My mom said;
You're going to want a bike,
a good one
so it lasts longer.
You'll want a specialized
so you can ride on the road
and the trails.
You want one with lights and mirrors.
She said you want to save
a few hundred dollars.
My mom said;
if you're going to have a bike
you're going to have to take care of it.
Don't let the frame or chain get muddy,
they'll rust.
You have to do touch ups and keep it dry.
That's just part of owning a bike.
She said she found a deal I'd love.
Said she'd drive me there.
Said I need to shop for helmets.
Said I need to buy a rack.
Said before summer's over
I need to get shots, go to the dentist,
visit grandma, write thank you letters, pack my clothes,
and buy a bike.

Fast acting, long lasting
Its smashing!
Girl with no more options.
Animal tests,
Lumps on the *******.
No not on the ads,
We’re selling ***.
Two for the money.
A truck and a honey.
What are we buying?
We’re buying ***.
A girl home for the day
Finds a soft spot to lay,
Take off her shirt
But leaves on her jeans.
However,
Its more than erections,
The scheming perfection
Of using each other
To bolster our greed.
In more than one boardroom
There are people debating
Do we want groom and groom
Or the bride to be black?
The intern will chime in
That “going green” is “in”
And we’ll all ******* buy them
2% recycled handy wipes.
Because our eyes are vacuums
They will always have room
To take in more *******
That falls in our lines.
We watch their commercials
And yes, they’re tear jerkers.
A one legged child
Raised by two Asian guys.
SO WE BUY THE DISH SOAP!
THEYV’E SOLD US!
We did it!
We filled up our carts,
In the store and online.
We swallowed it all up,
Leaving plastic behind.
WE DID IT!
We all worked as a team
To fuel the
Capitalist Dream.
A fabricated human connection
Forged between man and corporation.
We’ve done it folks.
The American Dream.
People against people
All working as a team.

Well, at least for all those who have eyes.

Honey, when winter comes
your mom will cry a lot.
Because the earth is frozen and dead,
and her body hurts.
She will sleep longer
and grow spindly indoor vegetables.
But sweetie, in the spring
your mom will sing in the kitchen.
She'll take you camping when its too cold,
and kayaking in the rain.
She'll refer to everything as a beautiful lady
and rhyme your name with plants.
Because the earth is pulsing blood again
your mom will dance on the furniture with you.
She'll take you on walks to feel moss
and tree heartbeats.
And baby, in the summer
your mom will yell a lot.
Because its too hot
and she wants to build a tree house for you.
But the yard always needs mowed
and her hands are always swollen.
And the time just passes too fast
that she'll rush like a flooded river.
Then darling in the fall
she'll tell story after story after story
about growing up on dusty trails
and swimming in thunderstorms.
Then when she's quiet
she'll grow too quiet.
She'll rake the leaves though we don't rake.
She'll run her hand along old furniture.
She'll press leaves and say
you're just like so-and-so
when they were small like you.
She'll smile out the window on car rides.
She'll cry at funny movies.
Its important to be patient,
She's a moon with many phases.

She's like a dream
she just appears
Three A.M.
She isn't real
He's like a dream
Her body is a shell
Did last night happen?
She can never tell
Was she here?
He never knows
The complex life
of loving a ghost.
Do I want him?
She asks herself
Silently she stays,
but by morning nothing's left.

I started praying
the day the jack fell
when were both under the car.
The way you screamed
No! No! No!
But everything was fine
stayed with me long after
our kids grew tall.
The way everything was fine
while the kids watched in silence.
So I prayed at night
when you were sleeping,
so you wouldn't tease me.
I whispered thank you to the soil
when we turned the gardens each spring.
I kissed thank you's
into the leaves when it rained.
Thank you's to the earth
for growing you.
Tall and strong.
An oak with broad roots
keeping you grounded.
Lacing us together,
splitting us into new life.
Anchoring you to me.
How could I not pray thank you.

