The spermicide in your voice
The sink drain spinning
     .After much coaxing


The hair clumps climbing in bromine drips

As the acid burnt label’s yellowing edge
Waits for  further  corrosion  in the cabinet

As we seek to photosynthesize.  Into greater     limbs reaching

We shed the jitters

Humble before the promise of our own smallness

We feel the growth in our bones.

Thin.

Not yet as a door.

Not as an ear.

Not yet as a scar.

Not yet as a shadow.

Not yet as a self.

Yet.

Yet.

The ebbing

Of your eager look

As we roll our eyes,

And are no longer noticed by each other’s fingertips.

M.

Greendark vapor

Broken over
The body-of-Christ moon
In the sky above the soon-to-be old apartment .

I sit like dewless mornings amidst the
Eves
And the evening’s main event,

Disbelieving everything.


Thumb runway of the
Pit .
In your
Sunglasses
Smudge .a

Way of waking .up

sung longer lungs. bromide cut
sun sought - sight asunder
save for later slaughter

smug ****, of
var.
necromancies .
push-pin, him

he who swims,
he who begins
with pointing out the
wet opacities of the
        churning
        sky-sack
inside which, we are
tossing
like a baritone rumble-**** of dreamfood.


all garnet and dark, now.
all garnet and **** dark .

whereas ****** and hate are more palatable than ***
and art.  

and the music of the world- you ****** up with your ****** voice:
you felt things hard but not well
and so were not worth
anything.

(and it was as
just
as it might have been.)

morbid is the mouth that tamed you to this loveliness
where it's cool to be sick.
and watch our arms wither back to the
lips bounded by vulgarities unspoken:
all the while they deserve far worse.
best
friends long since ****** over
scream out for eternal homes that fail to exist.
sick enough to the soft stomach. folds over the belt and hangs there just
enough to feel
shame. hair caught in the buckle and
pulling. 
fare free-er than the other ones:
the violence of the stock photo.
and of the clip art.
and of the godfearing people.
their curation was
like a goodmorning to the legs that carried you, homeless,
out of my caring.
like the salt, kicked around
by
boots that don't get taken off at the door.
like the trimming of a fingernail.
like the moisture of a breath.


but all this you embroidered into
the murmuring

to escape the fat sickle of the crop that hung lowly to the warm air
-out of the shower, ready to destroy us all

all the while wanting to be knotted
by any beast big enough to devour you

and combing through it all
i heard you crying

and i might have wept too
save for the bitterness still kept between my brows

your greatest gift all.

and by the
sores and the soles of my
encroachment,
we might build cities to that

my mind is an  a c c i d e n t

dna is disgusting.
my tasks are the  hand-me-downs of killers
the living are bandits for the lives of others_
i antiquate myself, stepping out into the dying light of moral argument.
we obsolesce against the lampshade of its horizon
nature is meant to be broken
and we are the breakers [as usual].


i am i
and you are youless.
springtime is stepping down

oh ryoko,
where did you go

novelty is a messy buisness

it’s a dark, wet morning
and the city inside you
sloshes
to attention .

dragging pieces of the world
down
quiet
highways - and

through uncounted chapters
of all histories :


the food chain.
the great exchange .
the plain way things happen
[that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that]  [that ]  [that ]  [that][that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that]  [that ]  [that ]  [that][that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that][that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that][that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that]  [that ]  [that ]  

[that][that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that ]  [that ]  [that ] [that]  [that ]  [that ]  [that][that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that ]  [that, which

Pieces of sparrow against the tourist trap window
The laminated pages of trifold maps yellow asymmetrically in the sun
There as the light dances

The plastic palm
Not growing
Leaves


Irresolute

The

Ac bolted above the front door making a lot of racket but doing **** all otherwise

the greedy void hurries away precious, hoarded vapors into a quietly latched  chest    

     full of hours. days. weak-knee, stormfront months and whispered lore of the return of canopy cover to the pewter forest .

