It is a crawling
a snake of emotional creeping
an ache of mishaps
pushing up, seeking an opening
a release of pressure
a leaking gasket of **** ups
a painful agony of woes
it is zap of intestinal torment
it is numb lips
a haunting light
all of it leading and glowing into the
being
the being I keep avoiding.
the feeling I keep translating into metaphors
and unoriginal analogies
I keep trying to define it
like I can touch any of this
thought bubbles float above us
To think I could grasp any of it
I reach anyways
Separating immediately when I'm clutching air
holding hands with an empty ancient lover
I disassociate from pain
trying to beat her at her own game
I try and cut off limbs that steal from
my bliss
but they remain phantom
floating around and mocking
all that is left of me.

Your body is nectar
It shifts and shakes me
Into a yellow and black beauty
I grow wings
But I wouldn't dare to use them
I keep them tucked behind blades
And **** up the honey
That I rinse out of you
I become a fiend
My habit is your hands
I crave **** and ****** and
Collar bone
Your pores are pebbles
My ache comes in currents
And soon I am sinking into your soft sands
Your lips are morning dew
That still drip with dusk
I become every hour of the day
And I'll peer into your kaleidoscope way
with wreck less abandon
For as long as you will let me.

When it first happened
Everything in sight
Taller than I
Seduced me
Urged me
To flee the earth

Western red cedar
Sooty brick chimneys
Rainier caps
You.

I could climb and clutter and choke and caress and cling
Oh to have a moment of solitude
With the blue
If I was vertical enough
Would the fever fade?

I could mutate into molecule
A drift of snow
An aphid eaten leaf
A maroon berry
Caught in a sparrow's beak
Would I be alleviated by elevation?
If I get close enough to God would I be washed of my sins?
I vow never to touch soil again
Tree limbs would be my salvation

Meet me there.

I dug up the roots of my front yard Hawthorne
And squeezed tears out of ducts
To water soil
To nurture limbs
To bare berry
That round maroon flesh
Plucked by sparrow
Then **** out on your freshly waxed Subaru
I hope you are out of town when it happens
And it dries and crusts and mutates
And you have to scrub
And sweat
Right back into the ****
That was fostered by my sadness

Our words turned into string
Soft carrot angora
I used my size 6 needles
And begged you to whisper
Up to the stars
Off up to me
Your first thoughts
When you think of the first time you slipped your fingers
Around mine
Ah. Aren't I egocentric?
Fine.
I'll go first
It was the warmth of the first sip of black coffee Monday morning
It was the roughness of falling asleep to the sun, wrapped in the grains of sand
It was the familiarity of the pale pink walls of my childhood bedroom
It was the yearning I have seen on a homesick sailor's face fantasizing of land
And it was the sound of melancholic jazz ballads

I wait for your answer

To pearl off and offer a sweater, poorly knit
To keep you warm.

If my dream state
was in charge of my awakened form
I would contort and transition--from mouse
to praying mantis
to your eyelashes
fanning out your dewy dropped ache
Offering permission
allowing all of your pain to taper
trickle down to nose
down to  curved lip
down to chin
avalanching onto breast bone

And what if I was a megaphone
Or a confident white man
in some overrated leadership position
Or a scooped out couch cushion
I would let you sit in the same spot for years
I would stand at the podium
and declare that I have never felt alone
or insecure
or flattened out
or in yearning to trace the calic in your hair
or a triangle of *** and feminism and woman

Could you imagine if we were voyeuristic with our touch
with our chaos
with our close eyed kisses
with our eye contact
conversations

The world would not be able to handle any of it
at least our world.

If I could curl back up into my mother’s womb
And find comfort in her heartbeat
To nurse off the cereal I made her crave
And get lost in her dreams,
Instead of mine
If I could be swaddled in soft cotton
And shushed to sleep
My only vision-- a dream catcher mobile
Warding off the demons
That sat at my crib, licking their fingers
Hungry for my years
If I could disappear into the color of something
Or someone
The olive in the fir
The amber in my brother’s cheeks
The milk in the snow
The yellow in the breeze
If I could climb down within myself
Trudge through esophagus
Down to my tangled gut
I’d lay there, use my web as a hammock
Finally find rest from you, my dear
Then I would trek south
and dig under patella,
sheltered by a knee cap cave
If I could precipitate
Go from a solid to a molecule
And rest on the back of blue bird feathers
I would drip down to the earth
For you to step on and soak up the rest of my softness
I would finally disappear and let your light
Seep back to you.