The main reason I've tried around five new recipes a week
and all of a sudden enjoy cooking
and the reason I've bitten my nails down to bone
and texted my good friends way too many times
fragmented and weeping with questions
and the reason I've listened to podcasts minute after minute
and audiobooks
and ******* Damien Rice's creepy voice saying the words *******
over and over again
and have a wishlist on every overpriced bohemian rag site
and entered multiple contests guessing Bon Jovi's lyrics
to win 50 dollars to Applebees
and the reason I drink red white and blue ****** can after can
after hours that end with "AM"
and the reason I don't feel like hearing my client's problems
and catch myself in fantasies about running away or climbing up into trees and staying there for months
and the reason I go to angry slam poetry events by myself
and watch Sarah Silverman crying on the television
and snorting coke
or scrub my gums until they bleed
to taste the iron with those perfectly prepared meals
I even thought about joining a meetup group
instead I just met up with my therapist and noticed she's wearing the same sweater I am
What the hell is she going to be able to do for me?
Take my seventy dollars and run
and I keep edibles harbored in the corner of my cheek
saving the ounces for the most destitute of moments
when I hear I have to eat lunch with my in-laws at Red Robin
and be blinded by their white supremacy
That's when I get ****** as ****
and find it all funny
and the reason I sprint into the woods at night and look up at the stars
sweaty and haunted
and the reason I keep "getting lost" on my way home from work
and stalk my ex-boyfriend's babies on Facebook
and wet the pages of Charles Bukowski
and then watch his documentary and scream at the TV in horror
and the reason I buy bags and bags of peanut butter stuffed pretzels
and my laugh sounds unnervingly different every day, as if my role keeps changing from **** to lesbian to raging feminist to kitschy wife lover to Eskimo to poet

is due to the fact that I am in a long distance relationship with my own life
my own soul
my screaming energy and robustness
my color
and craving.

It would be a lot easier
if you

weren't beautiful

The intimate connection

A closeness
where proximity
is never the issue
words caught from mouth to mouth
like a French kiss of communication
Seductive cognitive stimulation
Tingling understanding
from ear to heart to mind
As soon as the first word uttered
first glance in flight
it's as if
loneliness was never known

The lighthearted playful connection

Laughter released roaring from
the core
A dream fostered by two
to champion the fantastical
adventurous night of
spontaneity and the birth of a different self
Veins, blood, cheeks chuckling
A direct line of yellow energy
from one being to the other
spreading like unconscious permission
allowing comic relief
and free-spirited flight of
words, song, dance
It's as if
consequence of action
never existed

The healing connection

Rage and pain
spouted out of a
heartbroken hose
A desperate hope for rehabilitation
And then another enters the space
Alas, another enters the suffocating space
and pumps oxygen back into the room
for hurled haughty words
and salted wounds
No need to choose a side
the center of the bed, saved for you
to curl and cry and become lost in
another's blanket embrace
Holding exhaustion for you
It's as if you had four shoulders
to hold that world of yours
instead of two

The forbidden connection**

Two beings
owned by another
through
rings
or promises
or time
The universe, introducing them
The light accidental brush of a hand
Longing iris to iris
Lust permeating the senses
Logic and sequence futile
Crimson licking up breath,
movement, muscles
It's as if for an instant
a wish thrown out to the stars
to be an article of clothing
hugging crevice, curve, skin

I have slept in my bed 800 times
799 times I have slept in between sheets alone, without you
And yet that 735th night
Is what haunts me on night 801
Without you.
I need to get a new bed
And new sheets
And new skin
That you have not touched me in.

I knew if I waited long enough
you'd call
every bone in your body
aching for release
every nerve ending
yearning for wrong
to be reminded
of my temptress ways
through my luring
soft voice spilling
onto your black and white world
bringing color back to your pupils
senses back to heightened existential
awareness
all of it makes you feel like a man
being reminded of my curves, my arched back
too much of a woman
for you to handle
I whisper "hello, doll"
filling up the dark empty space
of speech bubbles
that have been hanging in the air
for weeks
you and I,
cliche comics
trapped in the pages
of lust and illusion

There is nothing left of me
scattered bones for your choosing
you pick up the whitest of ivory
tangled veins and passions and smiles
thrown across this room
You wade through
like a thrifter
at a garage sale

The last of me is here
keep sake memory boxes
rusted and jaded
You can't bear to look at the letters
tear dropped stained
and restless within your heart

These are my remainders
***** hands
crossed legs
and a stomach well
of lost dreams
You cling to my sunken eyes
and spider web eyebrows
they whisper the secrets
of your longing lust

This is all that is left my dear
a tormented mind
filled with rainbow fantasy
drenched in clouded reality
A gripping song
that you flinch when you hear
it clinging to the walls of the starch room