Teacher said
when zebra's dead
her brains will rot
out from her head

They have no soul
so dig a hole
God has no time
for beasts and moles

The gates are closed
for hooves and sinners
Must stand up straight
use a fork at dinner

God has no room
for even grass or trees
I guess heaven's full
no need for me.

I was woken for years
from dreams it was raining.
I swear I found
a drop or two,
I know there's no explaining.
Dreams of ocean storms
or drippy jungle tents
I once woke with a wet forehead.
I know it makes no sense!
It wasn't until a few years later
I caught my brother saying,
It's kind of funny now
he thought it was raining.
As I climbed into bed each night
I ignored what mother said.
I never peed before I slept,
and so I wet the bed.

I want to build a fire.
Want to lay down beside her.
Want to sleep under the sky
Far away from streets and lights.
Want to fall into the earth
Sleep with no one, only her.
Dig my fingers in the dirt.
Help me remember I am earth.

I'm leaving you honey.
Yeah there's no other way to say it.
Yes, because I'll never be with you honey.
**** its hard to say it.
I'm leaving you honey.
Do you need me to explain it?
Its a sad kind of funny, honey
because we never really named it.
I'm leaving you honey,
hardest thing I'll ever do.
Spend some time with me honey,
one last time let me love you.

His name was really Billy.
I'm not changing that for the story.
His name was Billy Jones,
and we hated him.
He was the fattest kid
in the sixth grade class.
He claimed his cat peed on him
right before he got on the bus,
so that he didn't have time to change.
But he smelled that way all the time.
His Metallica t-shirts were riddled with holes
and they were too large even for him.
Billy did not look like anyone else in the class.
On top of it all he was too shy to defend himself.
His meekness made him embarrassed in place of angry.
And I hated him.
To my core I hated him.
I watched him suffer in front of me.
I saw the way my classmates laughed.
I knew to be with Billy was to be with dirt.
So I hated him.
To hate him was to belong.
I extended no arm of sympathy.
The teacher's poked fun at him as well.
He did not belong with us.
Then one day he was gone.
Moved away.
And the wrinkles he had created
in our conservative, small town
middle school smoothed.
Everyone looked the same again,
and we didn't have to look at
the ugly angles of life anymore.
Some grew up and never had to again.

Will it **** you
when you get the invite to my wedding
not to be a maid of honor
not to be a bridesmaid
but to sit in the rows in any color dress you choose?
And will it **** you
when my christmas card comes
and I hold a baby you've never met
who has a godmother that you've never met?
And will it **** you
when the internet shows you
that my family has moved,
and I've started a new career,
but you aren't even really sure
what line of work I was in before?
Will it **** you as these years pass
and this title becomes wholey exact?
Or is it okay because
I won't know you either?

When we started there were
Five minute kisses,
Late nights sneaking out,
And texts of "I love you."
There were long looks,
And long trips,
And texts that said,
"I love you."
Now there is
"How is your day?"
"Very busy."
And texts, "I love you."
There are short phone calls.
There are no more long walks.
But there are texts, "I love you."

Green little brother
throwing up because
he's too drunk
and he cut his hand,
never been brave with blood.

Green to buy greens
asking brother what he means.
Grass stained pants from mowing yards.
Been buying grass, been working hard.

Green grass, brother
do you remember being home?
The way dad let the fields grow
are the blades still tall as we are?
Let's go back so we can know.

You shook,
While I shivered.
I talked,
And you whispered.
Then you left,
But I didn't.
And I tried,
Though you'd finished.

God isn't in the church, boys.
Can't find him on your cross.
We looked in all religions
even scoured cathedral halls.
God isn't our father
and he never was a son.
Well, in one way I suppose
our creator actually was.
God, she's in our sunlight.
She's in the air we breathe.
You'll find your God inside of you.
You'll find your God in trees.

I spent the fourteenth summer of my life begging.
In the aisles of the supermarket
I found I needed to be the mother of a cactus,
My own mother said plants were a bigger responsibility
Than one would first assume.
In the overwhelming bustle of the summer fair,
I decided I needed to become a parent to a baby rabbit.
My mother warned me that I could not handle the responsibility.
I became the proud owner of both,
Pouring every ounce of myself into each.
But, I seemed to have mismatched ideologies on water.
The cactus drowned,
And the rabbit dried up.
My mother was right.
A lot of things died that day.

