her pretty
sun-tanned face
assumed the characteristics
of a

grease-stained
bag

I am no dark little girl with
her pretty little
eyes

but I harness
my own
darkness,
from time to
time.

it's different and I
wish it weren't, I'm
growing up, down and
sideways,
learning
everything
at once,
a bit at a time and
nothing,
nothing
at all

your hips are
sinking ships,
floating along my
jawline, my lips,
take trips along
southern
borders

and you smile like
I wanted you to

I am
    busy
      busy
        busy
being busy being
left right left right
         - left
           alone.

the couch doesn't fit so  
I suggest that we saw it in half (no one laughed.)
my mother finds that the legs
***** off and a phillips would be choice but
when we were searching
the boy walking by
who offered his knife
was so
kind.

I tried his knife and hid
the screwdriver I found
in my back
pocket.

yesterday I fell in love a million times -
with an old man who ate lunch by himself but
smiled and called me 'little daisy' whenever I
refilled his coffee, with my coworker who has three kids
and pretty eyes even when they are tired, my yoga instructor,
the man on the bus with a large coffee stain on his starched collar,
my neighbor who was out mowing his lawn in the dead of winter, and
Kurt Cobain - but today I didn't fall in love at all.

tomorrow I plan to take a walk, eat something for once and
sit next to the man with the stain on my way to work.

perhaps I'll fall in love again.

kisses and the
shivers that
follow, twist into
what it's like to feel
warm
all of the
time.

even if the
temperature tells you
it's not.

even if
snowflakes
tickle your
eyelashes
from time to
time.

these nights we
hold each other's voices and
wait for the clock to stop staring
before we unravel our sweaters, our
shirts our socks and
start to hum the tunes
we were taught as
children

this is the place where wires tangle
the birthplace of sneezes
a home for desperate coins,
two balled up tissues, a
****** wrapper (yippee)
a note with handwriting that fingers the page with it's curly tentacles
and a packet of
matches
to start
the fire.

I don't want your
soul-*******, your
pick-me-up lines.

I just want enough air in this room
and enough space in this town and
enough corners in my brain
to hide in.

I just want a bed at night to lie in,
I just want an atmosphere without holes in it,
I just want you to stop
looking at me
like that,

and I just want to give you this
hole in my stomach
where food used to flourish,
the people used to live forever and
the point of everything was that
it made us happy.

I don't want to settle for
the background of a chagall.
I want the lovers, too.

after the time it feels good to
sigh, it feels good
to moan a little and die
a little, it feels good
to try a little (I have)
give a little more and
take what I can
get, it feels

good.

you give off
a sort of disgustingly wonderful sweet music.
I find myself humming it every time you pass me.

spill out your heart, sister,
show me you're warm inside,
show me you're not just a popsicle with a
hard center holding you upright

show me
please
show
me.

my house is haunted by the ghost of satisfaction
because we all want something bigger than us, bigger than
this town and bigger than the world.

when on the road I dream of home and when
at home I dream of leaving,
I can feel it slipping away
from me, now.

I'll sit until you come and tell me
that the walls are falling down,
that this town is burning
down.

I want you to see the hole in my shirt
where your heart went through like a Colt 45,
and opened a dream at the back of the neck.

Here,
let me unbutton it for you.

there you are:
shaking your fist as if it were a rattle and
aimlessly insulting the air
in front of you.

there isn't anyone blocking your view
of what just might be a good place,
if you let it, a good
moment or two if you
want them,
a good year
or so if you
work
for
it.

the rain begins first
                                     -timid

and the drops make no sound but
they are tiny bombs destroying tiny
countries destroying tinier cities and
even tinier
us as we
walk
                                     -unsuspecting

and kiss the cement with our
arrogance

I'm revving my engine and I expect
to see your *** in this velvet throne of
queens in one
second.

I'm just going to pick up a few things,
shampoo
toothpaste
a bag of cookies
and probably
a little perpsective with a side of
I-don't-give-a-****-anymore.

Sit down. Enjoy your free ride.
But please, don't talk to me about
getting laid and
getting paid and
things that shouldn't come out of a mouth so young.

You should be asking me when we're stopping at the park
because you want to see the sunset from on top of
the monkey bars (it's the best spot in town.)

You should be asking me
to drive faster because you can feel the adrenaline
rushing up through your throat and out in a shout,
making you feel even more alive.

You should be leaning out of the car window and
feeling the rush of wind in your hair buzzing through your body into your fingers
and down to your toes.