the same paths traced out with each rut in the road lines
a cycle of scars in the world like the thirsty, reaching tendrils of a dry riverbed

the skin bunched across my finger bones
splits open.in pious sacrifice to the nascent frost



pebbled gully,
shambled stone hands trying to hold up the
wholething

how do right things get
done_



a  calling card
comes
home.  the mouth of a dollhouse.

a department store with all the lights turned
off.  

the sound of splashing without
source .oh, what  
mud
we
    might     have
       been.

just past shadow dance
and the puppet theater of her ember ring

[i am the branch breaking in the dark ]

in her dark
in HER dark

i step.

somewhere in the distended belly
of
our longing:
you
were
scraping out the bowels. of
those that bound you here with.me

with each of your heads coming out.covered  
in
ugly slender mandorla:
floating atop like a flame of
mountains.slithering into the air, as ready to fight someone as to
forget it all
and
fall back into quiet loathing.

thunder at the lake house (that never was)
and when you celebrate
self-harm
i throw-up.
but
i will ******* again tomorrow.

morning breaks like kissing god with tongue her hairless legs are squirming under the earth the long wait is over our privilege is returned to us we pass it along like virulent youtube
comments

in
digestions
of
these days
we hunt for feeling

all heads throb
as
         a
papered-up-shop-window moon
decomposes without much commentary

the stars are out :
sight-hounding for mortals
to dine
upon

and i sit,
belly-full, and heart-hungry :
hoping to
*****

i could out you.
      in an instant
but.

the elixir of daylight crime is sweating off the skin behind your elbows.
squeezing it from the things in the produce section.staining your sheets.
it's pushing together the plastic tablecloth- the settings are abandoned
as they are.we let them sit long into the summer neglect.we are still

eating off

of them with our eyes.   i am slim.i am throwing open the peep-hole of the world.       the voyeurs go running and screaming /fingeringthemselvesastheyflee.
she remained:
pressing the webbing of her toes up against her ****-
one leg
pulled in tight, one ear up against the wall.

we are banned from certain channels.  we are throwing-up in our
mouths.we are winking at each other.  we
are just
resting.

i want my phone to die. i want to scrape my knee.

god made man to re-caulk the bottom of the bath tub for his daughters to splash in,
man made god to send his stillborns someplace nice.

unga bunga ,
and other short stories about everything that has ever contributed to what it means to be
Alive

success
is a measure
of pleasures

i am the doe-eyed and
mop-hung. dripping dry in forests of dull pilgrims
the shirt rubs on the belly,
damaging the pale skin-scape for the 1/2 hour session.
we need the vigilance now
look away and i

grey-same to glass

you,
dulcet lung.
photo-smooth
laying down, pine-black
in my fluffy gun sights

keep pushing on ropes .   instead of untying our tongues
keep touching .   our sleeves to the table
like accidents in waiting
like breath on a bad neck  .i fight to remember     the touch of grass
i keep down
it's dust. it's talking behind the school yard
it is.
sunn beating down

.for all the fires i’ve put out
.for those i’ve failed to
.for the embers that i will never seek to extinguish


.for _

mitochondrial moves
make out . dance steps
by the stairs

i push past your cell walls
grinding on something sticky ,
that
in that
basement brain
is
storing stories .

like
a promised need for later;
like a cupboard full of (china glass)
:lipids in love


performance .
red shoelaces .

concert for a clawfoot tub .
*** in the hair .

bath, breakfast, breaking ******* .

God is an urban legend
More dangerous than a creepy pasta in the news

And youth is less corruptible than nations.
And the stories
The normies
tell each other are comfort and exclusion of fault and responsibility .
Sensation spreading
I play with my ribs
Thumb side pressed below shoulderblades
and skipping in and
Out
Of grooves

I move
Towards you
And in for the
****


If
******* can hurt it
Then do it.

Barcode sticker on the shower wall wet and dripping ink like one handle hairy bandaid from a leg

threshold thrum thrasher
belly waster
a
water gun kind of hurt

a shower, like a casting away of minuscule multitudes
singing along and misremembering the words
a dredge into origin
a deluge of removable things

a distorted reflection in the soap-****-nickel-alloy-plated places

a chance

we’re all nan goldin now
and all the little microbial worlds will
devour us
from inside out


even just as they as are now

say                                                  ch

a                                                        e
n    ­                                                    e
g          ­                                              s
e.               ­                                        e.

