anthems for a seventeen-year-old girl include:
a bizarre love triangle, delicate hands, and home

bizarre love triangle is something
not taught in geometry
it is scalene, and it is uneven
for the shorter leg is the devil's arithmetic
and the longer, the perfect equation
the common side touches both in
different ways, for different reasons
shorter swells with jealousy as
longer and longer yet meet at their divine point
practicality destroys the art made, year last
a loss, a jilt, weathering sides so relentlessly
distanced from what devours ideals,
both isolated lines in cosmic space
each prayer inches them closer together
though it is bizarre, it is also beautiful

-c.j.

Don't call
I'll probably
just start
murmuring something
about
nuclear weapons
behind my
clavicles

-cj

the screen reads
private caller
I answer and it is someone real,
not a robot this time
you're surrounded by your friends
I can hear them as you say,
"it's not you, it's me"
I hang up,
a moment of quiet
then all my bells are ringing

-c.j.

this queen has been pushed from her throne
lies apparent, the integrity of the crown vanquished
the common girl, the one with the blue eyes
and singing voice, had the man this queen,
partially evil, desired-
as ruler of the kingdom she would
and could do as she pleased,
exercising her power to a terrifying extent,
until the twigs snapped loudly in the night
and though this common girl did not replace
her and take on the royal title, she possessed
more than this queen could ever wish for;
love

-c.j.

I will trust you with all my crystallised ideals, escaping my throat with my broken chariot voice
sleuthing amongst our pasts, while wanting to be in each others' present, now, tomorrow, and the next day
this trust is a fragile thing
I cannot give it to anyone
nurture it, light my eyes, touch my hands, dance with my sleeping body
the sun frames your beauty into this work of art, this black haired god, and you don't notice the rays
but I always do
trust me with your heart and hands and swallow your pride, desert your logic, and put your hands on my waist
as you surrender
to this forbidden kiss

-cj

I'm not one to give up
and you tell me you can live with that
You guess that I haven't given up my crusade
The one that makes you all the more alluring
I believe that it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all
You shouldn't treat us like we are time bombs
Though it appears all is fair in love and war
Something within keeps me knocking on your door, over and over
You tell me you will always deal with my madness
You believe I would do the same for you
I already have been, I say
And you reply, that's why I believe that you would

-c.j.

Pacified, left on a street corner,
with December stillness in her eyes
Her mouth could not begin to contain
a mere cliché, its distaste for foolish
reminders of current surrounding speech
was strong as infrared,
though she'd say, "the other will speak in statistics
while all that spills from my mouth
are fallacious metaphors"

But he'd reply, "you intrigue me so,
with your blotted out sentences for scars,
and pretty oceans for eyes"
Looking for fragile lips to hold,
midnight and midday

-c.j.

her cherry lips are red in the grey
she could easily be atop a cake, pinned with
a wire, waiting on a table at the after-party
when most want wild, she prays for peace
she seeks purity when others settle for filth,
painting their souls black
beauty is her gift, beauty is something they buy
the spectrum she sees is whole, and she tries
to magnify their sights, turn them away from
the fruitless fractions

-c.j.

My love is gone to war
Against himself, the past
How soon is your last day?
Letters are not contraband
And I thank each star for this
Because, you know, before you
I knew not bliss

-c.j.

Can anyone live as freely as lady madonna?
she gave birth to the lord, the saviour
and if she happened to deceive or insult or covet
could god really say she was guilty?

-cj

there is a room full of clocks ticking in sync
because time has a heartbeat
and places are just different variations of time
time that can be beautiful if we let it

-c.j.

she descends the stairs
and he remains on the landing
both linger, telepathetic moments
written on that invisible wall
with intimate totals of wonder
militant, the outside try to terrify,
to augment the doubt
lengthen the halves- but
all superstition dies in that second

-c.j.

we defy the cold times
tethered, crowned, together, deep winter
a kinder resemblance, I say
severed illusions ricochet,
kindling a watercolour
distance tightens caresses tonight
to creep, to dance
we will do it all
remembering every dim light

-c.j.

Leather jacket
Sitting in her room
Sorting through old records
The dust makes her sneeze
Driving through town
It's perfect like I never knew it

-cj

Who is god anyway? I've never heard
his voice or seen his face on the streets
He might as well be a silent ghost
People always tell me that he loves me
but I don't even know his name
Sometimes I wish he'd leap out of my
closet and scare me just to show me
that he's real and I can stop writing
of unsolved mysteries

-c.j.

sometimes you are a vessel
the mortar to the pestle
caved into with striking stirs,
said to ease the pain
promise to envelop the stories, sire
seclude, win it carefully
place two thoughts mixed together,
very alarmingly awake, yet soft
section your art away, vandals to ****** tomorrow
to pacify critick's images
with swift severe style that eats the pile up

-c.j.

don't bring me downtown with those cool kids
I'm sick of your habits and calling him charming when he isn't
it's over, I don't want to be a pretty body on fire
I'm leaving this self-entitled empire

-c.j.

