blown proportions
using bodies as poetry
to run from & out of verbs

upon request you just said
mine and
what a delicate thing
to still believe
in something

stand up for your truth's
darling
I want to love you through them

my love of you's been
reduced to knots

& not the kind that keep

or thoughts
love reduced to blinking
through tears that chase my sleep

I'm falling under reason

that I know so I should stop

but my heart won't stop it's beating
it's like my blood's refused to clot

impossible to forget
you knew I loved you all along

it was a bit of truth I needed
you couldn't give to me at all

If I'm not told
I am not whole

I don't need your affirmation darling,
but some attention would be nice

mystery is only good for its journey

& I can't go around picking up nothing

sand-burnt chins
kissing sideways

i'm not suppose to

try not to die kindly
and I know it

my tongue's out

table of cups
gulp forward
nine of cups
destroyed

counting sips
backwards
becoming unwanted dessert
feeding off
learning you're no good for me

breakfast of champions
eggs saved for
someone different

not mine but
i spend batteries
clocking

wishing i'd inked the key
and you
meant more to me than knuckles
wish you
knew that
wish you knew what our love
*is

I forfeit for this;
mobility  
my mind
served up to
its drunkness off you
bodies full on my lack of finding

sound your disregard &
relieve your knife of
what it had done to me as

I gaze at your sleep in the direction of mine & drowned in fog until I lose
until I turn blue with love
it is there I see her heart
I want to swallow your key
I
blame the weight of the hand
& I frame the finger
I blame the math and pattern

under your mattress I left my gist
thumbs and throat

you just keep switching the sheets

I bring the ocean to hold my thighs down
for every time
that every time
I say it
it is me speaking and not the situation
I forfeit for weather reports and hurt feelings
resuscitate by mouthing off
to suffocate this feeling

it is
in-between sentences
diagonal;
directing a conversation you can't have/
the need to protect the pride
Lie on something similar, like
thick grass; emptied cartons of
unfinished favors, leftover excitement/
somewhere else to put your perfect hands
silver, white seconds
pumping your gallop
against the lips, out loud
louder
against the sureness of breath-beside-sleep
louder until we open up
breaking it down for my sanity
tell me you felt me, once
just
to my diaries of you
my need
dried coral reef
doesn't grow under palm trees, darling
pumped from
your need
& why you should be . . .
so very
so very
*brief
with
me

?

swallow her, swallow her
till we're both gone
and I guess
it's your choice on
and on
which bone you want clean
& I float regret for not asking

i'm letting you fold over me
and keeping still isn't allowed here
I haven't stopped spinning since you led me

I haven't stopped spinning

secrets become miracles
like a mirage or dance
like being kissed or ******
it's all rain and ruin anyway
unless it's you and then it's

not mine
& how many minutes till it's warm
till it's done

I can't beg someone to
become you or me become her because it's never that easy
no time machines
no moons or
I don't celebrate ordinary suggestions
because we are all born accidentally
like perfect
mirages or miracles
dancing in secrets
wet with secrets
but someone learns to love you

& I've tried to pretend, or something

running marathons of

chasing something

something like the

breath you laid on my shirt

what cancer to this body
by how you treat my cells
is irrational

& why all of this sitting ?

I would run to you

but

I know what's twisting your doorknob

and it's already sent me away

such a creature of my bad habits
but I repeat such good in you after this

your heartbeat like the quick of a revolver
while you slept
like I was inside, spinning until
I began counting us down
and
wondering how many bullets you'd saved

I drank from
the shot glass of your palm
& you made me
come
you made coffee

we went from
south to ocean
mountain to whiskey
with hands full of
what it is we're calling this
& I have your dress
but
what kind of souvenir is worry ?

your hand in the car
I could put us both in my mouth
and still make room for you
your mood filling my lungs with
bleeding
with
ignoring tomorrow &
I ignored that with whiskey

& I am certain you don't know that it killed me
to kiss you goodbye again

let's hear this wind now
you from right there &
me from under you

where did all of this blue come from ?
& I can't stop standing around
maybe if I
jumped
I'd land on my hands
backward or behind you

time doesn't exist in a bedroom - & who's strange idea to keep track? I'm breathing down seconds that taste like the rim of your shoulders & my mind can't make up reasons why it can taste you; this sort of news to my mouth will run me over

and over

& i'm drinking out of the bottle
i'm swallowing what reminds me of the time you stood between me and a sink.
the only thing between our tongues were teeth & I am tired of screaming at these evenings to have you back here

