I contain multitudes I will
it so
multitudes more than I maybe
can contain comfortably I
seek comfort in
discomfort

Alas poor yoric
here you lie
alongside
friends, enemies -- strangers you
have (had) no opinion on

what side is alongside in
a deadened place? whose side is
where when after is no longer
before?

the limit does not exist when
a body count counts
even after the soul leaves

but it should

how can corpses count in a math problem of a Choose
Your Side when
they're all on one side now and it's not
yours nor
mine it's the
veil
that none of us with minds and souls and points to prove will ever
cross (in our lifetime)

I think I'm turning paranoid,
Or at least a little mean;
I question all the motives
Of those who liked my meme.

The second I get Followed,
I ****-- turn around around to see
If he just wants a "Follow-back"
Or truly likes my feed.

Don't even get me started
On social reciprocation.
IRL I don't do so well;
In virtual, I'm an island nation.

Do I just Like what I like?
Or only what really hits home?
What if it's a horrible post
By someone who loves my poem?

...do you like me? Do you really


like me?
Does it
matter?

I
don't
know

So
I hate
HATE
washing dishes. But I don't
discriminate (pots and
pans and spoons and measuring
cups are also on my *****
list)

So
when I bake
in a microwave,
in one bowl,
with one mixing fork,
and no measuring tools,
it's sort of kind
of a bit of
a miracle
when the baked thing rises
AND it
tastes
ok

I just ate a loaf of bread
It was toasted and delicious
The only problem now?
My stomach can be vicious.

I used to think that I was Social
And then Media came to play.
I've only ever consumed the stuff;
At creating, I'm middling - just okay.

I can't Mediate people;
Will never be a journalist;
I like talking sometimes,
But the internet? Not the greatest.

So it's time to divorce these words:
The Social from the Media.
For all the info I could want,
There's always wikipedia.

Who owns grief?
The one who cries the loudest?
The one who acts the most disturbed?
     Or *******-ish?
     Or eerily withdrawn and quiet?
The one who had The Best Relationship with the dead?
     The most unresolved?
The one who feels the most guilt?
     Who feels out of place at the funeral?
     Who resents the world?
     Who is named in the will?

How many people can have a share?
Who is allowed a say on the Board of Grief?
     Are children underage?

How powerful are the grieving?
Enough to command a neighbor’s chicken soup?
     Casserole?
     Cake?
     Family heirloom?
     House?
     Family entire?
     Telephone call?

“I was just
joking,” You Say but
I don’t feel any laughter
coming - something funny is
there though it’s the
Just, the
Just makes What You
Say both less and
somehow
more

the funny (not
haha) part is: What
You Say is not can
never be
Just

If my life were a number
line—for example—

My life starts: 0
I laugh for the first time: +2
I yell at my mom: -3
I win in school: +10
I lose a job: -11

Am I really the sum of these
parts
the absent space of
my negative numbers
in opposition to the positives

Or

Am I more of an absolute value kind of girl?

When I was small I said “Mom
my tummy hurts” and
then kisses and maybe a spoon of liquid
(icky) tylenol followed and then
All Better!

Now
when I’m bigger in shoe size, in brain
(in tummy)
Now when
my stomach starts to bubble and
roil and twist I know the source
is not candy and the
cure is no longer kisses and
I need so much more I need
slow breaths and
slower
thoughts
and
no maternal concern concerning
itself with my intestines, small or
large

Take my pride
(there was never much
anyway) take my sorrow take my
anger frustration can’t-do attitude

and I’ll be good
again, well-meaning and
innocent in a
bland
sort of way

I do well on an IQ test which
Measures precisely how
Smart I am precisely
Now and
In the years to come

I did well
I feel exhilarated enlightened free happy
Special
Better than average
(Has been numerically proven after all)

But years later my elation
Dims because those
Emotions were genuine but
The specialness test is honest
As a used car salesman
One who claims all his cars meet
The (very rigorous) inspection standards he
Sets

A used car salesman of a test made
Me feel special which
Creeps me out looking back but
I should be grateful it
Didn’t make me feel like special
Trash instead

Eyes tired of bearing the
Brunt of my notyet game
Plan regarding sleep and I
Don’t blame them

You're So Skinny,
you say to me, I Wish I Had a Waist
Like Yours, you say

like it's a compliment.

