sometimes i can smell gasoline
i can be familiar with the routine, an everyday
i could be here every day

my lips stick together
i step out but i'm back inside
there's an uncanny i'm waiting for
but i think we're the aliens we're waiting for
yeah, i think we're the aliens we keep waiting for

can it last forever?
life hasn't been the same since i found out that bees have threesomes and there are two kinds of males but only one kind of female
all the light from stars that we can see are probably dead
floating to make the next big thing
like the small of your back
or the twitch on that someone you're so in love with

everything is under the dirt
cosmic divorce
i'm afraid that we don't know what god looks like
and that he's haunting me in my sleep
waiting in every half-open door to jump out and say
this is it
come
back
to
me

there is a dream where i wear a white dress
my mother cries behind the shuddering trees
I don't know this but i am running, tongue heavy

My mind slips through a dungeon

catalina island
by the sea
philandering squid
my two front teeth chipping
on a rock out in the ocean
my mouth constantly feeling like a mussel
tongue wrestling
by the sea

de facto fabrication just after the fact
the king mackeral always
dealing the blade to the sword fish
in a hasty attempt at drawing blanks
all confusion no feeling
the cowboys from those western films would have hated you
you could never tell who the good guy was
there's no duality only extreme alienation
and the tenuous fabric that exists between
man and everything else
something is always measured by the difference
it has in relation to another
the charisma from the hero
turned out only to be a severe drinking problem

i cut the envelopes that come in through my mailbox with the jagged edges of my front teeth
women used to chew their umbilical cord after birth
and my mother tied my hair in the same ponytail the entirety of my girlhood
the elastic snapping a couple times a day
because the girth of hair was always too thick
and I envied the women with thin, silky hair
the kind that didn't snap or break
split in two like my lip in the winter
or when hitting the pavement

years later when I became bored with everything
everyone I knew was in love with
I became queen of abandoning all in a jiffy
sobering up and growing up
the more I went up
the easier it became to be simple and dumb

so cut my tongue-tie
leave me in the dark
i'll never be middle class
as you explain poverty to me in your fake squalor
I understand that one day you'll eventually
move back to your parents' wealth
and my sun will be hotter

I'll quit my job and live in between different parks
with similar names and the birds that always remember your
face but they have so many
your head becomes a scrambled egg
you'll listen to my songs
but that's only because
you want to believe they're about you

it's liquid gold
when everyone is defined by what kind of milk they drink

the television sings
the satellite dish keeps twirling on the rooftop with no signs of slowing
I think I've meant to catch it, keep binoculars close
in case it gets too dizzy and ends up on the front yard again
the neighbors sunbathe **** and the sun
hides behind the trees of second hand embarrassment

there's a paradise in the way you say my name
   or she says my name or he says my name
syllables crashing like head on car collision or train wheels wrestling with the tracks
one time i brought back a starfish from the ocean
hiding it in my sweater pocket
it soaked all the way onto my pants into the upholstery of my father's old car and everyone pretended they didn't see
maybe it wasn't even there, maybe i wasn't there
sometimes ghosts would follow me i would end up breathing on the glass and leaving impressions as proof
of existing, of understanding what it meant to live with the living

getting home, unearthing my discovery in the bathtub
but there was only a thud, an ugly crash on the resin
the fiberglass making the death inhabitable
i wanted you so much you turned to stone
a hard shell of what i found so beautiful i could cry but there wasn't even a yell
ignore me and ill love you forever
i picked you up, cradled on both my palms but the keepsake was in the lesson
a memento of solitary moments waiting
shrivel up

my father found me or maybe it was my mother or maybe it was nobody and i picked myself up silent  
into the backyard where i dug until my fingers hurt, until my hands knew the brittleness of rhythm
i might have never stopped until i reached some kind of closure or maybe magma, a molten crust of hell i had missed before
my jeans dirt-stained and my face red from scratching bugs that weren't really there
maybe we met at the wrong time, maybe there's never a right time for anything
you reach certain points and then head back in the other direction
you bleed until it's time to reach for the band-aids in the medicine cabinet and call it healing
maybe i'll never know some things
never figure out questions that still tap on my windowsill demanding to be answered or asked in the first place
and i think i can fit comfortably in that, in this

Do you remember the first time you realized that there was such a thing as death?
It wasn't in the sad dog your best friend had hanging around in her backyard but it could have been.
Maybe it was in the ****** gums of the homeless you frequently passed on the way to the bus stop.
Avert your eyes, your mother would tell you but they were glued to the fleshy drops of fluids on shirts that used to be clean.
I started looking at the wrinkles on my hands as fun entertainment while waiting for my father to finish his physical therapy.
I also read the Secret Garden on down times.

