it’s cold now.
it was warmer back in january,
the sky was made of bleach,
falling on our heads and christening us
angels.

i put a *** of water on for tea,
take out a pick, and carve out
iceblocks to hold the moon
in. a bird is painted into the
snowbanks, its eyes popping
from the force of july’s fever.

giving up on the idea of
mac and cheese or chicken noodle
soup, something substantial,
i order chinese takeout. the deliveryman’s
lips are purple. i eat it cold, like
it’s meant to be.

I don't need a man who wants a princess
I don't need those expectations
I won't paint my nails or wear high heels

I want someone who will understand
That some days are just for sitting indoors
Playing video games and ordering takeout

Sometimes you just want to hang out
Watch a horror movie or write a poem
I want someone who can understand some days are slow

I also want them to know that some days are fast
Sometimes you just need the rush of riding a skateboard or throwing a frisbee
Sometimes you just need to feel the notes of a guitar till your hands are numb

I don't want someone who thinks I am only silent and reserved
Because I will crush you in your favorite games
I will tire you out with my favorite things

I don't want someone who thinks they are temporary
I will write about you and immortalize you through my art
Keep your expectations away and I'll surprise you every day

Hair burned into beautiful submission
Face acrylically defined and chemically composed
Adornments meticulously chosen
Scent tested and approved
Smile practiced and performed
I am a porcelain doll
Sipping tea, at 6 am in the quiet of a sleepy-city apartment
Porcelain doll dainty wrists
Washing dishes, feeding cats
Folding linens, singing hymnals
Praying for peace and safety
Porcelain doll knitting sweaters
And folding paper cranes
Reading poems, setting tables
Wearing cardigans and pearls
Porcelain doll decorating cupcakes
Lighting scented candles
Watering potted plants and humming childhood lullabies
With my porcelain painted lipstick mouth


But lipstick can be dark
Eyes lined black as city alley ways
There is anger at injustice
The world outside the confines of a pastel doll house
It’s messy
It’s hard
It’s iron and concrete and coal
And I am too
Biking through the brick metropolis
Sunglasses and headphones
And anarchist literature
Evenings spent sprinting through the smog
Heartbeats synchronized to the crude drumming of the city
So hard to impress
I’m on the metro
Eyebrows structured and defined
And adorned with a calculated air of apathy
See me social justice march
Down highways with fervently entitled youths
See me armed against misogyny
Until my peers learn to better conceal it
See me smoking cigarillos
Drinking black coffee
Breathing the tainted air of the city that birthed me
And chanting manifestoes.

But my manifesto can be love
And love can conquer anger and fear
And hatred
Love can reconcile, it can erase timidity
And it can abolish resentment
Let it wash my face and take the need for vengeance from my spirit
Let it replace the thirst for power with thirst for truth.
I burn incense
And wear long skirts
Naked face and braless lazy days
Reading pacifism in the park
I walk far to find pure air to breathe
I sit and deconstruct my dichotomy
Under a wise and ancient tree
I trace myself backwards and forwards
I meditate on the paths I have traveled
I cry for the things I have seen
And for the things I have done
I contemplate transcendence
I drink wine and listen to folk music
On the terrace of my home
I bike barefoot to buy Indian takeout
And eat it in silence on the floor of an empty room

