Red lipstick (I think),
but your hair fell soft around your shoulders.
You had this smile, but I could tell
it wasn’t for the camera-
you weren’t even looking at it. You-

You were on his shoulders like a bird,
little bluejay, hummingbird, raven-
sun on your shoulders, wind in your blouse,
eyes spilling sunlight.
His were looking up at you,
swearing everything,
swearing on the universe and his father’s grave
he’d hold onto you.

a whisper down a stairwell,
hear words trickle like
pebbles dropped in puddles
slipping down the railing
in a dandelion puff of a mood
floating  until I
climb on your shoulder and start singing
so you dance into the library
books to the height of the moon
and you’re a bowstring,
arrow pointed up toward the paper cranes
swirling by the millions
and I pull you and we take them
down in a shower of colors
and catch them in our mouths

i forgot about
wishing on ladybugs.

It’s a peculiar race
of peculiar beings
not of god nor of beast,
just something betweening,

where the righteous eat cabbage
and where the sinners eat meats
and the dangerous ones,
they press send, not delete.


We stomp over stones
and toss in our beds
forever tops spinning
around in our heads-

the heads we hold high,
the heads that hang low
that move by the slightest
“goodbye,” or “hello-”

a race not content
to merely survive-
but it’s art we create
for our hearts to thrive

and to make us feel
we’re more than we are-
just train sets and potlucks
and zooming fast cars,

because, just perhaps,
though it’s hard to see
there’s something exquisite
just for us to *be.

don’t tell me I’m pretty
when I know you see
the girls on the streets
and in the sky
with the same eyes
that can see
that some girls are
prettier than me
have more striking eyes
and thinner waists
and I don’t mind
but don’t you dare
tell me that

I’m pretty

when you can’t say
I’m the prettiest
girl in the world
when your eyes
trail other girls
because pretty things
should be enjoyed
and I don’t mind
that you look
but you better
think of a better
form of compliment
than

pretty
which means
nothing to me
and rings in my head
like a word said too much

lean your head back

whiskey goes
straight down
when
your cheeks
were blushing

red all week long

were blushing
from shame
and
being
so *******

inadequate

words come at me
like light
bouncing off the wall
before hitting my face
sinking in warm-
they’re in the air
but I can’t feel them
can’t feel much
can’t feel much but
the coffee in my veins
the joints that need to crack
your words I can’t believe when
you tell me those things
and I’m not immune to them
not immune to it quite yet-
I hear but don’t feel anything
but myself draining out
being willed to you
and I’m draining,
and I can’t feel you
like I should.

I am a bottle of champagne.
Pour me out, and let me fizz
and sparkle sweet in your mouth
for a little while
pour and pour me into
crystal glasses,
and hold me gently,
(with the pinky up)
and sip until you’re dizzy
and I’m empty
and when you’re done with me,
you’ll look around the room
hoping for something
quick and easy
to throw back,
like ***** or *** or whiskey,
and you will,
but perhaps, and just perhaps,
I will still tingle on your lips,
a bubbling melody
that you slowly lick away.

a ghost split open my abdomen
with a pocket knife, not the sharp kind, but the
blade on the multi-tool, corkscrewdriver type
and left me sitting there, open bodied so I can’t
I can’t move, touched my insides until they grew cold and still,
my blood’s congealing like ketchup on a park bench, my fingers growing stiff
my mind pounding pounding pounding but my body is now filled with cotton,
cotton seeds growing through my pores, out of my eye sockets, and they’re not
even flowers, but I suppose it's good I’m growing at least

It’s raining outside
but in this new place
I can’t hear it hit my window
or the rumble of the thunder
which I delight in hearing
as it tries to frighten me
but does so feebly
like a baby tiger
learning to growl

So I stare through glass
but at an angle
because I can’t see the raindrops
except by the orange lamplight
which reflects all the water
that swims trapped inside the globe
of the burning glow
and seems to disappear
once it has passed

And My God, these thoughts
tighten my stomach
and their hands scratch through my forehead
and constrict all of my breathing
so I try to erase them
as they try to frighten me
but do so feebly
that I can forget them
by trying to feel the storm.

