New Year's Day 1:16 AM
and my body is weary beyond
time to withdraw and rest
ample room allowed me in everyone's head
but community calls
right over the threshold
drums beating through the walls
children playing their truck dramas
under the collapsible coatrack
in the narrow hallway outside my room

The TV lounge next door is wide open
it is midnight in Idaho
and the throb easy subtle spin
of the electric slide boogie
step-stepping
around the corner of the parlor
past the sweet clink
of dining room glasses
and the edged aroma of slightly overdone
dutch-apple pie
all laced together
with the rich dark laughter
of Gloria
and her higher-octave sisters

How hard it is to sleep
in the middle of life.

you may cry now
hello seattle
coffee beans on the window sill
wilting sunflower

i didn't know
you would leave me in a battle
thought you'd save me they ****
but new blue skies every hour

ginger cat meows
only him and i in apartment
tv is on laptop charging
clothes on floor and bed

how you left it how
sit on the chair i can't
you aren't sitting with me darlin'
cat is hungry wasn't fed

open fridge there is a note
buy one milk and three breads
your handwriting
when do you come

cat is ok he ate in boat
in bathtub toilet paper shreds
i write in book keep in margin with love like rome

why is there soap you put in the fridge?
humming bird mind
air conditioner legit
empty mailbox work to do

photos of bridge
ice cream so fine
nice to be happy a bit
maybe it will last, coo!

bet your house messi score that
he did not he missed goal
change channel mancini's scarf on coatrack
blues miss him too do they

will you read this on your bat
cricket is good you are better, soul
is there internet or is there lack
hope you will find way home yay

Such a short time
in which this feeling of fear
has grown enough
to control my life.

I "woke" each morning,
eager for the day,
eager for that class.
Acceptance,
and laughter-
a place where
we all look like fools
and our problems are left
on the coatrack outside the room.

I thought,
maybe I can do this,
maybe,
I can be happy,
just for a little bit.

I went so far as to socialize.
I thought this could be the year
to turn things around,
to finally be happy,
but then I made a mistake.

Socializing with someone
whom I would see in class,
outside,
and online.
Talking to me out of pity
or to make a fool of me
I know not which,
but I know now it was a mistake.

I was so happy,
just for a little bit,
and he made me happier,
but now fills me with fear
and an uncontrollable
nervous shake as we talk.

Chill, relaxed,
lucky for him as
he makes my heart beat fast
and not in a good way,
in a way that makes me self conscience
and close to tears.

Carefree personality,
but the way he speaks of women,
When he speaks,
like males often do,
of the petite sort of girl.
Bouncy and bubbly,
with short dyed hair
flowery skirts,
and spunky
with a perfect figure.

She's perfect!
He'll exclaim,
as his sort always do,
and I have to then hide my tears.

I go home and fall to the ground
curled in a ball
of my own pathetic tears.
Body overrun with the knowledge
that no man will ever lay back
at the end of a day and think
"I'm glad she's in my life"
"She makes me smile"
"I can't wait to see her again"
"How beautiful she is"


I'll never know that feeling.
I'll finish my starved
and shaky day
by confronting
my plain,
fat self
in that cracked mirror.

Now I "wake",
dreading the one class
I really liked.
Fearful of the irrational self loathing he causes.
Looking around to see a terrifying standard
of what is desirable.
Observing those beautiful girls
who know how to match their clothes
and style their hair
who leave school to live their lives,
while my mismatched cloth
and scraggly hair
goes home
to read books on how to fix a speech impediment,
on how to socialize,
on how not to be me.

How pathetic I am.
I'm not even sure why I'm scared,
or why his words hurt,
I just know that being there
kills me.
It rips me apart
and leaves my lifeless body
broken on the floor,
begging for death.

he might tell you
draping over
your insecurities
his love is a gift
you don’t deserve
be grateful
.
he will own you
because owning
something
is better than
nothing
he’ll put pennies
in your pockets
to remind you
that you’re worthless
.
your arms only matter
when they’re wrapped
around his waist
at least they look
slimmer that way
.
you are his coatrack
where he’ll hang his
disappointment
don’t snap
when he gets
too heavy
don’t breath
when he needs
your air
don’t exist
when he wants
some space
.
live
in the confines
of when it is
convenient
.
don’t
unless he asks you to
.

