new york glasses boy asks questions
in auschwitz: were there americans in concentration camps?
in krakow: are europeans a race?
in budapest: are you okay? why don’t you want people to sing to you?
at dinner i hide from the orange rubber cake
people try to sing and i try to run
after much mulling over a recycled candle
i wish for a simple easy adulthood and contemplate flinging myself into the danube.

everything crawls everything hums
i move slower here

déjà vu
writing poetry on steps
the church doors aren’t locked
the church does not exist

here
i eat alone
walk alone
sleep alone

today my hair was greasy
my period didn’t come
my sweater didn’t come

crawl back towards the lights
bury myself into my noose
winter will come.

i wonder if he looks back on his life and feels
disappointment.
this man who calls two strangers his granddaughters,
strangers who can’t speak in his tongue and who know
nothing about him. not even his name.
to us he is ye-ye and not much more.

i wonder if i will cry when he dies.
ye-ye has heart problems
again, my dad tells me. his arteries are too small,
the blood can’t get through.
i don’t think i will cry

but i can sense my dad’s quiet panic.
it manifests itself in his voice,
the number of phone calls back to china,
his google searches on my laptop that appear on my phone.

he knows his father’s time is coming,
and guilt scratches at my throat because the tears don’t come.

the only thing worse than
being lonely and having no one
is
being lonely
having someone
and still
the feeling of having no one
persists

home decorating magazines say, avoid blue walls
instead, opt for yellow, sunshine, cheery
my mood matches the walls here
blue blue blue blue
four days
chin deep and alone
my companions I bought for thirty six dollars and change:
Bukowski, and some young unknown poet’s first anthology

I have starved myself for four days to begin loving my body again
today: one orange
shrunken and underwhelming without its peel
why is it? when I love myself I find
only contempt for the people around me

it’s stormed for four days
bone rumbling thunder
spiking veins of lightning
liquid bullets soak into my skin, pound into my bones

at night, I dream of becoming water

she inhales sharp
the foliage ***** her in       a diver entering the deep
in the pine needles she sees the motions of the universe

she is self conscious about her adam’s apple

she swishes pasta water around in her mouth

google search: how to kiss
                         how to behave in a relationship
                         how to cure chapped lips
… she doesn’t know how to be sentimental, only

to take off her shorts and lay still

it’d be nice to take the initiative

she’s not sad as often now:
there is comfort in apathy and burning liquor and the scent of another on the sheets

tonight:
no lemon slice moon,
no searchlight of white.
a black cradle for black bodies.

cylindrical wax, it’s all cyclical –

mike brown, eric garner,
freddie gray,
meagan hockaday

– across the street
white boy shreds black asphalt,

a sloppy chorus of happy birthday
spills like their foamy pints
over brown tables and black eulogies.

those pale faces, those pale fingers,
preoccupied more with the bubbling
and the stretch of their pizza cheese.

look up from your porcelain plates.
hear our rage bubbling,
see communities stretched translucent.

there is blood on your hands
and guilt to your name.

rookie girl
wearing mum’s shorts two sizes too big
black lace lingerie bought with a coupon code
and chinese granddad’s sandals
in a rush to meet him
on call
like a **** dog

callous *****
wearing black and mum’s loafers and heavy flesh
stands in front of the mirror ******* in
trying to find cheekbones
resolves to find a boy who will hold her hand
a boy whose bed she doesn’t have to leave
in the middle of the night
to crawl home
or
find no boy at all but instead
find strength and pride in solitude

but
at school
his little sister says hi
she tells herself:
don’t make eye contact
just dip your head further
continue
in a rush
with your tail between your legs

late night fuzzy mind hooked up like an android
to mumbles over pulsating dream pop
john maus sing me 2 sleep with ur electropiano

i don’t want no new beginnings
just wanna park on panoramic way
fog up the windows **** in the backseat..

just want july warm wednesdays to drag by forever

girls
and their long thin legs and flat tiny waists
surrounded by
boys
hands in their shorts pockets, trying to seem cool
my name is Steve, they say
but
through their smile they eye the prize
a pair of perky German *******
or French
or Venezuelan
it doesn’t matter
drift sick to the porch steps of a church
write poetry
look at clouds
pray for rain
pray tomorrow will be better
my God
please
let tomorrow be better

i.
OVERWHELMED! Reading Philip Whalen's "Sourdough Mountain Lookout"
in a Boston cafe' good music good vibes quick approaching
afternoon chocolate croissant puffed up in my belly heart puffed up
in my chest ready to yell leap skip jump make a ruckus frantic
search for pen and notebook of course the notebook is left in Ned's
dormitory almost don't have a pen and feel a short fall in my
gut. A walking (or sitting) cliche, scratching thoughts onto a
napkin as they come, total organic no preservatives except I stopped
to think before writing "scratching" -- no! not the word I wanted
the correct word is STREAM, STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS, FLOW OF
EMOTION - like the beat legendaries whom I idolize but
what do I know... generations later, only had
"******" (the cool hip term several
decades ago) and **** bourbon "Satan's ****" that leaves me
sick and *****. Good delusion! Couchsurfing across the country,
drop by without notice, run broke, read books - poetry & the Autobiography
of Malcolm X, living off my parent's hard-earned capitalist cash...



ii.
Often I fear I am too young and
tender to survive in this world. Moments
like these - sitting, reading, basking
in a cafe - can make me overwhelmed,
Got to drop everything and sit, elbows
propped, palms cupping numb face,
to slow the rush of emotions pulsating
thru me. I am too big a fool, fall
in love too easily with everything.
The boy barista is prettier than I,
thought he was a girl when I
approached and shocked by his voice.
Angel with a black septum ring!

i got angry for the first time tonight
my friend said “let’s **** him”
she eats grapes
i try to eat poetry
meanwhile
the desire to destroy
overwhelming

alone i
click mercilessly
do nothing
**** with the door closed
look at my reflection
tear up a t shirt
change in and change out
play songs about ruined love and
try and romanticize
what we were
what we could be

.. really we were not much

nausea pulsating glumness
sits swollen in my belly.
half-curled on a stained couch,
chins bubbling in bed,
i listen to elena croon
as lovers and friends slip,
newborn ghosts in my hippocampus.

hey vanessa
i’m not vanessa
oh, i’m sorry i know who you are, it’s just
i’ve been drinking tonight and i am so sorry
no, it’s fine, i’ve been drinking too
i’ll vote for you to make it up
no, it’s fine, don’t worry about it, but thank you

he sits down next to me but not really

i stare at the pink box of donut holes
small grease stains, untied ribbon
boy, girl, empty room, empty house
chin in my knees
heart full of holes

i can feel the weight
of my flesh hanging
off of me. i am sick
of bloat. i hunger for
hunger, a disgusting
nostalgia for days of
colorless lips and
hair out in clumps
and shivering in the
summertime.

there is something
nourishing in cafeteria clam chowder.
a deep spice in your belly
to fill up the empty feeling one gets
curled up to a cold back.
rushing home to find an empty,
carefully made bed.

why fall in love?

a new boy means i am writing
poetry, again.

on the train i sit next to a beautiful specimen
he is a young dark angel thing
a college boy perhaps
his hair is a wild curling black
but everything else made up of lines
even his eyelashes point downwards
i watch the view and his reflection in the glass
he doesn’t move
he rests his hands on his lap
palms pressed together
fingers lined up
eyes closed
chin lifted as if he is in prayer