With my eyes taped shut
I wondered down the road.
I trampled threw a swamp
and squashed some baby toads.

With my eyes taped shut
I fell down a hill,
I wondered out onto the street
and slipped on some road ****.

With my eyes taped shut
I ran into a tree,
got a broken arm,
and scraped up both my knees.

With my eyes taped shut,
I was finally done.
I peeled of the tape
to see I was back where I'd begun.

I used to run the streets at night
Because I couldn't scream
And I wouldn't fight.
Some times it's too hard
To act polite.
So I'd slip out the door,
And sprint street lights.

Time Stopped
and the world stopped
and I stopped,
Loving you that day.
and you stopped
and you saw
what really made things this way.

I liked how it used to be.
When I was you,
And you were me.
I loved the ways
We sometimes talked.
Like you were older,
Or I was mom.
I envied the way,
That you would always claim.
That nothing’s forever,
And this will be okay.

You don’t talk that way anymore.
But I still believe you.
The consequences of me becoming me,
And you being you.

Is everything we are
who we are when we're four?
To laugh and to learn
and to always want more?
Is this what it is
to be nothing but nine?
To have dreams and worries
but know you have time?
Is this how feels to be only fourteen?
To be talking all day
but no one hears a **** thing?
Then is this what it means to be seventeen?
To have plans and dreams
Though you haven't started a thing?
And is this what it is to be twenty one?
to have all this time,
yet feel as though there's none?
So are we these people
from the start to the end?
The same or different
or some kind of blend?

I am the ninth born
of fourteen Campbells.
The dividing line for most
between the big kids
and the small.
I, the oldest little
led the gang of ***** boys.
Always antagonizing the elders,
until the war was waged.
My cousins they were towers and
being thrown onto their shoulders
was the equivalent of being
launched into outer space.
They could spin us by our ankles,
they could keep us at bay with one arm
and when all of us would gang on one.
That was a triumphant day.
But the battle wouldn't last long.
The adults were always busy.
So I'd head off with my warriors
and we would plan our next attack.
The entertainment of the day,
getting thrown across a room.

Its funny looking at this now,
I am care taker at a preschool.
I'll pick up a child upside down
only to be flocked by eight screaming
"me next me next!"
and I'll laugh as they outnumber me to the ground.

One minute you are climbing the tower.
The next you are that tower falling down.

I could not ever
write a phrase about you
that wouldn't be a lie.
At least not if I ever
intended to show you.
No that wouldn't be right.
Because then you'd know
loud and clear
that you're the type of guy.
That drives me so ******* crazy
I want to stab out your eyes.
And no not in a cute way.
Please stop ******* talking.
We were never ever together
So please God keep on walking.

Since we moved
There are scattered pieces.
The fallout from explosions.
Pieces of us all
I'm little bits all around us.
Some left behind as well.
A photo of brother sledding
Tucked in the pages of
My algebra book.
Some pink rocks from the fish tank
In the driveway of their new home.
A box of children's toys
In the closet of a dorm.
Displaced and then misplaced.
Six people match the maddness.
We're not moving, we're just leaving.

I used to write about you all of the time.
I used to think about you all of the time.
I used to talk about you all of the time.
Then one day I read through
my old journals.
And I realized I was always
writing about the way things used to be.
So maybe its not you I'm hung up on.
Its just the used-to-be's.
And I'd like to think maybe
I'm getting a little old for that stuff.

Last night I dreamt of thunder storms
Lightning, hail, and rain.
I dreamt of people screaming and
The somber rattling of chains
In my dream I saw my death
The absence of ever breathing life
I saw hardship and simplicity
In my never ending strife.
I dreamt of un-measurable beauty
And the evils of this earth
I never longed for anything.
Nothing I valued had worth
I dreamt of life long journeys
But never took a step
I dreamt of rainy Sundays
And floors that needed swept
Last night I dreamt of crying
And death before a chance
Last night I dreamt of laughter
And young love’s silent glance.
I dreamt of what could be,
And what I’d never see again.
I fraternized with enemies,
And hated all of my friends.
I ran into the woods
Bare feet and solemn eyes
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! I screamed,
With my eyes trained on the sky
Last night I dreamt of blood
And death and beauty and pain
Last night I dreamt of summer.
Last night I dreamt of rain.

