intimidating
shielded
shameful
anxious
deep
masked
silent
lonely
­weak--
not you--
necessary
unyielding
professional
distinguished
level
aware­
brave
unique
strong--
you--

Pretending--Preventing
A peek behind the curtain:
I've tightened the rope
I've split up the track
And hold steadfast the ends (no slack)
Spinning above, mid-air like some antisocial acrobat
I've learned the words
I've carved the face
To only read smile
While the rest seem to float
All show
No rope, though
that could be an act--as well--

c

I heard the mountains move in your voice
And the unearthing timbre of trees
And the rippling hush of waves collapsing
And the crumbling green underfeet
—
You split the world in half
And spoke to me
And all I could do was
Fall further beneath

—
c

The tune hums along in G
And the lights buzz softly

I am being taken somewhere
Someplace beneath it all
Underroot, I am
Descending
So deep
The dreary sun
And her arms
Cannot reach
Lower
Than those commonplace people
And all their happenings

It is cold here
Below the surface
And the door appears, open
As I
Recede

--
c

It’s all taking too long--
The commute, the wait
The procession, the speech
The descent, the dark--
I’ve dressed for the occasion
And repose in my finest robe
I just wish
He’d hurry up
Already

--
c

He’s shaved like a survivor of something
And this is the first time I’ve realized, his
Head normally baubled under a dark cap

His arms spindle, bark bent at shoulder and elbow
The leaf of his hands shiver around a 6B
I watch him become a Broadleaf before my eyes

He stretches long around the room
Determined to crowd every corner
Trundling, truncated at root

I wish to be as I see him
A beautiful tangle, loud in motion and
Silent in speech, sprinting full speed

His feet pound in dirt,
Name sprawled on the walls in capital BLACK
Demanding to be heard or at least recognized

He is the mystery of the day, every day
The jumbled stranger, in pieces strewn
& unsolved

--
c

I awoke to time beating
its fists against my walls, and
could do nothing but
sing along

—
c

It has begun to rain and
I count its minutes washing away
The dirt of yesterday

In the hollow basement silence
I attempt to commit to memory the unadorned places I’ve kissed you
Before they’re washed away as well—

Shoulder blade.
Palm.
Cheek stubble.
Letters in your name.

I consider pooling the falling rain in my arms
To show you what I’ve found
Later—

That you, too, embody
The smell of springtime

—
c

from a hole in the bed I crawl
from a window in my head I watch
from a sill, life in green rushes by
from a quiet air I think
myself into pounding and ringing

from the grey walls I roam
from the bus stop I dream
there’s a reality I’ve tasted before
but never savored, so
from a chalice of happy I sip myself
into stupid oblivion

from a beautiful scape I watch
the anxious sun beat color across the sky
and feel no heat

from eyes I make sense of a way home
leaving pieces as I go,
the roads paved in passing time 

from stairs I climb
room to room
and I’m here

from the pit of pity I mount the ledge
just to fall back
into bed

- c

I used to dance alone in my room
I’d spin the spun black under needle
And turn till my walls became one
I’d stretch my face in strain
And mimic pain in movement

I’d measure arms and hands to
The waver of the music
I cried in concaved chest and
Screamed in legs splitting air,
Laughed in fingers spreading wide
And collapsed to the beat’s final throe

I became a simulated symphony, and
So became each dance;
My afternoon secret
I’d forget words and
Mesh into mangled body melody

mmmmmm those hands droning guitar and
a distant voice
in verse,
drumming, drumming

My body curled around each syllable,
Both in question and answer

It was pain, yes
It was heartache
Yes, it was beautiful
But I soon realized
It was not mine

- c

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

I saw a world I wished to enter
But
In an instant
Found myself steeped in similar breadth
Which is the life
I’ve always worn
Ever-roaming forward

There
In that place,
Where mere things do not make man and
Love overrules the rites of
Constriction--

I--
Wish to breathe in every ocean
To walk through every season,
To bellow low in my beastly ways
And feel no shame
For supposed sins that
Make up this race

A place so easy to come by
Night dream or
Mellowed waking thought;
A place further than all foreign places,
It glimmers

A world beneath the trivialities of
Soil and root
Where one becomes one
And forever truly rings true

--
c

I am quiet in a line of on-lookers, big-thinkers, hell-raisers
I sing a song to a corner in the room
It winks and blinks along the beat as
Large shadows confidently raise their arms in triumph.