I wish I could take a picture of the sound I've just heard, lying on a park bench to capture an evening for you.
an idea that I could be anything because I believed in that.
I'm beginning to think anything & belief don't go together.

believing in anything when I met you
& now i'm back in square one, without

*focusing on my breathing

Had I used half the wit I get from my mother, I wouldn't have crowned you with every ounce of my mouth or crawled, calling you the Queen in the kingdom under my covers

I'm doomed if I do
god dammed if I don't

cheers to the demons clinking my cup;
still ******* the one's who won't

don't plunge me

grown sick of the ocean

if mouths told the truth,
I would not live in this dungeon

okay, you plunged me, big deal

somehow you expect me to chew on those lips & somehow sit still ?

get real
you get real

cause I'm as real as it gets
I've got patience for days  
**but I am non-vacant for regret

I'm finished in this spitting divinity down thankless throats

suspending what love you chose to dose for me, hung over my hope

I'm feeding off trees in this jungle of uniform stillness; darling say something.

be not in-cautious with me
please
it is my plea
I cannot stop this loving you
but I can break myself free

it is at night that it bites me
memories like fleas
the battle against drinking my way under sheets to find peace

I waste myself on the outflank of love
I as in I to me
I cannot torture us anymore
I need to be loved without the bleed

love, the ultimate expense.

in reviewing my statement in the value of memory and regret. loss, lying and this incessant lying down. the torture of wonder of other of her, that & before. numbers couldn't explore this debt with any equation other than patience and those letters devour the tables of multiplication in the repetitive puddles I sat and sipped from, in desperate bowls.
my same mouth, changing shape, the geometry of lips, count my teeth, thighs against cheeks, finding sides, counting down heart beats. press rewind, press my split. divide belief and get the meaning of y I do this to myself. no, love is not free. it is the disease in which I've married & will spend my entire life in debt.

tried to sit with it
ended up on the far end of the bench
clenching my
unclench these
empty fists
hands laced with could
but not full up

crowing;
I'm crowing this
woman's name
this woman I
this and I
not as us

the brain of the dog
can sense the rain
the heart of the horse
that laps at your face

outstretched arms of quiet drenched in sentiment, drenched in sentences, dripping through my mornings. spilling that tar from the lung's lies, spilling salt and honey
honey and spit
dancing heavy
spooning sweat
not being let

could you speak up
say yes
I'm not ready to give you up quite yet

I am ashamed of my love for you
when all of the earth is denied
but without you

(& oh, how I live without you)

I am compiled
I'm:
undersupplied

sleeping beside
a mirage of sleeping next to you
this constant reprieve

I'm being denied response
denied life
denied pride
self deprived
watch me, deny grief
I deny I
so many times
like time denies life
then I deny me

oh
p l e a s e

have me
so I can find *s l e e p

love is
it is;
it's
to wish you
well-off
not to dissolve

while melting
and honey,
I'm melting

why can't I
can't I
can't
I can't
catch this
catch my
gasp, ******
this breath

why can't I have it ?
I've had it
with
astronaut emotion
head in outer space
what goes up
must come down

but I've been

d
o
w
n

drowned & coming up for air
at the last second to explode
the need to inhale
something
you or air

I c a n n o t decide which feels better

I will finish all of your favors
& you will forget me
stand here foolish, face the moon
& lying under
one-thousand truths

I to me, Julie -
"you'll forget what you're doing.
we can wait through being patient
but we can't hide from being ruined"

losing faith, you're losing room
you knew before what not-to-do
all of my doing's, fall confusing
proves the fruit of all I'm losing

is to sacrifice my bloom
inside the garden of my tombing

in love most with you
in the morning
the smell of alive, heat in your hair
divine in this divine & cannot be forgotten
while this white light blinds lines finding lies in our steps toward each other, wondering
am I moving close or forward
I cannot tell
and this whole time, they were my eyes
and here, and you
a dry spell of quiet
your breathing
aware of everything and something
I see her face in my sleep in her bed
I am the body
she is the thing
sweat and closeness
closeness and sleep
something to have before coffee
closed mouth somehow
consuming all of this

