I am waiting for the moment where I pivot and all that I can envision now is a blacktop and white dotted lines, maybe lanes of rolling white whipped green churning pinwheels going long down the road with a stalk of cud in my mouth can I ever go and unthink like the caramel burnt stained car chair that I rest in as a finger comprised of ash that will collapse in any second and Im telling you its beautiful to let go and see the small blue insects mixed up in a whirlwind of gray flecking flickers that you may capture with a white plastic bag it reads “shoprite” you remember times at the a&p; that was ay-em-*** to toddlers who were smarter to not distinguish between what seems and what is according to the strangers who walk the street, seem foreboding, and yet retreat indoors to steak dinners and why weren’t the tater’s in the oven at half passed six? Maryellen. I told you. I told you patriarchal. I sing from my molehill. My mother always fixed me a cherry pie told me I had the nose of a rodent and so I found my fathers gun, JOhny, white America, puh, would you think I’m on drugs because twenty-one and throw up when looking like chalk smeared on top of cheeks, these bones are feeling a bit decayed wont you examine what you’ve done to…who are you? And nowhere it goes. Nowhere it goes. I sit here im ****** you think it’s a joke but this blurb is worth
Less
Bag of blue sanddollars
Dipped in wax
With a wick
And a pick
A guitar string
And a tick-
Tock
Tick
Tock
Tick


Give it a lick
Peanut butter off a stick
I dunno whats to do or did
But theres a whole lot of mess out there
And we all are using it to smear messages in the listless purple filaments that cloud the sky

I’ve heard admonishments and thin mints in girl scout boxes ive eaten around glass patio tables with blue waters squarely pooled im sure your hair gel is swelling the heart of some hungry shewolf who will nibble or bite or swallow you, I do not know which one is which. But ive heard laments about nations and ignorance and I’m not sure who is more to blame or what could be a solution but to speak largely and loudly id need a microphone and a lot of ears or no a telescope and a broadcaster or better yet digital tools and the internet. Communication is the sopping soggy wet piece of bread that floats in my milk bowl and by the time my orange kitty paws move at it, the loose and expanded bits disintegrate and sink. A sink has a drain that gets clogged and we all must stare at it until it is cleaned and if I’m not the one cleaning my drain then who is the one cleaning my waste?

Where is the darkness in eyes in alleyways in downtown in weather
I feel my cheeks coated in fall air
And wonder
Where is the brightness in eyes in leaves in spontaneity around the corner
Could be a void or a spiral stair or a man you’re sure you’ve met somewhere
And maybe he has not a care
But the cup of coffee in his hand
And so you make a toast
To good mornings
And change
Found under the carpet where our newborn lies
With joie de vivre and a gurgle
That makes you want to kiss the world
But you can’t
Which is why you have the man
And the newborn
In your living room
With change under the carpet
One day your world will crumble
And again
Again
Until you contemplate the multiverse
Or perhaps it will expand
Or inflate
Or burst
Until you contemplate the infinite
Raise discontent within your cycle
Raise discontent within your cycle
Where are the fire-brimmed eyes
The gulf that scorches
Unquenchable
I will either live
Or drown in you
Where are my companions
In sin in question in masks and equations
My brothers the trees

How you’ve always reminded me
Of molasses
And honey
And water

Do you see?
How love and unrest and the illusion of depth
All lay down and die at your doorstep?
And you’re stuck moving backward trying to
Remember when you all first met-
And you unconvince yourself-
And the next time love greets you, you are
Surprised and gentle,
And then it all comes back to you:
Philosophy class, *****, solace at the ocean-
You panic-
And your lover is now shapeshifting so close beside
You that you can feel his breath
Derive your cycle
Derive your cycle
The Balance is surging beneath the surface.
To Stillness Life Travels.
And love, and unrest, and the illusion of depth
All lift the chests of rodents in garbage bins
Who then crawl out from under lids
This is all done in secret
At midnight
With the yellow toothed man under the yellowy moon
As witness
Only he knows
How life persists
And why
And not for you or I
But for each all the same
Indistinct
I will not shrink
Or wait
Or vie
But, beckoning from the mount
I will challenge the cycle
Let it believe it has killed me
And rise
And, beckoning once more,
Instantaneously, it will face me.
But stone I will be.
And before me the cycle collapsing
And behind me the vortex opening
Bestowing the gift of surrender.