I am sitting still, a floating ocean depth silence
Watching waves crash and clatter miles overhead--
What fun they must be having out there in the world!
Where the blue is sometimes yellow or pink and
All one knows is not only the dark, deafening hush of
Blue--Where
The colors really taste like they advertise:
Savory sweet honey orange, supple plump green melon,
Ripe for the picking, these--

These are the pickers.
With their power-tool loudness, their "I can fix it!"
The red-runners, the green-makers.
Their lawns rolling out like gold ****** dresses
Reveling in their own chaste gold underskirts under a matching
Gold sun
The earth bowing her shoulders to make room

I am the crisp subtle crunch between bites
The shamed blouse of the *****
The sufficiently watered bud among a field of tall daisies
The pause in your breath
The silence of an empty house

The quiet lemon shavings left on
The quiet cutting board,
Bleeding rind by way of knife

The metaphor in a poem -- waiting in quiet verse
To rear its head to the reader

How many empty glass bottles can you shove into a bag
Before it all leaks out the bottom
I am the bottom
A soft reflection in the train-car window

I see you all.
I hear you.

I don't know quite yet if
I understand you
Rambling on in high buildings with your
***** reared high.
Whether love is just temporary obsession or
If one can make it to death without truly living.

But I do know, quite often, that there is meaning
In complete
Silence.

--
c

Summer heat falls without prudence
Ornery and hot like the tip of a newly welded blade
Hilting into skin deep and unforgiving

There is hope in the day’s momentary flurry, when
The air carries wind like a light jacket

But even then
‘Tis only for
A spell

--
c

--
There’s an instant when,
Recondite and foreign
The azure expanse bears its face and,
Stricken grey with glutton,
Ventures its dark reign
--
c

Long ago, I felt it rinse through my body
And sink in a shallow too deep to reach
By mere hands.

From early on it spread:
Quiet, low, festering, yet
Too bruised to conceal
Too flash and fire to put out, and
Every once and again
It consumes each straying thought, I--

              I wanted to be naked like everyone else.

I wanted to brim and spill over,
A kettle engulfed in flame.

I wanted a song I could hold,
A dream I could touch,
Personified by love and love only, so
I carved my body into a question mark
And let you in.

You've made a garment of me.
A disheveled entity I no longer recognize,
Your animated sleeve.

Anxiety, you are the perfect lover.
The table I lay my worry on.
The one I curl into at night.

I line my shelves with your books as if
One day they'll offer an answer,
But
They are light and leafless.

I watch high from your window as you
Paint your face on my mirrors,
Beat your name into my walls,
Speak for me,
Breathe for me, I--

               I once considered washing you down into oblivion.

Made a net of my hands and convinced myself
I could fall forward,
Land without you.

Through years I've realized
I could do this very thing
Without condensing my life into a bottle.

No pills, no altering remedies,
No.

              I do not wish to dull your senses.

Instead I wish, in silence,
That one day
I will garner the courage to
Stand up to you
When you are wrong.