it is a different sort
you my love and me
a girl
and I don't get to keep that
or holidays, oh lord
drowning in pages of worth
coming from, ink-less pens
slicing, *******, slicing white sheets
handing you a different line of wounds
right before the blood dries
before my cells give up
tomorrow, don't take this from me

today was over before yesterday
my shoes are bigger than your feet but if you put them on you might see how I run to you

love as a box
bound to age me faster than any unwatered rose.
from red to brown, and brown to forgotten on this calendar made of you & your making time for it
hanging upside, hanging on
having me count down seconds like an acrobat
catch me
but your arms are full
I say carry more
you say I love you
in their bed
I say sunrises are beautiful and yet fire destroys just as faith does in things that were never mine
I'm borrowing your hands for a week
trying to
stop
torturing myself
but you
the whip
me the body
you the lips
me the body
you the grip
me the blood
the colors you dipped in to rouse
I'm going, dying everyday
and she is coming home

I broke the moment I pulled the trigger
wanting a hole
I broke when my tongue found your tumors and your teeth found my love for you buried under blankets that needed to be changed

I haven't forgotten my name
every time you say it
it is only said, and I wonder if you meant to
swallow me like otherwise

that I might die and come back your favorite
spot on the couch

having to give it up to maybe
having the right to choose.
I am choosing not to

because my name is Elizabeth
I am she
& not her
the vase is her
I am the flowers
picked and replaced
you will refill her

you are the water
you are the lion & the horse

& I'm losing my hope in
forgetting your ribs in the kitchen

I do not love like this
I don't love like this
but I am learning

I burn between kissing you
what I can't have wholly
& somehow I am full
too aware of what I'm doing to be foolish
I rule out sound
birds
birds
you've taken both turns
I am laying
I am left
but am not without

I must front torture to embrace love -
without fire, I cannot burn
I cannot live without that heat
char instead of ink just to write it down

we are singing a song now
quiet
you are asleep & I am dancing in the heaviness of your breathing

this bed is not a nightclub
your knees hurt
& I have never seen anything so beautiful

I feel you in my face
when my teeth meet
my cheeks greet the
slight wink in my squint
my light [she]
t h e s e
nights without you
dimmed and
I squint again
to read the letters on this
film you've written
on the bridge of my limbs
with that pen you quill
finger-built
emptiness
my brim you filled
going dry
bones and head
head and neck
direct me under
refining wetness
derived from time
& time into knuckles

unbuckle me yet
I needn't bets, broken breaths
no more in-debt with regret

forgive me

I just want
coffee
and a quiet
place to sit
this ain't a song about
love
it is a list about
lips
I'm not here to sip or kiss from
just sat down to listen
the art of un-touching becomes;
that self-worth preserves wisdom

there's a windowpane's screen
covered with tiny flocks of moths
without concern of any sort
I watched you knock them all off

you watched me
untuck all my pockets
ready, you let me
*give this all up

relief
I've searched this earth for
found in my palm
poured from
but not yours
under my own tree
the grass was green
the grass is green here too ma
but these leaves
fall fall like flings
and they don't love me
what do I need
no more
what do I mean
I mean I'm tasting this backwards
my mouth is full
cruel, muffled scream
& me
what a preferred way to breathe

this cracking open
ripped sail
widespread fingertips, broken nails
inside an effort is intention
inside intention is a story, experience
& all these lessons I've learned
are getting used up forcefully
is this the way it's supposed to be?
cause it feels strange
when do Ravens sleep
& what does that feel like?
where did I go?
I think I know something.
wild nights, bending and stretching
bending & bleeding
I'm tired of feeding on this word

eating syllables
I am not hungry for

constantly
unconsciously
incessant counting consonants
four letter words
for poor pleasured girls

honestly

we're all crawling sideways
a billion different sidewalks
searching for what -
leftover organs, trace-lines
another time, some other life
another night

keeping quiet

it's a front-flip
got away

align out thinking we felt like this
envying teeth
the way your bottom lip curls
I curve at your corners
climb inside
someone give me shoulders to walk with
legs to speak
I'm tasting you from behind my eyelids
cause my mouth knows better

I lay my lighter on the title written Fire
I crawl inside a bedded box
relieve my body of attire
I tend to sleep on the right half
(the left half needs sweeping)
I need to quit seeing you lying there
I need to quit this all-night-drinking

Now who's thinking for me while I think about you ?
certainly not the same brain
that's been trained
to think things t h r o u g h

what do I do now
wanting to do you
do I
sit sit in this room  
& bang myself blue ?
do I do myself stupid
or ask again what to do ?

