My mother was a writer.
I remember her,
papers spread out upon a bed sheet in the sand,
stacked pebbles protecting her work from the wind
as I made drip-castles at the water's edge
and braided crowns from wild poppies.
I would run to her so she could
rub grape sunscreen into my sandy shoulders
and I asked her once,
“Mama,
is that poetry?”
and she said “No little one,
you are poetry,
this only tries to be.”
and I thanked her,
and ran back to the water
to search for flat stones to skip,
and thought no more of poetry.

My deformities decorate me
As if I were Persephone
Married to all that could incinerate me
I dance with daemons, but they do not consume me

Instead we rub up against each other, like
The good kind of scratch
Like the skins of fruits

And I delight
In the weight
Of cool scales that press my dress to my skin
And rest monster heads in the curve beneath my skin.

Great claws finding the fork tines of my fox spine, and I sing
O, Daemon Mine
O, Daemon Mine.

And they let go, and they sometimes even
Cry.

On the floor of the river styx, frogs burrowing peer over muck duvets to watch me press like a violet between the cookbook pages of the water and the land. I went overboard-

I am addicted to the darkness between worlds.

Somewhere above me, I see the moon. She doesn’t try to warn me, she doesn’t bother reminding me that I can’t breathe. Heavy currents like snakes blur her face into fractured crystal tears that wash me over with sweet exasperation.

Sedated by the salt toward the other side, where the ferryman flips my coin and hums a tune without words about all rivers rushing toward the sea.

He doesn’t ask me why I chose this route, just grins a toothless grin
And winks
And tosses my coin into the water
without

So much

As a wish.

when I was born, I had
nine lives left, I was bereft
of scars, delicate as fireflies
in a jam jar
(the kind I’d punch holes in the lid for,
the kind I’d bring indoors
and set on my bedroom floor as a fairy nightlight, until I got bored
and one by one they died silent as the pollination of fornicating spores.)

anyways.

9 lives left, age: 2 months
but then one day daddy looked the other way and splash!
the baby’s in the *** and the ***’s still hot
(there are witches in the air but we don’t care)
looks like soup tonight! yum yum
third degree misery etched on her body,
one life done.

And nothing to show for all of her fun
but a twisted left arm and a ***** of a sun (burn)

One life down, eight to go, you know
because she’s a fox, which (if you peek over the ledge of your punitive box)
is like a cat. And that, as we know, means
nine lives, and that’s that.

well, eight now.
if you want, I’ll tell you how she (i) is (now) down several more.
worry not little one, fate always evens out
the score.

The second was me and a boy (THE Boy, if you know what I mean)
it would seem he and I had climbed two stories high
hand over foot over hand over foot over
the parking lot right up next to the sky
and then oh-
wait.

I’m falling.

(breathe in, breathe out)

(the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout
down came reality and washed the spider out)

and there are
butterflies on the tip of my tongue and there is
a word stuck in my stomach.

he held my eyes just like I couldn’t hold
the pipe as I fell, right towards the earth between heaven and hell
now there are hot knives in my ankles and I think (I can’t tell)
I’m alive.

(stop drop and roll)

yes I fell from the roof through the sky. No I’m fine.
just one more life gone, I saw it flash before my eyes in a short space of time
that was roughly
the shape of a stop sign, or maybe a wind chime, or maybe
it was the shape of the sunshine.

Whichever way, that’s two down, seven to go;
the next one I lost when I rolled off the road.

We were going seventy and
the love of my life was sitting next to me and
his skin was beautiful in its caramel coffee complexity and
he wasn’t
paying
attention.

There is air in my lungs when I should be history
but the SUV only bruised my knees as it rolled, glass shattering
pit-pattering over the pinwheel of perfect destruction
around us.

I felt myself decide that it was okay
if this was the end.

At least I’d go with my best friend, there’s some
good stuff. That, I conceded, would be enough,
I could die young
if who I was in that moment
could be the freeze-frame of my song,
the thing that’s left
after I’m gone.