--
c

Nai,
We walk different jungles
Sun spliced in different skies
Split by a slab of blue
Yet I hear
You

Me, here,
Walking the paths you sing of,
Making hands of the words you speak,
Arriving at the memories you've wrung like a
Needle stuck in my mind

You
Sing like your soul is on fire.
Purring of quiet as silk;
Lungs weeping raw in
Consonant melody sifted in
Soil

Oil
Spilling off palms
Soaked in the blood sun, and
In all my wandering--
I can't help wondering if, in the end,
I discovered you
For a reason

--
c

We are all subject to the train’s pull
No matter our worth in weight or wealth
No matter the sum of gold noosing necks & wrists
Gravity wringing aspirations into pools at our feet

We are sacks of meat, burdened by the heaviness in knowledge & consciousness:
The knowing we are, and yet not

Writing preface to our own demise,
Whilst the load of space around seals its binding
******* righteousness in the left & ignorance in the right

We, nature-made, we
Busy in breath and body

We, donning better halves as pelts and scarves, we
Soulless sleeves malleable in gear

We
Train people
Swaying
As does a bundle of seaweed moves about a scape of blue,
Powerless in swing

--
c

We danced, the cognate vessels
Nested in walls &
Cowered in blood

We buried love deep into
Beating flesh &
Writhed In Utero

We emptied veins of reason
Laid in torment &
Seceded in white gowns

We--Empiric experiments
We--Deficient devices
We--Thrashing threadbare

We--Womb
We--Woman

--
c

I wanted to cry
It’s a strange coping mechanism I have for when
Things don’t add up but
The air is dry and
There’s no sense in breathing it in
Anymore

I couldn’t cry
My mind was not there
In that wavering state
Bordering fear and anger and
The air is dry and
I am not breathing it in
Anymore

I keep opening my email
Hoping for a petty distraction from
My senses all piling in at once
Giving in to heat
And breaking reason but
The air is dry and
Breathing is not living
Anymore

I find joy in letting things go
It’s come as natural as beating
In the chest
I am awake but dream to wake
On a day sun really shines and
The numbers really add up while
The air is dry and
Breath is not a good enough excuse
Anymore

I wanted to cry
But the well’s all dried up
Parched of all its
Perceived life

--
c

Darling,

I've left the stove on for you
The milk has curdled and lumped
The walls torn of their bark
The shower running hot

I've given all the photos up
To flame in warm embrace
I've brimmed the socks with holes for you,
I've smithered every plate

I've sprayed the garden poisonous
I've festered root & vein
I've grown a **** in every pith
And severed every end

For you, my love
I've scorched the house
And this I'd do again
For you, my love
I would commit
Each feared unearthly sin

I am the soldier
Steadfast, held
Against all element
For you I'd burn
And fall to sword
Infatuate in death

--
c

Dear Fearless Writers--Fighters,

Never in my life
Have I felt such an
Embrace
By those both
Like-minded &
Inspiring

I've written more since
Joining you all
Than I ever have before
I hope to publish
My works in time
Thanks to you
HelloPoetry

Thank you to Eliot &
To the rest as well,

c

Ask me what kind of **** I am into
And I will take you on a magical journey
To fanfiction dot com backslash Harry Potter backslash NC17

What turns me on is Ginny Weasely in the restricted section
With her skirt hiked up;
Sirius Black in a secret passage way,
Solemnly swearing that he is up to no good;
And Draco Malfoy in the room of requirement slithering in to my Chamber of Secrets;
I am an unapologetic consumer of all things Potterotica,

And the sexiest part
Is not the way Cho Chang rides that broomstick
Or the sounds of Myrtle moaning,
The sexiest part is knowing
That they are part of a bigger story;

That they exist beyond eight minutes in ***** ***** *******,
That their kegels are not the strongest thing about them,
And still I am told
That my **** is ‘unrealistic’.

Not quite as ****** as flashing ads saying 'just turned 18’
So you can fantasize about ******* the youngest girl you won’t go to jail for.
I’m told that my **** isn’t quite as lifelike
As a room full of lesbians begging for ****,
Told that this is what is supposed to turn me on.

Don’t you give me raw meat
And tell me it is nourishment,
I know a slaughterhouse when I see one.

It looks like 24/7 live streaming
Reminding me that men are going to **** me whether I like it or not,
That there is one use for my mouth and it is not speaking,
That a man is at his most powerful when he’s got a woman by the hair.

