i don't want to go anywhere too fast
i'd prefer you know what my grass
stained feet look like or know the
way my shoulders roll into the
hot light.

Thank you father
You were never the man we needed you to be
But you did leave me this gun
In the shape of a bottle

Genetically manipulated to magnetically stick to any addiction within reach
This bottle is strong arm robbing me of reality
Creating blasphemous momentary relief of my pretty great life

I am presently attempting to place bottle caps on broken bottles
Trying to put spilled liquid back into my mangled mistakes
I never wanted to be like you father
But here we are

The man at  the gas station
Regarded me suspiciously
When I asked if he was 24/7
im not loitering I just don't know
Where else to go
And he brings two milk crates from the
Back and stacks them in the corner
Between the case of donuts and
Oreos

Cautiously mops the tile and
Asks if I want something to drink--
I must look positively pathetic and demure
Dressed in all my flowers and points
Dusty jeans and soft black hair

Girls like me don't do this, I think.
If I am a girl like me, if this isn't what
Girls like that do, I wouldn't know
I've lost and found a lot of that lately
Off and on strong, on and on weak

trey is yelling at me from the backseat
but I've tuned him out, his tan hands
are chalky and skinny, I've stopped with
specifics, with millennial lingo, I tell him
if you don't
shut up I'll
pop you one

girls like me
i guess.

one of the few things
I remember is standing
at the corner of his garage
pleading please, stop.
while he laughed, circled
the pool table, breaking
the billiards into two pockets
close and tight, that wide
grin spread across his
face before sprinting
through his front door
hoping i'd be too drunk
to remember him spitting
*get yourself home on your own

I've heard that my body is a temple.

that disciples once traveled through, they used my ribs
as stairsteps and slept sound in the soft
ventricles of my heart, I've said I used to be soft
and this is mostly true, mostly lies,

you can lay a  f i e l d  o f  c o t t o n  
over  concrete  or cover  granite  in
s  i  l  k  but that does not change the
consititution of what lies underneath
and I have been cold
a bear trap constantly reset, I have been a wolf masquerading
as a girl, slick bricks of ice wrapped in wool

there has been hell in this holy city
and I have been raging through the rooms
scattering caltrops in the halls, wrapping widowers
in smoke, steaking kisses, slamming doors, wreaking
havoc where there need not have been--

Have you seen me? call the troops, have you seen me? fists clenched
temple burning. A chest full burning brambles, hot marble walls.
there is hell in the holy city.


hell.

I once asked him what it was like--
when  making love made sense
when it left you in a glow and
not like it had me, in coils of
skin and apple scented oil
sobbing on a mattress in Chelan--

I can't help but ask as a precautionary measure,
I'm sure, the way people ask was it good for you too?
did it mean anything? were you making love or having ***?
he says that's what breakups are. Not talking, letting go.
forging a bridge and then leaving it to decay,
I'll just become bitter with that long sideways glance
I've stopped memorizing his face because it's been sad
for a month,
i asked myself
if i traded a friendship
for a kiss at a cabin and
i wonder if he feels the same
because he let me in before
the promise of my body
and the sight of me as
a friend is too much
to handle.

german cologne still lingers
on the buttons of my collar.
funny, i don't remember
wearing my shirt when we embraced.

i didn't wash you for
five days. i didn't wash
you for five days.

**** near lost
it all tryin' to be
perfect, upped
my tolerance for
whiskey and now
I just use it when
i'm trying to think
about anything but
you, but i'll be dancin'
with some guy named
Mike and all i can see
is your face reflected
in the windows of
an Antlers hotel
'cause i think that
was the last morning
we were okay.

but lookin' back on it,
i kinda ruined it with a
kiss, we started fighting
when I started fallin' thinking
we needed to be more
but then you said you
loved me and
it wasn't just
me
anymore.

either way--
if there's no use crying
over spilled milk i've
been crying for weeks and
that milk's done and gone
you're spittin venom
and i'm soaking it
up with a dish rag
hopin' it'll turn to
water.

Everything but the present is a fond memory.