Play her a simple melody.

Will write things with her movement.
Two thousand silent words with her body.

Has always been one with words.
Studies the curves of their backs and the lengths or their tails.

Her books climb ladders to the top shelf by themselves, everything needed bounded to their spine.

Keeps her teardrops in a jar by the bedside.
Lies awake, counting them.
Only reads her favorite stories, over and over,
until she falls asleep.

The mind of an insomniac is always in pain.

Favoring the moon? Or the sun?
One dies when the other is born.

Things inside my closet pt.1

Four blue walls, four pink walls, three yellow walls, one green.
Moved everything across the hall got paint on the ceiling,

put pictures on the wall.

Went away, came back.
Took pictures off the wall, photographs of strangers.

Put them in a box, back of the closet.

She told me once that skeletons sleep there.

Seems peaceful.

Out of sight, never mind.

Lost my home, but found a new one.

If you lose yourself, check my closet.



a.bee

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but they've yet been stripped of their flesh,
and I've let them loose in this small town
for a game of hide 'n' seek.

She returned a set of my pajamas, unwashed,
her intoxicating scent lingering on hooks in my closet
where her aroma constructs an illusion.

I bury my face in them,
feeling my damp cheeks pressed into her *******,
reaching down below where my hand grasps her posterior
where it takes a firm shape in the loose garments.

I dig into the scent until I go crazy;
I tell myself I'll wash them next week.

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but she's taken it on the road,
in a small town parading it down empty streets
where I can see it clearly,

her oblong sunglasses darkly obfuscating
what I perceive to be her pejorative gaze,
over a narrow ivory face,
sandy blonde hair flowing in the wind.

(I still feel, yes, that smooth pale face cupped within my trembling hands, that sandy hair tangled around my fingers reaching up the back of her neck, pressing her face more towards mine)

I look for the shallow dent
in her ubiquitous red minute two-door seater
on the passenger side, where she was gently T-*****
by a student driver practicing their three-point turn,
and the smiley-face lemon-scented air freshener
dangling from her rear-view mirror,
having lost its freshness years ago.

(I still see, yes, us in that hardware store parking lot,
in the closed evening hour,
sitting cramped in the passenger seat,
her knees on either side of me,
our shirts off and skin warm and sweaty, nervous,
trembling, trembling, lips aching and souls yearning--
where were we headed to again?)

I look for it so intensely,
I forgot my goal was to never see it again.

          Young love looking for little things in a small town.

For years I play this game of hide 'n' seek,
and part of me should realize
that at some point she got up from her hiding spot
and moved on with her life.

(and no, I won't look at her engagement photos,
nor the photos of her newborn child,
nor the Happy Anniversaries and the congratulatory sentiments--
I can see them without social media's derision)

I still scan the streets
like a vulture over roadkill,
yet I thought I was the one
engraved into the grainy streets
where she commutes over my remains.

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but I let them walk out of my life
so I can chase them all over town.

She wears t-shirts of the Beatles

And she loves the Rolling Stones

She wakes up to David Bowie

And she dreams of the Ramones

She goes out to dance clubs nightly

Till her ear drums both get blown

But, she has a deep dark secret

That her friends will never know



At night when she is by herself

When the room is nice and dark

She slips beneath the covers

With Johann Sebastian Bach

She's a closet classic ******

And her name is Amber Clark

She just loves orchestral music

The rock and roll is just a lark

Her friends think something classical

Is something for your folks

They cannot play an instrument

They cannot read the notes

They think that  chamber music is

What people play on boats

But she has a deep dark secret

She loves the stuff that Chopin wrote

At night when she is by herself

And her friends have gotten ******

She slips beneath the covers

And she listens to some Liszt

She listens to it many times

In case there's things she's missed

She's a closet classic ******

She has "Baroque" upon her wrist

She listens to the music

That her friends like to be cool

If she told them what she listens to

They'd laugh her out of school

So, when they go out  clubbing

She will join them as a rule

But...ah that deep dark secret

This girl is no ones fool

She listens to Beethoven

And she knows each piece by heart

She knows where one bar ends

And another one will start

She can play most every instrument

And she knows most every part

She's a classic closet ******

But she still knows Boyce and Hart

She has cds in her library

And most sit there untouched

When her friends are gone they don't get played

She doesn't like them much

She would rather hear a symphony

By a composter who was Dutch

But there's that deep dark secret

And she won't use it a crutch

At night when she is warm in bed

She listens to Mozart

She needs a little Nacht Musique

To open up her heart

It's a piece that sets her mind a blaze

It hits her like a dart

She's a closet classic ******

And she keeps her worlds apart

By day she sings Bruce Springsteen

At night she listens to

Composers that her friends don't know

They're so old they're new

So she keeps her world a secret

For she knows what they would do

If they found she didn't know

Where were you in sixty two

But at night she is a ******

And she listens to Mozart

She needs that piece of music

To shoot an arrow through her heart

Eine Kleine Nachmusic

She conducts every part

She's our Closet Classic ******

shhh.....the song's about to start...

She raised me to be a perfect little lady.
Then I became just a tad too shady.
What have you done to your self?
Can't you just pretend to be someone else?
I didn't raise a perfect lesbian.
They should never expirence perfection.
You and your whole kind are sins.
An abomination from hell.
Shut your mouth never tell.
Don't let the world know.
That's the only thing to never be told.
Don't shout out the facts.
All you do is distract.
Fill your life with men.
And only then will you no longer be a lesbian.
A spawn of satin.
I could go for days.
With how many girls have you laid?
Burn in hell you ****** kid.
Put your secret in a box and close the lid.
Never again will you be a lesbian.
Then will you be perfection.
Only when no longer labels by lesbian.

I kissed sweaty, slightly hair-touched lips
And they felt right.
So when I kissed honey-lemon lips
And found that they felt better,
You can imagine my surprise.

Smoke fills your lungs,
like the secret fills the closet.
Doors shut tight.
Nose hair coiled.
Fire burning
at the end of the stick.
Working down to scorch your lips.
Fire on your tongue,
along with the taste of your lover.
Christianity is baffled by your addictions.
Smoke rolling underneath the closet door.
the smoke swirling in your head,
love dancing on your tongue.
Waltzing with the nicotine.
Your secret is holding hands with the smoke.
The smell clings to your clothes
Like the way you cling to him.
You need him,
You need the taste,
The smoke will fill it,
Your lover’s kisses will help it,
You need.
You need.
You need…..to inhale.