Three lives gone, only five left-
the next one is casually snipped like a price tag
after a theft when I fell
(again)
from the banyan tree and flipped my pancake
(click-clack) like a jacob’s ladder
I should have broken my back.

As I fell I yelled in my head
there’s nothing to fear but fear itself
(till you’re dead.)

four down, five to go Indigo.

Here we go.

(to be continued.)

Sun draped across her legs
crossed beneath her like
folded wings,
The Carnivore watches.

Satan said, 'stay naked as you came,'
so here she sat, white as mushroom,
raw as shrimp.

She leans, a sifted sack of flour, against her wall;
love rising within her like a cloud of mosquitoes,
for here comes her Plant Eater.

In her nakedness she hides,
watching him trot across the floor,
his movements thoughtful and slow as cooling lava,
shrugging on his brontosaurus suit like an old bathrobe.

He has vegetarian ankles,
his bare feet are splashed with mud
like an old truck.

Carnivore that she is, she bursts out of hiding
naked as Satan,
and she demands her heart.

“I do not love you,”
she lies,
and points to the cedar box in his soft hands.
“Now give me back my heart.”

“No.”
he cries,
and runs from her.

She knows the box is locked and has no key,
though the brontosaurus has not been told
that there is no hope
for this particular heart.

He hides from her behind a tree,
but the tree puts down its other leg and walks away
leaving him exposed as the naked Meat Eater
who catches up to him now.

This time,
before she can get to the tying by the wrist to the chair,
he swallows the box
and holds it in his belly.

I am not a patient woman
Don’t pride myself on self control
You might prefer me lace and linen
But I’ll probably just stay rock and roll

And if I do it for attention
Then I’m not doing a good job
Your disbelief is my suspension
Your hungry ghost my favorite slob

I just want some rest now
He’s taking off my dress now
But only with his eyes

This proximity is teaching me
that I might be a whole new kind of powerful
Cause I’m always strong, But all along
My favorite song is sweeter than allowable

What if I let myself be gentle
And not scared to be called weak
You know the need to prove my strength to you
Is a trap, but I like teeth

Ask me why I’m always fighting
I’ll say you ain’t seen nothing yet
I’m just scared of not being exciting
It’s just not my style to be your pet

But if I do it for attention
Then I’m not doing a good job
Your disbelief is my suspension
Your hungry ghost my favorite slob

I just want some rest now
He’s taking off my dress now
But only with his eyes

I am not a patient woman
Don’t pride myself on self control
If you see more of me
Than spontaneity
I’m being stronger than my own black hole

I just want some rest now
He’s taking off my dress now
But only with his eyes

Synthesizing, compromising my semantics
I warp the story for the glory of romantics
You roll your eyes and say my lies are just my antics
And it's true, but it's for you, I'm sycophantic.
My need is frantic, transatlantic, it's gigantic
We feed off pain but the most gain is when I'm manic
I fear you'd run but then the fun for you's volcanic
So full of shells we call ourselves we're, like, satanic
Stay, play, pray that we like it this way
Love me like an addict just don't mean what you say
Cause if you do, and it's all true, life's a smoke and I'm your ashtray
If you'd rather be dead then you can't love me in the right way.
You're Chaos, I'm Calypso
You taste sweet on my lips though
Numb 'em up like yayo
I think I want some more though 'cause
Synthesizing compromising your semantics
You warp the story for the glory of romantics
I roll my eyes and say your lies are just your antics
Hey, yippee, you're just like me
We're sycophantics.
This beautiful madness we support like Atlas dive into the vastness and embrace the blackness
Rip into my skin I'm a succulent cactus, please survive the poison the pain's to distract us
We'll never know what makes us grow
Without the lows I could not flow
So let's be brave, **** Plato's cave and ride the wave 'till we're depraved
Because boy
I want to take care of you
I want to share with you
Lay bare with you
Because love is pain but I'm not scared with you
Walking on air with you
Electric chair with you
I'd cheat on myself for an affair with you
Dance Latin squares with you
Break chinaware with you
I'd be both baby and mama bear for you
Play solitaire with you
Make liquid air for you
And you're the worst and it's not fair, it's true
But if my name is blue
Well then I love you too.