an army of men
ransacked into a ******
part existential cut
part juvenile clawing
to reach
into an empty bag
where coins resided
taste the metal it left on the lining
i wonder if it will lead back
to that ****** lip on the 4th of july
a firecracker brain
hot-headed ready to explode into the night sky
just to impress you
i could impress you

a spit pact by the cul-de-sac
of your old house
the yard was always perfect
but the shingles trembled
and the roof always felt like it might fall
you told me not to worry
that saliva is thicker than blood
and once the home is ruined
you'll still remember me
as one of the good girls
as one of the good girls

you wore acrylic nails that scratched the back of my neck
because you said it made you feel older
and your green poppy dress always blended
in with the backyard trees
while you smoked foreign substances
from an old lipstick case you carved out
and it was all so feminine
and all so beautiful
but I could never get high enough  
so I had to pretend that everything
felt as far away as climbing the skyscrapers in downtown

your laugh always bordered on cackling
and you promised that when our paths diverted
and they would
to remember
that hotel rooms should never feel like people
and that some men are strange
under different lighting
and to always close my eyes when crossing the street
and maybe I would survive
and I said
yes yes yes
I understand I say like I understood

when you got a scrape on your knee
you told me sometimes you wished
you could be as weightless
to never disrupt any floorboards
or understand the gravity
of heaviness
you look at me
and I'm envious of your curls
and I can tell by the way you straighten them
to the point of abuse
that you envy mine

my shirt barely fits over my stomach
my belly is a bag of granny smith apples
**** and plump
misleading in their sweetness
underneath growing ten-fold each week
all the different fruits for growth
leave me anemic for heartier things
tenderloin heart, blood steak
there's a biting pain on the side of my hip
that feels like what I imagine a dog nipping at your heel
could feel like
and I hear it
the small squeak at the bottom of a storm drain
a miniature kitten trapped in the middle of concrete and hot cement
it hasn't rained in months
and my mouth starts to water imagining
the dehydrated lungs of an animal
that's destiny has been sealed

clear gloss lipstick, sweet and see through
like you are, like you could be
like being in that 99 cent store for the first time all over again
and you can smell sour watermelon and plastic
all about the glitter packaging and all the different flavors could be the paths you decide to take one day
in seafoam t-shirts and tattered sneakers that bite at your heel
until it's the color of pink taffy but when you touch it something
bursts and you decide that skin is your favorite ***** afterall
you pass by the glitter and the fake flowers but waste your cents
instead in aspirins for your mother
but you steal those chips and that drink too and call it benevolence that you don't get caught
and you never will because you get what you give

I'm sitting under a canopy of dark green leaves
I don't recognize the breed
You come forward and tell me that a new law has already been discovered
What goes up must eventually come down
The first time I recited one of my poems aloud I drove through the page leaving skid marks shaped like tongue twisters
No one paid attention and when I stepped off to catch my breath I threw up a mouthful of apple seeds that I later dug into the backyard
I moved out before i saw any growth but I promise something rose from the dirt, crooked and shy at first
A medley of anxious nail-biting and approval-seeking
I once knew the secret, the all note worthy testimonial to a meaningful life
But the soup has grown timid and uncertain of where it will go when it no longer holds anything
A toothbrush is born from underneath my skirt
is this cleaning the slate?

tuck me into bed
leave the restless leaves
i know how much you hate crumbs
on the mattress
but please
feel the unpleasantness and kiss it goodnight
i can tell you the stories i harvest inside myself
like they were only yours to hear
and they are
my experiences are for you to bump shoulders with
covered in sweat in the train station
pardon the loud lights
these make up the skin that will eventually
hold me intact when the weather turns and slaps me again
over and over again
i could sing you to death

a plastic duck in the middle
of a fiberglass and resin expanse
there's still a swarm of water
dripping lethargically
down, down, down
as if they have nowhere to go
sinking but never completely disappearing

the tile is cold under my feet
no steady movement this early at dawn
the window outside equally
tells of a deluge
frightening even the pebbles that make up a gravel road
but the birds are frantic with delight
a screaming song that could electrify
a sizzle more than whistling
almost burns my ears

domestic life under a wooden roof
my eyes always half closed
in contentment or excessive worry
i can never tell the difference

a pattern of small footsteps approaches me
a mop of hair and dreamy eyes
always reminding me that this is me
a grounding technique personified

scattered clothes grazing
that curious part between ankle and sole
reminding me that i am here
everything has paused
there's no reason to look at the clock
what once was midnight could be noon

the plants croon as i brush
their dusty leaves with neem oil
drooling over all the attention
a freckle in my arm spends an eternity
prancing around the fact
that I've had the same repetitive thought
for an hour now
but we are alive
that's all I can know for sure

a man of conversation
like a typical neurosis that's linked to

la machina de mi corazon
como la manzana de mi ojo

i'm a bug and the magnifying glass
is my mother and the hand that holds it is god
and as he picks me up from the pebbled ground
he gazes
but i'm too busy feeling the inadvertent heat
emanating from a palm that glistens
and carries me into a nightmarish comfort
of both unknown and like I have always been there
there is no start or finish
and i'm happy
and i need it to last forever

the callous on my fourth finger has disappeared
when I attempt a semblance of a sentence my
hands fist fight with each other and i'm left feeling wiped out
like I should probably put the words back into my mouth
but the fluttering movement of my bones working with joint
leaves me feeling exasperated to see what comes of it
the knuckles turn a peach white and I can suddenly see
that my scrawl on the paper is running around in loopy circles
sometimes they embrace to create something entirely new  
they grab their bodies like they're nothing without the other
foreign nonsense in between spaces
but there's always space
you need that distance to make sure there's room for the empty
and I have come to establish a rhythmic
nodding of head
bobbling of body
lulling of mind when I interact with the dialogue
my hands jump off my table and lament that the writer has become too conceptual this time