I think only of death
And resurrection
Of betrayal and redemption
Of opposites and compliments
And how to progress in knowing how divergent pieces of myself can learn to harmonize
I think about minimalism and materialism
Sentimentalism
And swords and pens
And how this race I run was rigged from the start
I think about blackberries
And the complexity of their literary and symbolic significance
I think about the number seven as I see it reoccurring in every possible sequence and equation
I think about God,
And TS Eliot
And If I dare disturb the universe
I think about porcelain dolls and ****** activists and ***** hippies
I think about war and peace and politics
About corruption and poverty and imperialism
About western ideals and conspiracy theories
And communism
I think about being radical,
And how both sides of this ideological war are defined by fear
And I think about love, as radical but defined by the absence of fear
The absolution of fear
And how I am fairly certain it is the answer
I think about the inevitability of art and war
how they create each other
how they destroy each other
inspire each other and annihilate each other
and how there is nothing that is innocent.
I think about pain and privilege
And stacked decks of cards
I think about dreams and nightmares
And prophesy.
I think about the darkness within me
Tendencies to lie and manipulate and steal
The darkness that I know could make me very great
But alone in the ashes of the world
I think of the curse of wealth and power
And I try to evaluate my motives
And the driving force of my ambition
But I don’t know.
I think about grace and all the things I don’t understand
And toil and fate and destiny
The shape of these things, their origins and culminations
And what this black box of secrets contains.
I think about so many things,
Until everything I was on the outside is gone.
My body is gone
My painted face and sculpted hair
My varnished nails and pierced ears
All my clothes and appendages and freckles are gone
My blood evaporated
My brain an invisible energy in the wind.
My home and street
And city
Are gone.
And even in such complete concentration
When it is only my essence and nothing else
And I transcend throughout my past and future
When I am spread thin
And stretched into the corners
When I fill the cracks and crevices
And melt into the pores of everything
And my spirit is awaked to a dimensionless reality
Even then,
Scio Nihil

I know nothing. .

or "let's order takeout,"
or "small ineptitudes in the kitchen"


1.

butter
lop
it liberally
silver clinging

scrape it
pan side
sputters and hissing
smoky?

turn the heat
down
crimsoning
elemental

browning the
butter


2.

sizzling whites
diaphanous
stiffly whitened

bubbles surface
spatula stroking
poly—

tetrafluoroethylene
roll the egg
yolk

shattering
yellow


3.

****! the water
nothing—
evaporated

gasping
blue effluvium
windows
fanblades

blackened ***
the bite of a
char upon
it

tea for
tomorrow

Everybody’s rushing with their lives
So they take what’s easy
They takeout Chinese food for dinner
They find the song they like online
They read the synopsis instead of the book
They say good night too early only to find themselves awake at 2 am
looking for someone to talk to
They make 3-in-1 cups of coffee
They type, they forget to write
But you darling, you’re not made for the “now”
You’re not made to-go
You’re not made for takeouts
You’re for later
You’re for enjoying lunch for an hour
You’re watching sunsets for dinner
Because time will never run out
for something that is not meant for the time being
Let’s take this moment in and stay still
We’re not for now
We don’t need to figure out how
Because darling, we’re not made for now.

I don't know you
I don't know how you feel right now
or how you feel about the current state of the nation
I don't know how you like your coffee
or whether you prefer drip over pressed
I don't know the lyrics to your favorite songs
or if you like progressive rock or indie
I don't know your favorite restaurant
or if your prefer Chinese takeout and fast food
I don't know where your next adventure will be
or if you prefer to stay at home
I don't know if you like mayonnaise
or whether you like mustard on your hot dog sandwich
I don't know what you think about in the shower
or what you think about when you're washing the dishes
I don't know what keeps you up at night
or if you're the kind of person who falls asleep right away
I don't know your deepest most vulnerable secrets
or your hopes and dreams and your crazy ideas
what I do know is your heart
and maybe they tell you you have no feelings
that you can't be moved or touched
but I know that not showing them
doesn't mean you don't have them at all
we have the same heart and that's okay
everything will be okay.

I sat on a curb in a parking lot,
surrounded by friends,
eating cheap Thai takeout.
I looked and saw my legs
expand against the rough concrete.
"I have fat thighs" I say.
"so?" he says.
"all girls do"
But he is not right
I have seen girls with slim,
willowy thighs that do not even touch.
There are girls with smooth hard thighs
that do not jiggle or tremble
thighs that have lines and shape.
Backstage one night, in a dress
that made my breathing come short,
I complained about its tightness,
blamed it on myself.
She laughed and said
"god, I would **** to be as skinny as you"
Truthfully,
I do not know what I look like
I know an ever-changing image
trapped in cold glass
and soft pale pieces
that conform to my touch
but I have never seen myself,
not really,
and I never will.
So I won't ever know,
no, not really,
how I appear to others.
"you're too pretty for that"
Am I too pretty for the
sticky lips and swollen eyes?
"how do you stay so thin?"
I'm on a great new diet
it's called 'I hate myself'
"I wish I looked like you!"
but god, do you know how it feels?
how each second is self-conscious
--more; it's self hatred
how sustenance is a numbers game
how your friends laugh
when you order a salad
("oh my god, really? again?")
and how it cuts right to the very center
of what makes you human and whole.
You wish you looked like me?
I wish I knew what I looked like.

