He is the morning and I have turned into a walking cliché machine.
The sun could sap the day out of my skin and I wouldn’t feel it,
wouldn’t mind if I did.
I want to crack him open and curl up in his chest cavity,
exploring the dark corners with my headlamp and uncovering hidden majesties in geodes, making road maps.
~
Sometimes, I look at their hands,
moving in time to the beat or
engaging in some twisted alchemy,
making circles out of straight lines, or
coaxing the music out of guitar strings, or
painting the unknown like clockwork in due time,
and I wonder what they could do to me in bed.
~
And I still let him touch me when I'm drunk and he's drunk or when I'm sober and he's drunk-he doesn't want to touch me when he's not drinking-because he's like a cigarette and I've made a habit of inhaling deeply, to remind me that he’s cancer in my bones and I’m getting too old for this.
He treats me like the used tissues I crumple in my purse and pull out when my nose gets runny, there when he needs me, stroking my rib cage and covering me in a viscous slime.
He feels like a stubbed toe or a paper cut and mostly I'm a mouth to *** into.
His hands find the parts of my body that people have always told me to keep secret, but it's been a while since I started sending them out on postcards to strangers.
He can grab me with his eyes like a hand grabs the nape of a kittens neck, and I falter.
~
How can I unlove someone I used to love so much?
Mother may I-help me-stop loving all of them at once.

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.

With brain bashing into head cavity,
the gelatinous mass of neurons screams out
to white blood cells swimming in eyeballs
to evacuate before drowning.
"Quit clowning around in there and
save yourselves!"
The moody mistress creates her own hells:
congratulations!
Sleeping alone in a sweat covered bed,
she spins saccharine thoughts and pollutes her head
with taffy, thick like molasses,
cooking sugar in the kitchen with
the wrong end of a spoon in her mouth.
Dried up *** stains litter her couch
as she wakes up to turn the cushions
and search for loose change
to fill up her coin pouch.
"Ouch! Ouch!"
She calls out, clean
sheets on a new day,
his fingers firing in a frenzy
and introducing the fusion of
pleasure and pain.
He smells of benzene and
she's afraid of burning,
stomach churning and
using gasoline as lubricant.
He hit her, she said, and it felt like a kiss.
She misses him at her day job
when she runs around town
robbing banks and
picking up handkerchiefs
that grandmothers drop on the ground.
He would pound
his manhood into a brick wall
if it moved like her,
but the skin-and-bones combo
woos him to coo at her
as swarms of sparrows
nest in her ***** hair.
Spit shined shoes and
riding leaves blown on the air,
she dreams of him awake,
listless eyes alive and pulsing
behind a film of glassy, viscous mucus.
She makes magic potions out of the scents
left over on one of her
mismatching pillow cases.
He tastes like roasted red peppers
and lingering mace:
her eyes water as she
chokes back ***** daintily,
like a queen.
His eyes gleam mean as
he steals her breath to
add it to his bursting bank account,
releasing her to give her back only gasps,
the 2% interest.
She crafts road maps of his back bone while he sleeps,
but he sees her as a phantom,
creeping through the floorboards,
a faceless specter with an ace up her sleeve.

An uneasy knowing:
Hand on the doorknob,
Intuition hinting at what's
Through the keyhole.

Excuse me, while I
Make my way back to the womb
And coalesce into an egg once more.

I must relearn everything I was ever taught.

I must rethink everything I ever thought.

"My soul shall not be bought,"
Is a declaration not an "Oh, I ought to."
Tangled in some narrative, stuck like glue;
Convention is convention
Regardless of where it's acted out,
Chugging a cheap beer or slinging back a stout.

Let the wild eyed lemurs out!

Femurs shriek ****** ******,
Shin splits from sprinting to get coffee creamer.

Benz,
Bentley,
or
Beamer?

Out of place in small town USA,
But the monster makes itself the new normal.
Wear jeans to the semi-formal, but
The after party is her call.

To make the future or **** it all?
Is life an experiment or a free for all?
Is it neither? Is it nothing at all?

Squeezing the eyes out of a stress ball,
Touch pleasing thighs as the curtains draw...

