morning came
like someone spilled a crate
of mangos though my window

that was my first thought this morning

the rest of today i am nearly unable to speak
because everything out of my mouth is
grammaradical somewhat-poetry
and when people ask what’s up
all i can say is that “i am
quivering with emotion”

haha…. okay izzy

when i look at the sky i’m thinking of
like, idk, shattered shotglasses and robin hood
arrows in a sack on my back
to pin down whimsy and hope
quivers full of emotion

i don’t want to talk and that never happens
but i can’t remember what words look like
because i’m too busy tasting them

this part of the world feels too small please
i’m ready to leave or let poets sleep in my bed

haha… okay izzy

you made her a goddess
you made her a woman

i cried the day you realized what you’d done

i wanted to work on my long form poetry
so i sat down to write a poem about all the ways i love you
because i know there’s a hundred thousand and surely
i could fill up forty lines or so at least with all your lovely self
but actually this is what it came down to:

you make me want to write love poems.
(what else is there to say?)

one day i will learn to crack words open so they sing
you like i want to sing you without you ever hearing me
singing you alone at night
singing my heart for you and about you
singing about how my heart is when you take your socks off
being there, full
singing love, among other things

but no matter how i roll over in my bed you’re so close
that without these walls i could hear you breathe

i’m tearing my hair in half for you!!!
i’m tearing myself in half for you two!!!
YOU MAKE MY HEART SWELL AND MY ARMS HOLLOW!!!
YOU MAKE MY GRAVEDY TWIST TO THE GROUND!!!
the more you like eachother the more youboth like me
and i like that!!! LET’S HUG FOREVOR UNDER THE STARS!!!

i like kissing everyone and touching everything and the stars!!!
i like kissing the stars!!! i like kissing the stars in half!!!

i like a lot of tHINGS OKay!!!

GO BE HAPY YOU HAPY BUNNYS

how many children have stood on these same stairs
and looked up at that bleeding jesus, afraid?

let them never burn your books
let them never move that chair
away from the cabinet where you rest your drinks

let them never teach me

that there is nothing of value

in god

dead plants and concrete and
awful awful skinless things

in each brown eye
in every silence

start

screa

ming

Emily wants to be a Prince when she grows up.
Emily knows that wind comes from trees waving their branches
when they dance to sunsongs, stirring the air up,
and when Emily looks at the beach she knows
that seals are just narwhals without horns
and narwhals are just unicorns that forgot to get on the Ark
when God drowned the world in His tears
(so He gave them tails instead of hooves
and let them swim in all His misery forever).

Emily parts her hair on the side
so she can be a Prince when she grows up.
She parts her hair on the side and wears leggings
and a little green hat and runs bare-chested
through the forest catching fairies

and on clear nights Emily can see her moonshadow
and they dance together, four and forty feet tall.

Prince Emily has a cardboard castle.
It used to be a house but Emily took some crayons
and drew herself crown moulding and flower boxes
because she wants to be a Prince when she grows up
and she took that box and brought it
under the electric fence
and past the cow field to the
(rapidly disappearing
on account of those
mysterious trucks
that drive by at night)
forest and to her
very favourite
spot

by the stream.

Maybe she’s there right now,
looking at the water and wishing it would ever
even in the summer grow warm enough to swim.
Maybe she’s there right now,
with her chest bare and her hair blonde
and her eyes huge and blue
and her face messy with berry juice
because there’s no-one to tell her
to wipe her chin
and no-one to tell her
to grow her hair long
like the other girls.

So Prince Emily parts her hair on the side
and talks to Peter Pan and Robin Hood
and her own shadow
and sometimes
God.