I saw you slip off your dress in the dead of night,
saw the moonlight reach through the cracks of the window
to touch your skin. You peeled back the curtain and lifted the pane
to swim through the thick Louisiana air, so I followed and
climbed barefoot up a twisted tree  
and watched you melt into the bayou.

You were no longer undressed but adorned in foam.
The wind asked you to be its wife and
you nodded, solemn as the grave
and closed your eyes and let him take you.

My bones shivered into the branches as I watched
the water fall still and silent and black,
watched it take its last breath,
a corpse for the crocodiles,
watched the moon disappear like it
was never even there.

in delicate light that the dust sifts through,
piano keys dared to move
one by one in ghostly tunes
in a long forgotten and empty room.

an empty room.

a dead empty room that I peered into
and lost my breath just as soon,
stared ‘til sun became the moon,
and as I stood longer, enchantment grew.

my enchantment grew.

my enchantment grew and I walked up to
the magical ivory that made me swoon
made me weep and bid adieu
to the physical world I felt untrue.

I felt it was untrue.

it was untrue, world I thought I knew-
ugly, next to this new view,
so to music, I withdrew,
toward golden, shimmering, and brand new.

something so brand new.

so brand new that I knew not what to do-
it was lonely without you
and white keys were painted blue,
so I parted the blue with my canoe.

my own canoe.

my own canoe led me right back to you-
as I paddled in that stew,
everything thing I thought I knew
became the bits and pieces crashing through.

Not a nice girl,
not nice,
but a girl,
who for the first time
did not want to be nice
but wanted the words
to spill like blood from
an open wound
wanted the words to escape like
trapped birds from a cage,
that could peck and **** and pester,
that everyone might run from,
yet can only watch with a smile
as they take to the crisp autumn air.

Staring at you, pretty star,
death does not seem quite so far,
but close to where I am now-
(stars must have

              Their
          
                      Final

                             Bows)


But perhaps if I did not know
That all things must one day go,
I would not hold such precious sights
in my shaking hand so tight.

Hello, little fish,
swimming through my brain
smooth and simple, playing,
splashing the water,
rainbow of color
I understand you completely.
You aren't what i expected,
but boy, do I like you here.

I'm sorry I forgot to feed you on Sunday.

happy.

such a pitiful word.

happy birthday!
you try to grin,
but no one showed.
you are ashamed.

and then your mother sings

                    alone.

your chin quivers,
your eyes water,
but you won’t cry
and break her heart.

she’s trying so hard. So,
you fake a smile
open presents
give her a hug

and then pretend
to be happy.

sad little thing,
you should not know
what it feels like

to be
lonely.

We are all *****-
Our veins run with mud
our hands clench around broken bottles
spilling our souls onto the ground.

We are just humans,
Beasts in this overgrown Eden
Leaving wreckage behind us, between us
Burning the rivers, killing the angels.

We have lost our innocence
It has escaped from our clinging hands
Lost in the heart of the unborn child,
Choking on the dirt of its mother’s womb.
It had no chance.

Let the cool rain wash away the dirt from inside,
As we stand outside and let the drops slip through our parted and cracked lips,
As we cry for redemption through art
As we beg for beauty to make up
For the ugliness of humanity.
Let the cool rain wash away the dirt on the outside,
Wash away our mistakes
Our downfalls,
Let the daisies grow through the rubble,
Let the sun shine without the haze of dirt.

I’m still here, I think
I feel myself climbing back into my body
sometimes
I feel my cheeks filling back up with color
somehow
the voice that tells me to speak
is melting back into my heart
and away from my brain

and my lips
are non-robotic
my lips
are real

and I didn’t put on any makeup
and my face is mine, not a small glass bottle’s

I want everything
I want nothing

I’m melted crayons, I think
I’m mixing together
and I don’t care
because I’m warm
and melting

I’m mixed up
but make complete sense
like atoms
or balloons.
I want to sing.

