Bait I now did lay for capturing my sought desire,
And I roar now, the lioness declares her might.
The underneath of this thing is not too sturdy;
But the lasting kind suddenly can solidify -
Without notice.
He is asleep out there in the cave we claim of late as ours,
I will soon lift up and slide indulgently into his arms.
And everything will resonate the pulse of love,
Solid: puh-pump, puh-pump, puh-pump
Resonate. Vibration frequency beating love.

An uneasy knowing:
Hand on the doorknob,
Intuition hinting at what's
Through the keyhole.

Excuse me, while I
Make my way back to the womb
And coalesce into an egg once more.

I must relearn everything I was ever taught.

I must rethink everything I ever thought.

"My soul shall not be bought,"
Is a declaration not an "Oh, I ought to."
Tangled in some narrative, stuck like glue;
Convention is convention
Regardless of where it's acted out,
Chugging a cheap beer or slinging back a stout.

Let the wild eyed lemurs out!

Femurs shriek ****** ******,
Shin splits from sprinting to get coffee creamer.

Benz,
Bentley,
or
Beamer?

Out of place in small town USA,
But the monster makes itself the new normal.
Wear jeans to the semi-formal, but
The after party is her call.

To make the future or **** it all?
Is life an experiment or a free for all?
Is it neither? Is it nothing at all?

Squeezing the eyes out of a stress ball,
Touch pleasing thighs as the curtains draw...

Ka-caw! Ka-caw!
I am, I am a triumphant toucan!
Flapping wings flowing fluttery alchemy,
Making circles out of straight lines,
Crafting stories out of blank mind.

It comes in time, I guess,
The mess of me cleaning itself up gradually
Only to regress under sea level again
And again, becoming a canyon,
The slow deposition, the bearer of men.

Redheaded and clucking mother hen
Drinking hot water, honey, and lemon,
Patronizing old explorers like Magellan.

Tune into the past, oh sugar sweet one,
Inflicting beatings with flagellum,
Stealing treats and eating them,
Mountain peaks and chewing gum.

Puh-*** puh-***-***!
Our heads make good drums,
And our bleating makes good melodies.

Can you teach me the song of the trees?
Can we at least save the bees?

Nectarine mornings and small, knobby knees..
Mommy, please, put my hair in pig tails!
Pick up the worms off the sidewalk,
Watch out for the snails.

Lay me down into a hay bale;
I'll send you snail mail from
My heavenly little hell.

What's that smell;
My baby blanket or an ex-boyfriend
Lingering underneath my nose hairs?
In smoking scents do memories construct their lairs.

Do I have a care?
Do I have to care?
Is it a curse to be aware?
Is it a curse to think that, to dare?

Something fragile hangs in the air.

Teeth grind, sweaty night mares,
Water and oil, oh! What a pair.

Fingers uncoil from around your neck:
Slender ghostly feelers beckoning,

"Come destroy yourself with me."

Cast my body out to sea,
Playing saccharine melodies, but
Send my soul out separately.

*******br>Why does it make us stupid, huh
I wish it was a formula
But nothing’s free
Most of the guys will agree with me
Y’all will say it’s a unicorn
Y’all will say it heals
The way that I feel
It’s difficult to conceal
It’s also a meal.

*******br>It confounds us, huh
Also called the puh
And called many names
I love it when y’all hide it behind your Hanes
Your Way
Was that too cliche?
I’ll stop
Hypnotize me while that puh pop
Make that thing drop
Ooh, she freaky
She can’t be stopped

*******br>What it feel like
I don’t know
I just seen a glimpse
Of a girl’s bush
That made me go limp
It **** sure wasn’t presidential
She thought her Puh was transcendental
Please
More like it should be confidential
She was a **
And she knew it
And that was the moment that I realized
*******br>Was a formula:
Wait until you’re ready for that curricula

(Puh)

“The power to perceive something impossible persuades me. I must pick a place.” The Clairvoyant Gulch.

This person pounds the ground with persistence. A penchant to procreate perception. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

Passing away into peach fuzz and polyandry. Pretty Polly plans to participate in the process. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

Princess Penelope ****** on Polly. Paczki the predator penetrates the preposterous Polly.
The Clairvoyant Gulch.

