I'll take your breath in
my lungs,      have it ready for la petite mort

your many
little
deaths

exhale &giv;; you
la vie     again,

if you pulled back my skin you'd find a layer of grey underneath.
there is nothing new in me, my blood no longer red my flesh no longer
pink just grey and worn parts like the paint thin upon an old metal dinette
set. no ash, for i have not burned, no
mold for nothing could live off of the nothing in me.

then again, there is a heavy in my chest that sits. i cradle it
with my throat (try to pushit   down) and in between
my ears again when i begin to fall asleep, it
urges no dreams but
i like the pressure on my
temples.

my lips, my cheeks like a layer
of icing on a display
cake.


every soft haired, long
fingers will pass me in strides, avert their eyes and
eventually they won't
see me
at all.

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.

give me alittle warning, I could
have you  a little place cleared in my lungs
ready for whenever you need
to take a breath, give me a little
warning. I'll have you a
drawer space clear,
a fist's portion of my
heart in which to boil your blood and
a patch of sunlight in my window
for you to lie in,          bloom
                                   alongside
                                                 me

Let's let the hem out of every
skirt we own so we can
be
  long
     belong in
their fraying ends.

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

it's like I was tied to a post, never tried
to untie it, myself but

then your subtle hands
all over

and I was    ******
outand

in all this
space, love ly

can just spin, slower and slow er
until I find (read: believe) that
I don't need to
find

anything
to be
free

I just have to


be

watching your
lipslikepetals
caress the air and ****** my
breath, knowingly
or not.

I can hear my voice:
it crackles like
burning
paper.

like  
      want                   
                       feel  
        just things  

the time
      make              eyes  
little              girl  
      ­                              way  
         talk  

love
  
                               she

             he

make eyes, little girl, make
eyes
at me.

make them stars so I may not
lose them in the over-bearing light
of day at times and
make them burn like
third-degree burns so I'll
never forget the feeling of them
on my skin.

make them that sweet poetry you speak so that
my palpitating heart can know what it's like to
stop mid-sentence and


(quietly, now)

make eyes, little girl, make
eyes
at
me.

If you hold her
for the allotted time of
20 seconds

it is enough time for
a masterpiece to be finished
a pair of pants mended
a riot to ensue and  

for the endorphins in her brain
to be released and she'll forget
whatever it was

she was yelling
about.

I am no dark little girl with
her pretty little
eyes

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

wish I could push    when push is needed
keep a distance long enough and let the salt set
there is a bitter-
nesslike in the corners of my mouth
that I lick when you are too close,
your sweet becomes the air around me,
your sweet, dear

it is so much to
bear

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

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.

You have a morning in you
the only reason for which I wake.

I saw a leaf falling
from it's tree so I ran
to catch it.

But in my haste,
I ran
past it.

the impression of everything
finally fit into the impression left by the first (as it always does) but

it was only the shallow end, and wonder goes
deeper, at least to the 6ft that goes over my head
(as it always does) and now

I am chopped into several different
pieces like the syllables in a word -- you've gotta
            
              sound
    
                me
            
               out!


you've gotta get me out
of the brain to the tongue to your
lips and teeth -- so sweet! the satisfying end to
one
big
word,



isn't it?

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.

I looked too far to the left and
it hurt my head to see that
I couldn't easily see
past my own
proximity
past your head and
past my own
past.

----------------------------------------------------------------­----------
I passed by a little old lady
and her grocery bags, heavy,
passing out fliers for a cause
too
heavy
for
me.

----------------------------------------------------------------­--------
The ads on tv speak
of cancer and her trip up the creek with
eyes that said
she never got to see
the sea, not even
in her sleep.

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

Today, though it is warm
I can smell the
bitter *****
that winter
is.

it helps to cradle your own, in the crook of your elbow like
a catch in the throat, like pulling off a sweater's static cling and
stripping down to nothing but a a set of teeth for eating and
a set of eyes for tearing up when you feel human enough

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.

reachreach a
littlemore a
littlemore

closetoyou, closeto me

enoughtobe
close toyou

enough tobe
just
be.

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.

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.

