I wish I saw myself clearly
In these black mirrors
Through which I see the world
Through which the world sees “me”
Everyone walks around with these

My big sister bleeds on the glass
Of her black mirror
Cutting the corners of her curves
To fit inside the black mirror
Children walk around with these

My brothers put drugs on the surface
Of black mirrors
Noses high in the air from the reflection
In the black mirror
I walk around with these



[ I believe the fruit on the tree
Of Adam and Eve
May have been an Apple ]

I realized that your area code
Was the same as one of my friends
Did you know her?
Or were you some stranger on the other side of a swiveling bar stool?
Was it abnormally warm in Cincinnati when you ordered the second beer?
I imagine you remarked about how fast the year was drawing to a close
And pulled the knit cap tighter on your head
And loosened your grip on the beer
The cliché draft you order that doesn’t fit your eyeglasses or your astronomy career
It would be nice if beer was cheaper than water
But it isn’t
And you’re still a stranger on the other side of a swiveling barstool

And she said
Don’t bleach your hair
If it makes you feel pretty
Or wear high heels
You’re already tall
Enough
You might take up s. P. A. C. E.

She said
A woman shouldn’t be loud
Or too confident
Because that might be threatening
To someone
Who?
Like I grew claws

And she said
Don’t think too much
How can you run a home
With your head in the clouds
To dream is to dare
Forbid it
Daring isn’t ****

How dare I

My friend who isn’t one
Said being a starving artist is a new aesthetic
Like brunching at farmer’s markets
Paint drips, dropped on, white shirts
No shows, at art shows, in SoHo
Exotic meds, white dreads, still fed
Living in your bed head

My cat, she knows the truth
Napping on a pile of wet cat food



Actually, it’s
Calling your chef friend Michael again
And asking him if he knows a different way
To make ramen taste better
Because last time it still tasted
Like you forgot to pay your light bill

$12.83
And some change
That I’ve been waiting for
Shove it deep into my pocket
Next to letters scribbled
Un-alphabetically
On the back of a receipt
Letters destined for a screen
Hypocrisy
Two tacos and a tea
Cat food and Zoloft
All my favorite things
$11.29
Am I happy yet?
Am I happy yet?
Am I happy yet?

I want to strangle you with the syrup
that drips around your voice
You say we’ll move to Paris
Paris?
Do you recall your brother,
my lover?
Have you mistaken him with another?
Or is greed a dark veil over your eyes?
           That follow me
My name a whispered curse on your lips?
           You bring too close
We won’t move to Paris
Paris

But will you ever know?

Mama said there’s no more
cowboys in the west
Just lizard men
with monsters on their chest
No more southern belles
just slimy sugar snakes
Smearing their lips with fish scales
to taste like cake

Mama said there’s no more
cowboys to ride into the dawn
Just scattered limbs passed out
in the front lawn
No cupcake women
hosting great soirées
Just frightened deer
that stare into the grey

I hate purple
But our sheets were plum
You love seasonal things

I love pink
Lips kissing someone new
While the trains whistle blows through the station

I hate purple
But our sheets were royal
Thinking you’d sleep like a king

But now my world is pink
Hands deep in new soil
Pink flowers growing in the garden you’ll never visit

You’re having a Saturday night
On a Tuesday morning
Artist pacing
Union Station
Red eyed wanderer plucking
Pencil lines from the air above you
Coffee dripping
Atoms ripping

A painter sits, sipping

Was it you spinning vinyl
In that 3rd floor apartment in New York
Walls close, a small space
You’re wrapped up in my sweater
And singing songs I knew once
To her and her angel face
While leaves paint the pavement outside

Or was it you shouting
In that rally on the streets of suburbia
Last fall, the rain fell forever
But you were brave wrapped in my sweater
Chanting with the big crowd
The air smelled like kettle corn
And the people on the street sides cheered

It couldn’t have been you
On the cold bathroom floor in Seattle
Cold sweats, pupils dilated
My sweater pulled over your sequin dress
Vinyl record song
                Skipping
                Skipping
                Skipping
                in the background
How you looked like disco ball
Shattered on the floor that day