The President of the Polyandry Psychics proposes: let Polly go but only with the presentation.
The Clairvoyant Gulch.

The Polyandry People peer and pry for what will Polly present. The poor prissy presents her *****. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

She placidly plucks the ***** to pay the People. But she then panics and pours pomegranate red over a ***. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

The *** then becomes an urn so precious that the People pray. Polly feels penitent of her peccadillo. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

The President points to the urn. Paczki the predator places ingredients into the ***: pig’s tail, pesto and plantar’s wart. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

The Polyanderthals round about and puke into the ***. Polly prepares a peyote dish that will pause time. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

The President and People consume the ***. It tastes vile and profane, they puke again. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

The Polyantherhals turn around to find Polly unpresent. They **** and pant in confused anger. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

Polly is passing the time, possessing a power within the Earth’s core. Her polyethylene pants protect her from the core’s melting point. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

As for the People, it was not practical for them to be presented such profane magic. Their perception of the universal paradigm had been inverted in perpetuum. The Clairvoyant Gulch.

As for the Polyanderthalic *** of ****** pomegranate juice, the President sold the item through Paypal to a polyandry professor living in Piccadilly. The People never practiced polyandry in perpetuum. Ever again.

~The Clairvoyant Gulch

I am waiting for the moment where I pivot and all that I can envision now is a blacktop and white dotted lines, maybe lanes of rolling white whipped green churning pinwheels going long down the road with a stalk of cud in my mouth can I ever go and unthink like the caramel burnt stained car chair that I rest in as a finger comprised of ash that will collapse in any second and Im telling you its beautiful to let go and see the small blue insects mixed up in a whirlwind of gray flecking flickers that you may capture with a white plastic bag it reads “shoprite” you remember times at the a&p; that was ay-em-*** to toddlers who were smarter to not distinguish between what seems and what is according to the strangers who walk the street, seem foreboding, and yet retreat indoors to steak dinners and why weren’t the tater’s in the oven at half passed six? Maryellen. I told you. I told you patriarchal. I sing from my molehill. My mother always fixed me a cherry pie told me I had the nose of a rodent and so I found my fathers gun, JOhny, white America, puh, would you think I’m on drugs because twenty-one and throw up when looking like chalk smeared on top of cheeks, these bones are feeling a bit decayed wont you examine what you’ve done to…who are you? And nowhere it goes. Nowhere it goes. I sit here im ****** you think it’s a joke but this blurb is worth
Less
Bag of blue sanddollars
Dipped in wax
With a wick
And a pick
A guitar string
And a tick-
Tock
Tick
Tock
Tick


Give it a lick
Peanut butter off a stick
I dunno whats to do or did
But theres a whole lot of mess out there
And we all are using it to smear messages in the listless purple filaments that cloud the sky

I’ve heard admonishments and thin mints in girl scout boxes ive eaten around glass patio tables with blue waters squarely pooled im sure your hair gel is swelling the heart of some hungry shewolf who will nibble or bite or swallow you, I do not know which one is which. But ive heard laments about nations and ignorance and I’m not sure who is more to blame or what could be a solution but to speak largely and loudly id need a microphone and a lot of ears or no a telescope and a broadcaster or better yet digital tools and the internet. Communication is the sopping soggy wet piece of bread that floats in my milk bowl and by the time my orange kitty paws move at it, the loose and expanded bits disintegrate and sink. A sink has a drain that gets clogged and we all must stare at it until it is cleaned and if I’m not the one cleaning my drain then who is the one cleaning my waste?

You sleep they come, you sleep they go. They strike it rich, they take their gold.
They stake your home, you lose your house. Their life may change, you’ll lose it all. Ouchita surplus garbanzo bonanza. Milky white thistle caterpillars encircling State Farm. Around the rosy, redness blooms. First in a scratch, then flooding soon. You they watch, they watch you halved. First, you gave up plastic bags. Now plastic straws, and soon a water tax. The facts may might farriers to make haste with maize, face fate with rays of sun plants, and laughter, goodness stitched into new seeds we need to sew. New pith to chew our speed and seed pods back into. New buckets to hide the tragedies we’ve given into. Peace test, speed test. Time’s up and the beast continues. Some starve heading the tables of ancient feasts, infeasible feats that backroom recording darkness flows to fever grips in crimson-painted streets throw whim through. Chief prisoner that we’ve turned into? Where come we when new winds throw her Earth down, to see this missing blessed ‘being where unshucks from mystery and hide of humans’ rind, polls the throes in wheat to patrol these streets, puh lease don’t let this be the sh*t new DJs push their interdigital civics' symptom just to watch their hips get prompted down.

