Oldest of two
Responsible for none
She was always a daddy's girl
And a morning person
She quit a lot of jobs
Before she turned 20
And when she wasn't planning to marry someone
Exactly like her father
They were ripping each other's heads off
Over nothing

She had strong shoulders
Not as broad as her sister's
She started swimming later
She was always more of a runner
Than anything else
Her parents should have known
Not to let so many hopes
Ride on her

Because life savings didn't translate
Into education
Her nose was always sniffing in the wrong books
Nothing on the booklists
Flouting authority was her favorite thing
So all of daddy's money
Couldn't buy her a degree
And all the lectures
She didn't attend
Couldn't make her see a dream that wasn't hers

Truth be told
She wasn't aiming all that high in the first place
A sturdy library
A cottage in the country
A dog
A tattoo sympathetic
Honest-eyed husband
And then she picked all the wrong ones

With every broken heart
And every finished book
She called home crying
"Dad, I can't do this. I am so lost. I see the destination but not the path."
She'd been drinking again
Frequenting tattoo parlors again
It would be a lie to say he wasn't disappointed
When she could have been
A professor, a musician, an author
Or president by then

"It'll be ok," he said
And when she asked why it couldn't be better than just OK
He asked "have you been taking your meds?"
She hung up

And thought back to a time when the whole world tasted like
Beer and pretzels
Before she even knew what beer was
It was a picture on the wall
A curly-headed
Naked girl
Tiptoe on a stepping stool
Making pancakes with her daddy
So when the sun came up
Breakfast would be ready

The blood of dinosaurs
pump through the soil
serving as cold platter
for the lit Norwegian cigarette  

The war of music pump paragraphs of hope
through the ear of youths
burning lips in pursuit of happiness.

In search of naked pictures of God in our mirrors,
the internet spent our laws and threw our only hallelujah out the sea—
and Arachne smiled, knowing she’s now the Womb—
and all men come in the belly of eternity in order to be.

i am the hookah queen

       and drifting in my hookah dream, i find
that i have no one else

  to care for.

i know nothing of their bitterness,
                           their wantonness, their greed,

i know nothing of that world,

    only me.

              and sifting through my hookah dream,

              colored with a hookah ream,


and pulled apart with all the careless shadows,

                                 i smile, (i the hookah queen) and contentedly i drift,

i am going, i am going, i am gone.

You probably understand. Or maybe you don't, after all. Either way, it is jumping around inside me and if I don't let it out soon all my carbonation will fizz up and run over the side of my glass and I don't want to waste all that sweetness.

I want to kiss you underwater.

I want that kiss to be the only thing keeping us alive. Down there we are foreigners, aliens. Grasping, I want to feel your flesh in stark contrast to the smooth wetness all around me, like a secret.

All that life where we cannot live. Exotic, forbidden, so lovely. I am sick with love.

a melody of sameness
drains me of color
leaves me as an outlining
a charcoal line smudged on my sheets

and the tv is full volume, cause my neighbor is on full volume, cause his neighbor is on full volume

red faced people are yelling at each other
they are furious for so many reasons
and i don't feel a whole lot

it's monday, or tuesday, and so on - life humming in my ear
the red faced are cut off by breaking news, by massive destruction and devastation
human suffering
and i don't feel a whole lot

my neighbor bangs his fist on my wall, cause his neighbor is banging on his, and i don't know what day it is

there are bombs, rockets blaring through the night. many casualties they say. mostly women and children
i don't know the women, the children, i don't know my neighbor or my neighbors neighbor
the red faced are back on, gesturing and blaming
i don't feel a whole lot

i boil rice, cause i know how to do it, and children get their legs blown off, and women are decapitated
i'm just a crooked charcoal silhouette on my kitchen wall
cook for fifteen minutes over low flame until water has evaporated or rice is soft

**** and kidnappings and slow death. can someone tell me what day it is?

life is humming in my ear

the words don't come easy
on this head-pounding hungover day
every train of thought trails off
into intangible nonsense.
maybe if i buy a new pen? i think
perhaps then these words won't look so lame?
maybe a carbon steel ballpoint pen
with high-grade stainless steel trimmings.
i could engrave my name on it.
with a pen like that, i think
i could write cryptic poetry
that would bewilder the masses.
then i speculate the possibilities
of stabbing myself in the neck with a pen like that
with my name engraved on it.
possibly if i hit a main artery
in my neck, i think
that could work.
but i can't afford a pen like that.

Can't I stay the ugly duckling?
Life is so much quieter in the shadows
I don't want to be admired anymore
Growing tired of things has grown tiring
And I don't want to be that kind of beautiful
Her shoes could fill with blood
And she'd still have somebody to please
How can you please people
By being against everything?
You lie to gain illumination
You starve yourself
In hopes of satiation
Can't I be the ugly duckling?
At least I'd get to eat