I always knew I could
weave magic with a pen,
but I never realized that
the magic could pull
tears from dry eyes,
or pain from numb hearts,
or warmth from cold souls,
or inspiration from empty minds.

.
                                                               ­                where are my clothes...

she wakes with a start,
your little robin and her
bare-breasted sunday morning

                                                        ­                       where. are. my clothes?

the sweet, white milk,
coffee barely missing her lips, i am pushed away yet
cascade down her sweet chin, neck, and out my window
onto the clothesline below

staining her

how could i have known
that a "humble life"
meant such darkness,
such suffocation?

your eyes
are too knowing of me,
and light the night road with an orange spill
(squeeze...crinkle)

i have changed.

now, i'd rather wander about
perfect darkness

(i'd rather be blind and deaf)

you came to know me
too well, that what i was most afraid of

that somebody
would get to know me
too well
(as i writhed)

but since then,
i have become
strange

i cant seem
to come
to hate you

                    i cannot
       hate. i cannot;
                    that sort of
       passion? there is no such
                    desire. there

can't be.
me?

i had to make you disappear
you, who follows me
is followed by me as i outstretch
my hand and in the darkness
***** blindly

my insides are not my insides,
as they have rotten away to promise nothing
ever again

i spilled out my insides
and left a flirtatious
stain on the sidewalk

im guilty--
biting my nail, biting my lip,
biting my
t o n g u e

fidgeting, flickering eyes that go
on and off, on and off
me

im chronic,
nervous,
in a state of
mind your own
business

im obsessed with
looking down at my feet as i walk


im forever stuck
in this awkward
edge-of-pubescence
b o d y

when i've already
died
a few hundred times
over



i dont have *******
i have two hearts,
beating out of my chest


im fragile,
tender,
might just topple over
or burst
into a million pieces of

confetti,
in my room:
its always somebody's birthday
that somebody is me
but i don't know somebody,
perhaps i used to know me
perhaps i never did



sometimes i want
oranges:
bright, round, yellow
fresh, spunky, don't-give-a-****

ill roll
whenever you put me down

im just a lemon:
yellow, iffy-butty

please
dont put me down



i just want someone to know me
(love me)

i just want to be an orange:
i wanna be what i seem
nothing to go off about
nothing to get put down about


i come as i am
and i get sent back home for it

you see--
i know nothing
all too well