[spf30] sludge sweats off down into crevasses i want to touch.
gods break apart
in the clammy skin under the folds in your side as
you
twisted back to me  .

you handed off a trinket.
i took it.


gold was the metal cast in stamen-shape to crown the tight halo around your breath.
monday's laundry becomes today's.

back into the tree-shade, where the pollen works its way down your throat-
you are wearing pink eyeliner (one way or another.)
as we take out our phones,
the green-
yellow film on everything shines against the backlit
paralyzer-
they are making artifacts:

like the inexpensive
pen> leaching into jeans pockets, down to the zipper.
somewhere they are creaking open, lunging at us with next decisions.
small,
between arm hairs pushed the wrong way-
hydrogen-peroxide teeth
take shallow indentations in an interrupted ring.


catching sight of this, someone relegates you to weird.

off-guard, you smiled-
thunder rang 3 towns over.
you fingered your palm where the pencil lead came through the translucent.

mellow fed fun slide
help ***** slipped
slop neck chipped
huck gunk up through
dry and tired
mouths

like foretelling sirens for the twister
but, sister- it’s better that these blisters
from the still rot riots
from tired auxiliary habits
the meat ****** hammer table hungers
the hinges in the same doors like ugly, earworm-popsong-poisons
the scuffs in the rug
the runs in the tapestries torn down to wrap/lug loot from the pillaging of the castle sanctum
like these cold towers
like nights with out night watches
like a starless mind

like what he said about hemlock
like knocking down the mysteries hanging like static from around the corners of your eyefolds
like skinrolled maps to oblique stations of new and hipper torture device forms

Using the cold wall and my bare feet to regulate body temperature. Bracing up against her.And retreating.  Thumbing through dry white pages of skin as a dull orange glow
gleams off the edge of   a     r  i  b.           There is a clinking from the other room. The phone charger is getting hot.
We dream of power plants buzzing  far away; skylines full of towers. Wire tracks leading off limitless unto the
unknowable.  Vast.  Thataway.          And there is something ready to
consume us out there. In the woods and meadows. In the irreverent
nation of pocket warmers and folded map laminated
fingers  



There's no such thing as Vermont. The land doesn't know that name.
It hears the rustle of my dead branches and gurgling of moist earth
churning thanklessly beneath last years canopy, and thinks to answer,  ,,home. Home. Home,,.


None taken

I drag your body from the room As the Bluetooth quietly disconnects from your favorite speaker, and the signal is left empty and waiting for instructions, not coming.

all the lines drawn down your arms-
the skin on your lips
desperate and parted for pine-needles and paper-dolls,
tear me around you
pass up opportunities in favor of numbness
shuffle around me like the wet stones under your feet,
you barefoot rain catcher-
moody making idols from chewing gum and string-
we've got you.
you've showed me the flesh under your fingernails
and we've got you pinned.
you scrape out paint from cracks in your hands under a two-skinned sun
and you're burning.
burning like a furnace full of hand-made nails-
like a black-tar roof-
like a ***** wrapt up in hot white sheets
what of it then,
your head, your hands, your hair in your face-
what of it for the fire that
need not, know not, will not what you want,
we will not
we.
rain in the shame of me
she ran after me
she drilled small pilot holes in my rib-cage and left me to fall asleep on the floor

glowbird knows ∆ he can make it, but
the sun drips warnings in front of
our reticle eyes   ø
           in the dusking smile
           you throw
it                                                   feels

I was wrong then. and now condemned to rewriting the same small repertoire.over and again
until they feel legitimized by their own histories-
I caught you off guard the other day. I told you about my dead ex-friend that I never hated as much as she wanted me to.
you told me it was fine.

