The morning I woke up
with grass in my shoes
I came up for coffee

my mother warned me
she said "be careful-"

our women are addicted
And you don't want
to be a girl who
parties every night

she circles the truth

I don't want to be
a rusted empty box car
high-heeled
shot of rumplemintz
lost behind her eyes

but I do want to
be the sort of girl
to wake up with grass
in her shoes

because she was out
all night, walking in
the woods after a volley
ball game at the bar

who loves with her whole
imagination and tries to
illuminate the beauty
all around her, with
the flick of a lighter

who also happens
to drink because
it's veiled poison

and it helps us
understand and forget
and also remember
all the profound pain
the world has caused us


I want to find adventure
on a tuesday night
down a dark path
on a wooden bridge

and to wake up
with all the pieces of
the night resting
in my golden
ballet flats

You are like
the smoke left
on my clothes
after a bonfire

summer’s salty sweet
taste still sticky on
warm skin

you-
are the last breath
of autumn sunset
so pink
once orange
slow to disappear
off the horizon

you’re winter’s
chilly breath
all the way to
the center of
my feeble heart

thump thump thump
like the springtime
again and again

pierce me with your sweet
green dagger

dragonfly wings
unnatural beauty

you my
slow season
breath

my wanton
unforgetting

8 month
long lost
lullaby

sweet girl
how I missed you

late summer
solstace

soul sweeper
secret
goodnight

I’m proud of all the things I don’t know
This morning I woke up
and opened my third eye

and in the simple act
of receiving
the whole world spread
out in front of me

Like the pages of a book
Like a blueprint unfurling
Like a farm fresh golden egg
Like a biblical parting of the skies

Hyperbole?
Maybe,
but it feels like a spark
ignited
a “good morning”

long lost twin
all eyes open

sweet stranger
memory of me

almost long gone
forgotten

hello again
to the me

that sees with her third eye
who leaves a trail of golden
burning pieces

a single sparkler
just waffling all alone
down a dark driveway

in the hand of some innocent kid
such a small burning ember
and capable of such great joy

Once upon a time
we were just broken pieces
under false impression
put together
 
shards that clashed
crashed against
each other
 
(and we called that 
love)
 
spilled our our pain
from tarried pages
off empty screens
 
first we'd drink and smoke
so much so our 
serrated edges
couldn't pop the 
precious glass palace
 
I built around our fragile
naked bodies-
around my naked fragile heart
(and called that love)
 
blanketed oblivion
my swaddled shelter
 
out of a furl of smoke
our stories coiled 
in the cloistered air
of your room
 
and I'd cry on
behalf of your secret pain
 
and I 
called
that 
 
love.
 
sometimes,
our rage would swell
out of
a deep
 
someplace outside us
( ?maybe God Yahweh Jehovah The Universe)
something (w)hole
complete swirl
Surreal 
 
incomprehensible 
and we'd lash-
and retract
 
once I cracked her from
a small shell she'd curled into 
like a millipede 
 
she asked
"why do we do this to each other?"
 
Nothing has ever crushed me
so much as love has crushed me
 
I am still just a splinter
and so is she
 
except I am lost
somewhere in a
crack in the floor
 
and she glitters
 
this whole world
watches her glitter
from her small spot
on the sidewalk

wake to
               people walking
home from after hours kegger
cheeks red
     holding their heels
swinging handbags

brazen voices pierce      through     holey
    screen to fitful
half sleep state

next to an acrid smelling
guitar player
i
stir
  and
   put on
     my coat
decrepit door
c r e a k s on worn hinges

                  sneak through filthy kitchen
littered with plastic cups

reeking of stale sweat
    poured
tequila
           shot
abandoned
along    with sliced
lime and salt   shaker
companions

marijuana inspired chords
l  i  n  g  e  r  
in the air

   take my bottle of Jack from the freezer
dare not drink water
from
the
tap

though head pounds
  just put on   sun
glasses
taking flim-sy
strides to
fair trade

sit outside               in an iron chair
the art on the walls    burns my eyes
adj
usting
2   days   *****
shirt

the barista brings
a  hot  soy     latte
with           cinnamon
sprinkled   on top

          thanks-   i say
she doesn’t        respond

smoke a cig found  in my
purse
who was smoking 27’s?

give a       homeless      man a
quarter on the
way back to my
                   car

he takes it says
     god bless you

the strokes play through
cassette player
    it’s too loud
before noon

don’t buckle  seatbelt
on east wash  
capital                      disappears
from    rearview mirror

until road becomes
hwy 151
   and it
vanishes     behind
            a hill

like i was never here

I often wonder if girls with blonde highlights ever question their individuality
Same as they probably wonder what would possess a female human to shave 3/4 of her head and pierce a hole through the middle of her nose.
It’s not that I think uniqueness is determined by our outward displays of gender and costume choice.
But something about your mall bangs, target brand cardigan, doc martin, cost cutters style tells me you’ve bought into all the corporate ******* the world had to offer.
You opened your eyes out of the womb but the glow of the mcdonalds arc always compromised your vision.
As you flip through your people magazine criticize the body god gave you and so sacrifice your divinity.
Maybe I am the one who is too judgmental but I couldn’t imagine driving around in a minivan without the intense urge to throw myself out.
I couldn’t sell out to a pre-packaged fast-food existence.
A middle-aged hum-drum pass-the-remote
slow death
midwest
art school
dropout misery.

Keep me oddity.
Keep me strange queer girl
and never let me go

I dropped my iphone twice
on bare cement

an action which broke
its protective glass covering

leaving its robot guts
exposed

and several
spiderweb cracks
across its once

pristine electronic
surface

its busted visage
is met with
the gasps of
strangers

WHAT HAPPENED?
the poor thing

never asked to be
treated so poorly

but it found its way
into clumsy hands

who can’t hang on
to anything

hands belonging
to an owner whose
brain can’t comprehend

her own value
let alone the worth
of such a sophisticated
piece of  equipment