bangzoom
like police cars
lining up
outside the funeral home
holdingmybreath
rubbing my temples.
breathing deep in an upright castle
made of particle board
andheldtogether
by strange whispered memories.
inside.
with a glittering computer screen that remembers everything reflected.
theclickofheelsinthehallway
the sharp snap of magnets
meeting.
So I bring you love
and coffee
and conversation.
wrapped tightly around our necks.
and love.
and love.
wrappedtightlyaroundournecks.
bangzoom.

i'll teach you what it's like to be a ghost
how to move from space to space unnoticed
how to blow through rooms on fire
without wincing.
how to be nimble
but paralyzing
and poignant.
i'll teach you what it's like to cut a noose
with a dull knife
and not bring down the whole house
i'll teach you how to take weight in your arms
without falling
and how you can get them to look you in the eyes
when they can't see through their tears
i'll prove to you
you can remove a heart
without breaking it
if you carry it in your throat
if i could impart to you
how to take a portion of their pain
without wearing it like a cloak
or exchanging it for guilt
i will show you.
i'll teach you what it's like to be a ghost.

what do you want
i want to put my forehead to your temple and wrap my arm around you. i want to feel at home again. and wild and unbound. with all of the fancy fish swimming from me to you. as i rock.
i rock my head against you, the curves make it easy to do. i tighten my grip and
glitter paint on our fingertips and that
small
secret on hushed lips, smirking. savored. unbound.
unbound and scattered. beautiful words. bold, italic, underlined. asterisks and parentheses. tossed and grabbed at by our bony fingers. like it was some sort of game. it was. i need you now.
enthusiasm and hip bones jutting. neon, day glow, pink and stained tile on the bathroom floor.
i need you now. simply. i know no one else came close.
one girl to another.
unbound.

take big, messy bites of plums and pomegranates. carry a pocket knife. use it to clean your teeth. in public especially. if people notice- smile and wave. then go back to plucking the skins out. collect moderately priced perfume and wear a spray or two too much. every day. grow out your nails, grow out your hair. then when the compliments come, clip them short. paint them black. bury your eyes in a buried book. change your routine. wake up an hour earlier and go on a jog, get coffee and a fresh croissant. keep your head up.  exchange the air for flavored smoke. stare unapologetically. buy some new *******. put on your favorite lipstick and kiss the mirror. dance to that song every time it comes on. even if there are people in the room. sing into a hair brush and make them want to join in. buy a new box of crayons. wear them down to pathetic little nubs. buy yourself fresh flowers. laugh so hard that people can see if you have cavities. even way in the back. be sure to eat the things that cause them. drink coffee and flavored beer. curse. get tattoos. fall in love, then fall back out. pack up their ****, or pack up yours. or maybe leave it all behind. ride a carousel. wear a push up bra and steel toed boots. tell ridiculous lies to people you'll never see again. make funny faces at children when their parents aren't looking. give presents often. challenge yourself to learn a new language. then learn two. leave the cabinets open, and fill them with dishes that don't match. not even a little bit. compliment old ladies. make paper flowers. write love notes. walk slowly past grave yards. get your hands *****. be shameless and loving. own your mistakes. learn from them. even if you have to make them more than once. be courageous and content. stand up for yourself when you need to, be kind- even to yourself. and if someone gives you a reason to smile, make sure you do it. often.

not in the usual way with
bent knee and bowed head
but with nag champa and cd inserts, with
deep reds,
plastic costume jewelry beading and safety pinned rips.
it was post cards and cigarette ash
with Kroger's box dye in
rusted orange.
staining our fingernails. didn't matter. we painted them in
neon green and chunky glitter. we stayed up late and wandered
laughter like a shattered diamond breaking into a million stars and thrown out over such a welcoming ivory towered
night sky.
and itallian food households with those noodles in jars.
looking up.
it was Billy Corgan telling us he'd
sing along.
it was memories that aren't even mine. cut in my eyes.
it was blunt bobs and pixie haircuts.  it was cut necklines and walking on air. giant chain necklaces and whispered chap-lipped secrets.
endless folds and bottomless love
in a deliciously musty floral hat box.
you're just low end in
loving apathy.
and i'm absent in my own life.
it was an interruption so unspeakably painful.
doesn't seem so hard to revisit.
but i can't.

not another soggy wind pipe sonnet
curb side prophet
      fodder.
and i keep leaving shadows of you
on
the doorsteps
                of everyone that's loved me since.
i can't throw it away
and, god- believe me
when i say i've tried.