I am through with it
i'm through
I know just what to do
busting through lust's must
I get fronted by the view
*this front of you

what could she say for me to lose you ... ?
i'm in a war against keep
fighting an army of loose truth
& if you win, who loses ?
& if you lose, do I approve blue ?
it isn't sane for me to choose clues
over an ocean of proved truth

what do I lose if I lose you ?
all of my come-trues
have become you
& if you lose me, do you lose ?
I'm not this someone to hold onto
we can expand views if you choose to
open a window or your mouth
either will do
not to confuse strews with don't do's
I am through with all this proving
I'm a wanter wanting all of you
ensuing all this sousing

can't pacify the mind through a mouth made for biting
cannot hide lies like it's night, darling the sun's always rising
I guess you could lie here if you'd like, with a throat so inviting
diving through oceans of blight, living off breaths from your prizing
I'd like to rewind time to nights, i'm surrounded by silence
It is in quiet I find, all of my time fighting guidance
it is in hiding that light finds the right to shine brightest
we're given only one life, why's no one rising and shining ?
I'd like to forget it sometimes
ignoring all signs of my plight
i'd like to just feel things sometimes, without having to write it
I'd like to feel you at night
now I need something to type with
I just want to feel you tonight
I am forced only to *write it

it is unwise to avoid certainty
i've turned silent for landscapes
made for deprived mothers
queens to deafening men
lost of their purposes
why have they hidden her crown ?

I have your legs
but we're running such antithetical courses
Mother, I miss you but I cannot come home
I gain weight
I lose sleep
there are no lovers left for me
the wind has an ancient distaste now
for all the nights I exhaled complacency
I want to sleep with my door open
I can trust anything under a Libra moon
but never another repeated phrase
me, you
the first place I swam, the first meal
this is trust
you are love

I never learned to love mountains
but I was born with memories of them
I was born in Florida

I've picked apart women that
didn't deserve or earn it
like petals
she loves me
she loves me not
she loves me

when did I learn to grasp ?
to keep
we should be taught instead to let go          
before we are learned to catch
so we aren't holding on so tightly

I strangled myself
I learned quickly to let go
& became grateful of deep-breaths
weary of knots
weary of nots

I refuse to be my own worst enemy
I am all that is mine. all that I find is fleeting. eventually all things will lift, just as they will be dropped or put down
to keep, ha !
walk into my room
I have nothing
it is easier to breathe like this
I don't like being alone with shadows  

we are all royal
skin and salt
iron and decay
bone over brain
over-thinking our day
we are alive
we are afraid
we are okay
we are okay
we are

in doing, I am done
I've been slow burned by thighs
I've been followed by thumbs
you
erase me from my path
I knew something
I knew something
I just didn't know you
sudden existence
sudden power
I am not a slingshot's rock
I am her aim

all the land is grey
day after day
night after coming

you
who is you
what is this
you: like brandy
like honey
you burn going down my throat
and I need it
up and down and inside, behind
I counted your knuckles with my head pressed breathless into that pillow
you make math feel good
you made deep seek deeper

lets be dogs and you can lock yourself inside  of me next time. you can decide again when to leave.

are we leaves ?
always leaving
you the beast
and me a tree
climbed in & you fed from me
the last tooth to sink that way
& I will have to die toothless now without it

you you
again & again
like seasons
like summer
you came after I've sprung
now, what's done is did and what's left must be wrung out to quench thirst; let us not be wasteful.

instilled & in bloom
I watched you turn every rose the right color
you walk past the cherry tree and she fills your pockets
red
red
we are stained now

tell me how to have you and I'll have it

& your name
my favorite taste
reminds me of Florida in May
simplicity on heat
& always wet

it didn't matter
cause you were mine
&
it was night time

hour after hour
like rust on top of rust
I've confused lust halves
for must haves
& taught myself to ******
until I learned to trust myself
far more than any soul
it's just, I fell in love with me
and so
I'm good to let you go

