you wear the thick glasses



and the plaid shirt


and i see you at the library all the time

with your plastic coffee cup



your stomach overflowing

with art



we could be sisters
if you weren't such a stuck up *****

ha ha ha

I like to walk through the apartment
at night to be sure nothing
has moved, to be sure I still belong. I quiz myself
on the layout of furniture darker than air
with my hands above my head
so I can’t cheat. I know
where the lamp sits, just out of reach.

It was a glass of water I was after
or just darkness or to check the faucet
was still dripping into rusty Rorschach portraits
like the first cave drawings made by accident
when they pressed their sooty faces
against the cool cave wall.
The man across the hallway steps out
around midnight, he pretends
to hold a cigarette in his teeth, to light up and love
every breath. When the leaves are crunching like tonight,
I know he’s outside puffing on air. His fingers rest
lightly on his lips, he flicks nothing into the street.
Sometimes I follow him out,
ask for a light and we stand together
on the sidewalk, pretending to risk it all.

He had a shine
You had unseen
Brilliance

He complimented my glow
You set our image
Aflame

I want to burn the city with you
You want the world’s
Approval

If you looked closely
You could find a god
Among the populous
Inside of mankind
All you’d have to do
Is find a man with
A Hunched over back
Because he is Atlas
And he carries the burden
Of the world’s ugly truth
On his very own shoulders

A cave crawls into me, turns inside out,
Captures my heart and saves my skin for last.
Slimy shadows spread like faith to doubt.
Is this the Jungian Shadow here to lambaste

While all the photons of the sun depart
As quickly as they come--an original sin--
And stop my thinking like Rene Descartes,
Affronting twistless logic like particle spin?

Now perceiving nothing it must exist,
Like Freud with OCD made Oedipus blind--
Becoming nothing nothing can resist.
Finally into earth my mind confined:

Create in me a ***** heart, o earth.
Perhaps a worm will have a ****** birth.