But

I never agreed to spice up your
own personal recipe
for low self-esteem If
you persist in this
body belief I
will no longer be your
body's relief Go
find another Skinny to
feed your grief

My jeans are
stiff straight
off the drying rack as I
pull them on
button them walk
around to loosen them
up

I pull a
shirt on -- it's so soft I
catch myself petting my own arm way too
often -- and put on
my glasses

My feet slide into fuzzy slippers

I know
what it's like to win
at life
at family at
money at SMARTS and
it didn't feel
I didn't feel--

better to fail and
feel the same and
know there's a
chance
I couldwouldshould be happier in
a better
scenario

To pull my
self up

To fight gravity and
win for a
moment would be
astronomically awesome

Too bad my arms aren’t armed to
battle even weak
forces

My abs are tense waiting for
attack and
my breath is not as
deep as usual my shoulder blades attract
each other as my neck
stiffens
above them my
eyes go dryer the more I
don't blink but
the rest of me is wet
with sweat

driving for the
first time is a lot
harder than I thought, not
even including the
car

If control is given to
me, I don't have
it (just the fact of
a gift) but
if I want it I need to
take
to take control
how I get it
matters! I
must take my
life my work my
sleep my hair my friends
my time to fight
for control I must
take

or give, when I've tired of
taking

I'd like to be under
      BANG BANG
Maxwell's silver hammer in a
yellow submarine in
the land where I
was born in
my life

I know
what it's like to be
dead

Raza
sounds like the Ra'zac in real life is the
word origin of "race" is the
world origin of "I hate you because I
can" I race
away from race and riot quietly in my
mind
without hope of
escaping my body my
flinch
away from a black
man walking my
instinct to correct double
negatives when really they aren't
not
right;
I'm not right

Today I put some
shirts away and cooked some
chicken in the microwave I am
getting better at that -- doing
it is not so hard now that I've
gotten a hang
of it again I even went
outside for a bit in jeans
in the sticky summer four
o'clock (not my smartest
thought) but I went I
felt the sweat and sun and I
smiled

I'm good, not
bad not in
need of a thing no
thank you no really I am
good look at my smile with
the teeth showing dimples in
attendance so what if my eyes are
absent see me
be good because I am absolutely
angelic happy to be
alone
so leave
you can go now

I'm good, not
bad not in
need of a thing no
thank you no really I am
good look at my smile with
the teeth showing dimples in
attendance so what if my eyes are
absent see me
be good because I am absolutely
angelic happy to be
alone
so leave
you can go now

There are precious few at ease
with moral ambiguities,
so we act as though they don't exist.







              ---Wizard of Oz in "Wicked," lyricist Stephen Swartz

I made up a face in
my mind it was mine but
smoother, cakier, glitterier,
camera-ready to take
on the persona of the dry, spotty layer just
beneath the
surface

when there is no peace is
war a given when war rages is
peace all that's left or
is the conflict between the two more
conflicted than
that
absolute all and no

Food
Of a sort
Don't eat the aromatics though
Massive indigestion may follow
Appreciate what you can consume
Potatoes, paprika, meat and oats are awesome

I stared out the window
And saw nothing but a light,
Though it tried to show me things
that were mere fancy's flight:
The imaginary asphalt covering
the nonexistent street;
The set of snow-lined sidewalks
where passersby might meet;
The steely spine of a stop-sign;
The spindly barren trees;
All these visions I thought I saw
were light-driven fantasies

Frankly
my dear I don't give a **** That's
how Rhett said it with no pause between
dearI no comma or breath just
smooth denial of a fact we all know is
kind of true but mostly
false because of course
he loves her
frankly
he gives a ****

Elle sat on a scantron sheet;
She soon logically deduced
That this was not the proper place
To settle her caboose.

So she rose from her seat and,
Removing th'offending page,
Once again Elle sat herself
Inside the testing cage.