I am nothing but a ghost
a fleeting scent
a mysterious movement
through the shafty
curtains of your aching presence
a graceless haunting

I christen my apartment walls with the *** I have collected
Since your embrace became a family of fire ants
And your words became a cold room for my sadness to fog up and draw faces on
I beg for the day my heart is scooped out
With the cold cream fingertips of
Ryan’s and Bryan’s and Licky lipped lions
Who reach for ******* and nape and *****
This whole wide world is my sugar cone
Topped off with a syrup of 3am Merlot tears
On Wednesdays my weeping transforms into lubricant for long haired boys to drink off of.
Thursday mornings
Drown ribs and power pressure brain cells and any memory
Of the doe-y eyed romantic I used to be
When I saw pink
Now, colorblind
How many times do I have to play black and white Johnny cash songs on repeat?
How many times do I have to gulp down photos and moments and memories you prostituted  
You turned me into a dollar bill
Even Good ol’ Georgey is blushing
You clothed me in scratchy objectification like a mannequin
Now my heart is as plastic as you are
Tell me you love my display
You created it, after all.
Arched heel, vacant eyes ready to **** a stranger off
How did I survive this long as a woman?
How are there so many drag queen  David’s among so many misogynistic Goliaths?
How am I still smiling and nodding to life’s nod?
Probably because my bones are made of bruises and my thumbs are frozen on triggered trauma
Dare me to thaw out and pull the ******* trigger
Paralyzed
I keep smiling
Like the men on the streets tell me to do.

I dyed my hair ash brown
Ironed it
harsh and fierce
I cut thick forest bangs
that hide my angry brows
and flirt with my long
black lashes
I dipped my brush
in bursting green
and painted my lids
to disguise the navy
emptiness
within me
I stained my lips roaring red
matching the words
that I hide, tongue to cheek
Nasty verbs and abashed adjectives
want badly to sneak out
and terrorize your every insecurity
I bleached every tiny tooth
bright wicked white
to flash towards terrible
wreckless superficial you
I lost five pounds
to fit into my saphire body-icon
attire
and don't worry, darling
my ******* are still naturally
huge and angry
from being objectified by you, *******
and I know that every
******* person
will think I'm a
goddess
model
queen
moviestar
and ****, I'll look like one and flourish

you will merely turn your head away
while I head to the bathroom
like a lush loser
cursing your ways viciously at the door
of your ******* gay boy bar stall

Oh silly,
wandering,
pale,
petite
heart
you travel miles
from your owner
exploring
the beauty of the globe
without  
rib cage, torso, and body
you finicky
flighty
little thing
you annoy me so
you jump from
stranger's hearts
to stranger's hearts
lavishing in their adoration
and unusual beauty
you trapse around
masquereding yourself
as an authentic barer
of real love
a skilled actress
convincing
this world
that your owner,
me
is right there with you
all along
Oh you tormenting
rapid
active
amber *****

Here I am
always stretched
in two places at once.

Flying flesh biting
mosquitos
buzz around secretly
strolling up our arms
and making a meal
from our salty sunkissed surface

we let them feast

for all we are aware of
is the sound of our skin
shifting to reveal
the simplest touch

and those mosquitos
could probably swallow our hearts
while we compose music from our eyelids
clinging eye contact
sparkling iris to iris

even the old willow is inspired
to offer a flirting notion towards the river,
skipping her branches near the edge
of the receding tide

at the sight of us

Her crumbs cascade waxy wood floor
I breath
Can I function intentionally?
My hand rests on my chest
I dig my fingertips into collarbone
I count
the way I was taught as a child
1...2...3
I am still here
Before my daughter goes to bed
she begs me to read books about Mr. & Mrs. Elmo and whales and Mrs. Doubtfire
I cannot protect her from false fathers
Imbalanced teeter totter parenting.
A genetically predisposed man who wakes up and occasionally chooses to hold her
I trained my heart to let go of tucked in promises
and Disneyland Dad ego strokes
I hope she views his love like an orange window at sunset
I won't let the line to the ride even be created.
She will be okay.
I echo this.
I bite every layer of cheek
Awake and asleep
Her mother is instinct
No choice is involved
It's almost as if I felt her every hiccup
in womb
every twirl and spill and swallow
I beg the orbits of hemisphere
to protect her from her father's contrast
Planted pink egg
faltered *****
a fingerprint.
When she opens her lids and voice
It is only her
Not her mother
Not her father
She is exquisite.
She is Audrey.

