he taste of cream, iced.
the cold helps my throat and my body which both feel like furnaces that won’t **** their burning faces.
tell me which is worse: the end of a railway track
or the beginning of a meal when you’re already sick at the thought of it?
this is what France has given me:
the confidence and surety that everything I’ve ever wanted is valid;
and therefore I should not consider myself to be a whiny white antagonist but rather,
an activist,
and someone who is alive, AWAKE, alert and always after all the action.
And I will go faster.
After all, this isn’t about me, it’s about you- no I take it back, in fact- it’s about what we leave behind. How many times does a nursery rhyme have to tell you to be a good person before we all start moving to the countryside and growing our own food to provide?
But that’s beside the point.
Pass me the bottle of water or put my head under the tap, you know: I’d prefer the latter.

Colour now with an
extra “oh!” as if it needs
more exclamation

Does it rain more, here?
Do I just notice because
my umbrella broke?

All I brought from home
was the blanket from my bed,
and it doesn’t match.

On my fingernails
there’s chipped-off red.
I’m tipped off my axis, don’t
ask me what’s in my head.
I just painted them
so I couldn’t see the dirt underneath.

If you ignore the parts that you’re sure
are just the worst- can’t be a
true reflection of you- it hurts.

There’s a difference between
an eraser and a curtain.
Within, it’s too much.

Do I have to tell a story?
I always thought that words could just be stand-ins,
they could be taste and feelings and hands on your body,
they could be a wet finger in your ear or
a slap across the jaw.
I always thought that they would just be there,
stagnant and-
****, read them if you want to but otherwise they’ll sit,
they don’t poke unless provoked.
Do I have to have morals?
I don’t mean the author I mean the worlds: do they have to be active? A verb: what you do.
But words are born from a sting on the arm,
a shot of rushing brightness that can’t be captured.
They’re eggs: they’re capsules: they’re formulations.
I don’t want to write a word that would be
seen on the hem of soldiers,
I just want to pull them from my skin like clay
and let them dry

a park bench
a gazebo in the middle of a circle of a keyhole
like a teapot centrefold
three dance inside of it- bright hair
and nowhere else to go
passing around a single thin cigarette
my ankles have goosebumps

a streetlamp that creates the illusion
that the night isn't setting in
and yet beyond the gazebo the sky looks
like it would smell like lavender
and "seaside"
the buildings and buses all let of orange yellow glows
i'm getting too cold
the wind really gets up under my coat
this time

The wind blows the back of my hair
straight up, and in my shadow
I have horns or antlers.
I don't even recognize myself!
Looking up at the gray as the trees make themselves
just outlines- so you can see each
individual branch against the atmosphere as if
under a microscope- with a backlight.
I left flowers at home. I put fresh daisies-
no- dandelions by my own grave
and now I'm here- like I don't even exist
over there anymore.
Like life reincarnate.

The sound of a highway that is really the wind
pushing down the wrong side of the street.
He stood there with a voice so timid, I wanted to cry-
no- hug him- no- laugh- or-
lay down on the cobblestone right there and
scream the poetry of that moment at everyone
walking by- but- I didn't even
give him a pound because by the time
my heart began to constrict, my legs had already
told me to keep walking along- but-
all I can think about is his hands in his pockets
and the white piece of paper
on the ground at his feet, telling him
the words to a song that he knew by heart.
And there was his stubble and where is his family?
And his hands in his pockets
and I just kept walking.