Who wants to be prompted. Particularly not we. Not now. Not a present. Not of precedent, and certainly not with this incredibly myopic disorderly gag borderer promulgating fact-less el ordeals. Wish these weren’t our ideals? Think again.

Faster than air conditioning units plucked out from under eaves, suspense is just injustice suspect from corruptness. Untouchable blood mensches, Houdini's that’ve come straight down the drain to take The Duchess. Forget smoke relief, screens between players in the first box, and the fellas driving the hearse, box first to fifteen with a given chance to clock down at the top if there’s a draw or otherwise start in at the Bell and pick up as many two or three rounds need to be until one side forgets why it needed to stand up to be put down, so then the Reader’s can connect with a truth mercurial and persistent with which needs to be more regularly achieved. Parts in pieces, or even just pieces in parts. If we don’t start to look at the pieces we’re never gonna figure this all out. We’re never going to make it to the paper on the sidewalk reminding us why we’re wandering around waiting to find a piece of paper to tell us everything, because look left, look right, and then turn around, answers to the questions you seek have never been more available than today.

Are Professions the opposite of
Confessions? My shrink said perhaps we can deal with this in other sessions.

What is a fession?
I think this a good
Question.

Is it better to be *******
Than it is to be ****** on?

Is it pronounced *** can,
Or as I like to say puh kahn?


After all, I thought a *** can was
Something you would assign
Everyone on a long trip to make
Better time.


Wouldn't it be cool if dinosaurs
Were mammals and had fits
Over which had the tiniest
Arms, but yet had the biggest
                          ****?

T-Rex. Yes, definitely T-Rex.
She would have won contests.


But no, they had none. And Mr. T-
Rex was so ******. Not for this, but
Because he couldn't reach his gun;
U know what I mean, his appendage.

Why do we drive in "parking" lots?
Why do we call them buildings still?
They are built. Alone in my thoughts?
Why do we "park" in driveways? Fill

                                    In
                    ­              Your
                               Answers
                                      If
                ­                      U
                                   Will.

His teeth were ochre pebbles
From the smoking of His pipe—
He bowed down to my bleeding feet
And sang God-awful tripe
“Life is but an odyssey,
  Can’t you open your eyes and see?
  A lot of it is smoke and mirrors
  But the rest is truly ecstasy!”
He tapped my crimson, gushing foot and got up from His knees
To sit down in His musk-rose bed where He settled His old head.

My face began to boil red until I could no longer contain my head and I burst out
at my Old Man hoping it’d make blood flood from His hands!

“Just who the **** do you think you are, God?
How can you say you see?
You know nothing of the Earth
And the nightmares that it breeds!
Did you notice Abu Ghraib,
the torturers’ many ways?
How theft is easy for gangsters
While children starve for days?
Puh!
You just sit here on your musk-rose
Cuddling its soft, fuzzy petals,
You’re nothing but a spoiled child
Who has never desired to run wild!”

And at this, Father whispered from his bed,
“Capricious, I have been
  But I cannot be blamed.
  People choose their lots in life
  For free will is their fame.
  If I gave them acres of land and
  a home that doesn’t weather,
  their bones would turn to tether.
  You think I owe everyone the world,
  And all the fruit it grows,
  But the sweetest peach you reach yourself,
  And this you already know.”

When my Father’s words had stopped
My eyes caught the throbbing wounds;
The skin blanketed the open flesh
And Dad said, “The infection won’t heal soon.”

Please just tell me
One more time

Breath, just breath
B-R-E-A-T-H- BREATH

No, not so fast!