I think my skin’s missed me.
I’ve missed me too.

I’ll conceal your shifting hands,
Palms pressed,
Calluses to torn cuticles,
All thumbs and knuckles and nails,
And I don’t know her, violet-scented creeping infestation
and
How you’ve worn me down, there’s a hole in my sleeve-
And I’ve let you chew on me, sweat on me, I’ve
I’ve kept you warm
And
You used me,
You used me to conceal
illicit activities,
hands in pockets, shrugging eyes off,
never been cigarettes in there, nope,

And you let her peel me off of you, the one with violet hands
that weren’t so gentle, but violent,
voracious,
tearing in at you,
as I watched from the floor
she scratched the skin that I kept safe and warm,
and
and
Why did you leave me crumpled on the floor and then
And then let her take me home, draped over her bony shoulders
to billow like a parachute,
before she squeezed me half to death that night in her sleep?

infinity
is somewhere in the milky way
the way
it swirls between the stars
and promises
to keep moving
without rhythm
never stopping
always pulsing
ebbing waves
on and on and on
a kiss that lasts forever

and we are
fragile like the earth we live on
pleading
with our life giving sun
that promises
just one more day
on every day
to keep burning
always blazing
fiery passion
on and on and on
until the day that it stops

I like it when it hurts,
a little bit-
I like to feel some self-inflicted,
irrational
pain-
I am
masochistic
turning the knife toward myself
I am
biting down on
roses
I am
picking apart everything you say
until your words are
shards of glass that I
dance on
and then
and then
I’ll
I will come to you
when I start to cry
and ask you to pour
iodine on my
wounds
so I can kick you in the face
because you missed my birthday.

I don't want to be a writer.
I would like to be a book.
I want to sit on a shelf in a library,
and be plucked by a loving hand,
and held by a window as the rain slips down it, nuzzled in blankets
and dripped on by apple juice that has run down the chin of
some scabby-kneed kid, perched on the arm of a tree
and I want to be dog-eared and remembered
and I want to be the place to turn to, the only one to turn to
where someone whispers, "how did you know? how did you know just how I felt?"
and I want to have been gone through once, passionately quickly,
so quick I gave you a paper cut and you get a little blood on my page, but I don't mind so much, because you love me,
and then
lingered on, and re-read because maybe there was something
that you missed before
and I want to have seen so many things,
probably the best things,
and meet absolutely fascinating people
because it is only the most interesting people
who read
and I want someone to bury their nose in my pages as they morph from shadowed white to afternoon wheat,
and I want to be covered in words, and coffee, and saliva from the finger of the teacher who slobbers on every corner, and grime, and salty tears and jasmine bath soaps and ink that has leaked from your favorite pen in your bag
and I want to be ***** and held and tossed and spilled on and marked up and I want my binding to be loose, but still intact,
and I want the professors to speak about me
and I want the youth to think about me
and I don't even really care what anyone thinks I'm saying,
so long as they listen to me speak
and pluck me off the shelf.

And the worst thing is,
    I muttered to my right thumb’s torn cuticle,

The Absolute Very Worst Thing In the History of the Universe is
    My tongue flounders to find
    what I want to say.
    So I say,
I’m talking to myself.
    I bite the cuticle,
    and it stings in that way
    that somehow makes me want to do it again.

The Absolute Very Worst Thing in the History of the Universe is
   that I don’t know.
   I don’t know what I want,
   I mean.

The Absolute Very Worst Thing in the History of the Universe is
    to have a frozen skeleton,
    I sample, though I’m not quite sure
     what I mean to mean.
    
    To have these metal fish-hooks
      snagged in my skin,
      one pulling north, the other dragging south.
      You see?