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.

everytime our eyes meet it is
Anthony and Cleopatra,
it is ee cummings and his
dark-haired mistress, it is
every love affair that has ever been
lived again and
again and
again

in those brief seconds
when our eyes meet, in those
I can feel you
looking for a reason
to kiss me
forever
searching
me

tell me when you find it,
and let me hold it in my lips
for the next time
our eyes
meet

My eyes are falling
asleep for me,
and my brain has decided to buzz
and keep on
buzzing buzzing
bursting!
and then softly humming
back
to me.

I'm wandering and I wonder if
the wandering should
cease
so I can wonder a
little
longer.

There's no one here to
distract
any part
of me.

So, I am not
lonely, I am
alone.

There is a
difference, my friend and
you
can take that
to the
bank.

push all the air out – roll me up
so that I can cradle all of my solidity(as if it exists at all) and
stay in one place, perhaps grow roots there, as well
and begin to notice the slowly things, the tid bits, the every aspect in
the every eye about this    one    place. Watch it change and mourn it’s

yesterday as if it were a dear friend.

I'm standing (just so)
the way you're sitting (just so)
just so, just so
you'll see my
hunched
back, see my
poor mouth that is
twisted (just so)
with cracked lips and

for you
I won't fake composure when
I haven't any.

my love is in this place;
runs through it like
blushed
cheeks,

and the wind carries our laughter.

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?

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

and you smile like
I wanted you to

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.

I thought that maybe the freeze-frames of you breathing, me breathing you and our breath hanging in the cold air, mingling like two school girls
would slip away,
like everything



and while we are quietly humming, we secretly are wishing
that the other would start dancing so that the night won't be wasted

but what we aren't aware of won't hurt us, will it?

I'm very afraid that
one day I'll wake and
find myself
as smug as can be
sitting in a pile
of my
own
mistakes,
of my own
regrets,
holding them over
everyone's heads


like you do
to me.

that anyone could make me feel naked in
suspense, a need to curl my fingers? I'll remind myself
that I need my bed rest, that I need
the thing that heals, that I need
anything at all is too much, it's too
tedious to need, I won't admit to
it, most of the time I won't.

groaning grows from the throat,  trickling down,
my voice isn't sweet like honey,
but more harsh harsh harsh in ways like
dry swallowing big pill after pill after pill.

the ends of my fingers are beams, they are brightest
when I touch the space between me and
the space between you and the soft space
left after drinking what we
bottle
up,

every time
every time.

I love
loving someone
on a day
like this one.

I take a picture in my head of,
you wearing blue, your dark features
contrast the light and
you look like you did in that picture
on your mother's wall
of a boy all wet from swimming and happy from living

I can say from the weight of things,
the way your hair has grown and
so have I,
the color of the clouds
that we stumble upon and
the knowing glances that elderly couple in the next booth gave us..

Today was a beautiful day.

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.

having your heart
in my fist - I wasn't expecting
the hum coming from that little
drum

the blue&purplelike;
is brush and stroked lightly so, my sister's
painting is brand new, ev'n though her
fingers have since threaded her through continents and
many a limb once thought dead, and then there was
atinglin'

no matter where my compass points,   the north is always new, and
my sister's blue never ages; only gradually does it grow dark in some
places, only over time does it     deepen and
                                                      settlei­n, cozy


nice n' clean, smooth on the surface but it goes
                deeper than you
            could imagine

This sleep does not suit me,
this sleep without youth.

Heavy lids and heavy lies the body but
my mind takes shape reminiscent of
waves and the mermaid fins, dreams of
glittering beaches to wake up sweating
mid-winter.

Why is it that I putter and sink into crevices deep, still?
Why is it that I cannot share the moon? Her piercing
brilliance has endured eons alone, and
I feel a comrade in her shivering ripples.

This sleep, my darling,
I will not allow it.

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.

The fever took her - quietly, suddenly.  
One moment she was lying still,
the next her blood had been boiled and her hair was burning
so that there was a constant glow about her face.

In moments like these,
where her body and her brain were two separate entities,
she could think only of the way her skin joined
in perfect harmony
behind her ears.

there is no blood rush in this, there is no
heel-over-*** worship, waiting like
an obedient dog

we are getting old, coma-
tose, we are getting more
lace-like and fragile as we
go
go
go

races and
heavy everyday footfalls, good
practice for when we
lose our
legs