When she became to be
Within me
She strummed ribs,
Finger picking nylon bones to her fancy
Twirling among a galaxy of placenta
Knowing full well I would wiggle with her
My fleshy palms pressed upon apple core
Desperate to know if it was her elbow or heel or maybe even a shoulder blade
A Where's Waldo of who my baby would be
A Where's Waldo of your daddy and me

Now here she is

We find every part of ourselves ever lost
Within her
I see you in the pure sweetness of her eyes
A translucent mountain of green cane sugar
Like you,
Only the lucky ones get to witness the Emerald City
I see myself in the way she grips loose hair strands at my nape like an anchor
She holds on the way I have my whole life,
with vigor
she can't be left behind
In a world of brothers

What do we do with all of this life up to me and you?

Bottle me up
fill me to the brim
Posture me on your grainy shelf
Watch as I
Scoot my ribbed bottom closer and closer to the ledge
I inching over bourbon blondes
like a solo cup at a wedding
Anxiously awaiting a lofty bouquet toss
I await to be uncorked
Ah, the moment you grip my glass
and collapse a key into me
OPEN and ALIVE.
Please let me air-ate  
Let my maroon acid settle like freckles
on your tongue
See how my tannins feel like cannons right in the ribs down to the gut?
Notice how my words are cabernet crisp?
It is a beautifully intoxicating experience to break me down from solid to liquid

This is not my true form

I am solid.
I am a cascade. a basalt boulder. at the very, least a cloudy glacier not meant to melt and definitely not meant to be bottled.
I am a mountain.
Delicious if you are willing to trek to the top.

Seductive emerald green eyes meet seductive full lips that hide a smile that is only exposed at the most genuine of times. A man who has probably fifteen different types of laughs in response to three different types of scenarios. Sleepy, but not in a boring way—a sentimental kind of “checking in for the night”, Chris has only one dimple and only one type of tolerance for people. He isn’t a schmoozer, which is shocking as a salesman. You know where you stand with him and every type of person finds him so appealing that they secretly hope that they are always on his good side. Values aren’t a word or a list for him, they are a way of living. It’s not a thought or an intention, rather just who he is---a beautiful golden boy. Oh, but not in a sweet, novelty way. He has the perfect amount of edge---where you just want to keep looking, keep watching his every move. To say he is interesting in every sense of the word wouldn’t be enough.
I digress.
This is a bio meant to be reflective of his cinematic professional role. He is the lead. He isn’t center stage, but you want him to be. So modest that you have to grab him by the hand and pull him right in the middle so everyone can see him where he belongs: the spotlight. He’s the conductor sitting in the drummer’s seat. It takes an encore to get him to perform and when he does it’s a well that will never run dry. It’s never enough.
A jack of all trades? Would I describe him like that? Maybe some days, but for the most part he is king of hearts, He’s passionate, competent, and the best kind of human-organically sincere. You want to buy what he’s selling, you want him to call you friend, and if you’re really lucky like I am, romantic partner.
Success is in your veins my love. You were never meant to be a part of the crowd and that’s what one of the hundreds of reasons why I adore and love you.
You are all I’ve ever wanted.

I was built from my fathers tiny bones
my umbilical cord circled with second hand rage.
I entered oxygen
with Raggedy Anne eyes
black circles of fear under stitched innocence
Paired with
my inside out jumpers on picture day
And the quivering hands of my mother
smoothing my tangled curls
I ended up being jumpy just like her
And I got your thick hairline and your breathless passion for music and your ****** up need to explore the darkest cracks of humanity and your avoidance of mortality and your charming sexuality to get exactly whom you wanted--an elite lover who deserves better just to have them in sticky gripped destruction and I got your restlessness and your love for the forbidden and your salvation in rain
and your destructive awful enchanting chaos

A young girl sat across from me and asked me what she should do about her father
and there I was with my dynamic response
she weeped
she needed someone to be without poetic movement and body language
Without vigor
She said it reminded her of her violent father
My mother giggles at how distorted I entered the
world
Dislocated nose
A cone head
and misshaped eyes
Didn't she realize my world was distorted before I even got there?
I have always been pretty good with empathy.

My body takes me places I do not know
Skin swims under your drumming veins
and twists around gripped clothing
My arms wrap around foreign limbs
Mind confusing them as familiar

Blonde tresses pulled and tangled
by numb fingers
Nose bitten by hollow teeth
lips ****** up of all their color
the red shoved in your bottomless pocket

Nape nestled and licked up
My head now rests on my shoulders
Those shoulders carved, pits of letters revealing your name
Poked collar bones distorted under your weight
Flattened under hungry bones

My body takes me places I do not know
Rib cage cracked by demanding palms
Heart removed, and poured into your thirsty inlet
******* swim into your hook, you feed off of them for days.
Eyes lost at sea

Ankles and feet shoved down to the foot of your bed
Boredom hits, and they are stuffed below
My knees sit between tongue and cheek
And that voice I had, caught in your canal
Inflection hanging in the orbit of your planet

My calves wander and brushed up
Painted against your gnarled spine
Thighs travel around your tortured torso
Asking for directions from navel
Lead stray

My body takes me places I do not know
Mind finally arrives
Body's tour ignored.