Ka-caw! Ka-caw!
I am, I am a triumphant toucan!
Flapping wings flowing fluttery alchemy,
Making circles out of straight lines,
Crafting stories out of blank mind.

It comes in time, I guess,
The mess of me cleaning itself up gradually
Only to regress under sea level again
And again, becoming a canyon,
The slow deposition, the bearer of men.

Redheaded and clucking mother hen
Drinking hot water, honey, and lemon,
Patronizing old explorers like Magellan.

Tune into the past, oh sugar sweet one,
Inflicting beatings with flagellum,
Stealing treats and eating them,
Mountain peaks and chewing gum.

Puh-*** puh-***-***!
Our heads make good drums,
And our bleating makes good melodies.

Can you teach me the song of the trees?
Can we at least save the bees?

Nectarine mornings and small, knobby knees..
Mommy, please, put my hair in pig tails!
Pick up the worms off the sidewalk,
Watch out for the snails.

Lay me down into a hay bale;
I'll send you snail mail from
My heavenly little hell.

What's that smell;
My baby blanket or an ex-boyfriend
Lingering underneath my nose hairs?
In smoking scents do memories construct their lairs.

Do I have a care?
Do I have to care?
Is it a curse to be aware?
Is it a curse to think that, to dare?

Something fragile hangs in the air.

Teeth grind, sweaty night mares,
Water and oil, oh! What a pair.

Fingers uncoil from around your neck:
Slender ghostly feelers beckoning,

"Come destroy yourself with me."

Cast my body out to sea,
Playing saccharine melodies, but
Send my soul out separately.

I want to see you sleeping after
tick-tocking like a wind-up clock all day,
falling like a taut of rope to the bottom of
a canyon to thud down into a pensive pile,
spreading your energy out as a silent spirit
across the dry river bed, the wind of you
whipping up sediments in the vast valleys beneath.

I want to bear witness to you catching my eye
from across the room cautiously,
covering the communion in cadmium lemonade tape,
tasty and afraid of being caught at the crime scene.
I'll throw you a line and you can come up gasping,
glorious and shining in the adolescent sun,
pulling in air where water should come.

I want to watch you write that paper you're working on.

I want to spot you screaming into oblivion,
washing over wonder with waxy fingers,
grabbing at the truth like five year olds ****** fireflies
out of a fleshy, dusk-dipped night
with mothers calling out "Come inside!" in loving, eager fright.

I want your eyes to glimmer something back at me,
meeting me in the cosmos to make the moon,
Mercury slinging stardust over his shoulder,
flirting with Venus and fighting her smolder,
meteorites crashing into each other,
creating solar systems in their wake.

I want to contemplate you on a flat plane,
feeling a frenzy of agitated hands
and fluctuating heart rate,
fault lines moving crazy,
crashing through geologic time
to make earthquakes feel human.

I want to stare at you saying things
that would color me crimson in broad daylight
as we breathe out heavy to the ancient incantations
of an early umber evening.

I want to see you
without a pocket mirror attached to my wrist,
cutting into my skin,
blood purple like lavender iced tea in the summer
and veins an undulating blue.

I like to
  kiss your
    liquid
      lovers
        lips
                       ­            dissolving sugar sweet majesty
                                                         ­                                      your highness
        kneeling to the
      queen of
    centuries

I live in first quarter of the moon
  mixing tapes
   to match
                                                           ­                the rhythms of the maiden
        with the
                                                             ­                    melodies of the mother

                                          I will love you in secret

Of it, the state must not know                      Out, the fire must not blow

do
  not
    let
      them
        burn
          me
    ­        alive

            I promise
          to keep
        my commitments
      cataloged and
    separate my
   chastity in one drawer
  my sensuality in
another

                                                     ­                                               I can be both

                                                           ­       I can be both

                                I can live on as an empire

and exist as the city in ruin

I will bear the sword and
  wear the heavy paws
    in the belly of the Colosseum
                                                       ­                             I will sit on the balcony
                                                         ­                         bored and eating grapes
                                                          ­                                               calling out
"Execution!"