i will write you a happy poem
i will stitch it together in delighted diligence.
i wont clean behind the doorways with it
and i will keep it from the dirt and cobwebs.
and i wont bring up
what i shouldn't.
i will pick out the maggots
wriggling
with my teeth if
i need to.
and i will dress the ****** stumps in
gorgeous, coral lace. (which will only stain a little.)
heaving.
i will write you a happy poem, tucking in the rotten bits.
with high notes in
sandalwood and orange blossom.
it will have showers of sweet nothings exploding
in crystalline pink bits of
                                 cellophane
       that might stab in your eyes.
people will call it exotic and intoxicating.
              i'll dot my "i"s with *******
                                   little, red-ruby hearts
             so small you cannot see
                      the microscopic hairline cracks. (i promise)
                              i will painstakingly polish it
                              in earnest.
                              all spit shine and black lacquer.
                              sticky chinned grin
             and flushed cheeks from
love
or screams
or something like that.
                          ....and i know,
i'll wrap it up tight in ribbons. crimson.
                    fresh like a heart that has only just
stopped.
just sliced and steaming.
my perfect ingredients.
and i will tether it from me
to you.

i held you still- fearing you mistook parts of me
for parts of God
held my breath because i guess
being here meant more to me
than being mistaken for Omnipotent
or safety.
let your heart beat
a fragile little bird fluttering in it's cage. heart cage. rib cage.
i think you were moving too. counter rhythm. restful momentum.
i wasn't trying to trick you. or trap you.
but,
i gave myself this moment.
and godhelpme- i don't regret it.
later
in windfall and disquiet
it was still me that you came to.
me.

"You are having a bad day." he said,
looking up from my work i noticed
milky, blue eyes seeping- they were shimmering in the shadows,
of his fluffy spider-legged brows,
and secondary to his stupendous
potato nose. lilies. beep.
my heart may have skipped a beat, wondering if
another patron had taken offense
to a dispassionate expression that wore me more than i, it.
he fumbled with a money clip, already withdrawn. large, arthritic, veiny hands. looked down grappling--with ***** bills, smelling of *******, g-strings and *** sweat. was my mouth open, was i staring? baby pinks and stark white, peppered with
gentle,
fuchsia
explosions.
he tossed down a ten and reached in pockets that seemed too low, contorting into a teapot. short and stout. i heard coins mingling together. a discussion among themselves. hushed metallic whispers, pontificate on
the merits of
coin purse over
pocket travel.
here, reemerged a fist, clenched weakly and shaking, he dropped exact change on the ten,
they hesitated in vibration against the laminate counter, and spun on edge in circles.
"some" he said- my stare averting.
..."some" he repeated, only when i'd managed to meet his eyes with again,through an imagined haze of misunderstanding... sweet scent, shivering orange pistils, raining microscopic yellow dust. stargazers. i shifted the change from the counter to my hand.
"are worse
than others."
i delivered him his change in bills, the familiar clink of coins in my drawer somehow deafening. and i couldn't break my curious stare, he turned sharply, flowers wrapped in pink tinted cellophane, which crinkled in a whimper from his grasp.
he limped away, mud on his heels.
back to the cemetery.

spiritless and well oiled,/ /suspended in a floating film of/ /in-animation./ /weighty./ /threaded./ /the rambling nature of death./ /a slow spring,/ /thick and viscous... seething out of layered cracks./ /veining out as a muddied road map./ /but it's the hard bits that hit you hard./ /fingernails./ /they picked scabs./ /peeled citrus./ /scratched and plucked./ /and/ /and teeth once white. eclipsed by gray./ /they smiled, they bit nervously on pencils./ /perhaps had work done./ /(maybe just a filling.)/ / what was kept solid with an inner structure- yet unraveled./ /ragged bones./ /reduced in years and yet remain/ /adipose in apodosis./ / shadowed mutely / / with whispers of those ragged bones./ /

i was once
young and
spilled out messy and passionate
dyed my hair too much
worked my fingers to the bone
bled
listened to good music
too loud
faked smiles
loved people deeply
who didn't deserve it.
pulled down the moon
and then the stars
and swallowed them
one
by
one
when i was young i
raised eyebrows
screamed and didn't stop.
burst into
dizzying
clouds of glitter and insensibility.
i wrote because
i thought my words might mean something to someone
someday
i thought i might as well
leave a mark
since i knew but didn't feel it.
i felt but didn't know it.
i'd be here for just a short while.
i filled up notebooks and journals
and sometimes i left them blank
because
i figured saying nothing
is
sometimes saying more than
saying something
i rode on trains for too many stops
because
i didn't know where i was going
and didn't care.
wore clothes that were
too big
traveled in cars that
were
much too drunk
to stay in the lines
based myself on baseless
meaningless
gestures.
didn't keep up with my responsibilities.
was unmistakably human.
pushed people away
crossed boundaries.
lit the world on fire
pretended like i didn't understand
chased shadows
when i could have been enjoying the sunlight.
i cried until my eyes were yellow and puffy
laughed until
my stomach ached and pulsed
sometimes for no reason
shivered and
banked sideways on
shores of quivering destruction
acted like i was
unbreakable
when i was young