It may have been you buying coffee
Across the taxi tracks in Brooklyn
Americano, extra shot
The city bubbling over like shaken soda
Smiling like the day I gave you that sweater
Broken as the disco ball on the floor
Spinning the vinyl I bought you in suburbia

What say you?
Man in a business suit
Standing to my left
In the middle of a crosswalk
Do you have a moment to talk?
Orange hands and little green men
And we go on our way
       Okay
         We’ll chat another day

What say you?
Man in a business suit
Standing to my right
On Martin Luther and Lime
You haven’t worried about money in a while.
But where is your smile?
Do you know your child?
      Please
        Spare a moment of your time

What say you?
Men in business suits
Walking fast on the street
Somewhere important to be
Do rats sometimes think racing is fun?
I never thought about that
When I said I was done
              Maybe
               I am one of the lucky ones

Cinnamon
A rug you got for free
On Craigslist
Faded and red
Like your eyes used to be
When you loved him
Lavender
What’s old feels new again
And the smoke curls
Out of my lips
Like a daydream
Even that old lamp
Is shining brighter

O how you feel like
a ship docking in the port

When I loved the open sea

“It’s taken me
A long time
To get to this point”
I said
My heart beating
Twenty two years
My mind
Has been racing
For twenty two thousand

It is weird to say
Your soul has seen
The pyramids fall
When in reality
You were just born
Yesterday

Hold me up
By my throat
So I don’t end up
Kneeling on the floor
For your love

In some ways we all are
Mosaics of fragments
Of the people we loved

We fill the holes
they leave in our chest
in their absence

With colored glass
That fits exactly, somehow
In their place-leaving gape

So now you listen to R&B
And have strong opinions
On a brand of apple juice

And you didn’t before, no
But now you do

Isn’t it easier to glue your skin to the pavement-
Than to meet my eyes?
Oh, to live on this warm pavement!
To burn your skin
This desire feels like creeping heat
Don’t move a muscle!
You’re carved from stone

Isn’t it easier to keep the fireworks inside you-
Than dare open that cage?
That wretched cage!
Lest they ignite
The loudest sound you’ve ever heard
The brightest moment!
Beautiful and gone

I’m just searching
for that eternal sunshine
The first step onto warm sand
Ice cream handed to you
Across the counter
With a smile
The way your best friend
Snorts when he laughs
Too loud at your jokes
That one T-shirt
You bought in college
That still fits just right
And gets softer every year
One deep breath
At a time
I’m searching

All black lace
Skin noir
Heart noir
All- black sweatshirt
Juicy couture
I thank your gods
I’m nothing more
Than a broken clock
A boredom cure

But
Some nights I pretend
That I’m yours

I packed you up with packing tape
A box marked dreams deceased
Bubble wrapped old promises
We’d never get to keep

I moved you in a moving van
Between a sofa and a rug
Both smothered, covered in the dirt
Of all the holes we dug

And I stopped at a stop sign
One morning along the way
Opened the door the moving van
To think on the mess we made

And I left you on the roadside
A box among the trees
With an old red sweater
Somewhere along route I- 70

I like the graffiti
in my hometown better
I knew some artists
We would chain smoke
Laughing through our cigarettes
Leaning against the wall
They looked at me
And I felt Coca - Cola cool
White dress just a little
Paint stained, then
Grey eyes just a little
Tear stained, now
I found out
I miss the cracks in the vase
More than the flowers

My morning feet ponder the pavement
Lonely eyes saluting the clouds
And the skyscrapers that grasp at the sky
The Tower of Babel
We reached god, and we branded him
Profited on his grace
So now we must build towers that shoot towards the sky
Like the twisting fingers of a falling man

What if girls stopped painting their faces,
and painted canvases instead?
Imagine!
Picasso as a 21st century woman.
Painting bird wings on her head.

Two faces and no spine.
How unusual that would be!

What if girls stopped painting their faces,
and painted canvases instead?
What now?
Warhol as a 21st century woman.
Bright pink hair on her head.

Repeated images on a screen.
How unusual that would be!