You ever love so much
That you're afraid of yourself?
Power coursing through your heart that compromises your mental health?
Well I've been down to the basement, to the depths of my mind and amidst the rubble of uncertainty I looked up to find an indestructible light that's always me, always now
But I can't know why it's burning, let alone how.
It's made of desire and her reflection, fear
Composed of all the love I feel for those who I hold dear
This light has no color, no face and no voice
It's all that I'm feeling and to stand in it is a choice
There's nowhere to run but it hurts to behold
I'm certain it's pain but without it I'm cold
So you see, I can't separate you all from my heart, it's a beautiful problem with no end and no start
The fact that how I know myself is through kissing the coal
That burns for the people but then implodes into a blackhole
“Bottomless pit’s” another word for unconditional
The only escape is through sedation that's medicinal
Hooked on states of mind that crave substances additional
I lie to my own face, swearing that it is nutritional
Because given the choice between numbness and pain, it's easier to hide, sacrificing all the gain
than facing the flame
But it was indifferent nothingness that made me go insane, so it's time for me to realize that there's no one but myself to blame
For the passion that consumes me that will never lie tame.
My love is a volcano, and you're the shifting of tectonic plates
It doesn't matter if you want it, I don't love you for your own sake
I can't separate you from my love of the rest
Including myself who I strive to love best
To fear my own capacity is death to my soul
So I welcome the pain, cause it carves out the bowl that holds all the joy that pours in from the source, so I'm thanking you now, forget about your high horse
Thank you for being, so I could feel myself shake
And learn how to trust myself not to break
Can't you see now the paradox of this game?
How I can thank you, but to my own heart lay claim?
**** the numbness, kiss the flame.

All these strings that held me, bound me
To the ones I love and the ones around me I
Tied them
And maybe I can’t take full credit maybe
Somethings I didn’t choose I just let it
Happen, let the world happen to me, happen through me, but

I’ve been thinking
I don’t wanna be sad anymore
And I’ve been drinking
And It’s making me sore

Don’t wanna glorify this pain, I’m pretty over laying on the floor
No one else can make me better, there’s no escape and no trap door
Do we learn to pay attention or
Pay attention to learn?
I’m glad that I trusted everyone,
too bad I know now it must be learned


I used to disappoint you, used to
Lower your bar
If I’m already a **** up
Your surprise can’t break my heart
Maybe tomorrow could be different
If I believed that I could change
Maybe instead I’ll put it off
Maybe I like, like feeling estranged, like feeling estranged

Where does it go
The descent is never slow
The best years of my life
Rope burning my hands like the string of a kite
As the wind whips it away
I can’t tell if it’s trying to play
Or if there’s something it’s trying to say
Will I miss this day when my hair turns grey

Now I’m choking on my spit
‘Cause I wouldn’t take the bit
And my skin it does not fit
Even tender caresses rub raw like grit
When the sun rises I’ll smoke my last cigarette
And I’ll bite where you kissed me to try and forget
That it all falls down

Now I’m drinking in the sound
Of the dust as it gently makes love to the ground,
It used to be our home
But now I’m free to roam
Back to the ocean who’s always alone
Where the tide will dissolve me back into seafoam
Right where I started a neat palindrome
There’ll be nothing to bury in no catacomb
I’ll be everywhere

I’m the answer to my own prayers
So I’ll fix on the mirror a far away stare
And say nobody promised that this would be fair
So I’ll kiss where you bit me to soothe my despair
Oh my honeybear

You know that feeling, when you’re dreaming
Like something matters, like
There’s a point
Cause you’re so close to the answer
And your thoughts sound like a voice
And last night I made it farther than I ever have before
Everything felt so familiar, I went straight for the right door