It's two thousand and
sixteen -
isolation has never been so
difficult to achieve no
dropped
call no Unseen text certainly no
lost letter will do the
trick
nowadays

there is no excuse to give your motherbrotherfriend for
staying a resolute
island in the internetted
sea of archipelagos, so
overcrowded with
bridges and boats that I cannot see the water unless
unless
I make the
space

He likes - liked - to
watch tennis and gymnastics and
always insisted he pay the
check (even when we had to make sure there
was cash in his shirt
pocket for him to offer)
he refused to use a cane
at 95
because he didn't want to look
old he went out to lunch
every
day

until he didn't

Do as I say Speak
when I say Wear what
I say Trip when I
say Fall Rise Cry when
I say

Be as I say so I can keep
You

(no I will Not do as you say nor
fall nor cry nor
Stop
when you say)

When something terrible faces
me, I choose option
three
(the one cavemen never
thought existed):
freeze

yep, I am an inventor of the invisible
indecisive
slow-thinking
coward

I don't judge you
out loud
I laugh when you want me to and
smile at convenient intervals and lulls in
conversation in
life

This is the poeticization machine:
(Say that five times fast)
Raw materials: what I feel and see
The product: powerful imagery --

full of exaggerated angst swathed in
metaphors and rhythm and emotion too
strong to feel
real

Example A: I need a shower so I take it.
Post-Machine:
The burning water scalds my
flesh and I see red rush to the
surface even as the skin on my fingertips
depresses with each passing minute wrinkling
before its time

You're a lazy selfish self-
pitying lump of skin and bone and
too much fat You can't do anything for
anyone (not even
yourself) What is your
problem you Stupid Uninspired
Unmotivated *** What are
you? I would tell you to
get out of my
life, if I
could

I take the lamp out
of its box and stand it on the sill of
my new apartment. I ***** in
the bulbs, plug it in, turn it
on.
Done.
But
what to do with the box it can't just stay
there
by the window
taking up space for
however long I'll be
here.
But
when I move it would make things
easier
all the special-
shaped styrofoam would make things
easier the lamp wouldn't
break
when I move next for sure.
But
I've just arrived Why
am I already leaving?

Shirley Temple's curls were
gorgeous, - manufactured or
not - bouncy, shiny,
sweet

Mine,
on the other hand,
are a bit frizzy and unruly and
not very
bouncy after the first jump

Maybe they'd behave better in
black and white

Goosebumps march down my
arms make the hairs stand
at attention my
knee bounce bounce
bounces as my foot goes
Tense -
Relax
Tense -
Relax
Tense tensetensetense

Breathe
I am warm

Terrifically tragic transportation
Transpires on the tempestuous
T
Boston buffets bystanders with
Banging, belching B-lines branching
Into one of four long
Limbs

Scratching my scalp I
feel the little ***** of white
dandruff then - there -
a scab I can scratch and
stow under my fingernail so
satisfying I want to
find another one

no such luck

You call me
beautiful but you
don't see
me

what you call
beautiful
is your own
reflection with
maybe a bigger frown than
you usually
wear

My throat feels
endless, my stomach
hollow and
dry food will remedy the
situation

if not,
I hunger to
discover what will

see here's the
thing: this
thing  happened one
day but I
don't know what
exactly

me and my dad used to
fight over who
got to have the coveted, comfy, not-made-of-disgusting-yellow-foam
feather pillow
it wasn't really much of a
prize, I guess--
the feathers were so dead the
thing was practically
flat
but
it's the principle of it, the status that
a feather pillow brings to
my sleepy eyes-shut head

most of the time,
I won
he probably let me because
well
he loves me and
that's what parents do
But
he'd still fight
for that pillow he knew
I couldwoulddid fight
back

now, I walk into my bedroom and
see that feather pillow
already on my bed,
clean sheets,
neatly arranged

I wish for the fight

think Piggy
in Lord of the Flies he'll
tell you what's up about glasses
(before he dies)
although Betsey Johnson could maybe say
something too judging by the frames
she wears to complete her hair 'do
myopia mangles sight but will
never extinguish
light

cold hot ugly
evil good expired
excellent  poor rich
who says extremes must come
in twos?

Turtle he is a
turtle however he
is a hot turtle