Yesterday I was told that I was air
inventive and cool to the touch
offering oxygen and ideas to breathless souls

All I was to you was sea sewage
forcing you to hold stale breath
gripping onto other
floating debris lovers

And I was a shark circling
waiting for the moment
your weak grip slipped
the last of dry flesh would sink under currant
and there I was reaching for your perfectly
rainbow arched feet

I pulled you deeper and deeper until
finally I let you slip back into a world
where gravity was your enemy
and I, left alone as a sea monster
for ***** divers to gape at

And here I am sifting through the sand
trying to find purpose for our salty memories
Do I bury them and hope they convert into nourishment for the
algae?
do I let them float to the surface and offer light to your pirate pals?
Do I string them like pearls and adorn the humpbacks?
I could stuff them into the fisherman's cages and
let them surface back up to you
to **** from crab claws

But alas, captain

Until I find a purpose for all of our ****** up
suffocating memories

I'll scoff at being labeld "air"
and harbor those haunting pieces of you
like the mossy skulls I lay with
at the bottom of this dark ocean

Although you attempt to jab me
In passive backless form through
Exclusion and cruel bliss
I must remember...
this is all yours
Your ****, your insecurity, and your madness
It's your toxicity to wade through
Your shins laddened with black tar
Your words laced in spite
Your pulse can have a rhythm of vengeance
But I, I will stand firm and know
This is not mine to absorb
I zip myself up in thick skin
And know
I am confident and lovely and hilarious
I am beautiful and adventurous and stimulating
I am intelligent and courageous and healing
and I don't have to succumb to your demented seventeen year old white girl bully *******.

A rough surface of sorrow
forms under eyelids
when I see you
You strike it with a match of apathy,
Light your cigarette,
and throw fire to the burn pile of your life.
Flames flicker around
your daughter's botched haircuts
her eyes have the same longing yours do.
Violet heat swirls around questions, trapped in thought bubbles,  
that hang over your son's sweet hazel head
His prism tears make
everything go to ash

As I stand an outsider
Poking rod to ember
Even as I ****
I know the only thing I will find
is empty charcoal memories of how we used to be
Before the (w)reckoning  

How scorched it feels, how black it hurts
To lose someone who was there through it all
I could always arrive with streaks down my cheeks.
We could always be the kindling.

I guess all I can do now is say
Burn it all down, baby

The second that the inanimate vehicle
was no longer mine to control
and I fish tailed out
like I often fantasize about doing among the sea
wheels, bumper, lights
battled
median, gravity, and hope
As the same air that I ****** in
flew my mobile above the median
I caught a glimpse of that beautiful mountain
of where I accepted I would roll and be at the bottom of
no longer a mermaid swimming in air
all I could hold was my hope in salvation
"Please let there be a heaven, and please let me in."

As a little girl I was told I was "saved"
and I remember so specifically dunking my body under water
and no longer did heaven allude me
I made the choice with  myfather
hoping that as he was submerged in that "holy water"
that he would no longer be addicted to the "devil's drink"
I made the choice to be renewed
Clean.
Reborn into new skin and better more brilliant choices

As the snow reflected off of the mountain innocently
I prayed that the holy water, my prayers, my altruism, my heart would allow all of it to be true, for me
Bouncing back off of the median
another thought snapped into my cortex
"I hope Alex will be okay. I hope this doesn't ruin his life."
I spun exactly 4 times, crossing exactly four lanes

On the other side of the freeway
I felt the vibration of the vehicles flying past me
shaking my damaged car
I was in fact "saved."

What would I regret?
Who would I have wronged that would celebrate my passing?
Would there be anyone?
Who did I right?
Who would have regrets in the time they made for me, or the conflicts that always arise in relation with others?
Who did I change? What have I done with this life?

At least I would be dying at a time that I started turning my life around
and at least I would be dying at a time that I sat with a woman alone in the hospital trying to make the decision to keep her baby or put him up for adoption.
At least I got to hold him, and hold her heart in that space. At least I did that.
At least I loved Alex the way I always should have in the last two weeks. At least I gave him that.
At least I finished that painting for one of my closest, dearest friends.
At least I spent a weekend with my family, truly listening, truly being present.
At least I got to connect with my brother in a way I never have before.
At least I was a good friend to the people important to me.
At least I went to Europe and traveled.
At least I stopped drinking so much, and started giving more.

