we were the bomb squad
a tribe of children in
plastic crash  helmets
pillows tied on
to protect our insides
holding hands to keep
from feeling lost and alone

we were the bomb squad
living like thieves in cardboard caves
beside the mine fields
hidden beneath beds of poppies
decoy explosions
in cadmium red *****
tender tongues
like kittens licking
the insides
of trembling thighs

we were the bomb squad
mucous membranes and bones
tick tock throats and veins
popped in the pyre
stomach bile and marrow
all up in the same smoke
as something that was
once smooth and sentient

we were the bomb squad
we found no time for any flag
nothing to do with kings
or foreign countries
just the knowledge
of not having known anything before

when I dream I dream in the colors
of the being yet unformed
wide eyes shut
a pseudo-dormant parasite
feeding off of my mother, still.
I dream of oily ashes,
still staining the arms- ulna, radius
reaching towards the empty sky.
For what did they burn?
black on white.
shades of gray.
the man in the turban
stepping from my closet—
the bees swarming from his mouth.
Before my body was ten years old
I knew sadness—
it seeped into my soul
and I could not speak.
For what did I ache?

this is the city
that my daddy built
inside of me
between my guts
where my heart should be.
what isn’t rusted
or burnt out
or tired
is barbed-wire and wary.

this is the city
that my daddy built
with his anger.
it’s set up high
on a hill of scissors and blood oranges
and blood oranges with scissors
inside of them,
red juice stains
in sticky pools and dirt.

this is the city that my daddy built
in our house.
in our home.
where the people are shadows,
speaking in whispers
tiptoeing behind closed doors
so as not to rouse the beast.

this is the city
that my daddy built
here we pay tithes in blood oranges
to humor his desires
warding off uncalled for bloodshed
like the time that I
finally stood up for myself
and he broke the kitchen table
with his fists.
it was an antique
that traveled with my great-grandmother
from Sweden,
now just another broken thing
in the landslide
of scissors
and blood oranges
and dirt.

this is the city
that my daddy built,
scarring my skeleton,
following me everywhere
like a spilled bottle of India ink
blacking out the finely drawn sun,
like past transgressions
follow the guilty,
like the golden touch of Midas,
turning everything into
a mountain of scissors and
blood oranges and dirt.

this is the city that
my daddy built,
making my concept of home
a depiction of ruins;
the vestiges of what
could have been
if we hadn’t lived
too close to his minefield,
before causing my mother
to take my sisters and leave
like a snowbird at the arrival of spring,
at last realizing that her spine
consisted of wings.

this is the city
that my daddy built.
this is the city that
scarred and weary,
shadows of skeletons of birds, we
will move on, leaving behind
brick by ***** brick
until it’s nothing but a memory
of a pile
of blood oranges
and scissors
and dirt.

i was drinking orange ****** ***** with Kitty
the mushroom cloud destroyer,
my compatriot, my downfall
the sky was purple and the grass was red
and we plotted the end of the world
we fought for dominance i lost
sat on my street corner
stealing kisses from
passersby like a magpie,
plucking the shiny buttons off coats.
  when I became the queen of sheba,
decked to the nines in brass buttons
confiscated corroded combustible
i rode an elephant called shiva the destroyer
and sliced long cuts with a sword into my legs
and the white scars were like hope.
i played backgammon and chess with multiple lovers
and they all lost because i was an impenetrable fortress.
I wore the red crown and stabbed out their hearts with my pointed teeth.
then i sat upon the edge of the world alone,
tore out the cores of a million and four  sunflowers
and watched all of the people riding trains
and walking in the parks holding the hand of someone else
someone who isn’t cold Kitty
as the violet sun began to set
i dreamed of what someone else’s hand
bones skin muscle corpulent sinew warmth
and I slept like an obsidian stone.

it’s been a long time coming
like eliot, I too am winter’s forced friend
like eliot, round my head the swallows also fly
always wandering
always wondering
when will my spring come?

according to my mother happiness was a choice
religion country then family a fortress
and why was I so sad and cold
According to daddy at least
I wasn’t in Karachi where rats and corpses littered the streets
jesus bled a ******* lot in the streets of another city
and was my redemption
but how was he different from
another corpse?
how was
his blood and dissolution
different,
besides a better eulogizer?
He seemed to me
simply a man
a philosopher betrayed
by supposed friends
I did not find redemption in confirmation
of the knowledge of gold rimmed pages
and biased text.
Where I found divinity
was in the flesh and blood arms
of people that I vaguely knew
they held me together
while biochemicals
tore me apart from my moorings
and there were no lies
about salvation through death
they said only,
once you go,
you can’t come back.

here is  the tablet take two
round yellow yum yum pearl delicious
always home to take my fix
swallow  it down with water spit
***** lethal anyway
I’d shoot it up if I could
the sound of the orange sea
almost two years are measured
pill bottles collected in the drawer
mama said mama says mama will say
another habit she wants me to kick
I wouldn’t take it if I could
my lines are broken
my hands shake
my blood doesn’t coagulate
all to stop Kitty from coming around again
her cycles my cycles our cycles of overjoy and despair
fire and brimstone and eat me up so tired of being tired
whatever is left of me only me is there
fits in a tiny bottle like ashes like pills
like lethal overspent energy like fission
Kitty the mushroom cloud monster
elements which don’t mix well on the orange sea
daddy said that its my brain
biochemical broken reception
spinning and spiraling into oblivion

The twenty-one gun jury’s been hung,
my assumed  verdict, overthrown.
Acquitted by the left hand,
condemned by the right,
a last request—
Think not of me as an aberration,
although perhaps I am,
Do not know where I shall go
nor care if there is anything after.
let me be absolved --
For all that remains is the weight
of thought that rages through me,
the rapid pendulum.

I am not innocent.
There is no recourse.  
In this solitude, the only existence is
being alone and depressed
and the tearing of my skin

Sweet Steel, slip silently in.

i wanted to fill your elegy
with light of all kinds
like your life.
light where there is now
nothing.

loss
is only the discovery
of the weight of nothing.

someone stomping  
my  sternum
into my spine

the weight of knowing
that there is nothing
where once
there was you.