If I chose to have you,
I felt you'd be a girl.
You would wear tiny dresses
to cover your fat diapers.
Puffy Christmas dresses
for your first picture with Santa.
Little bows in your hair.
And my family,
God they would love you so much.
They'd buy you little dresses
that you'd scrape in the dirt
as you learned to walk.
Little yellow dresses
for your first day of school.
A tiny wedding dress
when your grandfather gave
you your first communion.
There would be miniature shoes
scattered all over the house.
Grandma would braid your hair,
and you'd have your father's eyes.
And we would have all loved you so much.
I realized late one night.

It's not as special as it sounds.
Although the title is exact.
I met the creator of the universe
In the dusty isle of discount mystery novels.
Had I not immediately known it was God
I would have profiled him a ****** predator.
Late middle aged and unshaven.
You're probably wondering but don't ask me.
I just knew, and you would to.
I asked him if he owned the place.
He said no, that he was the manager
To this tiny, tucked away bookstore.
He appeared to be an unhappy, lonely man.
There was a combination of comfort
And disappointment in this.
"Is there something you want to ask me?"
Of course there was.
"Why do you do this to all of us?"
He examined his fingernails
Pushing back his cuticals.
I could see the yellow of wax in his ears.
"I found myself existing.
Just the same way that you did."
He started with a sigh.
"I didn't understand,
and I'm still not sure I do.
Why do you live the way you do?
I was created and I try to make
the best of it just like you.
You see, I'm still trying to figure it all out.
I fail and I succeed.
I like to think I'm getting better."

Remember when we'd roller blade
and ***** about our moms?
And in summer we would
swim in caves
and scrape our feet on rocks.

Curled on the shower floor
we'd find crooked cuts
and blue bruise lines.
We'd say they were all accidents.
We'd say the other lied.

And when we laughed,
we laughed too hard.
and when you cried I cried.
We'd both say we were
scared to die.
When on the graves we'd lie.

Even when she leaves she stays
Even when she cries she plays
Even when she dies she breathes
Even when she’s blind she sees
Even when she laughs she’s sad
Every bit of good is bad.
Even though she lives she’s died.
Her coward-ness outweighs her pride
She’s full of dreams, though she does not sleep
She does not starve because she does not eat
Her wonderful future, an imaginary friend.
Her life is a game she’ll never win
Her fragile heart, it’s made of steel
Her pain is fake, but ever real.
Every time she breathes she breaks
Every time she gives she takes
And every time she loves she hates.
Even though she’s smart she’s dumb
Even when she feels she’s numb
Every day she lives she dies
She can’t be reached so no one tries
She is wind and nothing more.
She doesn't bleed but always hurts
Her coward-ness outweighs her pride.
From broken heart or broken mind
Her life is dead
But she can’t die.

In the dark of the night
and in the silence of my room
torn between sleep and reality
I often scream at you.
******* its all your fault,
I don't miss you anymore
My brain plays out your part as well
A fight that can't be ignored.
You aren't a special person
I hate that I wasted time on you
Things I'll never say out loud,
Though that doesn't make them untrue.

You looked at me
My heart kicked up
My breath picked up
My eyes lit up
You kissed my cheek
And my eyes dropped shut
Undeniable lust
My heart kicked up

I see wrong.
I see right.
I saw crying
and I saw fights.
Mom loves money.
Dad loved life.
I see wrong,
and I see right.
Mom raised us
and dad was gone.
I see right,
and I see wrong.
Kids pick sides
as time moves on,
but I see right,
and I see wrong.