You shouldn't be asking me
for my phone number.

girl, you're sitting there and I can feel the
hairs rising on the nape of our necks,
the sizzle arising in our chests
and the subtle turn of events when

you get up to leave and,
like flicking off a switch,
you extinguish
me.

we were twelve and we packed thirteen passion-fruit juice boxes,
crackers and peanut butter because who can survive without peanut butter?
the three long hours we were
walking then
running then catching our breath at the corner of
Kennedy and Lincoln.

having lunch in a ditch and rolling down hills and
I can remember everything.
I bet you can too, the

cars screaming past us on the highway and the
darker it got the faster we scrambled and we ended up
exactly where we started but

we tried to run away and we returned
not with our tails drooping between our legs but
stick-straight and in the air because
we'd had adventure for the first time,
we'd crossed the street holding each-
other's hands, not
our mother's anymore.

and I wish I was
in that ditch again,
with you sticking your fingers in the peanut butter because we forgot a knife

not with you, "dead in a ditch somewhere"
like they say you are.

you should never go looking for something
because then IT can't find YOU.

and as natural as things are today (not at all)
I WOULD mind if you held my hand (not at all)
just not too hard because that would mean we had something and
we don't.

yesterday I spoke to the moon.

after a time, with the distance and all
I hardly expected an answer but when
I felt her sigh, I knew she had heard me so I
climbed to the top of a nearby car and
asked her if she could, please,
repeat that.

she hadn't been spoken to in so long, she confided,
she had grown ancient and old and she felt we no longer
spoke her language and
we no longer cared to.

she spoke for a long while, I felt her growing closer and the gap between us
closing. I felt a calm like the calm you feel at sea, and the
calm you feel in the warmth of another person.

if I reached my hands up I could touch surface and
feel her old majesty.

humbled, I asked if once more she could dust the earth with her wind
and kiss my skin, but before she could answer
a car horn ripped the sound waves open and left them
gagging.

as I refocused, my moon seemed as far away as ever
and I folded myself into my coat and went
on my way, disheartened,
to say the least.

it wasn't until, glooming the night away on my couch,  the 11 o'clock news said
that strange and powerful winds were sweeping the nation,
then I knew
my moon
had heard me.

sometimes being happy seems
a self-indulgence:

you were singing songs from the musical in me,
us, sipping sweetened tea beaneath the trees
that crazy summer afternoon

things I thought but never said
to you and
things I thought but always said
over and over as if
nothing else had ever happened to me

and the thing I thought
when I thought of that
was that I thought
an awful lot of
you

I wish I could fill your glass to the brim
and have you
                   over
                      flowing
always.

just not
when I am
looking.

you are usually left-handed but I can tell you feel
all right, right about now

you are generally in my top 20 picks for people to
think of today so

I'll think of you.
and as I do
I'll expect you to
think of me
and you-and-I is
relative to
our position
on the map

but don't let that
affect the way you
think of me

let every smile be the kind
that melts into the face like butter,
spreading  itself in the heat of
this moment.

but most of all, I want it
on your
lips.

I have taken to taking each moment
with you
and trying to
put it into
words, but
you tend to
distract my pen
to the extent of just drawing
on you, on your back and
then abandoning that and just
holding you,
folding you
into my pocket,
I carry you,
through my day
and I dare say, you
carry me too.

Sooner or later, you'll have to get up early
to pull the wool over my eyes.
Odds and ends
by fits and starts and
honest as the day is long
(honest until the dark deepens)
like a blind girl in a dark room,
light music can lead you to
a pool of enlightenment, but
can you not taste the sweetness
already on your tongue?

I watched them
swaying
hip to hip
in time to
the
music.

And what was the picture above the door?
A cupid or an angel,
pointing his bow and arrow
and I was so jealous
of him.

I was so jealous that there wasn't
a picture of me

any
where.

better a truck stop
waitress
with platinum
hair and
pineapple earrings
than living with a
corpse.

maybe you're right
maybe I was afraid
maybe.

but you were so afraid
of being
wrong
that you didn't
make a
choice.

I see you and my eyes are
caves seas oceans and breezes and
the wind is shifting my
disposition my
gaze, following as you walk
on your way and
don't stop
to say
hi.

Fine.
I will be glad to open your eyes
another
day.

overstepping boundaries and
drinking caffeine,
pretending not to fade
away and slip into something a little more comfortable,
like the vapor escaping from my mouth as it hides
amongst the steam rising from the kitchens
and blends with the blue and my eyes
watch with wishes and wants

a smoke break well appreciated,
but I leave all the more
weary

coming upon this photo of us I hadn't seen
(pre-mortem, my blind happiness)
my breathing stops, my uncle in the other room stops yelling about the VCR
appropriately. I can hear him bounding down the steps,
leaving the upstairs for me alone, a place to sit and stare at this.

I am standing behind Spencer and you are beside me
but you look more as if the slushie in your hand could bring you more excitement.
you look blank and I look blind and everyone else is background to
my realization and your arrogance in everything from your
dead-pan eyes to your arm lingering at your side, not holding
mine.

