I keep espresso in my milkshakes
For I need to stay fat and alive
No other way to tell my mother she’s been
Defeated by good wills and diet pill
And an inability to lie prostrate
In the bathtub, tucked
In the corner
Tucked up like a turnip.
I now rouge in the heat
The long chill has taken the sunlight
out of my skin.
When I’m dressed I feel naked
When I’m naked I feel large
Like a moving box or a plow horse
Or a Saturday celebrity news scandal
To fill in the lead banality of one
Lone white rhino ******* once more
Into sand and dust
And then dying quietly.

The breeze smells of saffron and cyprus shrubs,
Silent men with starved eyes and foreign tongues
Nap in shaded caves beneath Alhambra.
I pluck a kitten from the Inula,
Hold her body writhing, she’s hardly mine,
And when she leaps, she’s nobody’s again.
On the ascent, I’m worn, my calves are cakes
Powdered with fine silt.  The ascent, I am alone.
Running my hands along terra cotta,
This city, she’s had many proud lords
Robed in furs and silks. They’ve built their churches.
They’ve impregnated the land with herds of sheep.
They’ve sent strong men to dam the melting snow,
To watch it flood in spring and wet their castles.
I’m sorry I left you in the alley.
I find myself beconded by high places,
A mare unbroken or a restless child.
Called up by the great blue velvet curtain.
The taste of lavender and burning peat,
The rolling amber hills, inherited
By these princes or husbands or tyrants,
But owned by no one but her desires.

The breeze smells of saffron and cyprus shrubs,
Silent men with starved eyes and foreign tongues
Nap in shaded caves beneath Alhambra.
I pluck a kitten from the Inula,
Hold her body writhing, she’s hardly mine,
And when she leaps, she’s nobody’s again.
On the ascent, I’m worn, my calves are cakes
Powdered with fine silt.  The ascent, I am alone.
Running my hands along terra cotta,
This city, she’s had many proud lords
Robed in furs and silks. They’ve built their churches.
They’ve impregnated the land with herds of sheep.
They’ve sent strong men to dam the melting snow,
To watch it flood in spring and wet their castles.
I’m sorry I left you in the alley.
I find myself beconded by high places,
A mare unbroken or a restless child.
Called up by the great blue velvet curtain.
The taste of lavender and burning peat,
The rolling amber hills, inherited
By these princes or husbands or tyrants,
But owned by no one but her desires.

Explain to me, danger.
Ice too thin on the coldest day of the year.
Snakes posed in the chasms, formed by dark red earth.
Quick sand, el chupacabra, a malignant tumor.
Pills and pastries, needles left in the park,
Poor knife skills, and poison darts.
Explain to me who he is.
Death playing chess on a windy beach.
Body-less hands reaching beneath my sheets,
Like corn snakes.
An old man in a fishing hat on the train platform.
The train conductor drunk in the smoke, snow, and storm
You’re a hungry boy with a weak lactose gene.
Parallel tracks like tres leches and vanilla ice cream.
A little string attached to my belly button.
A curious marionette, a dead puppet.
Too cocky, checkmate, and the sound of waves.
Everyone dies, but not everyone saves.

Mary, plain name.  Mary, mother of God
Mary, Queen of the Strip Mall
Mary, daughter of a King and a *****
Divinity in her blood, conqueror of lands,
Monarch of her body, kingdom of junkies.
Nails inlaid with pearls, mink lashes and onyx eyes
Indigo polyester wraps her 36, 30, 41,
saltwater taffy legs, ****, and ***.
Mary wasn’t a tall boy, Mary is a funnel cloud queen
Obsidian brazilian in velcro, soda can curls.
Mary has no titles, Mary is a *******, Mary is an exile.
Queen of cream stucco and neon and parking lots.
Mary has disciples, all named Judas.
She has Roy Cohn, the judge’s son, and Louis XIV on their knees in prayer.
She has **** Cheney, Little Richard, and Freud their knees in the bathroom behind the Tesco.
Mary doesn’t confess, doesn’t beg, doesn’t buy.
Mary the conqueror, Alexander reincarnate, she survives.
Body bathed in ultraviolet, cocoa butter, vaseline, and newport menthols.
Mary talks to God in the mirrors at the salvation army.
Mary is scared of dying, she knows she is no ones martyr.
Mary never kneels, left the Bible in the motel nightstand.
A graceful end, a unceremonious departure.
Trade rose petals for needles and styrofoam slurpee cups.
Mary’s mistresses, lovers, and wives, gave her a few lead rounds,
Left her in the strip mall mausoleum.
Mary, queen of the carnal, saint of suburban perversions.
Mary never asked God for forgiveness or a fix.

Tell me there’s money in the bank.
Take the eyeliner from Prince’s vanity.
Behead the queen and take the city in a coup.
Give me prose, give me a riddle, give me a rouse.
Hide the bread, and eat the rich.
Tell me I’m a **** boy but don’t touch me or I’ll bite.
Take my hand, then let me step on your neck.
Give me money, give me beauty, give me power.
I want to fill myself up until the land runs wet
And the rice drowns in the fields,
And the peasants die in their beds.
Selfishness to self-preservation, feast to gluttony.
Are we still skinny dipping if my arms have run rotten with gangrene.
Fill me up with floodwater, fill me up with wine.
I want to be full and fat, fight vulnerability with consumption.
The barricades I’ve set are mean, they run hot with electricity.
I want a heavy velvet dress and a fast flowing river.
Give me lilies and paint me, Millais.
Paint me ****, paint me crazed.
All canvas turns to clothing, turns to rags, turns to ash.
Once the guillotine, then a cut, then a scab.

All the sad, dark parts of my life bleed together like blue ink
What was here before the stains in my memory?
Please look at me,
Please look at my empty swollen stomach,
Please look at my beating heart.
Look at each one of my toes hanging languidly off my bed,
Look at them dry and cracked and broken
Look at my and tell me you love me
Lick this ink from my body
I am your pup
Hold my shoulders and rock me
I am so full of cold, dark words
The sparks at each tale end try and illuminate, but god is the ink dark

I don't want to trip too hard for I
don't want to crawl out the other side changed
I must like myself for there,
why would I opt out of self-destruction if not for self-preservation.

I have to see my family today
and act like I am not full of words that are oozing out
like wails and echos