this sickening feeling is easy to return to
like caffeine sinking a hole in my stomach.
I thought I was earning a thicker-skinned future
but it gives me more extreme things to get high from.

sometimes I figure I’d make a good escort
yet just want another soft place to land on.
my eyes glaze over at all the disgusting
pieces of others. i gorge them like peaches.

some days laughing seems unsightly don’t it?
will you still love me if i lose my temper
or how would it change me? the scent of vanilla
is more pungent than I can stand.

I will drink anything sweetened which calls me
I can resist anything til I try it.

It just so happens that my Shrek toothpaste somehow
went splat on the floor, covered in ants
I don’t know how
to clean a bathroom, properly
and now mother knocks
asking if I’ve seen her foot cream and will I be done
in there soon
and I say go change out of your work shirt
Mythology week awards require at least a toga
“Rome outfits weren’t built in a day,” she bubbles.

Last August I cleaned the toilet I think
inhaling unhealthy degrees of artificial orange scrub.
One of my favorites,
but not as good as coca-cola
which I was forbidden from trying until I was 16.
I hear: “Constantinople will be Istanbul by the time you’re out
of there” and she may be right

Somehow, I’m not yours
you’re the only thing you own
or at least not the only thing that’s yours.

I can tell you love me from the way you twist my hair around your fingers
bore your eyes into my smile
and touch me around others, when you never dared before
and absence
of prior barriers

I am rhapsodic
and complimenting friends feels awfully droll
but I could speak about you forever and never tire of it
Would you ever tire of me
with someone else swimming in your sea
or might you stay twined underneath my veins for as long as I
want you to be?

I would **** to be in any other place but this happiest girl
sip coffee and dance forever
I’d write the greatest song on earth - though I hate melody - to keep you.

Sometimes you want to text your girlfriend
“how are you, baby” but then realize you’ve
never called her baby and now might be a
strange time to start so you backspace
four characters and now it says “how are you,
love” but then you realize you haven’t
said you love her yet and tho she’s said it to you
now might be a strange time to start, so
you backspace and say “how are you” and pick out
the male zombie emoji and send
and
a few
minutes later
your phone pings
and she says she’s reading about ears

Sunbeams stretching
A single housefly struggles
under plastic wrap

Stainless steel
Cool to the furnace
Hot to the body

Dragon pushes
through the skyscraper gate
cracking jade

The moon waxes
a man gazes
paper scratches

Winter gusts
Tear rainbows of posters from
damp cork

Golden maple
nestled on bent twigs
a single tennis ball

Girl in a cotton dress
streams through violet fields
trailing shadows

From a clear sky
dogwood leaves helicopter over
glistening pinwheels

Crunching steps
Ivy grasps and pushes
through bicycle spokes

Puddles rising
Earthworms crawl through
chocolate soil

Cool water running
over bathroom tiles
scent of mint

A frog sits
on bobbing lilies, eyes flitting
from ripple to ripple

Honey, are we out of yogurt?
No, the omen grants it so.
Chalk keeps oozing through our cupboard,
Are your mumbles just for show?
Pale, more pale than morning’s dough.

Golden threads sink behind eyes
A marionette, diving from damp leaves
which crack my new flats on the pavement.

Now rose-freckled, I’m reminded
of spackled nails on
shoulderblades

My cheeks tight, sun-roasted,
heady from new sangria.
Your hair stings my face, swift as forgetting.

Crackling with charisma
I examine you examine her
soft-eyed and hard-hearted.

Sinking in silence
like mushed matcha coating an overpriced glass
her translucent hem spinning and spinning.