The first time a man I loved held me by the wrists
And called me a *****
I did not think 'run’,
I thought 'this is just like the movies’

I know a slaughterhouse when I see one.
It looks like websites and seminars teaching you how to **** more *******,
Looks like fifteen-year-old boys bullied for being virgins,
It looks like the man who did not flinch
When I said stop and he heard 'try harder’.

If you play-act at butchery long enough
You grow used to the sounds of screaming,
It is just a side effect of industry;
Everything gets cut into small, marketable pieces.
I will not practice ****** hands
I will not make believe dissected women,

My *** cannot be packaged
My *** is magic
It is part of a bigger story
I am whole
I exist when you are not ******* me
And I will not be cut into pieces any more.

He jokes that we'd argue over bedsides
We'd live in hipsterville &
I'd bike everywhere &
douse myself in patchouli each morning

He giggles at the thought of us
Dancing in our white-walled apt &
the wine spilling over our glasses &
the dog ******* in the tub

What a crazy thought--Us
Sanding our own dining table &
reading the headlines &
taking pills before breakfast

He laughs at these things
These things I've already thought

Buried under sheets alone
in wonderment
of what we could be

--
c

Hey *****--
Lucky you:
You've fallen into my trap!
...

Oh, what to do with you?
Bury you deep in your own ***** greed?
Or paperwork up to your knees?

Or do I feed you just enough?
The ***** to basic human need

After all, I know your hunger well,
I practically invented human will

I pay a sum--a dying wage
That you'll pay back
Till your dying age

One time a year
I'll slice a chunk
Piece by piece
Down to the bone

You'll bend the knee
And do me right
I know you won't
Put up a fight

I am your god
The beast you serve
Now turn around
And get to work

--
c

I danced all night in the dress He gave us--

Pins stuck in my hips
Zippered through my spine
I even painted my lips
To match His werewolf eyes

"You're beautiful baby"
He takes in a mouthful
I slink at the waist
Just how He likes me

"Let's get you a drink"
And I feel the sway
He bathes me in blood
He takes me away

Tonight I'll be His **** nurse
His seasoned strip steak thigh
His Only 18
His innocent eyes

Tomorrow I will lick the wounds
And pray He'll call again
Tomorrow marks another night
Of dancing in His dress

--
c

There's no way to do you justice

To quantify time in learning as I grew
sprouting from rich soil
at your hand

You are all violet & chamomile,
which you do not like but
I think of you each time
I steep its leaves

In youth I was questioned & prodded
Other children finding comedy in the
absence of mother &
the presence of you

In youth I grew shameful of time spent
bent over puzzles & mystery novels
Spent so much time apologizing
To those I thought knew better and
Pocketed my love for you

I am sorry for hesitating
For tabling the thought that maybe
This crazy was my normal, but
You are my normal
And
I couldn’t ask for a better reason
To leave the party
For another cup of tea

—
c

Teen mom, Photo bomb
Blood rights, ***** fights

-- I watch from below as She
Gurgles down the words --

Plastic fairy, No dairy
*** scandal, School vandal

Magazine cover
Take cover:
Bullet babies
greased
in chrysanthemum
powder

--
c

night to sun
whichever one
i am constantly smiling
a barrier around
to remind the strangers i too
am alright

growth underground
i've found out
it is neither journey nor destination
as i am stuck dancing
in the same rain
as once and each time before

i see the sun but feel no heat
the time slicks by slow as a drain drip
pattering me into childhood--
what're two grown hands worth without
an axe
or intent to wave

sleet underfoot
the earth has made enemy of me
and everyone else

where do we float from bone to dust?

do we conserve love once given
or does it go to soil
as well?

