Adventurers travel
to places where they could shoot themselves and
have it mean something – wait for
steel-toe boots and whimpering floorboards to remove a gun

from the kitchen sink, the tile is as green as
moss statues in pool water
and the caulking is about to be dyed red.

I follow tracks, the pads of my feet. I want to be one
of them – steal a rusted van
with shotgun shells in the passenger seat, safety uncocked.
A home for the only things I care about
has no door. Squirrels

carried it away in a drought, bad men lit a wildfire,
birds stay safe in eggs that never hatched
hanging by spider webs in someone’s daughter’s room –
her hair remains in the velcro of a teddy bear.

She is the only ghost – everyone
else’s corpse had some reason or another to stay here.
I see ashes in a skull, I smell **** on the center of girl palms
old blood used to keep eyes glued open,
mine holds dolls to
my wounds, my emptiness fuses plastic hair to me.

Almost little pillows of ravioli
bloated bellies, frayed skin, so white that morning
cannot detect us – in death, pimples
might pop like balloons, and we get left to look beautiful for
for the next person who wanders along.

he is never human. always more
      sometimes less

  and whenever someone asks me how i
am doing, i want to mention
                that i am
                      in love with a demon

(fire under my clothes,
       my *****).
    it has nothing to do with much

                       but i always want to say
that i am married to god

        and never owned a bible. he
melts heaven
                    so the sky will rain angels.

I should have known
arms can be like coffin doors, and when his opened
it was not safe to lay down inside.

The last time I was in the room with a ******
flowers speckled my hair,
pink as privates, cloud-white. I considered our honeymoon
and thought about how we loathe
sunshine, but would create our first bed on roses
after I have spent five or more years removing her thorns.

I did not know about clotheslines being used
for more than our damp second skins.

She once described it as a construction zone, being the
property of some government
who does not care if it ruins someone's habitat
to build a brand new home. But I do not know if I can say
the same; a house is your mountain above
all hurt, only you
can jump from the top and make yourself bleed.

There I sat and swung on wooden benches,
my most disturbing thought a wonder of how it could hold
me. The sky was supposedly blue,
just now I cannot remember, colorblind of any
possible plane forming smiling men above our heads.

Sometimes, things are not on the tip of my tongue
but still making their way through my
brain-cells. I wanted to lay down on my stomach for love
be a carpet of hair, unshaven legs, sweat beads
until the clouds showed me handcuffs. My
safe lover, agoraphobic, now I can understand why.

I did not think about blankets being used as
shields, or mattress springs made of barbed wire.

If I had known, I would have eaten
my own hair and thrown up every petal on your doorstep,
their broken flower souls, now warm-blooded.

Several forms of art, I can sever the seas
or have as many “him”s
and “her”s as time will allow the couple of us –
all involving ******* one another
up, I can even cause oceans
to bleed in my mouth. It is okay to be bad
at painting landscapes and good at
destroying them – good at making people seem
as expansive as a country or continent
because freckles are stars and
we cry so much we’ll build a sodium factory.

i want to perform an exorcism on myself
bite into candles so rough
wax’ll become sewn to my mouth

and i forget how to
flick my tongue to form your name.

i must be as close to you as my thighs
are when i sit down,
mature inward upon ourselves
like legs crossing, calves behind kneecap.

count the number of girls
who pretend to be someone else

during ***,
then count the number of girls who say
softer softer softer please

and i’m sorry, i promise the first will win
because chilly air can make us
light-headed and nauseous;
harder harder always just distracts.

i want to swallow guns and swords, then
tell my friends the bruises
came from you –    they kind of did.

I don't know if I lifted my dress up
so you could smell my grain-stained kneecaps
or notice the new bones
stroking your palms on my hips -

please acknowledge any part of me.