Thank you
For the flashbacks
The recurring theme
The cursed motif
I hailed into the closet
From behind the sheets
I could not comprehend
The depression
Though I knew its extents
The contents
Of its origin
I could not mend
You lengthened the bend
Thank you
For setting fire to my heart
The ultimate pyre
I’ve been reborn
And forever shall your
Essence lift to the tops of trees
And, looking for breeze,
Sink instead to the dirt
And sweating leaves
Of parchment you shall never read
The scripture that strengthens
My soul-
The harmonies that have turned me
Inside out
And allowed me to see
My heart deformed
Reformed
You will rest in rot
Yellow
And
Decay
Thank you for
Dangling the wrench
Challenging me to endure
The extraction of teeth
I am removing
I am re
Moving
My love
And loyalty
And sensuousness
From the snares
Placed in vain
My veins run clean
I am recreating
A scene
A feature
A fissure
Between life
And death
I am
Fire
Rain
The original
Spring
I am swelling forth
And catching flies
I am making prints
On earth and sky
I am giving birth
To myself
I am here
Hear me,
Thank you
For throwing me down
The stairwell
And creating the echo
That woke me
And burned me
And washed me
Clean.

If I wanted to be exquisite,
I would be.
Hormones were not kind to me,
But I survived.
And here I sit,
Cross-legged and with nothing to fit
Into.
My black shoes were a choice,
And I am responsible for the death
Of an overworked, underpaid
Laborer
With red raw fingers.
But I do not see her.
No, I see only the luminescence of a store window,
Years ago.
I feel only the faint yearning to be known
As sleek-vicious-jaded,
Gone now.
But the shoes still fitting,
Lined with gold.
When I grow old I will
Break my bones
Building her casket,
Lined with silver
As are my ashes.

I miss you every day, and some things can make me feel like there is nothing besides the moment, or that my blanket is still at home neatly folded and on the foot of my bed- unexpected ruby red gum drops, or gold chains in water drains- but then I awake, and I’m thinking- where am I? What is it that I am doing here? And I tell you I feel my heart reaching endlessly towards a destination that I cannot get close enough to- not now, not when I need it. And I tell you I feel you close to me somewhere in the vast ocean of my mind, but on land I am sinking and the pebbles are slowly falling down the sides of my throat- soon you can poke me and through the hole sand will steadily flow. Won’t you come to me at the far back of this coffee shop that I have taken a small piece of- the ****-end of this dining chair, or the scratch on the wall- but won’t you glide past the glass door and let me catch your eyes peering into mine, knowing that I am yours and telling me that everything’s fine; everything’s fine.

What did I pause about the other day- was it at the kitchen table? I think so- I was sitting down next to my fluorite crystal- something occurred to me- it was a pleasant thought, I remember, something a bit marvelous, I winked at my pretty little stone and she winked back. Oh! I think it was sparked from Arundhati Roy’s novel God of Small Things. Or no, I think it was the smell of spring wafting through the window that transported me to sweet grass-stained jeans at six. (How Consciousness can subvert Time! Making past present, making present eternal and infinite- undermining order imposed and idealized- tirelessly trying to give itself, but faltering before the closed fist of human conquest). Or perhaps it was the language and sensation simultaneous that lifted from within me this deep affection- for what, I do not know. For everything and nothing, I suppose. For all that is and all that be—and all that must cease to be.

You get to a point where, swimming and spinning you land in the nearest-p-universe, and you’re laughing your chair back, inhaling comforting scents of flaky pastries in some outdoor café on another continent where it’s summer and the sun is making love to the water. Your toes are polished red and your cigarette head buzzes like the bees harmless-floating above the flowerpot adjacent, your conversation is lovely and the sky is endless. Urging your conscious mind upward, you lift yourself out of the quaint wrought-iron patio chair and evaporate into one million whizzing molecules, finally weightless.