--
c

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

tap the vein
the very flow
a fizzle-POP
the gears whir

dry-eyed in the garage
suckling that oaky rind
spin the clocks
if so inclined

the mothers plead
but She still calls for you
repo the lung
the liver too

this sickly sweet memory
this one too many
this cool kid
strutting streets in denim jeans

--
c

The only other girl at the party
is ranting about feminism.
The audience: a sea of **** jokes and snapbacks
and styrofoam cups and me.
They gawk at her mouth like it is a drain
clogged with too many opinions.
I shoot her an empathetic glance
and say nothing. This house is for
wallpaper women. What good
is wallpaper that speaks?
I want to stand up, but if I do,
whose coffee table silence
will these boys rest their feet on?

These boys…
I want to stand up, but if I do,
what if someone takes my spot?
I want to stand up, but if I do,
what if everyone notices I’ve been
sitting this whole time? I am ashamed
of keeping my feminism in my pocket
until it is convenient not to, like at poetry
slams or woman studies classes.
There are days I want people to like me
more than I want to change the world.
Once I forgave a predator because
I was afraid to start drama in our friend group
two weeks later he assaulted someone else.
I’m still carrying the guilt in my purse.

There are days I forget we had to invent
nail polish to change color in drugged
drinks and apps to virtually walk us home
and lipstick shaped mace and underwear designed to prevent ****.

Once a man behind me at an escalator
shoved his hand up my skirt
from behind and no one around me
said anything,
so I didn’t say anything.
Because I didn’t wanna make a scene.

Once an adult man made a necklace
out of his hands for me and
I still wake up in hot sweats
haunted with images of the hurt
of girls he assaulted after I didn’t report,
all younger than me.

How am I to forgive myself for doing
nothing in the mouth of trauma?
Is silence not an active violence too?

Once, I told a boy I was powerful
and he told me to mind my own business.

Once, a boy accused me of practicing
misandry. “You think you can take
over the world?” And I said “No,
I just want to see it. I just need
to know it is there for someone.”

Once, my dad informed me sexism
is dead and reminded me to always
carry pepper spray in the same breath.
We accept this state of constant fear
as just another component of being a girl.
We text each other when we get home
safe and it does not occur to us that
not all of our guy friends have to do the same.
You could literally saw a woman in half
and it would still be called a magic trick.
Wouldn’t it?
That’s why you invited us here,
isn’t it? Because there is no show
without a beautiful assistant?
We are surrounded by boys who hang up
our naked posters and fantasize
about choking us and watch movies that
we get murdered in. We are the daughters
of men who warned us about the news
and the missing girls on the milk carton
and the sharp edge of the world.
They begged us to be careful. To be safe.
Then told our brothers to go out and play.

white pink skechers follow brown-leather feet
padding down the stairs, nothing but fall leaves and
a generation between us

the older man glides the purple beauty into our front yard and
onto the sidewalk
gramps is a dedicated biker and will be years from now

polished aluminum gives way to the sun and
his eyes gleam along with it

he guides me down the pavement, conserving my speed with a trembling palm

on the handlebar

holds me tight and shows me how not to ride,
when to push through an upcoming hill and
when to brake

--
c

The light came first, it is known
Before the measured warmth of sun.

--
c

An open door
Green of day steeps into a grassy aroma
A familial air whizzing through shared city streets

The papers greet a house down the block and
I can't help but wonder if the news
Has reached them yet:

--The earth is wilting and
It will rain today--

I board the 91
Coffee buzzing in my lungs

--The house we've built is wilting and
Wigged men are lining us up--

A workingwoman sits behind me
A toddler bumbling about her lap
She looks past me, but I answer anyway:

"The people are wilting and
Time is sitting still"

--
c

Basement:
Temples riddled sick, the world seems small
In this room
Air thick and mischievous
Walls slick, closing in

A closet light in the dark
You take me in your arms and
We practice stable breath
Your chest a flower bed of roses

This was love--

Beach:
I slide down and down
Lapping waves envelope lungs
Gasping salty, green

Steady as you root into soil
Stronghold hands on my waist
Lifting me from oblivion, meanwhile
I latch on as vine and watch the world spin