   To keep digging holes and sowing seeds
      that I have no idea what they’ll grow to be
      (pumpkins or daisies
      or something awful.  Like beets.)

but I’m blistered and there’s sweat that stings my slivered palms (not in the good way) but I keep digging and digging and I can’t stop because someone says I have to move forward, forward, forward, but really I’m just moving in circles,  and I’m not doing anything but something, and what is the point, in that, really?

But the worst thing is,
    that knowing that to be happy,
    and not even like a kid,
    beaming, triumphantly holding his lost tooth up in the air,
                (I’ve given up on that)
    but in the,
                I suppose I can sleep at night
                way,
                (these days, I apparently talk to myself instead,)  

The worst thing is
      knowing that to feel warm,
      to feel things,
      Something drags me forward,
               in my stupid shoes that make me hobble instead of walk,


I must keep moving forward
in spite of
the shade of a ghost,

     that kisses the hollow of my neck
     traces his fingers down my spine
     and whispers,

you’re getting tired.
     Come lie down with me.

Labyrinthine is my heart, a maze dizzying
with  your murmurous (though lovely) lilt my solitary atlas
along with furtive glances and scintillas of hope,
and dulcet kisses stolen not on a veranda,
for the fireflies and willows to witness,
but surreptitiously and sussorously
in the penumbra beneath,
kisses stubbornly efflorescent,
love sempiternal.

Propped elbows on the rug,
     bare feet swinging at the air,
           and a dandelion crown
                 rests on my tangled mess of hair

                 I shake the cool tin box,
           and listen to its clatter
      before I  spill its contents
and arrange them in a pattern

(lines or swirls or rectangles, it really doesn’t matter)


All of them are special,
      their weight magic in my fist,
            perfect lovely liquid drops-
                   I am amazed that they exist.

                   One of them, however,
            stands out from all the rest-
       'pure black,' I whisper reverently-
It is obviously the best.

So I took that marble,
     and put it in my pocket
          next to my lucky button
            and my secret golden locket.


            And this is how it feels
       driving home so late at night,
    when the road’s dark and empty
and there is not a hint of light-

Like I’ve got a secret
     that no one can understand,
        solemn, silent, and serene,
             a little lonely in my hand.

I lay in the bed across from you.
How could I not have heard
your gasps of air,
your sobs,
leaking from you
like blood leaks
from a dying body?

I pretended that I was asleep,
That I was somewhere else
lost in a dream-
too far
to hear the sound
of crumbling
as you melted away.

In the dream I had last night-
in between the ebbs of light
where nothing’s wrong and nothing’s right

someone died again.

They keep dying, in my dreams
the people that I love, they seem
to melt away by silver beams

each moon’s ****** vein.


I awoke with swollen eyes
and with breath that couldn’t help but sigh
relieved that there are no goodbyes

no more stinging pain-

but the darkness still remained
and of the morning sunshine I’ve been drained
because the knowledge that I’ve gained


That in my sleep, I’d killed them.

I never saw your dad’s new turtle in its tank in Milwaukee.

I never told you how you looked leaning over the railing at Griffith’s Observatory. The city flickered like a jar of lightning bugs beneath us that night, but the telescopes were disappointing. I didn’t mind.

I never saw your sketches.

I never made room for you on the blanket at Dockweiler Beach. We left the others by the fire and walked to the foaming black water to investigate what we thought might be a body. I still think it was.

I never reached for your hand by the Ferris wheel.

I never gave in when you said, “You have no idea how hard it’s been not to kiss you,” and I stared at my empty paper cup, wishing I had gotten a bigger size because I needed something more to do with my hands.

I never found something better to do with my hands.

I never let you touch the scabs I got when I fell off the sidewalk after I decided I was someone who should jog.

I never touched the scars you got when your lungs collapsed and they pumped them back up like a balloon and they woke you up to breathe with your chest still open.

I never turned to face you when you kissed the top of my head. I didn’t want to move. You told me about your family instead.