She said I was her second favorite.
Not that she'd met a better man,
but that way she left room for

improvement.

She wanted to believe in fidelity
like someone wants to believe
in Jesus or pure justice.

She asked my complex thoughts--
the wordless ones. I asked for an explanation.
She only stared, and I realized I
couldn't tell if her eyes were
green or blue.

She stabbed her ice with a straw
and told me to stop calling it love--
what we were making. That was
fine. I had a few other terms in mind.

She said nightlife and fanfare were
for homosexuals. So, we spent
most evenings eating Chinese takeout
in a rented room.

She vomited on the Fourth of July,
while fireworks erupted. I sat in
a lawn chair, and tried to remember
how she looked in that black A-line dress.

She needed to know my plans for our future.
I said there were endless open doors in front of us.
She said she only heard the sound of a door
closing behind.

She was a free spirit. And I "put it on trial."

She said she needed me

to change the channel.

She said when we ended -- and we would end --
I'd learn a valuable lesson:
a woman is the only creature
that doesn't have to die to haunt you.

rip my heart out darling
but first, let's order takeout.

Pinky promises
and praying to goddesses
a picture of your friends on the sagging shelf
and I know I love you
so much more than you could ever,
ever love yourself.
We plucked wild bluebells
and got sick in the winter-time breeze
I'll pick you up
when you fall down
I'll patch up the scrapes on your knees.

Sugar coated candy
turned into your mother's brandy
still over indulged
but I will be here
year after year
you'll always have someone to hold.
Can't leave you out in the cold
no matter how angry you can be.
Takeout boxes,
a key in your locks and
always a place for me in your coral sheets
we roam the city in outfits too tight
we hold hands in the streets.

Only a fool
when I'm in your room, lose our cool
laughing as our middles concave
with your hand in mine
I've always felt so brave.
We were girls together
and that will never change.

I fell

[through hugs and kisses,
arguments,
Italian takeout,
suits and dresses,
texts at 2 am,
summer karaoke nights,
missed curfews,
coffee,
****** movies,
classic '70s songs,
stairs,
health food and vegetables,
fights,
antagonism,
test scores,
spaceships,
and happiness]

in love.

She sits in the stands
Up in the nosebleed section
Cheering wildly, admiring her boys
In red and white
While he is under her hood
With soot-covered hands
Making sense of and fixing
Her mechanical mess.

Later on, she makes his favorite meal
To show him how much she loves him
But he shows up with takeout
And complains about how long it took
Just to replace the starter
In her red Corolla.

There's a difference between
Admiration
And love.

Hairline cracks are breaking through
the slough I'm about to shed.
Dry and dysfunctional
as the neuron sac in my skull.

I'll change my hat and change my ammo
honeysuckle artillery polished,
waiting in my drawer.

Sliding an empty coffee mug
back and forth along a counter
like a puck preparing for a slapshot.

Paper matches in colourful books
pressed between the pages
found leaves for child arsonists.

Takeout boxes filled with poems
are sold as artefacts
Don't be silly, poetry comes in plastic bags,
not styrofoam.
To keep ideas hot, wrap them in tinfoil.
But don't forget to leave a hole at the top for steam
or your fresh concepts will get soggy.

Equipped with tennis *****,
spandex suits picket office blocks
standing on chairs and voicing nearly racist remarks
making health and safety inspectors nervous.

Out of control students
launch dictionaries out of third story windows,
donning 21st century masks.