He said, I miss you,
and that was enough.
Enough to untangle
all that I had *******.
Three words from his mouth
with ridiculous intensity
Feverishly unearthing
everything I had worked to bury.
Come back to me.
My body stiffened against the plea.
After all my time begging.
It was you who was missing me.

My mom was always planting ivy
In the valleys of our yard.
She said it was to keep the rain
From washing the earth away.
To keep it all anchored down.
She hoped it would grow over the years
Swallowing the whole house.
But she tried to tie the wrong things.
Because the earth never washed away,
The house never floated off.
If I had known
I would have told her
To wrap those vines around herself.

The clock in my kitchen is five minutes slow.  
I laugh at it sometimes.
I sit in the rusty metal chair and stare at it;
listening for the sound that proves its short comings.
At the strike of the hour the grandfather clock
in the hall begins to chime.
It is one of those clocks that was
handpicked in the universe
to always have the correct time.
There are not many like this
but there must be a few
to keep our world turning.
My household has lived by this clock for years,
everything revolving around its eternal knowledge.
I laugh at the cheap, battery ran
clock on my kitchen wall.
It is nothing in comparison.
I hear the grandfather clock
beginning his five o’clock strokes.  
I stare at the clock on the wall.
Four forty-five.
  Today I don’t laugh, I cry.

Love is when you
watch a horror movie
with your brother
and you hate them,
but he asked you,
and you're hoping
you'll hold hands
like you did when
you were younger.
Love is when you
spend Sunday at the market,
with your mom
without her asking
because you said no
too many times when you were fifteen
but now you wish she'd ask again.
And love is other things too.
Like when you share a blanket
because there is only one,
and you don't mention that
your feet stick out,
because you're hoping he is warm.
And love is when you smile
though you're scared.
So that they feel brave.
Because you can't change the dark of night.
And love is when
Your arm falls asleep
And you want to move
But you don't because
They are sleeping on your shoulder.
Love is being steady
when you want to fall apart.
And love is sacrifice,
without ever asking why.

You make me want to write
stupid little poems
about how you wash my hair
better than I do.
Or about how I can't sleep
when I'm without you.
Or about how sometimes
you carry me wherever we're going to.
Because I guess,
I think its pretty cool.
And you're pretty cool.
And this is all sort of magic.
But that doesn't mean
it makes good poems.
But like everything
in my life, my notebook
is filled with you.

Loving Izzy
is so easy
when its easy.
If you're the one
to make her laugh
it fills you
like a breath of clean cedar air.
There are pictures of us laughing.
Our faces pressed together,
our arms and legs tangled.
Laughing until we cried.
It happened. I swear.
And she would fill you up.
From head down to your toes.
You can inhale her smile
and absorb her energy.
She could make any day beautiful.
She was something.
She still is something somewhere.
And loving her was so **** easy,
when things were easy.

I would color one side
Purple with blue x's
And black circles.
The other would be
Pink and yellow
With two red hearts.
My grandmother would chide,
You're ruining the picture.
Butterflies have mirror wings,
That's what makes them beautiful.
I could never make her see
That mine were the special ones.
And they were beautiful,
Because they were exceptions.

When did kissing you
become like putting my lips
to a cool glass of water on a hot day?
Natural and easy,
almost as though
I had never done it at all.
And when did running
my hands along your skin
begin to feel as though I were
clutching my own arms
to keep warm
on an unseasonably cool day?
At what point did it become less clear
where the lines of your shell end
and mine begin?
Was it when we first collided?
Or is this a fusion laced time?
Have I been classically conditioned
to confuse your body with mine?
How did we grow
from tentatively holding hands
to kissing thighs or spines
with no shiver of uncertainty?
How is it that
even when our embrace ends
I know we are still connected?
Locked together by some magnetic force.
A kiss our souls need no rest from.
How is it that I blended and melted
and molded into you?
And even more perplexing
when did this all begin?
Was is when? Was it when?

