My blue jay
Eats pumpkin pie
And dances with
Escargo
That’s why
The moonlight
Tries to swallow him
alive.

A melancholy house
Weeping at the sight
Of a mailman
Turning around.

I knew a boy named Sanny.
Sanny had a fake metal leg.
He never would tell me why.

I never got to go to his house.
Sanny told me it wasn’t fun there.
So all day we swung on swings.

One day he had black circles around his eyes.
I asked him if he got hit with a paintball.
Sanny started crying and ran away.

The next day he told me he was sorry,
And placed his hand in mine.
I was confused, I didn’t understand,
Sanny this time told me why:

He likes boys.

I got scared and took a step back.
Sanny looked hurt and ran away.

Then the next day he wasn’t in class,
Mrs. Kipp said Sanny bled himself to death.

I cried, and ran away.

Furrowing deep with claws blood-stained,
into dirt, a heap of heavy ashes,
too depressed to flow with the wind,
or dance with breezes sprung from heels clicking past,
I sink.

These ashes reside
from my burnt body.
Wrinkled edges, dim, clotted blood,
a heart suffocated by the flame
of victimization.

Take a scalpel to my remains,
mutilate my body, my Self, all that remains,
stitch on male genitalia,
or chop my hair off,
none can remain, none can remain.
Gorge out my fat, reveal
gaping white bones;
none can remain.

An emergency room
(a yew)
A home with quiet time at 2:00
(an ever-green)
A place with after-meal support
(a willow)
A pile of *****
(a palm)
A fresh crimson cut
(a pine)


I met you.
(before it was too late)


You ****** me into the arms of a God
And you placed a Bible underneath my bare feet.
I stumbled and cut my heel on its edges
and watched the blood seep into the welcome mat.

When you first gently unlaced my blouse
flashes, images, screeching memories flew back in
shattering porcelain glass.
But a look in your eyes
soothed the tempest
and I drifted along with your rhythmic tides.

I once said I wanted to be a tree.
(Nothing more than still wood.)
I once felt like a million dollars wasted.
Swallowing the moon and the stars so bright.

Now I say
overlooking shy tulips, so young, so young,
Humanity is a house abandoned
and in you and Him have I found
the warmth that tiptoes across my chest,
like the pit of a peach radiating sweet, sweet nectar.

Lilacs gently placed over her pink cheek,
Motionless with breath she does not take,
Asleep by the bank of the mellow creek,
For my flower girl does my heart feel ache.
For her slumber has separated us,
and only we meet in far, distant dreams,
where her cotton dress flows with each wind-gust,
and her skin smells of silk, peach-scented creams.
If ever in Heaven we reunite,
These lilacs I will tuck behind her ear,
and whisper my love to ease her sure fright,
in dulcet melodies just for my dear.
For the moment I lay by her still side,
waiting for God to remove this divide.

Heart-shaped leaf,
   Once a dancer with wind,
Now curls in his edges
   To protect from the Sun’s glare.


Child with a heart,
   Holding hands with trust upon a time,
Alas folds her arms across her *****
   To protect from the Attacker’s blows.


Heart that pumps blood,
   Once a dealer of life,
Now laces with the black market
   To protect itself from Hades’ incubus.

It was edamame
Who ate the frozen peas
in Siberia.

Inside my head I am spat at
by hot saliva that reeks ashes.
My controller is a demon named Shame
who inverts my eyes into their sockets
and curls back my lips slowly for the pain.

My inside head is my straight jacket,
No one can extract me out.
It's infested with cobwebs, crawling with spiders
that lay eggs in my weeping indentations.

Head inside my heart-shaped skull
spins madly like a fast-forward wormhole.
Intricacy and incoherentness staining the walls
as dots of blood speck a butcher's apron.

Inside head my own voice can be faintly heard
inside a cupboard locked thrice,
a cupboard of iron and steel and brick,
squealing, screeching in twisted suffocation.

I was never hit
I was never whipped
But the torture I have endured
Lives like a parasite inside my head.

She left like a ghost
slipping out from behind satin robes,
quietly, so listfully,
crawling away,
leaving a trail of teardrops.

She's left this world
like a porcelain doll, still kept in her box,
but falling from the closet shelf,
fettered ankles wrestling
as her twisting veins turn suffocated-blue.

I'll miss her one day,
when I'm cowering in a corner
hugging in my knees to my breast
to keep demons from
******* out my heart.

I'll miss her when
my screams choke into silence
and veils drop over my pale eyes.
I miss her now
as this eerie emptiness
creeps into my stomach
like a lily-scented poison.

How dark is the night
On which my body
Lies, watching the stars above
Drown in the sky.
I slip my body into his arms; only
Now can I drift to sleep, in safeness and in warmth,
Glowing inwards out as he holds me tight.

I will
lay myself down
on a cotton mattress
and my head will fall upon
a pillow of feathers.

I will
turn my head
and rest my eyes
on the face of my love
and feel his exhale
whisper across my cheeks.

I will
allow my eyelids to sheath my eyes, my
apple-sized eyes,
turned the color of a fairytale forest.

I will
pray
to my Savior above
and let His love trickle down
into my full-beating heart.

I will carry on wayward.

One time
I held a little girl's hand in my hand
and watched as her skin
absorbed my tears.
I told her
"Little girl,
one day
somebody will strip you
of your innocence
along with your pink, cotton dress.
Then one day
somebody will return, this time
with a blade sharp like wolf fangs,
and cut your hair
and cut your wrists
and lick your blood
while you stand motionless as a star
waiting for the dark Moon to go away
and the soft Sun to rise into the sky.
Only the thing is, and this from
me you
the shadow of the Sun creeps along the ground.
When you walk with your head hung,
you will always think it is the Moon enshrouding
you in darkness,
but it is only, and this from
me you
the shadow of the divine Sun."

A lizard on a porch chair and
An ant on my left arm.
Why do I come here when
Really, I'm out here alone.

Sheep wool, bald heads, melt my plastics
If you can't get away who are you
If you can't understand me who am I
Carpets, colorful, ****** designs
Where will you go when you step over
All the pebble stones all the wood planks
I have a tiger in my backyard
Where will I go when I sit down
There's nothing alive and nothin in life

These floors with hair, with treadings
My nail polish chips like evolutionary beheadings
Always carry, always walk, with shining gloom
Outside nobody can breath or see you
We're all blind, blind like eyeless walls
You can't destroy these floors without destroying us all.

Would it be just like me
Cuts, scratches, bruises, on a tree
Worms around the trash bin and porch
It would be like me, all this to torch

Would it be just like you
Tears, frowns, quivers, as if on cue
Crows circling around the bald spot of your head
It would be like you, the heaviness of lead

Would it be just a part of my suffering
Beats, shanks, stabs, all this I'm wondering
As you stalk the perimeter of my body
It would be my suffering, all your evil to embody