I stood tall on the shoulders of a ladder
lost in the fibers of dust that sprinkled across my face as I shook a thick feathered brush against walls when a young man whom I had seen a few times before looked me up and down and hollered, "movin' on up in the world, are yah?"

chucking my head upwards and back, I had laughed at his joke, saying to him through short breaths, "you with the corny lines."

still shaking with laughter, I felt my legs give beneath me and the thus the shoulder of the ladder beneath it, began to quake, before I knew any better, I had fallen  down to him, my body splintered beneath my wooden pedestal.

get me happy
and I'll start saying
a lotta-bit-uh-things


get me happy
like drunk,
and I'll tell you
everything
I
typically
wouldn't
say

what are you waiting for.
      he used to say to me,
a silly song that used to numb the very *tip of my ears-
           a silly song that used to make the very tip of my tongue dance-
the stretch up his neck, the range of his chest, the span of his lips-
           and he'd swear that he'd love me never  using the word forever
because he said that there was no need,
                      his love was indefinite
and now I'm asking him what he's waiting for and he's telling me
       something better
and I'm wishing that I could travel back a few months younger
                    so that I could tell him:
*everything

because I am the kind of person
that forgives and forgets
all of my own sins
and never enough of your:
I swear to God nothing happened babe.
the chick's crazy.
excuses and so you went ahead and
left me though it should have been me
leaving and you staying,
I suppose we were both
just afraid of the same thing.
and so I forgot you though I
never really forgave you-
until I saw you with that crazy chick
at the market picking out orangish plums
and all you did was pretend not to see me
watching you and that crazy chick
pick out the same plums I had had for desert
just last night,
I suppose in that moment I forgave you,
if not just for my pitiful heart's sake.

You made me feel lonely,
hollow enough to sink into a
tub of suds,
humming songs of loves and
those lost within it,
you made me feel lonely enough
to want you to stay

I'm not that kind of girl anymore,*
I said to him,
waiting for his voice to change me,
yet again.

he gave me that:
put on an old coat
and slip a hand in
it's pockets
and pull out a
wadded up
bill. had me
feelin'
all kinds of
sunny.
that
old-new
kinda
money

He used to call me
cornflakes
not because of the way
my body
crumbled in his mouth
but rather
for my
inconsistancies

is your heart still breaking

his voice
is night
hungover
from long binges
and hearty upchucks
large lump-sums
of bright pinks and soft reds
- i think i might just love him-
what could be so wrong,
with so very little     *fun.

leave me be
       with the toxicity of my thoughts
breathe me humble into the blades of the night
dream me pure through the comforts of my words,
on this night i feel deep within the roughs of his voice,
southern charmed beneath my lobes, on this night,
i heard his noise in my thoughts and indeed, he did
                 sing to me,
great poems of comfort

(if i parentheses you)
this
(and)
that
(separate of the pillars that bowl past heavy tonsils
maybe it'd seem as though heaven was closer
and the nuzzle that triggers tiny slips and
flicks against the pulse of my fingers would come alive
behind large bulbs and very tiny eyes,
much too small to fully engulf mild realities wild
on the bottoms of tough poison, mulct philomaths'
raffishly spatting at loose tongues,
how dare they tell me)
this
(and)
that
(and never)
the other.
(if i parentheses you)
this
(and)
that
(would it count to you, dear scholar,
as a structured poem properly scrolling
down the braces of my spine?)

"I believe I believe. I should write a little less and live a little more," each day, I say, but then again, I find myself back to old habits, again and again, the world sure does look nice, from my vantage point, although I've yet to see it.