And when he leaves just like the rest of them,
Do not let your tongue turn to thumbtacks

Stop trying to pierce the walls with your words
While you shuffle around the coatrack

When he moves thousands of miles away,
Cease to check in on him

Burn his t-shirt you took from his unmade bed
Watch your phone cascade into the depths

Do not wander his old town at night
Looking for the back of his head

Don't you dare knock on his previous roommate's door
Thinking he'll still be there

When he leaves on his "adventure"
Let the planes watch themselves

Let the clouds envelop the cool steel
Stop wondering if he's thousands of feet above

Do not pick up his cologne in the department store
His scent is no longer something you can crave

Do not search for air thick with his vapor
Leave behind his nicotine haze

Wake yourself from dreaming of his hands
Do not imagine his selfish desires

Erase intimate memories in his bed
Because his touch only caused fires

When he decides to leave you behind,
Let him

Then mend your wounds.

There is a house with only one window,
And seventeen locks on the door.
There is a porch with an ivory doorbell,
That doesn’t get rung anymore.

There is a room with cracks in the ceiling,
And cobwebs that carpet the floor,
There is a box made of tarnished old silver,
With a rusted old key and a door.

An old music box that is all out of music,
And dusty with years of denial,
Inside the box is a little glass dancer,
Whose legs haven’t danced in a while.

There is a house with only one window,
And seventeen locks on the door.
There is a coatrack of cedar and pine,
That doesn’t hold coats anymore.

There is a clock that’s forgotten the time,
Whose bells have forgotten to ring,
There is a cage on a spindly old table,
With a bird who forgot how to sing.

An old fireplace that no longer holds fire,
A collector of cobwebs and lint,
Alone with a matchbox that’s all out of matches,
And a steel left without any flint

There is a house with only one window,
And seventeen locks on the door.
Haunted by ghosts of the dreams that once were,
But just don’t make sense anymore.

There is a room where broken things hide,
With no window to let in the light,
Pretending that they’re safe behind seventeen locks,
From things that go bump in the night.

A room where the silence is thick on the air,
But the quiet, no comfort imparts,
To the girl in the corner made of paper and glass,
With seventeen holes in her heart.

To tell the truth about myself,
A confession to my untidy spirit.
Blood dries under nails,
I'm not sure which me it belongs to.
Once, I had a man tell me,
"Forgiveness looks beautiful on you."
I unhook my ribs
And hang my lungs on a coatrack,
I do it for love,
For love I abandon my self.
A soul stretching like one uninterrupted wound,
Climbing up the length of my spine.
Forgiveness looks like an accident,
Spilled on the pavement,
Reflecting the light.
I have never learned how to decay gracefully.
An affinity for crisis,
An empathy that runs deeper than dreams
And thicker than blood,
You couldn't wash me from your memories if you tried.
All the ways one heart can bruise,
Love in itself is a sort of solitude, you said.
The timid ghost of myself
Casted here at my feet,
I am looking at myself only to be seen.
How cruel a forgiveness which
Doesn't know when to trust itself.
To tell the truth about myself,
To be the sun instead of light emitting from a dead star,
Would be an admittance that even God isn't ready to hear.

at an underground club's

coat check--a crow's ticket,

stubs a raven's number.

a raven's ticket, then stubs

a crow's number.

their coatrack boasts avian

extinction.

Bits of ceramic caster from a chair leg,
A coatrack rests on the floor.
Any minute now he'll right himself.
Paintings askew, mats run too far down the hall...

Shuffling passed snoring bodies
Stricken from one's too many, hundred's not enough
Pizza off the table, straight to the pie-hole
Looking hard, and wondering, what the ****!

Is a goodtime a good time, maybe.
Maybe a good-time's a bad time maybe.