I watch you spin your words
like taffy on a taffy puller
And I, a child,
remain in the window staring
At the spun sugar
Caramel
Lamenting that I don’t know
what you taste like
Fascinated at the way
your world turns
your words turn
Sugar sweet
Caramel burnt

You said you were aging
like fine wine
but you’ve oxidated
Full of air and still out-dated
If you give me enough time I just might hate this

Maybe years from now I’ll find you on a shelf, waiting
and wonder how you might have tasted

Juice from a fresh orange
Tangerine
Dripping down my fingers
Sweet juices
A flash flood
I think about
Last night
And lick them

Google search
Time stamp
7:54 AM
“How many
Ibuprofens
Is it safe to take
At once”
Dive bars
Wearing leather
To a vegan restaurant
You pull on the zipper
To bring me closer
I don’t know what’s darker
Your eyes
Or your soul
Dear god
Put it on me

Would you be so kind
As to remove yourself
From the space
between my ears
You’ve come
quite uninvited
And now
you’re lying there
Naked
Laughing
on the couch
Playing cards
Not paying rent
I never asked you to

These days
I run my hands
along brick walls
so I don’t leave fingerprints
on your skin

The suits march off
to their working place
And return day old soldiers
I thought once
they were fighting for honor
But this day old roamer knows
They are fighting for ego
The pigeons chatter
on the sidewalk
The two men
walked the other direction yesterday
The pigeons ask why
Suits tread the same pavement smooth
When they could go quite anywhere

[My friend asked me once what city had the fattest pigeons.

I asked which had
the fattest men. ]

Black heels
On a hotel room floor
California
Maybe I’ll shred your
Plane ticket home
Let me take this
Call real quick
A quick rip
From reality
Oh, life exists
Away from the heat
Of the space
Between us
Didn’t you know?

Sometimes
I like it
When vinyl tracks skip
I get to hear
my favorite part
again

Now I’m brunching
on weekends
Painting black bird wings
On my face
My hair spirals
Spirals
Spirals
Like my fear of the space
Between the face in the mirror
And the women in the catalogs
And yes
Yes
I’m getting closer now
To that ideal
I scribbled in ink
On notebook paper
When there were
Fewer lines on my face
I wait in lines
For the train
Wearing stilettos
Growing up tastes like
Black coffee and
Owning four mascaras
That all look the same
On my face
I take your hand
We look like
Your American dream

I continue to write words
And toss them out into space
Angrily flinging the ashes
of emotions my nerves
refuse to bury
Shout them at walls
SHOUT LOUDER
can they hear me?
Slingshot them towards the stars
So the scrambled letters
can be dwarfed
by their brightness
And by the brilliance of
others who also write
Their words appear
on pages next to mine
This confuses me
SLINGSHOT THEM FURTHER

An eternity
Of drunk white people
Singing happy birthday

It’s not your party

And you can quote me on that

.1% alc by volume
Shaking off last night
I should be drinking
water
Instead I’m drinking
in the sight
Little red marks
on your skin
From my fingers
last night
You like that side of me

You said you didn’t
expect it
Because I sip tea
Most afternoons
And I read books
But oh, love
I am a wild thing

You ignore my phone call
A silent treatment
I brought my love
Inches from your eager lips
Then went back to him
You grip the wheel tightly on the car ride home
And I keep my life
My boring life
Because I know what happens
When you dance with artists on rooftops
There’s always something more beautiful

The sounds of the city
Intertwine
Like the strands of a rope
I’m hanging myself with it
A new drum
Fresh out of its packaging
And I’m loud
Banging on it
The train howls
The cars roar
What an unusual jungle
Where’s my rope
I’m swinging on it

You said I look
better in the morning
I think I look like
A raccoon


This is the day
I said I was okay
And I meant it

Last night
All my mistakes
Came with a salt rim
And a lime
They were too loud
My hands push yours
pull yours
Neon caresses us
I moved to this city
To live this life
To move to this beat
You keep asking me
If I like it
Do I like it?

What should I say,
wanderer?
Little mirror
Perched atop a green bicycle
A throne
You look like
The end of winter
A memory  
Dripping like
condensation on a glass
In the sun
Mojitos, extra ***
Sidewalk chalk
extra fun