starving, it swallows her offerings_
licking at wounds with certain intent
   as easily
as the lapping up of these gleaming beads      
         caught running, with
         equal      deliberation

frominside
  the heaving molecules
gargles,a new lament

for courage, they cry out
as electrons are forcibly
stripped_

leaving art-****
nuclei
in voyeuristic
[ display]
for hungry
magnetic mouths   to
                   s p li t

pulling hair out of parted lips like charming serpents from
        wet reeds
  open. <laying>
hernecktwistsdown

and stains me       
         .
our hands
are

dropped bread_dog-natured
and slow.breath
i am dull hammerhead  to your
nail-edge.
i am smoothed out by time and
b l o w s.
the sea knows my
stone(s).like i know your wrist
though i fray at the end of
your
twine-lined teeth:

i'm falling asleep. here, at the wound of your eyes    
and if frailty were a promise: i would have you now- in actual bed of
flowers.
unburdened by metaphor
and symbolism.
on our own terms.
as the afternoon
tone rings
they chime on me.and bells slur their vowels as we
push around
the heavy air trembling behind our swollen tongues.speaking
out loud-                    in deliverables
you.breathing happily at me      as if that were
good enough-
for anyone

like.a call from inside the house
their          prickling
    sediment
  deposit
upon
              her.chordate lineage.its
                  taxonomy.it’s
                    telling time. an
   

e x h u m a t i o n     of
    pores:
       pathways


                     she,      the
=part.hungry
    receptacle

         as
.they rake all delicacies
                            // pressed        
        backwards \

as willing substrate

in howls
in smoke signals           and
in trembling lungs.

said Odysseus, “i was meant to be a
sailor.”

Apolo comes dressed at the night

They call him, lantern holder
They call him, light bringer

He comes
He ****.

Belly hairs
Stiffened outwards

Inside the deep wash of dry baseboard-heatered air


It’s good.
To think back sometimes


With waxy cuticles     against the chapped    
    lip’s
open
    curl

knees and knuckles
pink w/ youth and .   hurt
and isnt it good to know we can
still scrape something [good]

like bangs across our eyes. like pockets
being played with instead of
looking forward- face front
my eyes, lunge around- across
rays of dust._dead sharp floaters
in a sea of stuffy air

let me learn you like legs
(i notice) under my                         sweatshirt.
                                    pine green

they are folded up like my gut,
the papers on the shelf
he reaches to pull them down, and i can feel them fluttering.

[my legs are together]
[my head is soft]
[i am a stain on the chair]

+




its
convenient. the way you stare back
+

i hold harnesses tied from knots of your clothing   . my
fingers are hemp
strands and
you              are weaving more

chordate . wet

dancing, evermingled with
[his enzymes]
you
swept ,,


you let me  past the corners of your hair.

It’s always trash day somewhere pt. 6

Like convection currents sitting atop pavement in July
Like white slices of paper dragging across the air between your words
You write me off like -
I think I can wash you from my fingernails but-

A new perspective on old music videos I always hated
Not that I like it now but just that I’m different.
I jot you down like
Growing up doesn’t stop
Like a fathers shirt in a picture

I bury my self in my head
Mouthshut and wanderlust wonderful
The wonder years
Are twisted


A couch in my mind
Plush and rough like old stuffed animals


The shore sheds me and sands me down to size
Like a frame on the side table I
Sit tilted to the sun of the window knowing only cool air from the vent while outside cooks the earth with grease and greasy hands
The diner fans push air but don’t let you breathe
Stuffy and heaving
Like
****

5 korean girls are the only onesstopped to help as the train pulls away

face like a litterbox.
in a shirt too big
smell of herbal insecticide hits like a ceiling fan collapsing on my
head.
it pushes through the soupy air
and just hangs there-          
.the drunk man gets up
          on his own, and slips his
shoes on

im ok he says to the water around his mouth.imok

.

its dancing around us as everyone rushes to beat eachother to the
bottom of the ramp.

the day is waiting to end

my belief in you is a bar of soap
shrinking .   each time it gets wet

Yeah oh yah, but at least we stay clean

Japanese beer in the snow

bone.grey blanket
under shines the night,
casting longer stares into the tangle of looming shiftsleepers.and.groaning.boughs