I used to know a boy who would mumble the answers
in science class when the teacher talked about outerspace
the rest of us were mind over matter, paper airplanes in our heads, but we'd say we listen- we do
parties later in high school, he was never at
he moved a couple hours west, and as I sit on the couch watching my peers dancing, their steps lusting
love for physics and chemistry and the knowledge in between came to mind, the love the boy had for them
I wonder if he could tell me or show me
anything interesting, anything of worth,
anything unlike the empty chatter and exhausted gossip currently around me
I should have listened harder when he would mumble

-c.j.

fire rides down my spine because I'm angry
but there's this strange attraction between
my being and yours that extinguishes
the flame
have you tried collecting rainwater in a cup before?
this is what this is like- my hands hold this
overflowing vessel, and no matter how much it
may seem in vain to keep standing there, spilling
the water, fueling this endless cycle of fullness
and almost enough, I can't stop looking up at the sky
that bears the gift, transfixed

-c.j.

you say I'm bitter
and I know I am
I'd just like to say
how wonderful it's been
feeling lesser
than everyone else
a forced inferiority
I would trade for hour-long
charlie horses
thanks for the lack of passion, boy
your apathy is especially becoming
yeah, my sarcasm's so thick
you could cut it with a knife
but let me stab our balloons first

-c.j.

calm is the sea in March,
wild is it in June
combined with honeysuckle
and a major key
the disposition fared well
and escaped its fate as hell

standing solely on the white sand,
watching children with dandelion folks
and unbrushed golden hair
considering whether I craved the solar intellect,
to taste its fury

rain drowned me in April
and May did not dry me out
inside I played a minor key
that I believe played in heaven

-c.j.

The picture of mediocrity is not me and you
We thrive in our honours and shake hands too often
The places the others hide to escape, making something good happen, while they resonate with dull reverberation, like the past in accord with dust and lampshade
Tomorrow's price lunges in acrobatic ways to upset the utopia I've begun

-cj

men in white coats call their valentine, asking,
"are you there, sweetheart? I'm in london, watching your videotapes,"
while I sit on the cold patient's bed, wondering if I could
capture a phone call with my boyfriend, find out how the party was,
if his father has gone up in the business
but then I am chemical dizzy
and then the doctor whispers to hush my teenage mouth, that I'm only in high school
that all I do is go to the dance hall and eat lucky charms the next morning like a child
I used to believe I was a prodigy, even if all I could do was tie-dye
the medicine puts me to sleep and the white coat clad man tells my parents it's not serious

-c.j.

Whatever combines against me, I guess you're welcome
It's not like I can change anything now
So far into fate
It's too late for mad modifications
At the bottom of this low, emit some highs
Just for me to cross somewhat gracefully

-cj

I changed my name to smallhands
when you commented on their smallness
delicate hands sculpt our world,
the rougher hold it up
I wanted to be an artist blamed for the
earth's utopian aesthetic
so along a swift edge I signed my name,
my new persona, and said,
"my hands are small but my ideas can
swallow nations"

-c.j.

author of these clumsy fictions-
dearly yours, on all fours
fighting attacking our young dreams
from corners tight, often alight
amour, oh traveling one,
fearful darling

-c.j.

Where bodies meet, there is deceit
This insomniac rhythm has got us
between stark white and oblivion
A pillow to lay your head,
my dear cuckoo friend

-c.j.

He reaches for tomorrow, the ominous book on the higher shelf
She pulls out something quaint and familiar to rest her head on while she writes the next seven months in cursive
and intermittent print

-cj

Sordid promises keep me
coming back
These columns see me
in my submission
If only they could
hear me sing or
laugh when something
happy involves itself
with me

-cj

for your birthday I'll write you a novel
no surprises there, just acquiesce to my stories
of the street just east of Eden where we made our choice
notes resembling thoughts in the back of your head-
I'll release them, bring to life what you thought was dead

-c.j.

deny it, go ahead and try it
drink from that bitter cup
take your lips and sew them up
get all the help you can
drag your knees, now
the door only locks anyways,
it's never enough
it's a shock to your system
everyone's with them
you're left to sit in the cold
drag your knees, now
get all the help you can

-cj

It was this unfleeting curiousity that reeled me in
Photographs, scribbled addresses and phone numbers, envied columns
Pencils behind the ear, in between teeth while thinking, concentrating on the enigma
The details of the most puzzling parts of the seeming whole that I set my heart on finding out
Complete
It's not research, it's searching
It's knowledge and pressure to be right but confidence in being in the right place at the right time, studying the right thing, the rush within fueling me to keep going