Sometimes I remember how to fly
There’s a muscle that you flex,
And then you feel it in your spine
Don’t forget to let go of your mind
Your thoughts they are deadweight tethers
Of an old finite design

And I don’t know what this house is
That never seems to end
But I think it might be me built by my soul to make amends

There’s a room full of blue bottles
And a thousand trampolines
There are rice paper sky tunnels
That curl when my house breathes
There are portholes behind paintings
Balloons that fly me up to space
And I can’t tell if I’m going deeper
Or trying to escape

And when I was a house
She was the space between the furniture
And when my dreams took me down south
Maybe she felt like I deserted her
And I know that that’s not fair
I had her songs sewn on my sleeves
But I don’t really care
Without her space it’s hard to breathe

A concept consists of a series of correlating ideas.
(The bees are on fire)
An idea is the interplay of memory and imagination.
(There is butter in my coffee)
Memory is what happens when a sense experience is recorded with language.

You can't go wrong with a song about a horse.

In an effort to feel:
Eat beets.
take drugs.
Let recordings of the vibrations of the vocal chords of strangers captured by equipment transport you.
Pete and repeat were on a boat. Pete fell off. Who is left? Repeat. Pete and repeat were on a boat. Pete fell off. who is left?

What if there were many men?

Do you contradict yourself? Very well then. You contradict yourself.
Oh and when you come back on Friday you all have to be gay.

Great white whales glide glistening gently through the sweet butter *** of my mother's voice.

Each tine of my spine like the spokes of a Fork is a notch on the belt of a God I can't know.

Every car holds a human going somewhere.

We are all alone together in the traffic on the highway.

You have your drugs but not your woman to take.

I refuse this poem.

He was wearing too much beige
When we bled onto the same page
Met me in the middle laughing
‘Cause love is at the heart of rage
He put me on a list and I
Called him a phase but
We’re not short on time and
It’s always today

He’ll tell you his story
But his eyes plead “don’t bore me.”
They whisper: “Show me
Something real.”
He can’t stay in one place
Afraid this great chase
Is better than what’s right here.

He’s a real salesman, yeah
I know all his lines
Says he hates drama but
A hundred commas say otherwise
I wonder if he knows it
When he lies, maybe
We are all just selling what we think
People wanna buy

Dancing in the streets of Denver
You’ve got one thing to remember
Don’t you waste away this splendor
You’ve got one thing to remember

I told him
You don’t light my fire
And I can’t control yours
Even if I wanted to
That’s not my ******* chore, so
So I stood near and I watched him
As he watched me grow brighter
We shared in the warmth
but we each had our own lighter

It’s the brightest of flames make for the
Quickest of burning
A lesson that I wish
Still needed learning
So I’m leaving in the morning
Heavy with mourning
“That’s a strong word” he said
“Not really” I told him.

(Dancing..)

Strangers in the morning
Unless he wakes up in my arms, maybe
Someday he’ll believe I never
Meant him any harm
But I can’t slap you awake this time, no
I can’t slap you awake this time

He’ll tell you his story
But his eyes plead “don’t bore me”
They whisper “Show me
Something
real.”

