but with a liquor tongue & sober head
drafting and redrafting the words stuttering
on my teeth to keep you here
falling backwards on my *** will
prove nothing but that i’m not content
to be anything but in the table of contents
not a side character
in your favorite book
but god i can’t stop tripping
over air and chalked-up asphalt
am i first?
am i the only one? i growl
apologies & maybe’s
but honest to hell i am
filled with vice
glittering with ill-intent
dented craniums
punctured fists
bitten up pen caps
oh sure, you’re inked up pal
but those tattoos for the weak
aren’t going to lift any skirts
her lipstick ain’t gonna paint your mouth
for you
“rosebud”
hah
we walked with ghosts that one time
kicking trash, dodging dead squirrels, singing
punk rock---betting quarters & Arizona cans
to run fast against traffic
looking for words to cause earthquakes
and fault lines in lungs
timestop: graffiti
          i fear the human condition
don’t look at me or i’ll shatter
a powder touch would ****.

Tuesday's picked it out, the three year old envelope
I had dried out for a scrapbook
quite close to rose petals in pattern and fabric.

Symphony number four sings,
he thought I was a little girl when we met but I have
felt like a *****
since birth; the difference is that my privates
came upon a sunset at age eleven
now it is unacceptable to wiggle my *** at every man I see.

God, to have my body change
with the sky. I was supposed to run to my earth-mother
tell her of how I altered the cycle of the moon
but I've waited until now,
month thirty-six of burying his fertilization in myself.

Compared to him, I am so young that
I am dead.

Any year after 1990 has been negated
letters have been written, rewrittten, unwritten in black
marsh pen and the tide of it
is filling high in his eyes. For some time now,
my hands have been on every universe
redrafting what is already supposed in my bright, red ink.  

I have been a woman for seven years
and a ***** for seventeen, but
my daybook just reaches December 2010; I took a man's
thorn so all this blood would begin to matter.

Part of the black magic
is broken.
Words
which flew free as starlings
are now tethered
to faces
and I can picture you writing,
redrafting,
chewing your pencils.
People;
just people.

Her mouth, hot and wet, breathes lies and ***** secrets.

Your mother warned you not to use those words.

Gutter language gushes innocently from the slight part in those glossy cherry lips and teases diamond reflections in the top ridges.  Talk is not cheap.

The dim light swings closer over your shoulder. Are those jewels in her lips, or was that thrill through your body the white panic of a police spotlight?

Pouting lips now slashing through words and trickling filth from the smeared corners are the only thing existing outside this honeyed haze. Your chest rises and falls in the shaky rhythm of those lips crashing against each other and bruising the air.

She will melt into the air and take her disturbing, wonderful raving with her as you are drafting and redrafting the words stuttering on your teeth to keep her here.

Slam your fist forward to those dancing, jerking lips and crack your hand on the mirror. Blood snuggles in the smashed glass lines, the same color. Insane, frothing, living scarlet. Her distorted mouth in the reddened glass crater. Her flared nostrils and thin purple bruise across the bridge. And your eyes. You stare into the mirror and her eyes narrow back. Your mouths stretch and scream in the same piercing wail. The police siren shrieks in commiseration as the strobe touches the mirror and blinds you both.

but with a liquor tongue & sober head
drafting and redrafting the words stuttering
on my teeth to keep you here
falling backwards on my *** will
prove nothing but that i’m not content
to be anything but in the table of contents
not a side character
in your favorite book
but god i can’t stop tripping
over air and chalked-up asphalt
am i first?
am i the only one? i growl
apologies & maybe’s
but honest to hell i am
filled with vice
glittering with ill-intent
dented craniums
punctured fists
bitten up pen caps

oh sure, you’re inked up pal
but those tattoos for the weak
aren’t going to lift any skirts
her lipstick ain’t gonna paint your mouth
for you
“rosebud”
hah

we walked with ghosts that one time
kicking trash, dodging dead squirrels, singing
punk rock---betting quarters & Arizona cans
to run fast against traffic
(this was back when) we wanted
to look for truths in picture books
and lies in the law
chubby fingers & a BIC stick pen
tracing imagined cartoon lives
our speech planned in bubbles

timestop: fastforward
snarling, “oh baby she’s a classic /
          like a little black dress”
with opened siamese mouths /
          rolled out tongue
fingerpainting bruises on skin
with pixie stick smudged thumbs
          “she’s a faded moon /
          but you’ll be faded soon”

between muffled dashboard speakers
streaming swears came the stillness
of carving numbers (each other’s
biography pages)
safety pins hinging on rawed knuckles
forever scarred visual bookmark

waiting for words to cause earthquakes
and fault lines in lungs
what was painted across the wall
in looped ‘*******’ cursive
timestop: graffiti
          i fear the human condition
don’t look at me or i’ll shatter
a powder touch would ****.

reading your name in my thoughts, i hate redrafting
trying to edit you out, so i won't care as much
trying to suppress my doubt, so i won't tear as much
when we're apart
missing you, and missing my commonsense
you have one more chance,
yes, always one more chance.