I made you a cup of tea
put honey in it

it's still just sitting there

probably because we broke up

what do I do now?
with the tea, I mean

she is never mad again
because they are never mad in California
                   only sad.

and sunburned.
                            they live their lives in jovial ignorance of SPF.
everyone there is special but no one can see it.
some write poetry on typewriters, others pretend their band is any good.
and some jump from rooftops into pools while drunk on love
they don't cry when they see the sun set
in a particularly punishing beauty.

the sun just sets like that
nothing new, babe.

maybe there's pleasure
in how mundane it all is
beautiful pity

my girl had a man when I met her
I had a man some time ago, too

back when I was a girl
before I chopped off all my hair and decided I no longer wanted to be perceived

because it's only trouble, you know.


not that you're safe just because no one notices you

honestly we're never safe from the men who paw at us and who jack their little d*cks off to thousands of videos of women getting choked

the ones who try to make you think you should be grateful
for the scrapings at the bottom of a bottomless barrel
and the ****t stuck on your shoe
when they're the ones
crapping
on the floor

anyway, I don't date men anymore

and my girl had a man when I met her
but she doesn't anymore

wiping black lipstick off an old mug of cold tea
a smile crosses my own lips, a mention, a whisper of a kiss
a knowing eye looking at you,
he doesn't write you poetry

he doesn't even tell you the truth





how do you feel about going to a yoga class this evening?

we are built of loss
we are crafted in the absence
of our loved ones

a song my downstairs neighbors wrote
about the man who died in my apartment
makes me feel safe and whole, somehow
the opposite of haunted
his name was Reggie, same as my cousin
who I don't see anymore

their lilting sounds of piano and *****
banjo and guitar
their sweet synced singing
reminding me that I'm alive
and so lucky to share walls with magic

so lucky to share walls with a happy little dog
that I adopted when my friend died

I listen to their music while at work, far away from
that little dog

and even farther from my friend
who is all ash and soul now

my dog knows the singing
and Reggie
and remembering

same as me, I can tell by her big brown eyes

I had gone in to write you a new one
a new poem about
something else, I can't remember.
maybe about your hair falling across my face,
maybe it was about your laugh ringing like a bell,
maybe something about that moment on my couch when i slid my hand up the leg of your loose trousers, on a quest to make you make more sounds and found delight in your gasp against my ear

but I was shot in the chest with a shotgun when I discovered , that it was the deadline, the dead lines of my poetry
buried in a cyber grave never to be uncovered, or read, again.
they were gone.

I had 120 days, they said, before they shut down my dot edu email account.
costs money to keep it open, I guess and god knows I didn't pay them enough of it

and the email was linked to some other app on my phone and when they took it from me, the evidence of the person I was 10 years ago, 12, 14 years ago

and the poetry was there.
it was in that stupid ******* notes app on my ******* Google pixel 4a 5g, ******* ****


I had written one about the tips of your fingers

and one where I delightedly called you my lover

and another one I talked about my friends at the party I threw to mourn the November election results and how beautiful it is to be ******* alive, it was going to be really good

but instead there is a strange angry emptiness inside that stupid ******* notes app,
strange angry emptiness
inside of me,
building like a jenga tower, soon to collapse
into tears
teetering



the poetry was gone from me for a long time.
I touched
no pens, no journal pressed open to worn pages

my ex's dog chewed up my last notebook, right after I decided I was going to write again. I had left it open,
mid poem writing, when I had to
stop
to take
a
****.

came back and pages were all over the yard, in that dog's mouth, torn to wet shreds my poetry, my
dead
lines


the universe is conspiring against me

and somehow I cannot
*******
stop.


my words simply seep out of me
like my period in the bathtub,

it's most inconvenient