It's the end
Of the world
As we know
It, so how
Do you know it?
Did you gather all
Your knowledge from
Radio broadcasts or
Did you spend time
Devouring the
Pamphlets of Paine
And Hamilton and Adams or
Did you sell your
Soul to the world
Wide web in exchange for
Little finger pin ****** of
Dopamine every few
Clicks and whistles?
How is brunch treating you?
Do you know
How to eat an apple or
That they exist?
What finish did you pick
For your gold toilet seat?
Do you have enough money
To buy food to eat?
The cats growl at each other outside,
Fighting off the heat.

Spoonfuls of honey exist
Within the heat death apocalypse but
My mouth still tastes like
The lingering scent of quarters
Leaving sweaty palms
After swallowing the sweet
Sugar down, as
Distracting as it is.
I distract myself from
Something(s) in my use of
Metaphor, but what?
The answer lies beneath the
Underbelly of some suburban
Monster with concrete teeth and
A camouflage of fleshy forest,
Frying like a hot egg in the sun
Behind corporate warehouses and
A strip mall where all of the shops
Are owned by the same person.

To see or not to, to be or not to?

Humanity could not collectively
Know all of the history we
Ourselves have constructed,
Let alone the dynamics of the
Cell mother planet or the
Secrets of the whispering cosmos.
We tipped the point a long time ago,
And we now sit back and enjoy
Our euphoric hallucinations before
Death by drowning.
It could be death by
Auto-****** asphyxiation, but
Who's to say until
We see the autopsy report?
Maybe we should have another
Done by an outside source...
Outside solo flyer questioning
The ubiquitous while existing
As an insider in trench coat and
Fake moustache feels faulty for
Not yelling from the fringe in.

I would like to factory reset my phone.

The internet lets us know what
We know that
Others know about us
While blocking us from ourselves.
Balance and moderation,
Sure yes just fine,
But please define those
Words in the language
Of the twenty first century.
Shall we fail to mention daily that
Our rivers, oceans, and streams
Bubble with reminders of
Our own mundane mediocrity?
Shall we continue to pretend
We don't see that we can see?

To see or not to, to be or not to?

To breathe in hot glue,
Death by acrid smoke and
A broken bottle,
Or a slow decline
Into madness by
The hands of a
Pixelated Nosferatu
Coming out of the screen
To haunt you,
Vibrating under your pillow,
Strangling your lucid dreams?

To which ports of our
pasts do we
find ourselves tethered?

Towards what unreachable
futures do our
hands slide with pleasure?

tender tendrils of
affection find their
way back to
wrap around my
fingers, some
remnant of last
december when we were
knocking teeth and
locking limbs.

notion clocking in:
if i hold this feeling
up to the light,
will i see it as
counterfeit or
genuine?

how precarious,
i pop bubbles
without knowing
whether more will
blow downwind to
my anxious hands
reaching up to
make them mine and
losing them in
palm-touch time.

Arrival time now
at the self-medication station
where I sit behind the counter
and fill my own prescriptions
to feed the yearning for a funny joke
or a crystal vision.
Pointing with precision
at the problem then
painting pictures all around it,
the mother-me is thinking of
grounding the other-me
until I learn to keep my bathroom clean
and stop to relish in the heaven or hell
of the living daydream instead of
screaming "Escape!" and attempting to make a run for it.
I suffer because I know that
I know better, but
I'm still standing outside in the snow
without shoes on, singing the blues
in fusion with hues of deep purple and lackluster green.
I mean really, baby,
can't we just get a move on and make it past two?
The eternal toddler trapped
only by an always increasing sense of
potential mishaps and wondering if she can sit back and forfeit
a society whose headphones are in and cranked
while walking through a heavily trafficked intersection
without looking both ways.
Call me crazy, but
I hear the melodies, distant
across mountains calling.
I'd rather be a river running than
part of the system, humming.