I can see the tops of your stupid shoes that I told you to throw out
and I would pay for another pair. I can see all of the things I ate that day
heaved into a toilet later that night and you
were gone by the 18th of October.

It's funny how I can tell we are not puzzle pieces and we do not fit.
Sure there are crooks and crannies where an elbow can rest
and a head may lay but

most of the time arms will fit around you only

if you want
them
to.

You're so special, boy.
Confident with words and smart
with accents of verse and your art,
your poems, opinions
overall pinache.
Greeting with an always-outstretched hand
and may I add?
You're thoughtful and mind-full
and beautiful.

If I could be so bold,
I'd ask if I could borrow your brain,
I'd give it back,
but in return I have only one offer.

If ever again you need help
to figure out why you're so dear to me,

you could borrow mine.

I have seen boys with heavy eyelids
and hair on their toes,
heavy promises and haunting pasts,
loaded guns and a feel for the
supernatural.

I have seen
enough of

them.

your face is framed by the
streetlight streaming in the chill of
the night air and
your hands are warm against
my body, wide, my tummy grumbles,
not a hungry grumble but more
the grumble of an old man, frustrated
by age and worn by his days.

"Nothing could make this moment better."
a gentle nod as I twist away from you,
and twirling in the cold is freezing
my veins and you
pull me close
again.

we can smoke all we want,
drink all we want
curse all we want and
still,

everything else is extra.
excess and nonsense.

my playful words and your
roots in protest,
the way your coarse hair
leaves red blotches all
over my
skin.

run your fingers through my hair and still,
everything else is
extra.

(I have trouble
believing
you)

you say things so charming,
they practically
take my shirt off

for you.

I am slowly falling in love with
my stomach constantly hitching
and my nerves always bending in a way that
makes me itch
just to look at
you.

Are you really under everything that I touch?
Or are you just pretending to exist in my world,
as I have done with so many others.

Layer upon layer upon layer,  it is too cold for skin
and my sunkist days pull away, while I reach and grab for a hand to hold.  

Missouri is a surprise party for someone who hates surprises.
Missouri is a cruel joke, handing you the ripe-to-the-very-second
sweetness of a strawberry summer and snatching it away at the
last second to watch you fall to your knees and beg for mercy from the
biting wind and your stinging lips, no chapstick to be found.

Layer upon layer, sweater under coat,
socks over socks under boots made of steel.

If there is one upside to this brutal chill, if there is
it would be peeling back this extra skin, this shield of
fabric, to reveal steaming pink underneath.

It would be that
cold weather
makes ***
even better.

all the razors and rough edges and
clean teeth as well as
***** socks and
shoulders all shoulders,
be they scrawny or broad, be they above or below
eye-
level.

some have ****** hair and books
some bring me hats and framed vinyl
some have early mornings and
most have late nights.

they all have futures
many have fantastic
dreams and the others have their work
instead, but most just want a place to lay down for awhile.

all sweatshirts and quiet words and the ability to
stop my mind from blistering in the warmth of them.
then in cars, screaming at other cars and anger
that I won't admit
frightens me.

the different walls and the posters
and paintings plastered
on them in an effort to
belong,

eyes that tell me not to look too far into them
for fear of growing down. for fear of
becoming a bore.

those closed eyes and sleep talk
to open minds and cheap dates and hands that are
larger than mine.

I know them to be true those
eyes those chins
those men those boys

those
hearts.

push me!
listen just

show me where it hurts
or do I have to
start
like
always?

words that gnaw our bones
aren't enough anymore and
names and slang and angst
aren't enough

show me
what it's like
when you're
naked
with a
fist

we can't dance the dance when
we haven't even gotten up
yet

It may be a man's man's man's world but
I'm glad I'm a woman, not just
a girl

in your eyes
anymore.

Every morning I wake (It's alive! It's alive!)
I wake with a sense of new. A sense of old and
a sense that I'll do something minimal today,
at least, before I return to my cave and sleep or
read until the sun has made the rounds of her everlasting day.

Through the motions, in the motions,
on this boat in this vast ocean of 'HELLO MY NAME IS'
and an abrupt goodbye to something I hold very dear.
Or held, should I say.

Well, hand in hair ( I have so very little) I will go on.
Not too proud, but not shameful that I have something
to gain yet.

the lace that covers your face
isn't black like you'd like
but white as snow and
just as easy to pack tight and
hide behind and throw things at the unsuspecting

For as much I
don't
know,

and as much as I
want to
know,

and as much as I
wish I
hadn't
known,

when it turns out I
didn't
know

a thing,
all
along.

We were statues in the sky.
We were up there where the air is clean and
too high for airplanes to come muck it all
up. Too high for the kites to tangle in our hair,
too high for the gunshots.

We were birds who flew only up,
forever up.

Though I was more of a rotisserie chicken,
laying on one side for too long,
always burning my own wings.

And you were always saving me from myself.