I am peachflush, whipped red
and covered in large diamonds. Today
I sleep like a baby under a rosebush,
while his tongue calls my name
like danger, like anger, like love.

Everything is strange, she whispered in my ear
and I agreed. Ten years is long enough
to snarl one’s thoughts into pleasant bows
or leave a gaping hole where traffic once stalled.
My mother is no longer flesh, she is the realm
of tissue and muscle that I do not hold
in my conscious, greedy palm. We are strung
apart now, I dangle in the way of other bodies,
we start and stop and wait; we listen for the growth
of our hair and nails, our brains, even. Now
you are hog tied to the milky way, your brilliance
is masked by your own two hands and the silence
silence silence of your wrists. They love you,
remember this after 3 AM.  Remember to
keep the darkness in your marrow.

watch out for ***
and drugs
they said
"don't dye your hair"
"study hard" and, my personal favorite,
"it gets better" when in fact it doesn't
at least not for years and months and days
spent underneath my bed staring at the coiled springs
poised to collapse under the weight of my thoughts.
Collect yourself, pick up your safety razors, take an Advil.
Split open your legs and wrists and fingertips
and maybe then will you be free of weight
of bone-stones
of whitewashed emotions and an ignorant sun
that smiles with bliss
and turns my face to the sky.

Love me. Love... me.

I am the wind that folds against your body
the flat shadow next to you, the voice tucked inside your

shirt pocket

I am the one who sits alone at night--
are you thinking of me? Because I am thinking of you
and how we are never going to see each other again,
or even talk to each other, though I still want
everything
for us

and I want you to know that you are here with me,
on top of me, inside my head
you are next to me, within me
and you aren't leaving anytime soon.

When I was 11 or so
my friend who was fat and I
would feed meat to dogs behind gates.

They would look at us
so hungry
inside their grey gardens

dangerous and solemn

and I would look at them
so angry
so livid
so fantastically superior

and we would reach a  mutual understanding:
that man's best friend is power.

Bullets love flesh
flesh loves touch

I thought guns dear
I thought them tough

But metal, and metal
is smooth, not rough

killed my baby and friend today.

My dog is eating me alive.
I picked a mosquito bite.
It bled, of course because I bite my nails.
His tongue his scratchy and it feels
like he is eating me alive.
Like my dog is eating me alive.

The clothes I wear are swallowing me whole.
I'm suffocating in their woven hold.
The craftsmanship is fine
it's my body that's confined
and I swear it feels like
the clothes I wear are swallowing me whole.

My hair is too unruly for my head.
It takes up knotting when I am in bed.
Crocheting, colliding, fitting you under me
Finally in the morning I can see
My hair is too unruly for my head.

Life scares the hell out of me.
Things like garbage, masks and poetry
make me want to ***** my lunch
or just smoke and dance
because sometimes thinking kills you
and that is why
life scares the hell out of me.

Gone are the flowers
gone is the smile
the kiss and
the real-life person
now
so far away from me, eating apples and watching over me
now
so very close to me, sweating in the heat and whispering in my ear

read my lips, "*******"

How old are we?
Too young to remember.

We're stupid people
person, I am a little girl

quivering

Lunchtime! it's a calling.
I am sure of my steps, they grieve as I do

under the matte color of peach
is a ****** mess.

Swearword, swearword, swearword. Slap.

I know what's good for me, because I've spoon fed myself since babyhood
I've worked on projects with myself. I've killed animals with myself.
I've been in the shower with me and I've slept every night with me,
holding me close.

Forget winning or losing, which is manmade, and change me for the better.

Little fingers
making dresses

I put pleasant things in my mind
for living's sake, for beauty

high on Halloween
drugged up, boozed up
practically living in the ring of mushrooms I heard about as a child

when I checked out
every fairy book in the library. And then they weren't real.

Pretty thoughts are like los aves, the birds.

They fly in around in my caged mind until they are shot down
forcibly taken down

and used for food in winter.

The smell of church reminds me of my childhood

but over the years, the priest becomes a foolish man.
I've pondered over my faith for so long.

Sometimes I reach into my conscious and pull out steaming fistfuls of pop culture
like,
I watched Rosemary's Baby on Saturday. Was God dead in the 50s?

Not nearly as much as he is now.


Today was Palm Sunday, and I felt like a baby, so naked in the desert sand.

Delicate church, how do you reel me in?

I have this friend who's an artist.
She looks like burnt hair and chapped lips people say we look
like twins,
like poets

and we are both
short
and painted Paint the Town Red
from all the rough particles

The only difference between us is:
she is beautiful now that she is rough around the edges.

We sit sometimes across from each other
We talk, you give me your pencil, I give you my ring

Me, mine, my. Oh my.

You're stronger than me, I learnt it last Tuesday
when the air smelt of fish and you said, "This reminds me of the time I almost drowned."

You, yours, your. Your friends, your lifestyle, you're lovely.

My ring.

In the face of the hot-breathed horse,
I told my secret.

The digestion of a secret is a sacred thing
it goes through the mind  and into the esophagus

out the mouth sometimes.
But do it right, and

the secret stays deep inside
at your core; like a caged songbird.

This sweet orb
Of nervous energy

Gone. Is that feeling.

In the ugly face of anxiety
--What should I do? But stare at walls?

I can’t work

& Playing? It is scary.



Love is real, but rare, how to
Open my chest to the boy I love?



Violently I’m shutting down today
For a few hours




Notes bring me joy
If for 3 minutes 20 seconds
I see the world from an artist’s perspective

There is no room for doubt
In this world…




Glass shattering is a great mental image.
I should smash glass more often.