you approach the house in zebra-print pants, wet matches and ice’d driveway,
you stumble to ignite.
spark to flame to enchant the neighborhood with midnight light.
you of the timeless once-was,
of grass or great oak,
you held the family together.
you tried to scotch-tape a butterfly’s pulled-wings back on.

                 [the momentum of love.]

teen boys breakdown in vacant lots
thinking of what you were to them. they
drag girls up and down the hillside, thru holes of the old factory fence,
attempting the ritual of you.
the aluminum hum if wind and night,
of highway lights on the distance.
*** on a tomb of plastic curlings.

you appear in pixels and dark bars,
face painted clown-like.
hydros in your palm, knife in your hip.
you were that girl lost between city sprawl
& old woodwork,
old wooden chairs carved upon and passed back and forth from *** to ***
class to class.

bell.
pizza delivery boy.
grease-ring soaked box and to touch his knees.
the channel changes, and he holds his breath for years,
in the wake of you.

she’s the girl who sets a room on fire with laughs or real flame,
         and she stands in that same flame; ranting about herself
         with blissful intention:
                        aries.
she’s the girl who mows the lawn all day to throw a memorable party
          on perfectly pitched grass; but then spends the entire party
          with that one guy on that one roof, just the two of them:
                        taurus.
she’s the girl who ***** you fiercest only to then display sudden and
          crippling bouts of madness; she’s one of a kind, or two of a kind,
          and she means some kind of love:
                        gemini.
she’s the girl who you fall for so easily, and she falls for you so easily,
          and everything is a dream; but a dream transforms, seasons transform,
          and the peopled cities with them:
                        cancer.
she’s the girl who steals the show every time, and she leans on you
          when  she’s tired and lonely; she reads science fiction books
          and tells you all the endings, strange planets fixtured in her dreams:
                        leo.
she’s the girl who thinks too much, drinks too much, and weighs you for all
           your words; but words are her demise as she digs her arms deeper
           into the dirt to catch that feeling:
                        virgo.
she’s the girl who piles a shrine of shiny occult objects and spools through
          men like shiny other objects; she has a beautiful heart, holy or not,
          but without a doubt, entirely stylish:
                        libra.
she’s the girl who doesn't believe a ******* thing you say but kisses you
          harder when you say it; she takes you up the hill to her folks
          and they sacrifice you for blood mana:
                        scorpio.
she’s the girl who knows you best and knows even better she’s far beyond
         the depths of your league; she has deafening dreams, with or without
         you in them; for ruins she will climb or create:
                        sagittarius.
she’s the girl who buys the popcorn and eats the popcorn and sulks on
         the couch while tonguing kernels out of her teeth; she will never
         truly love you, just the idea of you:
                        capricorn.
she’s the girl who saves your life with a tracheotomy when you nearly die
         on that plum street seed; she will leave you for a another man, a man
         with a good rifle and a warm little tent:
                        aquarius.
she’s the girl who sees synchronicity in all things, all life, all dreams
         and emanations; she will love you until the smell of mexico drags her
         away upon a neverending weekend:
                        pisces.

Searching for the forty-ninth state
Seven times seven, known for its parallel
Except she couldn't be more crooked
At first, prejudices tainted most thoughts
But then those white tulips in the backseat
are more than evidence, they are answers
Escape the labyrinth? but how?
Straight and fast-the notes in the margin
They still search, but their consciences have quieted
Escape the labyrinth? here is how:
Through and through

-c.j.

i've written a grip of confessional love poems on beverage napkins
strung them together with a dissociative understanding of time (like dental floss)
     wrung them out and hung them up to ripen on the line

mama always said not to name things that are only going to die
and i lied to her face when i told her i wouldn't

          i gave it a name

and i was going to send it your way
as if maybe seeing it all spelled out
would make you change your plans
     and stay

alas
     i'm quite certain that i blew my nose on the winning sonnet
and burried the rest with what was left of my tears

now i don't even write
     i just scream at the stars all night
as if my life's become a sailor-song
and this desert
          my decaying cabaret

Storage for things I need but not right now.
Can I put my love there?

It's something I will not put away forever.
I'm proud of the mistakes I've made and the glory of love I've lived and died with.
But there's a time to carry my love with me--right next to me--
And a time to store it in the overhead cabin.

I'm a function of 21st Century pragmatism:
Where you don't have to put love away,
you can travel with it.
As your carry-on.

And as I make this decision
to stow my love away
Three feet above my head
I know one day
someday
My love will be sitting right next to me
as we take to the skies.

