well something deeper
than the ocean here burns,
splits apart and quakes --

we've seen farther than the working
men can go--felt the emptiness of a
disillusioned life, wondered how the
masses buy away their souls,
he touches you and you feel
not a thing, just the skin beneath
his hairline that doesn't glow--

You hear about his sanguine childhood
a finespun gossamer thing,
stretched across the state of colorado,
webbed and spun around
tent stakes, campers, drawn into the Four Corners
spooled in a Chattanooga coffee mug, dipped in  
day old orange juice
I have
settled
into the bottom of his
cup, a thick pulp, rind
and stem -- terrified that
I won't pull through,
that this isn't enough
that I am too much
or too little, haven't
been or seen
there are no
scars on my knees
or callouses on my hands
when the bears came I had
no pots and pans --

I study the sofrito, stir the
rice, break open green olives
and slide the pimientos onto
my tongue --
deftly speaking about shredding
chicken, chopping onions, rolling
corn tortillas
wondering what it is about people
about parents, about chile con carne


this pan holds 21
like the age, like the game, I think.

I am truly terrified.

I've lived in all times but these.
Going uncharted, through lands
i've only heard of in pubs

The crossing is a hop
over a low wall
and into brambles

Where I'm from,
the sea never allowed
for fruit and flowers

There was only
the blast, rolling
off the water

The air here
is patient. The people here
are patient

They've never been
on borrowed time.
Boredom belongs to them

And it's hard
to recognise
their joy

This, a balm,
to a girl who knows
happiness in others,

only as the white-eyed,
frothing panic
of consumption.

I am in a different land
They tell the time
much as we do,
But it counts for less

The wet smoldering scent
of burning dogwood
leaves

reminds me of the hours
spent in the garden
kissing

the soiled palms of
a woman tousled
from work.

Autumn clovers leave
The dirt it stays behind
Steelheads turn up the arms
I don't wanna stay, I see no thing but pride
That man he drowned. He loses everything.

Pinnacle ladies cry, they move up the yawn.
I shake the bed, until tomorrow's grieving.

It shucks our graves in two, splits the pupil's
Fearless cast. I can't run away, I can't make Friday.

The needle takes too long, the blood doesn't leave a trace. The opening is long to go, but
We wallow with it.

Each funeral is a thousand alms
They call to each other's arms.
They won't go astray, even if
You leave them.

Sorrow is my brother's lot
It takes up the head, and leaves us sideways-
Another whim lilts in two. The bridle makes the saw, that breaks down every god. It brands the flock, I don't look at anything.

This day grief makes it hard to go
Another man is bent.
My crooked spine, he shakes in torment.
Up upon the piste, broke down onto the knees
Nothing's there, but I can't look away.
Keep me to yourself
Like a secret you don't know
If I could just find a way
To live another day.

Some are lissome, jowly,
blossomed or pocked,  teeth

of old horses—eyes white as flour,
a few clubfoot with sisters

pregnant as October gourds.  Not
Norman Rockwell’s Americans,

but they are us and live in lopsided
bungalows with leaky roofs,

heaved sidewalks, bare
refrigerators.

what if there is no backdrop
i mean it could all be the central story, right?
i've called weaker plotlines boring and stronger ones interesting
and now when i see the story stretched out
not only over the course of my life
but through the tapered and weaving lives
of circles and slopes
of color and dreary bland borders

i see

i am compelled

it fills me

i was an artist
you were perfect
now I'm a worker
and you're confused
and the mess is better than any straight line ever drawn

we write and dance,
we share so selfishly,
like everything is ours to give

Like the Ocean's Tide
The roller-coaster ride of life
A bitter pill to swallow

when you know too much
When you feel too much
When you Love
.........too much
When you care too much,
you get hurt too much

Vast the Ocean, Deep and Dark
It's mysteries so beguiling
As if the fates have conspired
To a wailing call of the sirens

The evoking chants of the night's air
The eerie howls of the dark wolves
Like the ocean's unending seasons,
So is life's endless tussles

Boundless the ocean's depths
Far and wide
Boundless the ocean far and near....
And blue the waters, blue as tears.

i have survived
storms.
i have survived a father's voice like thunder;
handprint lightning flowers petal over my skin
like i am a garden to sinners-
adam and eve call my grassroots their home and hum lullabies-
i have survived
anger.
pros and cons of
clock-ticking therapy sessions where money is thrown at my gaze,
fixed on the wall,
dollar-a-second drumming fingers
screaming so loud that heaven shuts the blinds and hangs a "closed" sign on the door.
pros and cons of
stumbling home,
under a murky peerless crowd of smoke,
slurring words trail around and behind me like moths to a porchlight.
morning headaches,
angry adults
damaging drywall and breaking family portraits
exhausting search for answers
exhausting search in a silence that lengthens the disconnect from child to mother
where your mind goes red and the honest truth that stays stuck to the roof of your mouth falls out
where you become an overflowing mailbox and your hands shake
the absence of parents who never taught you to hold your tongue
i have survived
hurt.
i have survived the specific type of loss that you feel in the pit of your stomach
the one that lies next to you
when you stare at the ceiling and your face hurts from crying
tears scrub your eyelids raw and you promise,
"if i ever make it through this,
i will never be here again."
i have survived giving up,
taking it all back, throwing it all away,
parallel structures of contemplation and decision
i have survived
lonely.
angry storms of abandonment, melodies of the lonely and the hurt
i reprise to the ones that add injury to insult,
you are not the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
i echo choruses to the people that force me to grow up at sixteen
i have destruction embedded into my neurotransmitters
i have shooting post-traumatic pain in my memories
i have survived
a hell that your hands are not stained enough to touch.
i assure you,
my love,
i will survive
you as well

this thought,
one texture
old sweatshirt

the roam's grin grows
iknowiknow this home is
****** wasted eaten knifed neatly

how??how!how?

texts to ex's
needy emojis
******* us

the bones are coming now