Instant coffee instant poems
a tongue dry as a deep desert
swollen with silence.

****** bones poking through skin
a skull escaping limitation.

The recluse finding freedom
where others dare not tread.

A river of instant peace
barely able to contain
impossible to deny or hold back.

Her teeth rotted tea,
But root and leaf tell tall tales
Where silence now sips.

I wear the nest now.
It’s an ill-fitting tutu-
Itchy, scratchy,
constricting, and I’m
Stuck. My wings would
Not withstand the weight
If I ever tried to fly to
Freedom, far away from
the
Flock.

I live in strange cities and talk with strangers
About things dear to me
I walk on alien paths and eat foreign food
And remember
I paint **** women, their hips large
Dark hair and full *******
And I know
We all seek perfection, not knowing
We are already perfect
I sing, my notes rise and fall endlessly
Like a tireless swallow in the sky
And I praise
Hosanna in the highest
And as the dust motes dance in the wintry sun
In my wooden church, I am transported
To singing with Irish nuns
My skin browner, in a country of heat and dust
A country of mangoes and temples
Of saffron and silks
And as I don my jeans
Memories of my mother’s swishing silks
Take me home
But I live in strange cities and talk with strangers
And home is just another four letter word

I know of a man who sells flowers-
cut with a sharp knife
they do not live too long, after that.

do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.