So the wolf that I feed is the wolf that then heeds me? Or does it "feed" me? Am I spoiling one greedy? Both wolves are inside me, how could I deny the darkness that sparks THIS? My wolf pups both need me. Darkness suppressed grows enraged and uncaring, and really how good is the other if it can't practice sharing? I want to be "good" but what motivates that desire? We're selfish by nature, it's survival, hardwired. Being "good" after all could still be subjective, jury's still out on inherent versus collective agreement, conventional reason, ****- what's the 'greater good' and from whose vantage point can you see it? Maybe being selfish isn't such a bad thing, if what I want is to love and the trust that it brings. Could it be that my wolves don't need to compete, that when there's no fear of famine there's always enough to eat? I know that Darkness explored widens the spectrum, learning not to fear yourself creates oasis in the bedlam. But one can get too comfortable within their indulgence, succumb to seduction of abundance and substance, lie to themselves about what their heart truly craves, pleasure's not evil, but distracting, it plays on denial, creates rigged to fail trials, enjoys shame and destruction trapped in a sure to fall spiral. The part of myself that doubts if I'm worthy, rationalizes pain and makes the road to joy blurry, tells me I deserve to take and take because I know I'm the ****, and then strangles me with disgust and says I'm really just a piece of it. So how do I know when what I want doesn't fit with my vision of health and my "forgive yourself" bit? When does being ******* myself become the problem and create ultimatums that mean certain death if gone back on? How do I understand moderation and hold space for human error, allow trust in exploration but not make choices in reaction to terror? Terror of failing as well as terror of success, but embracing imperfection is what gives my heart rest.

I try to keep a sense of humor
keep both sides in view
but I have always been a runner
escaping me and racing you

My truth burns in my throat
its urgency accumulated
but these are just assembled thoughts
and they were born disintegrated

can I even lie?
I find that when I try
My outsides reflect the secret reasons why and
I can't hide, I can't hide

because my ride blindly guides me back
there to where I reside inside
where I collide with my intention,
back at the beginning
I see through my own inventions

till the shame comes and leaves
me grinning, all this sinning
just fuels the thinning
of the woods between my mind and I
and that's the point
thats why I have to hurt this time

I strive for balance like a war in God's name
praising habitual risks and
taking pride in taking blame
and then I turn around
reverse the contents of my frame
till I can only see myself as guilty
in these ugly games
but it's the same
sunshine or rain
the whether is weathering me
with its change

I try to keep a sense of humor
grasp and seek and strain
to count the sands of time
touch each and every grain
but this life isn't something I can do
with my brain,
so take my symbols, they're insane
but they could wash you off like rain
or give you even sweeter pain
than flame

It's all the same

Here I am,
caught cutting up my palms on broken plates,
palms that banged on pots with wooden spoons
palms that I kept warm in your pockets when I had no
gloves.

Here I am,
sitting once more at the edge of the earth
legs dangling over the side,
legs that danced on stage before they broke
legs that wrapped around you when you carried me
to the couch.

I swing my feet and toss a penny into the
abyss.

I have always loved it here,
with the waterfalls that pour into the sky
and the hollowness of the ground beneath my
weight.

Don't slip.

Here I am,
laying on my stomach with my head over the
edge,
I can see stars below me,
my hair is blowing.

Hair that my mother used to brush while I
fidgeted on the three-legged stool,
hair you pushed out of my damp face to
see my eyes
when I was flying.

I always knew the world was
flat.

Would you like to see it?
If you unwound my brain you'd find a map
to the edge of the world.

It's okay,
the rest of me has already been
unraveled anyway.

I move to fill
up space. I am moved
to make full that which
hungers.

By age ten, I loved
to climb down into the caves and press
my body to the cool sandstone that has
forever smelled of fertile silence,
between the breathless black
jaws of some unclaimed tomb
no bigger than my own living
vessel, I would
rest.

The earth himself would hold me
within my body’s borders,
tuck me beneath his tongue to
smother my unyielding urge to gobble
up stagnant spaces like a rabid dog
who can’t bear to waste a drop
of this free life.

When you left
I did not stay
on my side
of the bed. I swelled
out like the tide until I took
up this whole ocean of quilt
I pour

my blind and gaseous longing like wet smoke
into the awkward pits at dinner
parties, disguised in a charade
of mirth, playing the hysteric fool to
unite strangers in their incredulity-
it was meant
to be a gift.

They say life is not perfect
but the craving for life is

Perfect.

It was meant to be
a gift but all too often I swallow
up the many timbred voices that compose
a well-cultivated room,
exhuming and exhausting myself as
a black hole must exhaust herself from kissing

the mirror again and again
until lipstick mars the emptiness
that gazes back at me,
filling me with her
craving.