the trees were my first love.
you are my second, maybe.
i don’t love you any less, baby,
just because i love them first
and maybe more or deeper.
then again, i miss you more—
but how could i miss the trees,
even as they fill my lungs?
and are nourished by my wastes?

until i turn blue and later black
and later seed, root, and flower
the trees will love me more.

the sun is liquid hot on my bare back
seeping into the indents at my waist
gently igniting the tops of my shoulders
burrowing through my hair to curl against my scalp.

it is silent, though there is much noise.

And to think that even the otherworldly
Is made other by this world of ours.

And every fiction
is just some little reality
wrapped and tied in ribbon
or cloaked in elven wools
painted in one thousand colors
or masked in grime and muck.

And, so disguised,
Reality becomes truer.

Garbage bags
Tater tots
Black beans
Milk

This is a grocery list
not a poem.
But my brain is out of poems,
and the store is out of milk,
so maybe it is both.

On nothing day
I talk to myself
And know myself
Better than I will tomorrow
Better tonight
Amongst a lifetime of clutter
Between childhood diaries
And what could be a clover field, in a dream,
where everything was the same but better
Like it is when I write it down
On soft paper, cream with a pressed flower
Folded in the seam.
Of course, I have never written on this soft paper,
And tonight, on nothing day,
I type with tired, uneasy fingers
On a screen too bright for midnight eyes.
And yet in all the nastiness and stickiness
The imperfections, oddities
The house spider webs,
Crooked paintings,
******* ants, crawling up my legs
Here, in nothing day,
I somehow know myself better
Than I will tomorrow.

The rice cooker broke
because I turned it on
with no rice inside to cook
And its empty clay
couldn't take the heat all alone
So it just cracked, all spiderweb
Almost pretty.  Useless.
And I hated myself for that.
I felt pretty useless for that.

What's funny,
I think it's funny,
I want to think it's funny,
is that it's been years
but I remember, and I still,
and I am still pretty useless for that.

Once Upon A Time
Pressure cooking was exciting
It was Hot,
It was Tense,
Leading tone to tonic
Tugging me towards...

But I'm bored with that now.
I'm bored of stress.
      (but I'm stressed when I'm bored.)

I'll just go to sleep.

And in the morning

I'll remember to add rice.

I am reminded
by my cracked lips,
And the way my mouth
tastes like mouth,
How hot it is in here.
That,
left to my own devices,
I might just burn myself up.

I am reminded
by dragon breaths
Blowing softly
on my forehead
How warm you are out there
That,
left to my own devices,
I could bake myself into all that glow.

And never know
Why I'm still so cold.