I never told you about my family.  

I never told my family about you.

I never put my head on your shoulder at two in the morning when we sat in a booth under a flickering yellowish light, shivering with our little Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate in our hands, trying to keep our burning eyes open as we waited for our friends.

I never met your friends from home. I think I would have liked them.

I never sat in the passenger seat of your Oldsmobile with the radio on and the windows down as we drove through Nevada, then Kansas, then Illinois, but it’s probably for the best since your car never would’ve made it anyway.

Sometimes
I just wish that the nonsensical fell
right into its place
and didn’t get tangled
in branches like kites
and thorny vines
that climb up stone walls

and sometimes
I wish I knew that everything
would work out
just the way I plan
and everything
would fill itself in
to my equations

but kites will blow where they please
and flowers will grow how they please
no matter which way
you fly
or plant
them

and
I hate math
anyway.

hope

a word that sparkles, shimmers

as it dances before you
daring you to follow it
as if you had a choice
as if you had a chance

to just leave it

to just walk away

to leave it with its crestfallen eyes
sitting on the floor of your bedroom
where the papers are a mess
and the stories don’t make sense
anymore-

so you must pick it back up
and carry its weight

even as it mocks you
and your face flushes red
and your arms begin to ache
and you want to throw it across the room

and watch it shatter.

You make me smile at the pale light
that creeps under my eyelids
and whose fingers pry them open
pestering me until I wake

You secret behind my ribcage
that pulses straight through my skin
and climbs like a vine to my lips
and overgrows in my head

‘til  all I can see is flowers
and still, still, it remains you
that lodges inside of me so
but leaves me no words at all

to tell anyone how I feel,
so  I will remain silent
or I will just shrug as I say,
“he’s alright most of the time,”

and no one will know I’m blooming.

you’ve got these filaments in your eyeballs
light bulb filaments,
flicker, spark
you’ve got this dark
spot you say
you’re afraid
it’s a cataract, but it’s just a shade
and I’m not afraid of ghosts,
I know how to stare back at them,
show them I’m alright, I swear
if you touch me, it won’t hurt
you, though my clumsiness does escape me
now and again, like when I hit your
eye socket or cheek unwittingly
in my sleep

“Pass me the salt”-
    screeches of metal on glass,
    tinkling glasses
    crunching and chewing and slurping
No one says a word.

Staring at plates
    smeared with the residue,
    covered with crumbs
    everything running together
Avoiding all eyes.

Sometimes,
it is less lonely
to sit in solitude
than at the family dinner table.

Clean shaven, bowler-hatted, crisp-suited men
are spattered across the canvas,
       with stiffened spines,
              vertebrae militarily ordered,
Plunging toward the ground,
       not falling,
              plunging,
              leaden,
from a sky the color of a smokers’ lungs,
        gray and blue from lack of oxygen,
sputtering them out.
       They seem not to notice.


Blank-faced, easy-armed, composed,
they seem not to notice they are doomed
        to be piles of splintered bones
                webbed with sinew and lumps of skin,
Thinking as they head toward the ground,
         praying,
         “If I pretend it’s not happening,
         maybe I’ll be okay”
from the heartless pavement,
         gravity with the whole world behind it,
yanking them like teeth from the air.
         Only a few clenched fists betray their terror.


Or,
the

Choking, muted, and embittered city
could be letting them go,
          allowing them to evaporate
                 back to the sky where they belong,
Welcoming them home, that sky,
           not with violence,
                  welcoming,
                  gently,
to a sky where ennui is beautiful,
           star after star after star,
whispering that they are important, splendid, lovely.
           One can only hope.

Explosions of Colors,
Clashing and bright-
Giving me headaches
Harassing at night.
The Chattering of Birds
Noisy and high
Lacking a rhythm
And crowding the sky

Eyes closed, ears shut-the jolts-screams-splashes-jeers-spirals-pounding-faces future-people-fear- noise Noise NOISE-

and then…
it rains

and the world is painted blue
and no one can control it,
and there is nothing left to do.

