I raise my hands for
a toast to the void
to the big mouth no teeth emptied out colossus
casually stirring stars
here's to the ******* nothingness
THAT ******
that inthecloset underthebed undermyponytail question
cheers -
I don't know you
But I've been walking the plank for 27 years and I'm starting to think I've been in the sea all along so
cheers -
to the ugly fish
the ones on the sea floor
you're not ugly if you grew up in the dark.
wouldn’t you do the same?
attach a headlamp to your forehead?
wouldn't you sew it there yourself?
for a little bit of light?
Cheers -
to the mother who kneels to check under the bed for you and lies
to the unnamed hallelujah of a no-answer question
to the mouth that asks
to the fish
to me

Close your eyes
Read my lips
Love me but
Don't touch my hips
Jump with me without believing
Come back just as you're leaving

but if you had just shattered
wouldn't you make use
of your new sharp edges?

Baby ever since you left,
i couldn’t be
happier.
i’ve felt compelled
to shout to strangers
how easily i fell out of love with you.
Baby i’ve been fine.
and i mean the
shower-singing,
curtain-opening,
chinese-food-because-it’s-*******-delicious
-not-because-i’m-dep­ressed fine.
Speaking of which,
ever since you left baby,
i started eating again.
Not because i’m trying to
fill up this space but because
you stopped demanding so much of it.
I wanted to be skin
and bones for you,
expose every inch of my
flesh-tight ribcage, laying out
the pieces of me like showing you
all of my cards.
But you taught me the meaning
of a good bluff. Always pokerface,
always blank stare and
hoping i translate that as “i love you”
instead of “i’ve got more cards than you think.”
Baby you left me elbow deep in my
red dye 40 spill of a dorm room shower,
grabbing a mop
instead of stitches.
You’ve never been one to get
blood on your own hands. Baby,
baby ever since you left
i’ve had wind chimes in my bed springs,
i’ve never heard music
begging me to get out of bed before.
Brass wind instruments
making symphony of my footsteps,
creating keyboard music sheets
with each imprint.
Baby, i feel good.
Feel like that first paycheck
after a month of drought,
drinking in all of my wealth.
Ever since you left
i’ve been rich, the
juicy bite of a fresh picked apple,
the sweet lick of warm brownie
that needs milk to keep the taste from
owning you.
The whiskey glasses that kiss
the red back into my cheeks,
now that you’re gone baby
that
no longer owns me.
I can doll myself up rosacea
without having to put
a decimal point at the bottom
of my cup. Getting sober
has never felt like holding my own hand.
But baby ever since you left,
getting sober feels like my own hand,
letting go of
lipstick stained bourbon glasses
and picking up the
fingertips to the rest of my life.
it feels like nail polish
dipped in tomorrow
i have no other choice than
to keep painting myself into the picture.
and i am not sorry,
baby,
but with each brush stroke of my future,
i keep blurring you out,
making you unrecognizable.
baby, the next time you see me
i will be singing good mornings
from the soles of my shoes,
standing spinal cord straight
with a full stomach
of proud. and i will eat,
and you will wonder
how such a masterpiece
could fit onto my finger beds.
and i will wear my sobriety
like a promise ring
instead of handcuffs.
baby ever since you left
i couldn’t be happier,
even the strangers know
i will be fine.

Last week I got a call from
one of my friends. He sounded
scared, like he just got caught
5 yr old with hands in cookie jar.
He said, “I gotta tell you something,
gotta get rid of some weight off
this heavy burdened chest. Will
you listen?” So of course I told
him to hand me his hurt.
But when he told me that his
cookie jar
was a sorority girl with too much
liquor and not enough consent,
that his hands took dessert before
dinner, I had to tell him
to take his hurt back.
I couldn’t stop seeing the small boy
from a big town who’s hands
shook at the thought of talking
to strangers. How ironic it was
that no part of him trembled when
he spoke that night because she
couldn’t hear him.
I though of his midwife mother
and how devastated she’d be
to know her son is now building
graveyards in the bodies of
drunk women, how she may be
the one to have to remove this
tombstone.
I thought of the times
i’ve been decimals away from
unconscious in his dorm room.
How party
turned blackout
and I wonder if his hands
stopped trembling then too.
I wonder if he thought
of becoming the 3rd man
to make me his midnight snack.

He came to me to find solace
but instead he found me repeating
the word “no”
because he needed to hear it
because no one taught him that
blackout meant “no”
that if you can move their limbs like
jello, that is not ***
that is a puppet show and you are
just controlling the strings.

No —> Adverb; used to express
negation, denial, or refusal.
Example: No, I’m not going.
Example: No, don’t touch me,
Example: No, I don’t want this.
Example: No, she didn’t want this
but you gave it to her anyway.
How do I tell someone who has
lifted me up from my depths
to take this weight on his chest
and let it crush him.
Gyles Corey yelling “more weight”
as we press boulders on his sternum,
bone-crushing pressure.
Maybe then he will finally
understand “no”.

Two weeks ago, I got a call
from a friend. But last week
I got a call from a ****** who still
wanted to be called my friend.
Who has seen me shattered bottle
over my own cemetery of a body
and still wanted to be called
my friend.
But yesterday, I deleted a contact
from my phone book,
told my parents not to answer
if he knocks, but to be careful
because he may try to enter anyway.
Just so they know
that they have other hands to worry about
besides my own

I slid down a hill
on nothing but a tarp and hose water
in the middle hick town new york
with a family i didn’t even know
because my best friend thought we would have fun.
We did.
But the next day we got so high
we thought we could make dub step from our mouths.
When we tried it sober
it sounded nothing like dub step.
Just kind of like a beat up basement home
and not enough people for a party.
Kind of like the soft music you play after a panic attack,
everything sounds so
forced.
This one time,
I kissed a girl so ******* the mouth
that she took a step back and just said
”…thank you.”
I have no idea what she was thanking me for,
but i learned to thank her body
in more ways than just prayer.
She sounded like an orchestra,
Bach or back but god ******
if she didn’t leave scratches on everything instrument.
One time,
I got thrown into a mosh pit
and some big dude carried me out
and punched the person who pushed me in
so hard in the face that i swear
i saw his mothers veins give out.
It was like an amtrak railway collision,
fist and apology, metal and music,
the kind of rock you get stuck in-between
next to that hard place.

One time,
I slid into my best friend
because we thought we would have fun.
We did.
She had to take a step back
and said nothing but Thank You.
A broken body prayer healed
with blankets like tarp, claiming her my new york.
It was like being thrown into a mosh pit
but there wasn’t anyone there to carry me out
because it wasn’t an accident.
Just a mistake.
Now we don’t talk and last night
I got so high that I tried to make music from my mouth,
replay her symphony, echo it
in my beat up basement of a chest.
The hollow wind chime of organs or intestines,
ragged breathing from the smoke
she snake charmed down my throat.
She was so smooth. Soft.
Kind of like the music you play
after a panic attack,
everything feels so
forced.