Like the V shaped pattern
of wake lines
behind a boat
the angle
between us
has stretched out far
The two arms of a chevron
have been forced
to let go
and I dream of the vertex
all of the time
When you are not the woman
of anyone’s dreams
Fridays become best
for cleaning
and folding
clothes
from three months ago
They become best
for dreaming
incognito
of serving
a man’s conscience
in bed for breakfast
It is the type of silence
that has carved the ******
back into my body
It’s left the fingers
searching
for what stifles
the neck
I comfort
my *******
pressing hard
on the button
below the belly
Until I am a sour fox
without blood
And what good is that rug
than to wipe your feet on
Stationary
I’m dead and
Swaying
like a rocking chair
in my bed
And for the love of god,
I cannot soothe
the cry after I
******

You cannot sow leaves back to a tree
Unpluck the feathers of a duck
When words begin to rot the tongue
those words cannot be swallowed back
 
And this is the silence between us
And this is why there will be no nest
Because this is the relationship
between a bird and a gun
 
And I will not be hung by the feet again
You cannot put this thunder in a jar
expecting the rain clouds to pour out to this garden,
this sick and yellow turf I keep protecting
like a woman carved into a scarecrow
 
And this is the distance between us
And this is how the bullet is missed
Because this is the sound of my heart pounding
like someone at the door,
I run to answer it— never again to you

Please god
don’t let my heart
become unkind
A soul in black
can absorb
the light
But I’m afraid
to tire out
from giving out
and not getting back
To confuse the black
as all forgotten
If I could wear it black
and still be kind
Don’t let it be
my wish
to harden
For the sake
of my self-
protection
If I could find
the room
in the absence
Don’t let my heart
become unkind
And let your greatest gift
become my lesson
of how
the darkness
absorbs
all light

I went Christmas decoration shopping with a friend the other day

I couldn’t decide on a tree
Or any type of ribbon
I don’t have the space for it
But I wanted the spirit

We went to a different store
The pressure was on
My friend was waiting for me to pick something
After all this was my idea

There were a bunch of nutcrackers on display
Soldiers of giant wooden jaws
And glittered capes
Some of light and dark skin

I stared at one enough until I liked it
It had a chip on its nose
My friend quickly found another like it
It was normal, no chip

I looked at both
I took the one with the chipped nose home

Later in the night
The day ran through me
Like a movie

With no sound
No plot
No pulse
Just movement
No lips
No tongue
My face broken
I bared no teeth to
Ward off such bad spirits

Another day where time
Had no currency
I had so much of it
But it was buying me nothing

Just a feeble, muted sentinel
Of impossible peace
How do dreams come alive
when the duel is against me

I have been
stuck
on this rubberband for days

I keep pulling
extending
and stretching it
back

I quickly release it
until I hear it
snap

It hit me quite hard
up against my wrist

The minutes and seconds
are raking again
The strands of my hair
on the ground

I feel
lonely

Or even worse

Trivial

Like a shallow river
in the street
After several days of rainfall
I'm an overbanking creek

I flood the town

As if I were the ocean but
there was never
any depth
There was never
any substance
to this interest

Because I
Never felt important



And so I lie flat
on my bed
Until I let
loneliness

Do open heart surgery
It makes a mess of me

And then it stitches me up

Necessity has the teeth of a dog

But I let it burn through
And in my own dissonance
I mother significance

Swarming out of my chest
Until the rubberband breaks

He was a man
A lizard
The one that crawls out of its skin
Camouflaging ‘till it’s sweating the rocks

Keen on what it wants, what it feels
That very moment
Is all that matters, all that fills
Him

His fibs
were a well-tailored fit
But he bit his own head off too often
and stood empty

Like a wishing well
or an abyss,
The pit in which I threw my dreams in
But he couldn’t fit the sentiment

Wishes were demands that bared the skeleton
Their little mouths crunching
and talking to him
He calcified his judgement to acquit the fugitive

And he blowtorched my size, my wit
Until he could no longer
speak of it
or enjoy it

I had been burning for days
Up until the day he palpated the shame
Of the impulse, of the way
a man could perfect his death

Behind the mountain of skin, undressed
the tongue was hissing in his pit
I sat him on the chair, roped to one question
Why did you do it

And if guilt is the sharpest
tool to deface him,
the man
couldn’t look at me

A mallard too limp to admit
his interests were monotypic,
only equipped
to fit his own ****

I should have de-plucked it
Drained and throat-hung it
For the many nights
I made love to a liar

But, I let him keep all of his fingers
so the man
may continue
******* himself

To the people of the world,
you bags of stainless steel,
brooding slabs of flesh,
dented and fresh
I do not mean this
in the negative of my feel,
But I quit

I quit!
I quit!
I quit!
And I don’t feel bad about it

For I’ve already let
the barbwire of the ****
wrap around my neck
and it made me sick,
it made me sick
Until I finally
vomited  

And oh my stupid god
what a relief
to be a socket!
where electricity just does not exist

I plant myself to this wall
as I watch the bodies rack up
with the most beautiful of light
knowing that mine
has rocked down
to pitch-black

Those battles I had left to fight
are wars I'm no longer interested in

Because to spend another second
digging through this military kit

of firearms I point behind your back
of gas attacks I spit to make you gag
of hot bombs I drop to cop a laugh
is the longest death of my life

I find my health stepping down to this fight
Claim all the lives you want
but today I claim mine

*bang