I didn't get to finish that really good book
and I didn't get to bring life into this world
and I didn't get to enjoy my relationship deeper
or my incredible friendships longer
I didn't get to go back to Paris
or learn French
or do that water color workshop inFebruary
and I didn't get to swim in the ocean one last time
I didn't get to master healthy boundaries
or get work published
or recite slam poetry
or say "I'm sorry" to all those men I wronged.
I didn't get to heal and repair from how far my ego took me
I didn't get to meditate or do hot yoga one last time

Humbling.
I hated the whole experience, because it was so **** humbling
I'm not invincible
I am mortal
And I cannot be the fearless strong woman
I try to be
every second of the day.
I will die,
but it won't be my corpse on that day
at the bottom of the mountain
in those mustard cords
and messy locks
listening to Heart "Crazy On You."
two minutes after a conversation with Bri
about silly childish plans and
how she was doing better,
even after I had gone
how much she wanted to hug me
and loved me.

Not that day.
but someday
death will undo me.

I walk along cobblestone
With childhood sterling bracelet
clanking on left wrist  
stacked with personalized pieces
sagging on linked chain

I drop charm by charm  
into cracks of amber granite

my last name
a diamond heart
a pink pony
a cross of roses
a ballerina slipper

a civilized timeline of marriage and kids and golden retrievers

my vowels
my lungs
my lips

I continue walking
wishing I could
Drop
my name at the end of your sentences
And all of the exclamation marks that usually

followed.

My silver bracelet emptied and open for

LGBTQ flags
DV advocacy
anti-trump
****** expression
poetry
the full moon
Zodiac signs
the *******.

I sit on my sectional, a witness
to those vulnerable beings
pulling at scarves,
yanking at gloves
clutching at down jackets
I find great entertainment by this.

They have waited until November
When I have resided in frost
since last October
All       year       long
I held onto turtlenecks of impulsive irony
I bore
thirteen layers exactly
of self pride
I wore gloves religiously
that were knitted out of masochism
and egocentrism
And I drank from cups of hot cocoa
brimmed with whipped irony
during the month of June
I was far to eager

Now these glorious beings
surround me
clinging to warmth and long john material,
sitting closest to the hearth

All I can do is laugh

I searched for a shell
in June
I decorated a tree of longing
in May
I reached for a fringing
frolicking
frock
in July
that would
:gasp:
keep me warm

Fahrenheit resided in
pelvic bone
fingerprints
desperado
and seduction

None of it warmed my bones.

I can't help but wonder
Why
Owning
The civilized lifestyle
Is so unbearably difficult for me
I'll co-work with my adrenaline
And take flight in experience
I'll take on the occupation
Of people watching,
Backpacking country to country
Indulging in culture
Surely I would be promoted,
"Employee of the year"
I could do that  forty hours a week,
Even sixty
My whole life
Now that is a career.
I could marry Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel
And hold hands with the Louvre
And make love to a portrait created at Montmarte
Now that is a vow I could make.
I could hold music in my womb
Lyrical flesh and formation
I would allow notes and rhythmic sensation to feed off of my nutrients
Pushing my body into stretch mark melody.
I could birth an entire album
Now that is motherhood.
But alas,
I do not live in the city that resides in my mind.
I am told to marry a man,
Birth a baby,
Own an occupation,
And dismiss
The yearnings of my heart,
Cursing civilization as I go.

I finally allow myself to be this
peaceful
Floating in a bath
of liquid bliss                                           s
I drained my tub of tears                e
weeks ago                                    l
And now above suds               b
of sarcasm                              b
and coping comedic       u
prism rainbow              b
I let my healthy glowing body
be clean
of all those days
***** with dreariness
I ring out
my cleansed tresses
That used to be
waterlogged with weighted worry
Warm and right out of the tumble dry
of your airy love
I wrap our soft yellow world
around my dripping body
and the fresh beauty
of your devotion
sits, settled along my
purified pores

You have allowed a baptism of brightness
into my life.