your monkey mouth spits wise, putrid- like delicious and suffocating, sugar-acid soaked cotton. drying me out and crumbling the stones. kicked the back of your chair. burned holes in it. anything to get you to shutthefuckup with the unrelenting rambling.  i would set fire to your ego --- if i didn't think the flames might fuel an unqualified hubris; nourishing it like flames would lick it's lips at dry rot drapes and discarded wicker patio furniture. your white teeth gnashing in passion over your own thoughts in the dark. your face shrouded in perspiration, agony, devotion, ecstasy and anger catches lights off flickering streetlamps careening down the backstreets of your self involved sincerity and the suburb we grow older in-- each home they built there uglier than the last and yet... tantamount to one another. a symmetrical cemetery. pursed, chapped lips and noxious smoke. i could die here. nodding and satisfied.
sliding sideways into a more intense disgust,  i catch your gaze in the rear view--- a moment of terror-laden, dark lager stare as if your eyes might know my predilection for pain. charming me back into your misery. passing it back and forth like a wet, sticky pipe- i could breathe you in all over again. blackening my lungs. scratching a line down my insides. rendered me flimsy and clouded again. when i crawl in next to you it's those slender spider leg fingers digging in. i love you. i hate you. all over again.

i can remember
listening quietly
to myself. a boy with eyes like fresh bruises and
long fingers. and a throat. lithely he wrapped
with them
spelling out silence, running his fingers over the ridges
counting out the seconds. letting the steam
drift up to his nostrils. patience and soulless verbiage. wasting hours on this. screaming at the walls. challenging nothing. the platform was empty.
he was vanishing already. fading. it was the warning before the
decline. decisive agitation.
and i remembered only
by the smallest margin
what used to be there.
and i can remember listening quietly
for the echos
of inapparent
and
disingenuous exchanges
where you could hear the smile
in the hello
where you could feel the rush
in the embrace.
and i wondered with my knees pulled up
under my chin
what currents
carried us so far from that place.

Once upon a midnight, dreary,

Top Hattie twinkles, lipstick smeary,

...spinning girls like Mischief Managed all glittery on the ball room floor,

I was taken, most completely.

...Batting lashes indiscreetly.

D'lilac lips that pouted sweetly, a Circus Girl that knew the score.

I pinched myself, could i be dreaming?

Of this Nymph, this Empress gleaming?

was her Diva charm misleading? Shoe Addicted Troubadour.

A Siren in Styletto thrilled me,

Abracadabra wish fulfilled me,

......Medusa eyes that drew, yet stilled me- Retro-Futuristic roar.

Like an Airborn Unicorn descending,

advanced upon me unpretending.

my heart of Dragon Scales extending for this Cupcake Thief I'd cover for.

"Mirror Mirror" she whispered, smirking.

Countessa Fluorescent had caught me lurking,

and sent my Great Pink Planet jerking, Cosmopopping, Centrifuchia war.

My Beautiful Rocket was set to swinging,

No She Didn't hear the ringing

in my ears the Twilight singing, to the Limest Criminal on the floor.

my darling maudlin
foolish, peculiar. under-fed.
gushing, pressing your tongue against my teeth
urging please

to speak//to speak.

                                  hosting riots
in my veins. extending out
rushing through my limbs
and then dissolving. quickly while i wasn't looking.
unspecific. waited too long. decision. decision. indecision.
no...

i always miss you
exploding under my skin. that over relished and insecure
notion
of being neglected. untouched. urgency and passion. flicking flickering. thrashing back into my throat splashing in the backs of my eyes. sneaking out the corners. searing like bile. whispering my name and asking me
who are you (again and)
who are you
who are you
i was...


(something)

lost and found and lost again. renamed and redesigned and turned
inside out again and again.
and again and
but i try to remember before i forget.
my darling maudlin. foolish
peculiar.
with damp hair. pale skin. under-fed
my
                                                    ­                                                (( maudlin.))
unraveling like a poorly made
rag doll. oh ****.

not again.

i twist her up. twitch.

guess i... guess i
been caught up in that thing again.