I awoke in a dream
Surrounded by a bilious familiarity
Angry shades of the drying blood of hope
Caked over venomous fangs of discontent
Stagnant shadows of effluvium
Emanate from the molten flesh
Of this creature I seem to know

But how, how do i know this putrid soul
This being, born of irascible acrimony
Seething breaths sear my senses
As I feel the pounding heart
Scream within it's chest
Aflame with the atrocities it has incited

Yet, in it's gentle eyes there is no malice
There is only the reflection of an angel
Gossamer vestments blow in the stillness
So effulgent in the darkness
Again, familiar and uncomfortable
It's eyes bore into mine that reflection of heaven

I could not see myself in those eyes
That gaze seemed to hypnotize in its polarity
As I floated unseen, I looked at this being
Seething miasmata while reflecting a seraph
Acidic tears of truth fell from within my poisoned soul
As the creature and the reflection merged in the bluest flame

And transformed my spirit into flesh
I am both the reflection and the being
Living the anguish of the truth of what I am
Fighting every  moment to be less than and more than
Pretending that I do not embody the dichotomy of bile and bliss
Seraph and succubus
The truth and the lie

shh, let me tell you how this story goes in this silence as powerful as the one after the first atomic bomb, in this space of crushed illusions. you are alone, I know you are. that was counter therapeutic, that lack of hope when grandma struggled with the shovel against the frozen earth so early in the morning. it was besides the point that grandpa from the other chapter was playing violin outside, on the porch of this house of tears while a childlike woman swallowed the sunset in her frightened eyes. like the opposite of a hermit.
shh, there can be so little love, you know, only broken petty gestures, meaningless in any direction the wind would blow. yes, it’s no good to make love in the quietness of lavender fields. too many mothers have turned on the other side in their slumber sheets.
you know it’s been years since words are tempting to surface the horizon of events, it’s pure physics. something will remain  forever hidden behind the horizon, they say, who count the miracles of day. shh let’s not disturb now the other chambers of thought, I'll write to you each day like a child forgotten outside to play.
they are coming inside, I’ll put you somewhere in the preformed space, I’ll cram you somewhere into the smallest place. see you in the morning with the first breath.  you have to do this alone, redefining these tears, no one will do it for you.
our bodies link us together, do they know? I’ll just keep writing to you. mothers and daughters are bonded by scarfs when fathers just look aside. you are a wall breaker, this is what you are. the world cannot bear metaphors when dawn gets stifled by false pretence. I’ll feed you with words as long as necessary, till the air becomes more clear in the morning. some things can be born only by whispers.

i bought a pack of cigarettes tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
i sat on the stairs in the yard of the old house with its walls crumbling,
with its facade turned to dust.
the air was so cold it stung my fingers, frost licking my face,
turning my cheeks blood-red but nothing hurt
as much as you do.

i smoked a cigarette tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
the smoke filled me up and i feared
it would leak out of all the holes you punched in me.
it didn't. i choked and i coughed and it felt a little like drowning.
like your mouth on my mouth, like your teeth on my neck.
i choked and i coughed and it felt a little like you
so i liked it.
who cares i almost died.

i smoked a second cigarette tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
nicotine ran in my veins,
blue rivers along my pale skin and it felt, it really felt
a lot like love. a lot like you. a lot like us.
galaxies scattered across my skin, poison running in my blood,
yes, it felt a lot like us.
i didn't choke this time, but i think you would have laughed
at the way i ******
on the cigarette ****.

i smoked a third cigarette tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
i swallowed cancer like a drug and it stung
at the back of my throat, and it burned and it burned and it burned
as ash gathered at the burning end
and fell to the ground like snowflakes,
little flakes of ash on my sneakers
and it reminded me of your kisses a little, i didn't choke this time.
i laughed. a bitter laugh.
you hurt at the back of my mind as i put
the cigarette out and i thought about the way
you'd look at me, boldness in your eyes, hair a little all over
the place and your mouth
shaped in a little "o"
as you blew circles of smoke out.

i smoked a fourth cigarette tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
the cold stung but not as much as my lungs burnt and my brain burned
and you hurt.
i blew smoke out but never quite like you did,
and i thought it looked and was a little
ridiculous maybe
to burn the leaves of a plant wrapped in paper
and fill our fragile bodies with the exhausts
we breathe out smoke like broken steam engines,
ain't it funny, haha.
you'd laugh, harshly, you'd bite me, you were always
a little rough.

i smoked a fifth cigarette tonight, even though my lungs don't work quite right.
it's not half as venomous as you were, i decided.
i put it out.
cigarettes are so not worth the hype.
you were.
you are.