He is an old soul
Who adds years to my life
When his smile crinkles to his cheeks
My core becomes the first time I went too high on a swing
He is the most original person I have ever met and still a novelty
I love to see his soft cotton t shirt whip around core
When his board slices through people and places and time
When I give him a hard time or “get on his case,” as he would say
I can always tell he’s holding back a smile
He secretly loves the untamed in me
It is a warm hug
He kisses like he wants to vacation on my lips
Set up umbrella and sand chairs
I drink him in like I want to swallow the ocean and become his antigravity
He does not have to comb his hair or wear fancy jeans
He is organic beauty
I love how he hugs me into a slow dance
And turns my body into his favorite song
He sleeps like he is a different part in a play every night
Monkey. Tin man. Zombie
His eyes are a time lapsed sky
And his hands are clouds that I can always make out to be a bunny or a dragon or the all of me
He is always worried they are not bright white enough
When they always are.
My cat adores him
We both break down around animals
We turn to mush and comedy
When he cries the mountains and the carpet crumble around me
I yearn to be his fortune cookie
Break me open,
You will find that everything will be and is okay
When he looks at me he really looks at me When I talk to him I become a novel he cannot put down
Ferociously flipping pages
Not ever wanting to get to the end
He is not aware of how  rare he is
Like his old man loafers that he pairs with gym shorts
I cannot tell if he is as truly free
As he seems to be
He is multiple ages at the same time
A wild little boy growling and gritting his teeth
A teen sneaking tequila  
A senior making the bed for me  
He is a gorgeous lover
I hold my breath sometimes when he puts his hands on the pads of my heels
His skin is salt and milky smooth skipping stones
I beg them to bounce and eventually sink into the blue of all of me
When he is tangled in my sheets and resting his head on my shoulder and eating in the morning with me
I often imagine the two of us
Untainted by life and society
Color is calm with him
And noise is melody
What would it be
If I was a different person
And so was he?
I, a mother sweeping up wreckage, rebuilding my own captain and ship
Him, a salmon swimming upstream
Pink and powerful

You are a desert,
the two white webs in the corners of my mouth.
I lick my lips
only to slide the salt of other lovers who have crystalized
on your
sophomoric saliva
They cheapen my rich kiss
And leave the webs spinning
slowly closing in on words and intimacy and right
Little did you know
I am black widow
I take thirsty lacework
and Spiderman shoot your
***** back to you
Even though you have always been
droughty
lushy
fatuous
Open mouthed you beg for my wet
Insatiable and bare footed
You pink your heels
desperate to climb my pyramid
Never, will I allow you to the top  
Light your cigarette on heat wave warnings
and keep disintegrating in your broken down
washed up sandy life
Even if my body becomes a well
the moment you turn to dust
Not a rain drop, would I exchange
unless it meant your copper compliments would rust

Leonard Cohen
I sought out your words
and disguised myself in blankets of prose
I followed you like Hemingway
and Bukowski
and cried when you died
like a mentor I never had
Or a lover I never
shed skin with
But your deep tones rattle my bones
to this day

what kind of a person would you be without the threat of consequence?**

Vindictive
Sneaky and seductive
Luring every lost man
that stumbles into my undeniable grip
I'd wrap them tight with my blonde tresses
and tangle them with burning kisses
Leaving them stagnat--stuck
weaping for more
I would be a beautiful siren
singing softly to sailors
destroying their blue and gold
just to get to you

If there were no consequences
I'd love you with all my heart
Instead of being such a ******* idiot
wasting time on sailors, and models

Instead of fighting happiness with angry closed fists

"You can't be in two places at once."

My palms are faced towards India
The space needle owns my eyes
My rib cage is Italy
My heart, belonging to Paris
My knees wobbled and weak in the direction of the Cayman Islands
The sting rays rubbed up soft among my calves
The breath caught in my lungs the second
I head east
Where you own my oxygen
in Spokane
My toes are pointed towards Portland
where mystery, wept tears,
and the abandonment of my father
resides.
New York city holds
the inferior restlessness within me
and this tiny little room
is where "I am."

After last week
I think I fell ill
with agoraphobia
Or perhaps my mind
retreated
turning hermit
and hidden
Maybe my thoughts
were trying to convince
my mouth to become
mute
My heart could have
tempted my limbs
to refrain from making
my routine tired
sloppy movements
out of bed
It could have been your
words
They could have gotten through the cracks
of my protective skull
and paralyzed
my inner spirit
to connect and inspire
and fly
Or maybe I was turned into a vampire
over the course
of the dreary long
tar night
Count must have snuck in
under the tiny slit of my door
and drained the life within me
forcing me to refrain
from light and the beauty
of a newborn day

Whatever it is...

I don't want to hear a single
syllable uttered
in my presence
Not a single w-o-r-d
hurled into my environment
like a sneaky soapy "I" or "me" or...
Today all I want is to
barricade myself in this
gorgeously empty room
and believe that I am the only person
on this planet
and that I don't owe a
a ******* thing
to anyone
especially

conversation

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.

could I be your hadley richardson?
your delicious pear
you cut into
owning green flesh
cat, soak in my sweet nectar

could I be your bumby?
your Ezra Pound
bashing of heads
against the lead of pencil

Stepping on carpet
(climbing onto rock)
We stare at screen
(I cast my spell...)
I CAN conquer man's demise.
Touchdowns
convert  to gazing into the scripts of our souls.
Stagnant and somber,
you are inches away
I am in floating in space
I sit on couch
(or sitting on active volcano?)
and stare at blank walls
(or cotton candy sunsets?)
And I grab your hand
and we float out the window
(much like Peter Pan and Wendy)
and we are Icelandic campers
we are North African monkeys grooming each other
we are Alaskan sibling salmon, swimming to the exact spot our eggs once resided
always against current
teasing the brown bear
we are slipping penguins
the sea lions watch our transition
from awkward wobbling
to graceful gliding
figure eighting
between icebergs
We have so much energy that the gulls
might bet on us melting the bergs
we are gas and light and air and water and mother moon

we are so much more than this cancerous room

I know it. You know it.