Sign on the dotted line-
I’m always the last one.
Last one to sign it off,
say goodbye,
make the last call,
Last one
to resign.

my soul is trying to break through
            (rip through)

                          my skin

climb out and pull me into you
             as you

                          breathe in




my body though, it won’t uncurl
               (unfurl)

                          its fists

I am trapped inside of a girl,
                girl who

                         persists



so while my soul is stuck inside,
               (outside

                          your shell)

I guess our atoms that collide
               provide

                          their cells

to let our bodies intertwine-
               a wine

                          to taste

for but a moment, what defines
             (I find)

                         your face.

Ruin me.
Tear me up
and make me something new-
something used.
Ruin me.

Step on me.
Crush me down
to a thousand pieces-
a million.
Step on me.

Do as you please.
Feed me the poison,
and I’ll swallow it
if it’s from your hand.

I wish that I was small-
small enough to climb
into your ear
and into
your head

Once I am in your head
I can touch your brain
kissing it all,
making it
better

I could fix all the pain
the pain that sits there
and lingers on
even when
lips meet

I feel so helpless, love
that I can’t fix it
like I’m meant to
with only
my love.

So I wish to be small
to live on your brain
and keep you safe
from all that
haunts you.

I have a sock drawer
that laughs at me
   every freezing day-


It hides its contents
one at a time-
     it’s just cruel that way.


So now, in the cold,
I swear to it,
    when the earth thaws out,

My feet will be bare
in the dirt and grass!
Shoes? I can do without.

last May
on my couch
as we pretended to watch
animal planet
as we pretended to listen
to hippos playing,
the world was silent
as we slowly inched closer

until
we breathed
‘**** it’
and then

after all that time
for the first time
like nothing else
there was nothing else
but time

that’s when
I knew
you make
me brave

enough to jump
headfirst into
a pond full of
some predatory
hippos.

I see it in you
what you can’t help
but to think
that what you
try and say
is innocent
when somewhere
somewhere dark
you know you have it
you have the truth there
scratching at your insides
an invading virus
that you can’t even see
but slowly slips into
your conversation
before you can tell
it is even there.
But I ‘m not mad.
You are human,
only man.

fifteen on my windowsill,
yet ink on my hands that I will wash
and on scraps that will be crumpled
and i like to open them when the house falls to murmurs

there is no moon here,
and I've seen no stars
between bars
that keep out
the vicious
and
keep me in

yet a light, somehow,
shines on blank pages
(empty for ages)
that whisper
come closer
and
cover me

when rosy light melts through the window,
shot through with golden rays,
and the world is between heartbeats,
drifting through the milky way,

when perfect harmony is hanging,
tying silence and the sound,
and after jumping off the swing,
before you’re headed for the ground,

For but a moment there’s a stillness,
a suspension, paused in time,
a fragment of tranquility,
when all the planets are in line.

letters are spinning in my head
like some ****** up encyclopedia
or terrible alphabet soup
that spills and spills out of the tin can
and onto the ******* tile floor
that’s already covered in shards of glass
so that I can’t fall onto it
if I needed to fall down on my knees,
if I wanted to, anyway

Who is paranoid?

Me or you,
as you shield the pages
on the train
from me
with your shoulder
as I
try and see
what you have written
thinking you are hiding
something from me
as I clutch my bag to my chest
and start to breathe faster
        lungs tighten
        face feels warm
as someone speaks in foreign language
accidentally pulls against my hair
and they face me
straddling the seat I’m in
pushing me towards you
as I try to disappear
as the people get closer
and the train gets faster
and everything is swimming
in bright fluorescent yellow

until

the tracks point upward
and upwards
and upwards
lunging from the underbelly of the earth
and the light bursts through the windows
and the beast emerges,
breaking through
like a sigh of relief,
like breaking into heaven
so fast
that no one could stop us
if they tried.