In the jungle,
on the islands.
In my bedroom,
on my dumb ****.

I get a text.
I need a tattoo.

A real tattoo;
a Lola's wrinkled hands slapping my thigh,
laying me over banana leaf,
then hammering long needles in my chest-
maneuvering a horn, a bone, a citrus thorn,
tap, tap, tap, tap,
sketching wounds to fill with soot.

A muted barb,
a slight prickling of skin,
then sinking, stamping, slipping-
through blood,
through muscle,
through bone.
Staining, stripping, splitting-
scraping at my inside-sun.

That’s what my grace has been feeling like.
That’s what my shame has been reeling like.

I deleted the poems.
I deleted the messages,
I tried to delete the flutter.
I want to cry but nothing comes out
my tongue is so big,
I have too many teeth.

My lungs feels the way mercury looks
pouring into a petri-dish.
Kind of trippy. I didn't even trip.
My surface is all salt and peppery,
numb, infinite,
and so, so stringy.

A man told me secrets and I didn’t flinch.
Then he got mad,
Maybe because I didn’t flinch.
Maybe because he can’t not wreck things.
I didn't flinch, so he threw ** at the wall;
a bowl of puttanesca, cute frosted cakes,
oily tabouli, slippery tteokkbokki.

We watch it drip, drip down,
until scraps and broken plates tye-dye the baseboard.
I didn’t move to clean it up,
he didn’t move to explain.
We didn’t groove to call it art.
This is, of course, a metaphor;
we don't share a wall,
I haven’t made tabouli in years.

okay. okay. okay. okay.
It’s almost funny but not there yet.
Should we laugh about this or catalog it in our dark days?
but to catalog, you'd have to stay.

You said you weren’t scared.
I said I was glad.
I said you’re big and I’m small and we might fit perfectly.
You agreed. That was before you got mad.

Something inside you is reigning rabid-
We knew this.
I am rascally and rare.
We knew this too.
My feelings are so, so big.
Can you see them in shop-windows while you walk your city?
Can you hear them while you shower, or
smell them in your coffee grounds?

That feeling again-
That Old-World ink.
That heavy-heart sink.
The static slander of my skin,
the catty condensation of my brain.
Everything inside is lava lamp-holographic,
and everything outside is pin pin pin pin.
Lola, please keep hammering.
I still feel tacky but your needles
gather up the strings.

It's not decorative:
I'm hoping it's erosive.
I'll bow down deep;
elbows up, eyes down;
an apology for not flinching
when you thought I should have.
Eros bowed out, you're not staying.
I'll bow again- it's twice for the dead.

On this island,
it's just me, that Lola,
her long needles, and my big feelings.
She can hammer them back into me
And I won't flinch.

begin as a small soul-
stretch the ugly-
mind the dew.

Fill each borough with hands praying across beads,
******* in cheeks.
Here you can use the sky
to help you swallow.

Here you wonder historic in an orange wind tunneling
fierce, fluid, fast;
far and full,
Desperate to exhale
and spit down a subway grate.
No one’s looking for utopia anymore:
no rings
no wings.

Walk through haunted architecture for old times' sake.
What does ‘gilded age’ even mean?
On this block, our pipe’s clatter, burn up, and belly,
and the electricity smells.
We wear our shoes even as we sleep.

My body is a tenement,
families cram and people toil
in each room, room, room.
Layers of walls can be peeled off like skin,
we touch our lips and get dizzy.

I’m low light and no fire escapes, you’re growlers
of ale and some sort of horn in the saloon.
Together we are dangerous,
a public health emergency,
an evening that feels like home.

Laughter like glue dripping and drying;
exploring the oakwoods and getting itchy.
A moment, an arm, a radio.
A pinging kind of dire,
a different kind of parade.

His big issue is not company or crowds;
It’s nice girls like me seeing the same heart
but refusing to trip. I walk to bridges,
he stays sown on stoops.

We grip the same maps
but we seek a separate landscape.
I have bad thoughts and become the opposite,
we meet good omens and tuck them in the furnace.
I hear you aching like a slice of too-ripe fruit.
I remember not to look.

So what if-
What if we dive in?
What if it worked?

What if you let it fall-
What if I caught it and gave it back to you
without making a big deal of it?
I’m gathering dust- I stopped moving forward in the last few years,
but I have a weird feeling that I can try-
Like at least right now, while the city basks and blows around us,
I can walk again.

I’m talking about boats while getting a sunburn,
I’m growing blisters I’ll lance with a pin tomorrow,
but for now, I'm focusing more on exploring your hand.
I’m choking down Tabasco and talking fast,
you’re talking slow and listening.
I’m leaning back and laughing.

I’m the one who kissed you,
you’re the one pretending to be surprised.
I’m the one bringing up the hours we spent on the floor
all those years ago,
when you were young and I was mad,
and now, after half a decade of radio-silence-
I’m the one letting you **** me on a different floor,
across a brand new carpet that hasn’t settled flat, hasn’t softened at all.
I’m proud to have let myself soften.