Instead we groan at fumbles
and pile plates high with lays potato chips
layered grief stuck between tongue and cheek

Goodbye my dear friend.

I know you heard me.

I always believed
You would not let me fall.

It began April of last year

My limbs whipped through the air,
Tresses swirling, a day old tumbleweed
Blinding any access to holds

Still, I Lurched for

Your crooked smile
Your magician's hands
Your whiskey slurred "I love you's"
Your sweet tormented eyes

How could I still be shocked that none of it was rooted
None of you was planted
With your swinging knife blade you had slit all that could create
growth

I plunged
My heels digging into air

You threw me a rope of flames
A garland of grey
Wings of a sleepless angel
You reached for me but your arms were a shadow
A glazed eyed ghost
A haunting option of pseudo safety

Collapsed, finally free from gravity
Landing in another's arms.

Was I okay?
I searched among my bones and laughter
behind ribs and under the cracks of my smile
For anything damaged in the crash

There you were.
There you always are.
Within me, never around me.

like a fool in love without you
and still with you

I have never snorted
or smoked
or stung skin
with the explicit
substances of this earth
But I have heard that when
a human being goes from
first ****** experience to
aching addiction
Their brains have been
flooded
with seratonin
to such a devestating
degree
that they can no longer
enjoy organic bliss

                                                        sc­ent
                                                        taste­
                                                        touch
  ­                                                      melody

Wha­t I want to know
Is if this is what happened to me
because of **you

Last night
I shed my black slacks
like shedding a sticky solemn skin
I opened up my arms,
feet twisting among the mauve carpet
I soared over the couch
caressing the curtains
they posed as my truest
partner to my fluid fiery dance
I shook out all the anger
that had been launching out of my pores
I twisted my arms softly over my head
shifting the ache and pain
from my chest, through my stretched out arms
all the way out
to the popcorn ceiling
I arched my back, lifting pointed leg
bending all of those burdens
out of my bones
I untwisted my tightly knit bun
and let all my curls fling
hurling the insults
out of my tresses
that I'd been carrying
on top of my head
all day
Finally I knelt down
as an ellipse
to the dance
that I will pick up again
the next time you enter my world.

I'll never let you hold me captive.

I will
go
ahead and
break my own heart
thank.you.very.much

Hand me clamp
Your clenched jaw
Waiting to chomp at the bit

You grip my hand,
introduce yourself
My aorta crushes your knuckles
Oh you can't let go?
What a shame
Beat you to it.
Broke rib cage
Crunched down on
beating
Crimson

All before you could tell me where you came from

Hell.

I'm starting to separate from the walls
our couch
the dishes
the plants and
the map on the wall
where we pinned all the places we had been together
I'm starting to detach from the photos
Our sweet young nephews
The hopes of creating our babes
I'm letting it go
I'm divorcing your dimples
and the fact that your toes are as long as my fingers
and I'm divorcing the anguish
the ******* yearning
the tears that roll down my cheeks when I awake
and there you are
looking at my with a blank stare
coldness in your smile.
Here I am again.
Married to it all
still.

I let
my nails and hair grow out
I wear black turtle neck sweatshirt
My teeth crowd in
on my words
Elizabeth Taylor divorced
I re-enter the world old and slew.

Posh boss.

I am told I carry myself well
All I carry is misogyny
under nail beds
Black flesh wounds
Scratched until they bleed
Red makes them flee

I walk fast,
stomp hard
through streets I frequent
Look him square in the face
Become rooted tree

I was already mourning you
Before we even met
I was wiping waxy black mascara under eyes with the back of cotton long sleeves
I was already on hardwood floors closed up like a locket
Weeping into shiny silver hands
holding pictures of you
We hadn’t even met yet  
I was already calling my best friend while in the bathtub drinking wine
Listening to Leonard Cohen croon the pain my heart could never write through vein
I was already remembering the specific part in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Where she begs her doctor to take out her olfactory nerve so she can’t be reminded of her lovers scebt
I was already anticipating
the way you would haunt me through
all of the ******* five senses
I was already regretting how I shared all my favorite dishes around town with you and anticipating the weight loss to come shortly thereafter
I was already cutting off the vessel of my heart you would in roam
And attempt to inhabit
You see my dear
You were doomed from the very beginning

And as I cross among the stage
identical to the other three hundred dedicated
individuals
cap, gown, tassel
I can't help but hold on to my cap
Keep on this gown
and continue through the world
in students' skin
the only coat of comfort
I can find.

