I write too many poems about my body.

but it’s the only house my spirit knows

and the only movement is my own

I could write you a love poem

or one about the way the kids in my hometown

used to walk the traintracks like they led somewhere

but i’m completely obsessed with this idea of entrapment

that i could be more than skin and bones that i could be made of

ink blotch shoulderblades

ribbon ribcages

clothespin wrists

and ruby lips

that i could abandon myself and get out of this cage

that’s too big or too small or whatever the **** they tell me this week.

For Little One
June, 2012

I want to be a giant girl

with my hair caught in the clouds

and a bird resting on my nose

I want to be twice as small

as the fly resting on the wall

I

I want to watch small men

smoke pipes and sing to themselves

I want to grow too magnificent for the room

and push down the walls with my elbows

and use the chimney as a periscope

the sheer enormity

and when I dance

I want to fell the planetary divide

and taste the milky way

and wear saturn’s rings as jewelry

stars tangled in my braids

and i’d let humans walk across my shoulders

so that they could see the moon

and remember how it feels to be

small, childlike, wondering

and then things might be alright.

She was like a humming bird:
soft, light fleeting-
the perfect escape artist.
Speaking in riddles
that keep you up at night.

Face changer and witch,
she draws you close, holds you so
and then lets go without warning.
You can only get so close,
before she turns her back.
Every time a bit closer,
every time more sting
from the rubber-band of goodbye.

Sinking down further into her sea
she washes over you,
drowning you in the intoxication
of her salt.
She melts in your mouth,
Pixie Stix style;
sweet, but gone
before you can really enjoy the taste.

You press rewind
on your memory:
looking, searching for any glimmer
of her, any flash,
anything to keep her close;
even for only a moment longer.

She wears a mask:
masquerade half-faced,
with feathers and glitter,
ribbons hanging from the left.
She's perfected
this porcelain-painted facade.
Under the disguise
she defies the conception
of beauty.
Thinking her virtue lies
in the mask.
She lies in the mask.

She fades in and out
like the morning fog
over the ocean.
Rushing in
and falling away
once the sun rays hit the water.
The crash enfolds her;
she lets it.

Skin and bone she bleeds
for everyone who ever hurt her,
taking the blade to the skin
she lets them all win.
Playing a loser's hand,
all chips in,
she gives herself over
as payment for who she is.

***** and unworthy;
painfully aware of
her chemical circumstance,
she runs from the torment.
Into a forest of lost time
remaining hidden,
she tries to die
but ever-still;
she remains.