So I breathe in slow but instead of breathing in
the light
and breathing out the anxiety
I breath in more anxiety the anxiety of breathing in and only getting more anxiety gives me anxiety

so I hold it
I hold my breath until every sound every figure dulls and blurs and fades with me

Til my heart-rate slows until my body aches for air, it cries for air but my cry for peace is much greater and even at the greatest sense of alarm my will to quell the never ending buzzing in my heart shuts the creature down and gives into the mind

The second hand becomes is millisecond hand the world fades... the buzzing stops.

But ****, I gotta breath. I breath in a swarm of bees- a hive in my chest every second aches me and every modern inconvenience a sting to chest.

So maybe, just maybe, the whole "breathing thing" doesn't help



Puh-lease just tell me one more time
one MORE time
that it's all in my mind,

all in my head, all in MY control, tell me tell me TELL me.

I cannot wait, for me, CEO, Commander-in-chief, owner and operator of this broken terrestrial vehicle, this flimsy floppy bipedal flesh sack that some tainted white-light was poured into by some divine comedy to call the man in charge that oh-so-happy-hoppy dopamine and ORDER him

to GET ******* pouring and while you're at it go and fire Cpt. Cortisol he can't tell the cunting difference between a fire and a ****.

Please send me more motivational quotes so I can "Go get 'em" and remember that "every failure is just a learning experience" and to "**** the haters"

but how do I **** myself?

**** myself... maybe that will bring me down... give me 20 minutes OH WHO AM I KIDDING give me 30 seconds

I mean, really anything to soothe the bees


Why don't you go ahead... go ahead, advise me on what to do

Tell me about how sometimes you have bad days-
tell me it's hard for you to go from work to yoga to the gym to your friends house then home with only a hour left and still decide to make lunch for the next day (to maintain that ideal diet) about the difficulty you face in getting up from the couch from that point of utter exhaustion that desire to sit still and consume bright lights until your night light becomes day lights... but you got up anyway!

INSIPIRATIONAL!  

All the while I cried in bed.

Why? Who ******* knows. Wait, wait, wait... you're telling me sometimes sheer existence isn't enough to destroy you? You're telling me you can draw a straight line from event to emotion every time? You're telling me you don't lie to your coworkers about what you're doing for lunch so that you can go to your car and drive to the NEXT parking lot over only to be alone in the uncomfortable quiet of your car where you can just sit and scroll and scroll and scroll where nothing can distract you from distracting yourself?

oh.

Well, this is awkward.


OH! OHHHH! Run! Drink water! OPEN AIR!?

HOW HAS THIS CONCOCTION ESCAPED ME FOR SO LONG? I should have listened more in Sunday school.

So here I am running and sweating and drinking only for the water to turn right into sweat that stings the chaffed skin under my eyes from rubbing plum-colored bags waiting for that genie to come out and grant me sleep. Sprinting. Violating my body's every signal to chill the **** out, like I've ever listened.

And honestly- I think it spooked the bees. I think they froze in fear over the tossing and jostling of their home.

I stop to breath, to **** in more anxiety, so I must run more.

So I run, and breath and stop to heave in more anxiety then run some more.

And I run and will run until I think of some better way or hear some better advice or die or whatever makes you comfortable with this line - what do you want to hear? Fade? Vaporize? Stop?

Well now I'm exhausted and drowning in the water I drank. Thanks.

For now I'll be the world's greatest actor. The charlie chaplin of masochism!

You were right all along, it's all under my control. I could've pretended long ago!

Any other ideas?

Isn't it a bit ironic
In my older age
That more and more
Males are on the ****** rampage?
I'm not going to lie and say I'm an angel
Cause In high school, man, I was mental
I was crazy
Me and my friends talked about girls daily
Who’d get that puh?
Who's a freak
Who's a ****?
All this because they see a g-string up her ****
Sad
But me on the other hand,
I was a geek
I was shy
But I had hormones too
I felt for them
But instead of saying
“When you gonna let me hit that?"
Or
“****, that *** is fat!"
And give it a slap
I befriended said girls
I didn't know why
I now think it's irony
That they'd be associated with a guy with me
With that being said
Brethren, keep your hands off
The female body.