There's a beautiful flower
at the end of my yard.
Purple or red
depending on the sun.
My flower is made of steel,
but it breaks like glass.
My flower is rusty
and covered in dirt.
She's bent in her middle,
My beautiful flower.
Her leaves brown and wilted.
She's just at the end of the yard.
I never walk to see her
for fear she'll run away.
My flower she is perfect.
She is filled with misunderstanding.
I never get to close
she doesn't want me near anyway.
My gorgeous flora,
she grew out of mud.
I never touch her.
Her dried up dying petals.
She doesn't need me.
My beautiful flower.

My brother and I
don't talk anymore.
Not even if we run into each other
at a party.
With him ****** and me very drunk.
A hello is as far as it goes.
We pass each other silently
in the corridors of my home.
Things are different
slowly but suddenly.
We used to walk the halls of the school
holding hands,
even up until seventh grade.
Well he was in sixth.
Everyone told us they were so jealous,
best friends and family.
We planned to grow up
and have houses with adjoining yards.
We would share a pool.
But my brother died two years ago.
Now even if I try I am disappointed.
Want to go on a walk?
His eyes stare blankly ahead at the computer.
When sharing the kitchen space,
Do you remember that time
we broke the tire swing?
Not really he mumbles
with the slam of the fridge door
as he slips out of the room.
He'll come out of this.
People tell me all the time.
I don't really think
people come back from the dead.
Yet, every day I find myself
checking his features for signs of life.

This day stays mostly in flashes.
A snap of a white dress,
My beautiful cousin laughing in it.
A glimpse of a sunset,
magically cliche as it sank into the lake.
A brief wave of white Christmas lights,
and barefooted dancing on wood floors.
And before even this
there was a walk.
A walk between some kids now past eighteen.
Each with their own wine glass,
though each was sampled by all.
Even Jacob, who is half past fourteen.
And they all shared laughs
as they shared stories,
while they wondered down the crooked path
tucked into the crisp hay field.
And they shared blood
every hour of every day not just that day.
But they could all feel it pumping,
on that evening in October.

I had never visited before.
On the drive over I imagined her name
carved in Helvetica on the stone.
Birth date- death date.
Would her picture be on there?
Would the names of her grandchildren
cover the back?
My eyes strained to keep the well from spilling over.
I found her in the Catholic section.
The rest of her family buried elsewhere.
A small gray stone with nothing,
except her last name on the back.
And a simple explanation
of her existence on the front.
There were no angel statues.
Only one sun faded bouquet of plastic pink flowers.
Nothing else.
Nothing to show that she was loved
and that her life mattered.
Nothing to show how much her being here
had changed everything for me.
July 19, 1948-Sept 4, 2008
That's all.
Her entire life amounted to a two foot
un-mowed concrete block.
I felt her body rotting beneath me.
I sat cross legged, staring at the only evidence
that she was ever real at all.
This is what it had all come down to.
I had never visited before.

When I was young
My mother painted
My grandmother as distant
And preoccupied with trivial matters.
A woman who could never
Even if she were interested
Understand me.
“That’s just Grandma Mary.”
We could roll our eyes together
After opening the pink dress or sewing kit
She had sent me in the mail.
“That’s just how she is.”
My mother would sigh.
But as I grew I came to realize,
I’m not distant and uncomprehendable.
The only thing that kept
My grandmother from understanding me
Was years of space.
The picture my mother had been painting
Was never of me and my grandma,
But instead of my mother
And her mother.

I used to be a poet
But then I killed myself
I used to read fine literature
But then I lost the shelf
I used to be an actress
But then I overdosed
I used to dance ballet
And I used to tell good jokes
I used to be a painter,
Before my fingers broke.
I used to be a Christian
Before everything fell
Now I don’t believe in Satan
So I’ll be seeing you in hell
I used to breathe oxygen
Before my lungs filled up with steel
Sometimes I would hear music
Until I learned it wasn’t real
I used to cut my wrists
Until I learned I’d never heal
I used to be a lizard
Before my second life
I used to be a mother
And once I was a wife
I just drank some poison
But trust me I won’t leave
I’m solid, I’m a rock
I’m as strong as I’ll ever

It almost feels as though you were never here.
Probably because you were never here.