You’ve saved me again--

Summer:
Love pads on
Easy as rain on a metal roof and
I am glossy-eyed, laying in your bed of roses
In a stuffy room in New York

The lights have gone out
Wind rushing overhead
The bustle weaves by outside yet
Time is still here

I am home--

--
c

Cobblestone,
Your eyes candlelit, blazing
I've lit a fire for you

Oh the fumbling of hands we share, here
The fumbling of elements many have felt
And I wonder if I am any different--

A trundled body of mistaken chemicals
Brash, raw--

Nevertheless
I wish to learn the angles
To love

--
c

Day One:
Fresh Cabernet threatens the coffee table
Two seats too far to suggest anything

I fiddle with the idea of you
Muscles drawn in, eyes strained back
But can only imagine
from here

Night, then day
careless, shift about
like two sheets of ice on water
and now
I see you

Striped shirt stretched, worn jeans fidgeting the edge of your seat
Imprinting bits of flash left lingering on retinas

I wish to be in, on, around
Heat protruding chest and breath

I wish to be near, new, but am left
Beating hard
Fast


Day Two:
Light to dark running overtime
Occasion breeds conversation

You want to come over again
A buzzing
“I’m here”
and suddenly
you don’t seem so far away suddenly
heat and breath and chest and all beat and accord mine suddenly
timelightspace in between are irrelevant to how we measure skin suddenly
I see you except this time it’s all of you.

Every particle prodding upon my very reality
‘Tis a luxury,
Wild nights like these, and
I wish upon every length of being
that you
see me
too

--
c

What would be accomplished

throwing a word–or three–

into this vat of

Uncertainty?

--
c

we whispered missing years
fluttered legs over a withering porch bench

she mixed my hair with white fingertips
to keep the itchy thoughts away

the walls of my grandparents’ house held me close,
my surrogate womb

we shared more than blood and color as
time licked her blonde with
heavy waves of fruit and nicotine and
I didn’t mind

she sung sticky secrets to me:
nights she dreamed on the streets when
rent was too high and
dads that come like rain:
big and loud all at once,
then gone

fingertips padded quiet paths along budding curls while
“mom” sat sweet and safe against my tongue

--
c

we danced around each other all night long

mamboing and tripping in circles,
taking bites out of each other’s throats

metallic, malleable, ready
we mingled like fire on skin

you whisper of your woodworking days and
I could see you now:
new shavings flittering off the palms
those stronghold hands
dust carelessly pooling around your collar
holding finished product to light

I wish to step into this scene,
to carve breast into back and
hold the beatings of your chest
as your lips
brush mine with color

I strain awake.

If I’d happened to be someone else
weaning myself dry from my silent spell
may have taken months
waiting for words to
find me again

"It was just a touch"

Find me again
here
drowned in this skin
I used to know before you
chose to
burrow under

Fingers seeping into soil and rooting in
Once
a friend explained her process of
extracting similar roots
like foreign veins
we'd grown accustom to this

The same friend that
smokes herself to sleep in fear
those roots will find her again

By mere sense she learned the mold of mace and
how to wear her Woman in a public space
She demonstrated proper use as
finger wavered trigger--

If I’d happened to be someone else
reconciling air in my lungs
may have taken years

counting up hours into days
buried in a mangled garden of
thoughts
lingering

Nights spent spinning back clock hands--

I mistook unwelcome hands with the gentle brush of a petal

but luckily

orchids grow
and heal
on their own

Luckily I was not someone else--

Someone so used to gardening open wounds that
trauma festers like a patch of weeds
wild and
unforgiving and
when the soil has dried and
sun has silenced into night
the only remedy is to
uproot the vein

If I'd happened to be
someone else

--
c

I find its presence all but inconspicuous
looming growing phasing
into a full crescent

finding me there

stretch out my legs, wipe away old sweat
shallow on my back
I recoil

--
c

In Morning

I found recluse in the

Skin between your fingers

And the sweetness of your breath

Your touch like heavy wind

Meeting wave with rock

Now

Night

--
c