Babe
Baby
Bunny
Boo
I"ll be
Please
Can I
be
Puh puh
lease
biaaa
beautiful

Jittery, jittery,
My skin knows
When I don't know
Where I am.

Acting like I've been through this
Lands me between
Amateur and professional.
Pick your choice.

Round one...
Rules, regulations, and blood
Pin me on a cushion.
(Squeeze)
One pump of blood through a tube,
And squeeze again.
I can't shake the feeling,
The feeling shakes me.
There goes
Some of me to restore
Hope and vivacity.

Two...
I know how everyone
Has their own definition
For them...
But really?
Twirling the hairs on my chin
Just to remind myself of masculinity?
Puh-lease. It's gotta go.
I don't care if my razor is a manual,
My "beard" never looked right anyway.
(Strokes along shaving-cream spots)
Owwwwww!
I had to apply cream twice
To shave the hairs in the under-corners
Of my jaw
And to clot the blood
For just two figurative seconds.
Paper towel after paper towel after...
The trash is red,
The tile floor has blood circles
Forming a macaroni path
From my dorm room to the sink.

One could play connect the dots
On the sorry face of mine.
I looked like a quiet ******
With each rub and dab I ran
Along the blood eruptions,
Not slowing for me to catch them.
Blood gravitated
Toward the skin inside my shirt collar.
If life really is a game,
I hate this round, match, etc.
Bound by ethics
To clean the ruins from the battle of hygiene,
I had to at least see
If a paper towel could suction
To the blood tears on my face
So I could use my hands.
Catching my look in the sink mirror,
I looked like a desperado
Wounded along a tight bandana,
Around a mouthless casualty.

I guess the Anglican insert of "******"
Makes some sense,
Since most things come about
Through blood and words.
Sometimes for me
It can feel good not to feel good
Just to remind myself I can still feel
The world around me.

For all that blood does and for the many times
It leaves the body,
It's too bad it can't escape
It's own cells.

How I hate to be a “poet”
Hate the sound of it,
“Puh” forced and lazy,
“Oh” as if it were surprising to be male and have emotion.
“It” as though verse were not infinite.
No I am simply ,
Floating endlessly over waves of lyrical truths.
Swept up in the gusts of life.

Teachers miss days all the time
They catch a cold or simply need a day off
And a substitute sits in their place
When it’s time for attendance, I sit up in my chair
They read down the list and everyone raises their hand, “Here!”
Then, there is a pause in the subs voice; a hesitation
That is my queue.
I get ready to be asked how to pronounce my name
First and last
And tell them my nickname, as well
To minimize confusion
“It's pronounced Jo-haw-nuh Marshall-Puh-lie-yo”,
But you can call me Joey”

No one, not even substitutes, ever mess up the “Marshall”
The “Pelayo” is what gets them
Not that it offends me
I like to correct them and say it the right way
It makes me feel unique and different
A good different

I simply have a long name that’s hard to pronounce
And going by Joey makes life easier
For other people, anyway

“Marshall”
Long ago spelled “Marschal” with a “c” and a single “l”
And Americanized to be “Marshall”
It’s not hard to spell or pronounce
It is an easy, common name
I live in the US, so the name Marshall is my everyday life
An ordinary, American last name
Nothing that makes people stutter or stop on the name sheet

Then there is the “Pelayo” in my name, from my father’s side
Originally from Spain, and later Mexico
The people who gave me my darker complexion and affinity for the Hispanic culture
I grew up eating Mexican food on occasions
Not a crazy amount, though enough to know it and enjoy it
I also attended Spanish-immersion school
And learned Spanish alongside English
This allowed me to feel more connected to my roots
And give me an edge in future Spanish classes
Estoy eternamente agradecida.

The two names, joined together with a small hyphen
Although little in size, this hyphen is a part of who I am
A combination of my mother and father
Latina y Blanca
Hispanic and White
A blend of two amazing cultures and families
A decision that I am glad my parents made
Giving me a beautiful, yet tough name to say aloud
That everytime my teacher is absent, I get to correct a sub
And remind myself of who I am and who I get to represent

I will always be Johanna Marshall-Pelayo
But you can call me “Joey”