Pressure puckers &
a migraine blooms
parachute leaves looming
from my mind,
moonscapes of bare rock.
I've been waking up in a tomb again,
mouth mummified &
crusted over with drool as
my body jolts up at 6
6:45
finally 7:
I rise from the dead once more.
Yeats spoke to the Beats & he speaks to me,
feet creaking old floorboards
in a house with no internet.
"Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
'Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.'"
I ate artichokes for lunch on pizza &
lost a piece of my soul down
the toilet of the coffee shop bathroom.
I came out of the womb once & I think that was enough.
I cough up brown mucus
& I'm glad I quit smoking.
One of my ribs pokes out
& picks my lunch for me,
pointing rudely,
leaving blood on the gleaming glass.
People around me discuss
the value of places they've never lived
& a homeless man sleeps with his mouth open.
I drink an infinite iced tea
that refills itself whenever I get thirsty &
a prehistoric potted plant
belches dinosaurs back into existence.
I clean my teeth to become
the princess of the salad greens,
eating olives with the tips of my fingers
the way monsters eat eyeballs
in the nightmares of children.
Everyone shakes,
terrified to look at each other
mouths bleeding confetti & glitter.
A remedy to bitterness: simple syrup.
I want to write love letters
to the boy who broke my heart &
still has all the shards.
I found out yesterday
that I'm a woman of hard angles,
that my moon might always be fighting
to whole its halves.
My calves are sore
& I'm glad I quit smoking.
I'm afraid of empty bird cages &
waking up without a tongue.
My lungs do a dance under my rib cage
& shake my skeleton out of my body.
Hot toddy & we drink on Tuesdays.
Any available body will do.
Picasso's blue period never seemed more lifelike
than when I try to jump
head first into the nightlife.
Nothing can be proven true
but I think my respiratory system
is at least not false.
If I believe hard enough,
I can feel my pulse.