I drew a ring around your nose
picked a couple roses
a pocket full of pros
Afraid to know how far you'll throw this
now my mouth is full of
ashes
ashes
we'll all watch me fall down
dizzy is as dizzy does
I watched you watch me hit the ground
I stumbled, tumbling on my feet
I stood up in a whirl
your ring we're calling Rosie
is one complicated girl

these people and their problems
these women and their bodies
my mouth is a circus
my head is in the clowns
and
I'm holding you steady as to shoot
my love for you's on a noose
but not you
you're holding me loose
a still-life painting of some fruit
but
what
is
this fruit
without any juice
what is the use
tell me, what is the use
            
*?

count on me for something
let my hands be what you need
a jar of stars I pulled for you
revealing colours never seen  
I fought the sky
a thousand times
I argued with the Moon :
"the dark surrounds us all my love,
it does not  belong to you"

these stars, they are not promises
this light it was not free

I stole from constellations
I caused Venus to scream  

I've been talking in my sleep at night
& I've fallen in the shower
I've cursed through drunken verses
& tore through fields of broken flowers

so put those stars where they belong
& please have mercy on these hours
the math it takes to have you back
has me counting crooked;
*backwards

when did "love"
suddenly become
such difficult a means
days with dented ribs
making it hard for me to breathe
when all at once
so easily
it got handed straight to me
impossible is the grab now
confusing youth with
being free
& I haven't any fight
left inside of me
I cannot chase you on my knees
my dear
I owe this love zero more fees
if it is mine then I shall have it
if it is not, then you must leave
I cannot play
a n y m o r e
guessing-games
praying you still *remember me

waking up is always the same
one lonely body
in her garden of graves
my heat is just that
my heat
my dreams are still mine
just because you haunt them -
a reminder to dread nothing
no toothless lion
clawless beast
I'll fly from your split
jolts, I never come back from
I don't believe in reach
not unless I am shown stretching
arms do not speak
but they release
it's been done
& done & done to me
freed, "you are safer like this"
loveless lips, the only ones I see
& feeding from the tips of a liar's teeth  
fed until I depended on it
then thrown into a gust
I'll fly far away from you;

& hopefully soon
when enough is e n o u g h

my instincts will kick in

when I fell for you
I handed you my feet
that night in the city
my lips forgave ****** down Haight street
we searched for cigarettes
I slammed to my knees
I still can't believe you were right there with me
I found your mouth
your hands
my hands
your back (I want you back)
& you
you
with all my attention, darling
I watched you ride off with it
I watched your eyes
I watched you leave
you took my bones and breath
I'm a paper bag
I am just dead leaves
useless as wreaths
and I'll sit
i'll stay, a good girl
a good girl
I'm great at waiting
Patient like the dead
a professional faker
& suddenly yours, nonetheless

I sing, you sleep
across my knees
my little queen
you're almost three
the sweetest thing I've ever seen
you don't know what you mean to me
we read, preparing you to dream
you hold my hand
& tell me things
I'm teaching you
but you teach me
I've learned more from you than anything
five more minutes in my lap
you laughed after the fish-kiss smacks
& your smile drifts you off to sleep
leaving this room is the hardest thing

they call me: gypsy, runner, thief
be you my gold, my feet, my greed

meet me on streets
we have not seen
unwarrant wants, deep breaths, relief

I will not front;
give you my teeth

we're breaking rules, my dear
we're weak

I am not yours

o b v i o u s l y

claim me
this own
without defeat

I'm chasing dreams
but i don't sleep

my pillow smells like you
like need

so lost behind
what I can't seek

f i n d i n g that time holds no belief

that I was freed
c u r i o u s l y

I watched you leave my street
quickly

that I should wait
so p a t i e n t l y

to bring your body back to me

I will not beg
I wouldn't plead

but I would have you still believe
you'd still have me if you should leave

should you come back I would agree

for you i'd gather everything
not rings, but things that you might need

I'd love you deeper than the sea

in love with you , i am
*a l r e a d y

woman, you horse
running courses like meals
with steel heels I can feel you
my galloping thrill
eat the grass from my body
run your tongue up my hills

