Chubby cheeks! aww
www like a chinadoll so
pinchable cute adorable --
incurable

sonorous symphonies simper at the
soirees of my sincere
sibling while I
stand by
scowling

Voicing my verbiage takes
valour and validation--
one more vintage than the
other, I vow

The Tortured Artist a
term so redundant it
should fuse: Tartist?
now that's a
title I'd advertise

It's like:
if I'm depressed, then my
poetry is a gazillion times
deeper
more serious
better

people
praise Coleridge, Poe, Van Gogh or
Sylvia Plath or David Foster
Wallace maybe because
people
are glad that they aren't
the ones to sacrifice sanity for
Good Art

art is
artists are

art is worth the pain only
when it's not
mine

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not claustrophobic or
scared of the dark or
scared of people or
anything

Really

I swear

It's just--
I can't go
outside at the
moment can't
get dressed wash my
hair open the door find
my keys lock the door walk
outside just
can't do it right
now

so I trapped myself
here
staring at a screen until

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

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

Walt Whitman says:
I contain multitudes
Well.
How should HE know what I contain?
I mean,
I don't.
How presumptuous is
he, to sing MY song to me?  Whatever
Walt, you're pushing
daisies now so
whatever

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 tear it limb from
limb
definitely carnal, I'd say
(although not very gory--
it's cooked) the grease coats my
insides my fingers are shiny
my nails get a sheen as
the skin slips between
my hands my lips my
tongue it
tastes
so warm and wet and substantial
a real thing
a live (dead) thing it tastes
good

Reading readily rewrites my
reactions --
results in wondering what is right and
what
isn't

A man tosses
pizza in the air--
what?  you thought he
would toss something else?
There is a hole
now, just there between
his first and
second knuckles that stick
out, forming a
fist

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.

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

It's a long way to fall (the season, I
mean) just spring has
come just
now
but when can it be
fall
again?

Aching bones shallow
breath combine with quivering
fingers as I type
(not to mention) weighted
eyelids squirming stomach and this
sense of an accelerated heart
beating
against my chest fighting
to escape but
it would not survive the
extraction

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

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

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

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

I’ll make a haiku
It will not say what I want
At least I’m speaking

How long
does a new year last? only until it
grows older, grows up and out crawls
first in spring, then
walks on to winter but when
exactly
precisely
does the year turn from New to
Old why are Old years never
happy?

Healthy melissa you need to eat
Healthier she says as she
eyes my tightish jeans, the belt
bisecting my hips splitting each in
two
I eye them too.
Healthy is in the
eye
of the beholder

Self-worth
measured in:
1) pounds and
2) passing glances from

strangers

Growl growl ru
mb
le rumble gro
wl

(my belly protests my healthy
lifestyle)

if I moved to the moon (like
Xenon) the number of pounds I
contain would be 83.3%
less
I would be less
according to a scale on the moon

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

Wipe me clean of bitterness:
left over is a bland weak limp
thing who cannot stand
out in a meal, gets
eaten for lunch
no consequences for the
stomach that restrains me

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

if not,
I hunger to
discover what will

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

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

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)

that you aren't The One (but
you knew that already, didn't
you?) Just
didn't think I'd caught
on too

But I  see you with the Other one a
perfect duet of
Ones
I should tell you I
know I'm
not

Turtle he is a
turtle however he
is a hot turtle

“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

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 ****

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 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

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

Model
Mode
Mole
Lode
Ode
Dome
Dole
Doe
Om
Meld these letters
Model the word

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 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?