I’m thinking about the way you don’t taste clean but I don’t really care.
I’m not as active as I’ve taught myself to be,
but for now, it seems like you don’t mind.
Keep not minding. Please.
For now, I’m okay with watching our bodies’ arc, thinking
‘goodness, this is just so funny’ and a little bit ‘will this make you like me less?’

Eight years ago I wrote a poem about you and people started to notice.
They told me how it netted in their own hurt and how it held them in a tightness they needed,
and that meant something to me. I never liked reading it-
there are too many flowers. It’s a green and pink feeling,
but now I know that I’m red and you’re blue.
I don’t think you saw it, or knew that it was about you;
I kind of hope not, It was dramatic, but so was I.
So am I.
I am still so soft.

While that poem was brewing, I was reeling,
I was everywhere and I was dripping.
I got a bottle of whiskey and gave it to you in a parking lot.
You didn’t kiss me then, and I let that hurt me for a while,
which wasn’t fair to you; you weren’t even old enough to buy whiskey.
But now you are. And now I’m not everywhere.
I’m only here. I’m still dripping.
What if it's less like leaking and more like watering?
What if it helps us grow?
I want you to be soft with me, I want the flowers
to start to make sense because if we try, maybe we can bloom.

I started puking birds-
I watched them fly south for the winter,
toward warmer pavement and fuller trees.

I started stuttering butterflies-
I watched them take giant sips from birdbaths,
We both know my mouth is so, so dry.

The thing about wings
the thing about things
the thing about trying to focus
and listen and nod while
My mouth is sticky and
my brain feels clogged, like a real
mess worth of paper towels
bunched and flushed in a panic
all the way down my throat

The electricity in this room is so loud
You keep talking, I look for outlets
You get annoyed, I turn off the lamp
You say stand still, I say I’m still listening
You say this is what I mean
I say I’m listening
I repeat what you said before you got annoyed
You say that’s not the point
I switch off the surge protector
I say it’s still there
you say that’s not the point
I say I hate this sound
You say it doesn’t bother me
You say if it ever does I put on the lofi-hip-hop-headphone-girl channel
You say think about it
I think about birds in trees instead
and if power lines are so so loud
or if it’s okay because they can drink from birdbaths
and fly south when they want to,
not just in winter. not just when the pavement is warm.


I say sometimes listening to you is like
watching a show with subtitles;
sometimes you are the audio and the electricity
is the subtitles, sometimes the
electricity is the audio and you are the subtitles,
and other times you are the electricity as well as
the subtitles and maybe there’s no audio at all,
and maybe the video is a few frames behind the audio
and maybe the subtitles are projected in reverse
like when you take a picture of a mirror
and maybe another electric note harmonizes with the first
and also maybe you’re having a stroke or at least
you’re really thirsty and you can’t unclench your knuckles.

You say now what, I say nothing
I’m on my knees, crawling the carpet,
feeling for outlets, scratching my rug burn,
unplugging sockets.

You say nothing for a moment
I listen for any quiet electricity still playing
you sit down next to me, I lift my legs up and over yours
I look at you, you look at my knees
you say I’m not annoyed, I say that’s not the point
you say listen
you say have you thought about microdosing
I should hear a punchline cymbal

I hear nothing, I don’t feel warm
I start to laugh then stop
I start to stutter then stop
I puke.

I’m considering breaking;
something big and essential and shared,
like a four-way traffic light, or a water tower,
or smashing every lightbulb I’ve ever used,
and letting the glass shards spread across
The grocery store aisles,
And I’ll shop for spinach, and caramel, and greek yogurt barefoot,
To show everyone how tough I am.

I’m considering disappearing into the November winds,
I’m untying my apron as a walk across the yard.
I’m already forgetting what the dishes look like
and when the utilities are due-
I’m already exaggerating what I’ve got, and
intonating superstitions toward where I’m going.

A gaggle of humans fleeing the tolerable
should push, should glow and guess,
should smile while they walk away,
shaking off their receipts and sunken science, gratefully.

Ahh, it feels good to decompose -
so good,
so, so good.
Have you tried it? Really tried it?
Anything anxious, or stiff, or sad
sprouting inside of you is severed-
pried out of the baseboards with the hammer’s claw,
and flushed down the toilet leaving a rusty stain on the porcelain.

But then,
then,
you become radiant.

You become a mystery; searing and traveling,
wrapped loosely in oils and gauze.
You become an emblem;
the blackest sun, the proudest eyelids, vaguest plans.
You become a fable,
picking scabs off your fingers, roaming sweaty markets,
utterly dissolved.

Punctuation becomes a commandment
to memorize,
to moralize,
to misuse.

A comma means a breath,
it means looking up at the sky and feeling very small,
no comma means you run through the cornfield like you’re being chased like your fingers are full of cramps like you forgot your shoes like the tornado siren is wailing and your not welcome anywhere with a door