The grave stones in the
cemetery lean on each other
for emotional support
---
The rainbow roads drip
down sewers into the
water they love so much,
making ***** yellow, purple,
blue reflect back and
menace the legacy
---
Brain baby bobbling
around in the head cavity, still
growing and drifting through
stages of depravity and
different shades of blue.
Just now getting to know your
land legs, huh?
You languished so long on
sea beds wondering
when your time is come.
But, here!
You have entered the magic kingdom
of knowing and yet you refuse to know.
Keep back! Your nuclear glow radiates
some sort of disaster brewing and
I believe you conjure up spells
in your sleep to be unquestionably you
without consequence
---
We're all bustling by on methane clouds.
They're pumping our egos sky high,
our marionette mouths brainlessly chanting
"My integrity cannot be bought,"
as worthless precious stones are funneled
through cracks in our wooden bones.
People say I have an old soul, but
I think I'm just trying to pay attention and
put together a person sized puzzle
made of a picture of a mirror
pointed at the universe.
I wonder what I would dream about
if one ever stuck to the roof of my mouth.
The girl who never says please but
always thanks you when she leaves,
at your service!
I stumble through another
eyebrow taboo and I
place the catalyst in a box labelled
"Save it for later."
Walk by a pile of
bruised up bones
clawing their eyes out,
just to be a concept;
unknown to them are their miracles.
I'm pretty sure life is satirical

Dancing by,
A dead eyed darling,
As passersby cry out her praises:
"Such energy!
Such passion!"
She shrugs out a smile
As her shoulders start
Collapsing in on themselves.
Wear long sleeves
To disguise decaying flesh
And frankincense and myrrh
To disguise inevitable death,
Shaking hands with toothy monsters
And hand-made paperweight professionals
Who enter the threshold of accidentally
Pulling off a frail finger.
Pinned to a board of ages,
Chronically captured chronologically wrong:
"You seem so much older! You are so mature!"
Placing, onto fifth-grade-science-project bones,
A corset of expectations and
A garter of gold,
The tiny bird of a girl
Can't hear her songs over the
Sound of her body giving up.

Bury your wishes for me next to my corpse.

Denatured barbie dolls bowling
over boys donning construction caps and
destruction maps making a highway
over natural habitats holding the
handle of cellar doors open and shouting
"dissent no more" please
implore me to bore you and
spit shine your mirror toe shoes
I know you once we met on the avenue
sector of humanity devoid of trees and
afraid of honeybees traffic tinged memories
haunting back down the street
hampered under sweaters and smelly socks wondering
how many feet beneath rocks something can escape
half baked holy water holding the cure of all curses and
worsening purple pillars of preconceived pastry dough
growing moldy head to toe finding flow
amidst garbage between sinking archipelagos

I'm gonna be
Ebola for Halloween,
Watch out *******.
Burning my popcorn is
The reason I have trust issues.
Being dressed in theme
Quadruples your chance of getting laid.
Nothing makes me feel manlier.
I feel so unaccomplished in life.
Is anyone else afraid of
Ending up alone?
Every other night
I question my choice of major,
If I will be able to get a job.
I have to be successful because
I love expensive ****.
When life gives you lemons
You paint that **** gold.
If you're trying to find
A ******* Tinder...
Tinder is pointless.
Virginity drinking game.
Boys in a tent who are waiting,
Can I come in?
Having fun isn't hard when
You've got a library card.
To whoever left a flower on my bike last night,
Reveal yourself so I can
Give you the biggest hug.
That made my day.

Come on, you say to me,
help to **** the soil dry of
deep, muddy clays made by
colonial lullabies and
forgo your selfish thoughts
of suicide in favor of a
dark grey summer salad coupled with
a nuclear fish fry.

Unleash a cosmic sigh, I
bleed to breed  my human seeds and
cultivate forests of ***** while
pulling up deliciously
edible weeds who sing
laughing limericks we
care not to listen to and
languishing warnings we
care not to heed.

Me and you, baby, let's
build a box made of
ticky-tacky in the back of
some skeletal, suburban
cul-de-sac, crafted over a
cesspool vat of human feces,
spicy DDT and industrial-grade
mercury.

Apathy towards the life source
breeds apathy towards corporate force
breeds disgust, killing the serpent and
reclaiming the horse, tossing the
apple, preparing for the worst.

