstorm.  
This language fails
To describe your soul,
So I shall try instead.  

Red nebulas bleed
Into darkness, twining with
The white and yellow lights of stars
Long dead, their shadows lighting up
The vast emptiness,
An emptiness dotted with blue dust
Swirling into violet clouds
Until it is not empty at all.  






You are a sun.
Nothing makes you shine
Other than yourself,
And the moon,
She borrows your light
So that she too may be seen;
So that she too may feel warm.  

Sometimes people forget
That space, while full of beauty
Is mostly nothing.
The small, scattered universes
Serving as the perfect distraction
For the loneliness
That exists in between.  

Life can spawn in the darkest of places
And you are oh so very bright –
For, hidden beneath your
Ribs, lungs, heart
Is eternity,
And you give away your galaxies
Spreading out your universes
So that you are never left traveling the void
Alone.  

Before I met you
I believed myself to be the moon
Trapped, dull, and alone.  
Then I let myself see you
Not your face, but you,
And found that yes, I am alone
But so are you
And everyone else.  
But you did not allow solitude
To  consume you
Like a black hole
marring your space,
Rather you just continued existing
Regardless.  
And I thought to myself
Why can’t I?

I'm not sure
What love is
Because I've never
Felt fireworks
Nor have I heard
Heralding angels
Blowing tunes of the heart
In my lonely ears.  

I've read about it;
How it's like fire
Like whirlwinds,
Like fast cars,
Like earthquakes,
Like lightning,
Like falling.

If that's the case
I don't want it
Not when what it is
Will take my ribs
And invert them,
Snapping my bones
Like twigs beneath the heel
Of an unsuspecting boot,
Treating my heart like a tomato
Too red and ripe to do anything but burst
With a gossamer touch.  

I want love to be
Like sunlight, candles, fireflies
Like stars
Like wine -
Better with time -
Like clean dish soap
Like buttered popcorn
Like winter breath
Like leaves.  

Because I know,
At least I think I do,
That love is beautiful,
Not because it is perfect
Or happy, or new, or dangerous -
But because it is flawed,
It's a freckle on Life's plain face,
The gold dust dust caught on camera,  

I find myself wondering
How I would be
In love
Because surely
My love,
The kind that's slow,
And cold and quiet,
Isn't right.  
It's not some car to speed
Down the curve of a midnight road
Only to flip -
It's the skid marks.  

It's wrong,
It's not Romeo and Juliet,
It's not Jack and Rose,
It's not Bonnie and Clyde,
It's not Mr. and Mrs. Smith.  
It's a curious child
Finding a dandelion
And, as the seeds blow away,
They try to catch them.  

I guess I'll do my best
To fall
But, in my descent,
I'll be thinking
Of you
As I listen to the
Slow, cold beating
Of my broken heart.