it is the ride that excites me
it is your build that I fear

taking the first path to Nashville
you are no longer near
my fields need your mouth
if you're not here
I'm not either

my lips, limbs
this skin
I don't recognize them
I breathe out
& breathe in
my lungs do without it
how did it begin
to then end
before it is poured
I am opening doors
it is yours
this is yours
I'm picking my sores
& my bones off the floor
I cannot bend anymore
all of my laces have torn
& I'll front-face a storm
I haven't a fear of disaster
it is my hope that gets choked
& sharp pains replace laughter
what did I look like before this
& who's is this voice
what comes after you've left
I do not have a choice

I've not been known to nest low
I've stayed fairly high
but I've been let go to shatter
& glass birds do not fly

I've been bent and folded
like an old love letter
being read over and over again

release me from this dreaded message
you read the lead stained sheets like a drunk poet
and when you've finished, you made a square of me

you do this with your hands
hands
fingertips
what is in your skin
wrists
your teeth
I'm a cliff's edge
crashing in your sea

you're the last drag of a cigarette I should have never lit
& i'm the lungs, the tar
with all these ashes in my spit

I've inhaled disease
breathing in the thick of you
I choke like a smoker does
& now nothing else will do

there's a slow burn in her words
I've come familiar with drawls
I watch your voice turn to coffee
I sip from your jaw
I'm not thirsty, just nervous
speaking in black caffeine tongues

"I'll fiend before it starts
& I'll feel clean after it's done"

cause you can't run from the two lungs
catching breath after breath

& you can't squeeze life back from death
if it is dead
then it is dead

a staunch shack-job
a fine devotee to this longing
my appetite

the throb that pulls
pushes through
& out

foolishly do i un doubt
& instead drowned
toe to toe
eyelids bat in front of me
dance
dance
my hands, ready for anything

it's early; 7:17
first things first
I push open the window
the morning soaks my sweater
my skin quickly drenches in its chill
I think of you
the flowers are blooming and resting on the window screen
alongside a large mosquito
I ignore her & she ignores me
I make coffee
inhaling a breeze created for me
it is easy clinging to these things
a lot like leaves do their trees
& much like them
I fall slow
but it's spring now & the birds are sipping and singing
that Raven with her suddenly, loud solo
against a white canvas
painting the only image that exists during these
isolated seconds
& I thought of you
it sounds sweet sometimes
it even tastes as such
but much easier is it, t y p e d  o u t
*t h a n  d o n e

I've mapped this house out for months now;
praying you'll kiss me against every joist holding                (in & exhale)
I'll breathe out
all the lives I have lived without this
my chest will beat the tale of you over and over to my ribs & my legs will never stand again without aching

Spending my time like pennies, *waiting

it is 12:02
I can hear the bell at the mission
it's holy alarm
beats of your syllables today
you, my midday meal
I'll likely starve
but you're feeding me numbers
less & less everyday
thinning 'till I binge on you

I've stopped seeing clearly
this lack of oxygen is absolutely thrilling
I'm just a crow in your intricate pinfold
however beautiful the build, careful
I am locked, without stretch
& somehow you are free to roam

I only ask to rest on your arm but you've been claimed by dogs, honey.
I'm not one to fly around heads either, i'd rather rest in your trees,
but trees don't grow in cages and I use to fly with my eyes closed before this.

as temporary as seconds
& constant like a calender
I've always hated math
I can't count on numbers the way I do letters
but I have smelled you on every numbered page
& I've been counting down these days like hail
waiting patiently on your storm

I curled up
fervently
on this California morning
in the gaps that built your back
you told me i'd been snoring

I wondered what you'd thought about
arrested in your sleep
you took my arm around your *******
& you said you'd dreamt of me

you're all I see
you're all I see
she thoughtfully repeats

I see you in my sleep my love
I see you where I breathe
& under trees, between my knees
I hear you when I speak
& from April until March
you're the leaves beneath my feet

silently
so silently
I squirmed in this defeat
I have this fear of always leaving
a deer who runs from anything
I can't be all you see I said
& open up your eyes
I don't trust periphery
and the heart it often lies

she held on even tighter
& choking on her fill

then I will love you while you let me
like this
for this
I will
I will