Pile up pounds of gold and
crowns to assign money a meaning
and postmark letters filled with
plastics and post-its with
"PARADISE IN THE REACH OF ALL MEN"
scrawled in felt-tipped pen to
peoples perched on the edge
of the planet, to whom
time gave rhymes from learning to
lay their ears down in the
dirt and succumbing to the
the devil wearing a blood-stained,
starched, white shirt.

Dilute the base of me with
an acidic you, quick, pollute
the river so salmon scurry
downstream and the arduous algae
dries up, screaming.

I wonder if the taker can
become the giver.

Show me your hidden face,
Quiet shivers erupting from behind masks,
Desirous of you to fill the open space,
And to question whether to demand or to ask.

Quiet shivers erupting from behind masks,
Tenacious rumblings of an unknown kind.
To question whether to demand or to ask
Would be a dangerous dance with the conscious mind.

Tenacious rumblings of an unknown kind,
Tables fleeing and chairs sent asunder.
Would it be a dangerous dance with the conscious mind
To let the labyrinth open and the curious wonder?

Tables fleeing and chairs sent asunder,
The costumes strewn on lilting lamps.
Let the labyrinth open and the curious wonder,
Get rid of the bed monsters and tummy cramps.

The costumes strew on lilting lamps,
Show me your hidden face.
Get rid of the bed monsters and tummy cramps.
I'm desirous, you. Fill the open space.

Is this a power hierarchy?
Does our dueling footwork
Convince us to
Lock into some sort of
Competitive symmetry,
Twisting into your
Mashed potato minefield with
Doo *** , doo dad laden
Dancing shoes?

Gimme your
Electronic sympathy, baby,
Infiltrate the airwaves with
Piercing eye contact and
Tremourous finger tip brushes.

Is my informality coming through?
Have I communicated with
Unlocked elbows and
Megaphone ears that not only
My body but universe
Lives here and in you?

Orient yourself to me,
I task while asking you to
Take off your straight jacket and
Stay a while. Unlock your
Pandora 's box so your
Monsters can meet mine,
Mirrored in different shades of
Shock and shame, operating under
Varied hues of the same name.

Lean into me, let your
Shoulders slender and shimmy to a
Tenderizing touch, the
Objects under your skin collapsing
To the 4/4 timed battle
Between form and perception.

The ingestion of the
Metaphor is the message, and
The tongue regards a tune
Differently than a taste.

Face symmetrical, nostrils work,
The blooming waste of consumption
Centered on the top right corner of
Your cheekbones.
I can't help but grab the
Slight upswing in the tone
Of your voice and spin it around;
Let's swing, darling.
I'd like to take your descriptors
On a date to the dance floor.

How long can we keep this up until meaning has waltzed out the door?

What do I want now?
Desires come knocking,
door to door
vacuum-cleaner salesmen
pondering if I could
spend a dime of
my time deciding
whether or not to
allow my miles of
scroll and scripture to
get tangled together
with those of another
(again)
as I switch between playing
the role of the
consumer and the
mother
(again)

What do I want now?
Can I look to the stars
or consult the seeing cards?
I can't help but
sprint down the
slippery summer streets,
calling out the songs of
Renaissance bards when the
universe is singing our praises and
we're singing them back, oh
cut me some slack and
I'll cut you a track of
my latest attack on
society's lack of wanting to
wait and see what blooms in
the forest of discarded facts,
figures, and old slacks worn
by the dead while they
bury my head underground with
feet dangling in the air.

What do I want now?
Will the willpower to
state with a proud (and
preferably legs-spread-
shoulders-back-
neck-straight) stance that
just maybe I might be
better off with bug bites and
a bitter taste in my mouth when-
ever I see couples kissing than a
stinking fascination with the
feeling of fingertips on femurs and
eyelids fluttering in
metronome timed fervor.

What do I want now?
For lady luck to walk in
disguised as a molten lava
poltergeist with electric sides
pulling me in, my
north to her south,
to whisper, "Don't forget:
permission permanently granted to
project that voice and
protect that mouth."

What do I want now?