-cj

You can't scare me away with your paradox talk against wolf's law or the dogma
I've been through worse (it's a chain, it's a curse)
Regardless of number or name or position
Here I am again alone with him in my mind and periphery
Burning up with that fever but I'll escape it somehow
After all his face his arms his voice is the only memory I'll allow

-cj

Mingling secrets purified our intentions
If only plans stayed in the margins
My stupors play with yours
In our printed world

-cj

I lost the paper that has what I wanted to say
please excuse my improvisation and wandering gaze
as I stumble through my speech
in front of the crowd, I am reminded of terrors and
horrors that come with forgetting
so here I am, scouring my internal archives
I'm sorry, again

-c.j.

break the seal of the envelope
to view the sender's pity on paper
but please rush to open the letter
because I want to talk to you
for a while, if only one-sidedly

-c.j.

mad talk echoing round my ears
is giving me the bends, baby
courage melts in my pockets
hello my name is buttercup
mouthwash swisher and a real
bad washer disher

-c.j.

no doubt I was born with wolf blood
at seven I could howl and shake the moon above
and more truth shows and home calls

I step alone but wild winds blow while
I decide now if colliding heads and
seething teeth match and align with
my true story

are homes composed of icy spears
and brutality's wounds?
which body was I meant to occupy?

no doubt I was born with wolf blood
yet I am strikingly human as well
split genes in this animal
two worlds where I belong

-c.j.

Excuse me, pardon me
It's not as if we've been entangled for
countless weeks
A waiting game that ruthlessly leaves me
in my room to think of you and
not much else

-cj

rests on your tongue and melts all the while
even your eyes' movements make me feel like a child
sickly sweet, the salt tears I try to quell
mistake this youthful paradise with loveless hell
and i'll keep waiting for you
you know I will
I can't **** these restless bouts within me
nor can you
swallowing squinting hinting at kissing, all alive

-cj

she glances in mirrors
a geometric façade hems her shoulders to her ribs
the moon bleeds white in phases
crescent makes for the chesire cat smile, she sleeps to the silent sounds of it
gibbous, waning, waxing
all hallowed to the eclipsing snowy veil of it
she passes the reflection of her own skin
the light in the night shows it for her

-cj

capricious pixie, you
your pert spritely self
has the candle blown out,
leaving you in the dark?
dancing to imitate yonder lark
on blue cerulean trees
how sagebrush spies, protecting
you from predators, catharsis
prey, you are, to them
you play safe seldom
has no one taught you
to close your world?

-c.j.

Young, but so done living
Everyday is just another brick in the wall
Smoke it, drink it, take a look at it
Try me, says the liar
Come on, little fool, don't fall for it when all
your friends are blaring with why not to

-cj

As I pass by the little houses of envelopes and packages
Whose doors are letting in the ugly neighbourhood air
I cannot refrain my hands from closing it shut
There's a common distraction and a sweet bruise to ponder
And look, another unsafe mailbox over yonder

-cj

until you kissed me
I had always thought home was a place
home is a feeling
and it might not be cozy and warm all
the time, but the clocks don't tick and
our bodies fail to feel foreign-
we are safe

-c.j.

and the suburban war begins with blood
because we were raised by wolves
there are no cardinal rules
just keep watch while your friends sleep
and succumb to the inevitability of
a heartless empire, yet again
fight outside the windows, we are trying to
keep the houses holy
we have never said anything about the insides
of us, though, and blood still spills

-c.j.

in september I thought there was a formula, a frequency, for
making someone fall in love with you
but then I learned to be careful who you dance with, especially the
slow dances that give you double vision
it dawned on me that I couldn't be haunted by april anymore,
that I'd have to taste the sun again and stop hitting my bumper
against illusive fantasy
**** the clown, that evil joker with smiling scars, the one that gives you creature fear
when the voice starts, turn it off
listen to the shores instead, seashell sounds for just
a little bit
it will help me close my eyes against the scene and people like you
tonight please wait up for me- do you want it all? these filthy halls?
we can't always avoid bad karma, or escape psychasthenia,
even when we're filled with loneliness and the scream that begs
of the someone, who are you, really?
you taste of heaven and human emotion but will we last through october?

-c.j.

Drive all night, only pause when there's a light
Look to your right and the blaze from their being is gorgeous and blinding
It's fun and it's games, except in here where the magnet force pushes our bodies apart
Lick the skin and tear into crimson fruit
Until eventually,  there's nothing to dispute

-cj

Like a devil's advocate
I listened as deep as apparition
licked the fictional dust
falling under the self-written
mantra's power:
It's not my fault

-cj

How is living as a human?
Isn't it everything you ever wanted?

-cj