Your name
Your FULL name
flickering pixelated
on the computer screen

Your given blood
Your sacred spoken vein--
I whisper it in silence
And paint you into the room

You are here, not there
Golden and smiling
You taste of hard drive and wiring, but
in this moment
it is enough

--
c

As a child I dabbled in ******

No barbie was safe from the hands of their god

Ran hills caked to the toe
Roughed terrain with neighborhood boys

They called me girl
But I felt boy

Upon later years I learned:
Dress
Skirt
Bra
Flower
Amenities accustomed to this body;
A bustling street of hormones without a
red light

Next were *******—
Wild & rambling, I soon
Mastered the art of shrinking

I kissed my first boy & felt it rattle through my bones
His hair an ocean in my hands as I rose up
to the surface

Later I discovered the shared experience of Woman,
Shifting about the world as a silly metaphor
Carved fingers into mace & metal
Ankles clinking busily on a subway platform

In learning to fight
The young boy dwindled into memory and
I couldn’t sense shape anymore

Fell in and out of love with woman and man alike,
Sinking deep into salt & sand

These days I can’t help but wonder if
attraction is a mode of defense
Or that of love

These days I run hills in heels
Caked to the toe in color

--
c

i hold the ring
worth its weight in water
a trinket of our love
pooled in my palms

i wonder
does the surface glimmer
the same for you
as it does for me?

would you savor
every last drop
and fall to the heat
pleading for more?

till death; for life
holistic & ripened

i am waiting
for this silly trinket to
solidify--

--but instead
watch as its glimmer
evaporates
into air

--
c

i can't
i won't
answer
this time

                    i clasp
                    my legs,
                    holdfast
                    the line

maybe
You
will just
disappear

                    as i
                    cocoon
                    and writhe
                    in fear

--
c

It’s not about fitting it all into the car;
it’s about fitting the pieces together
against the agrestic trunk space.
It’s the way we hungrily wait
to spit up our influence It’s
the patient extraction of
a cat cornered conver
sation that is easier
to  shove  under
the innate rug
that is this
chaotic
l i f e