We force ourselves to stand
Three feet apart
hips hug both sides of my stove
This is the only way we can exchange words
without clutching jaw
and drinking down
the longing on our tongues
without inhaling goose bumps
and locking fingers,
palms and tips--
our roots
twisting around an angular world
Our words might as well be our pores
touching and igniting into the night
They dance around our mouths and
tug at our stories
It is our pause that holds me,
Where silence steps in like a sister
Nodding and approving
of the way
we look at each other
like a night sky
bursting with bright
You are my light.

Mary Poppins
bags underneath my eyes
you've pulled out umbrellas
and towels
and cups
and bowls
trying to catch these

t
   e  
      a
         r
           s

I realized to my despair
that I am a terrible liar,
notorious fibber,
and compulsive embellisher.
I deceive
without my knowledge
For my empathy is so pervasive,
so consuming
that when another is experiencing
grief and suffering
and vexation
of the spirit
That, like the tissue I offer for their tears
I soak up every gnawing sorrow
and suddenly
I become in sync,
In belief.
Twinned disturbance
leads to expression
of experience
And soon I'm telling
others of what has just happened to me
when nothing has actually happened at all.

Could someone please relieve me of this torturous empathy?
Its turning me into a fallacy

Goodbye
Disgusting excuse of a friend
A confidant
I used to hold such confidence in,
Now a sickly
Pseudo relationship.
You and I
A Despicable desert dry
Duo
I can't spend another second
At this pathetic pretending
That you can offer anything to anyone
But a narcissistic notion
And a nerve-racking
neuroses of the mind
The universe is out to get you
I curse my oblivious self
I had forgotten you are the single
Cohabiter on Earth
Ah, yes
You are undefeated
At the blame game
I've tried to hold honor in defeat
But, I don't have an ounce of energy left
For your egotistical world
You unhinged
Dark gate
You let your steed of self-obsession
Out to stampede the sincerest hearts
You don't even see the *****
Destruction
You deal out
From your deprived reciprocity
Alcohol, your only ailment
Your **** filled words
Tossed out lament and futile
This is where we go our divided way
I will not claim even a freckle on your face
As a friend
I will not look back
Nostalgia is not necessary
I will detach myself from your
Leach like misery
And I'll slowly build strength back
A blood flow of enraged fierceness
Has circulated through my core
And it will be as if
I never had any bit
Of me
Belonging to you
Friend, now foe
Farewell

If only I were a type "a" personality
Then maybe I wouldn't be trapped by
All those that represent
Other letters of the alphabet

A free bird, caged by freedom

When I dream
I grab myself by the shoulders
I squeeze deep into the bones
that flare on the corners of collar bone,
just enough to feel the ridges that reach my back blades.
I take hold
and shake myself in a way that the halo of curls around my head
turn straight
I scream,
                                        RUN

                    I am nothing but a blank stare.

                                      NUMB

from the veins screeching out of your forehead
the liquor leering over your hateful sentences
the manipulative maze you force me to walk through,
blind folded

I keep apologizing
for your rage.
I disappear with every "sorry."

Please free me.
Leave me.
Please.

I've drank a thousand beers
I've smoked a million cigarrettes
I've ate at least a hundred Twix bars
I've watched Breakfast at Tiffany's hours on end
I've flirted with every male waiter that brings me
unfulfilling dish after unfulfilling dish
I've bought weekly **** dark outfits
and I've spent my life savings
on beautiful MAC make-up and a new Legacy
and pumps I think you'd like
I've gotten my hair colored every color I can think of
I've tried being an apathetic punk, an upbeat cowgirl,  
a wide-eyed polyanna, a harsh madonna, a ****-you-feline,
an emotionally charged marilyn, and a classy Diane
I've memorized witty jokes, and roasts, and rivetting last lines
I've modeled and sang and became an athlete
I've played hard to get, I've played easy and teasy
And I've twirled my hair and crossed my legs
and learned to walk while swaying my hips
I've ran miles and kilometers and meters and
I've lifted weights and done zumba and yoga and hiked and biked and

****.

There's no comfort                                  and no          getting    to                                        ­                    you.

It is the fiftieth "mamma"
The fourth hour of sleep
a tiny heel drives into chin
it feels deep
a three year old kiss to the elbow
fervent fingers wrap around thumb
before succumbing to slumber
I refuse to be numb

Mamma is all I want

I want to mother
and be mothered
and for others to be better mothered and mothers

My father left me
a cold egg in nest
My mother
like most mothers
forced to
hunt AND gather AND hold
My wings frozen unrest
Forced to help everyone else around me
to learn how to fly
surviving in jest