I left my patience beside my keys, on the kitchen table.
Waiting in line for obsolete phone booths
as movie stars soundlessly mouth slang into a receiver.

Nearly responsible
nearly nine
nearly time for bed

I resolve again
that I’ll resolve more
but this time write it down.
Folding kamikaze paper planes
to hide behind park benches, fly into trees.
Let the sun fade the pencil crayon.
I can't run from this blasé gangrene that’s taken my toes.

In this life, I have seen the valley of broken dreams filled with the souls of taqueria entrepreneurs. I have seen gleaming grills, Hispanic frills, greasy thrills. I have seen spirit thrive in the eyes of men armed with bank loans and family recipes. I have eaten their food, delicious beyond necessity. I have experienced the magic of taquerias and restaurants.

And I have seen that magic die.

I've observed the life unfold, unfurl with a magic to behold. I have seen that magic served in a half-empty restaurant that Frontera has outsold. I have had the magic gone, replaced by payday lenders and takeout from Taiwan. I have seen empty storefronts and the straggling last days of taqueria entrepreneurs. And I grieve every time at the lost loans and lost hopes left behind. But tonight, there will be no grieving. Instead,

Let us eat magic in their memory, enjoy the grease that will surely send us to infirmaries. Let us celebrate the time they had, the tortas, tamales, and leftovers taken home in a bag. Let us celebrate the doomed Mexican restaurants.

I fell in love with the mornings
and waking up to breakfasts in bed
drinking coffee only you would know how to make

I fell in love with noon
and the lunches we had together
talking about the latest news over takeout

I fell in love with the afternoons
and the times we spent reading on the couch
eating every word interrupted by coffee stains

I fell in love with the nights
and our stupid little adventures
driving aimlessly and getting lost on the highway

I fell in love with the midnights
and talking to you about anything and everything
watching you stare at my mouth listening to every word

I fell in love with the moments
and everything in between the beginning and the end
wishing I could still spend them with you

I fell in love with the sound of your voice
and the feel of your existence
but I am not in love with you.

although we don't speak anymore
and we have every right not to
i still wonder how you are
from time to time

i wonder what you think about
i wonder how you're doing
last i heard it wasn't so great
are you feeling better?

i wonder what you do to pass the time
i wonder who your friends are now
and what you do together
are you doing alright?

i wonder if your plans have changed
i wonder if you still like the music you did
or if you've found something new
are you okay?

but i think
most of all
even if it's as just a friend
or someone to talk to

i wonder if you miss me

Late at night when I’m alone in my cinder block room
I think about what could have been.
I think back to watching our favourite shows in a warm basement
And talking about what happened during third period last Thursday
Now I’m drinking in a dimly lit common room
Talking about what happened at that party last Friday
I like it here
But I wish I could take a break from the hazy nights filled with the wandering eyes of mysterious strangers and kisses that taste like *****
And get back to what could have been
So that maybe our eyes could have met for just a little bit longer.

On early mornings when clouds darken the view out of my window
I think about what could have been.
I think back to reading Shakespeare in the library
And wondering why the future seemed so far away
Now I’m reading Othello on an ivy and limestone campus
And that unreachable future is right now
I like it here
But I wish I could take a break from studying until the sun rises and philosophy majors slipping me their numbers
And get back to what could have been
So that maybe we could have stayed alone in the high school hallway for just a little bit longer.

On Sunday afternoons when the hallways are eerily silent
I think about what could have been.
I think back to ordering takeout at midnight
And laughing at each other’s jokes even if they weren’t that funny
Now I’m eating noodles out of a mug because I ran out of bowls (again)
And laughing at how you would be teasing me about this right now
I like it here
But I wish I could take a break from Styrofoam meals and coffee dates with boys from tutorials
And get back to what could have been
So that maybe we could stay at the diner down the road for just a little bit longer.

On Tuesdays in lecture halls where remarks on Romans echo through the auditorium
I think about what could have been
I think back to what should have been
And long for what possibly would have been
I packed my bags and headed down a long stretch of highway
You captured the city skyline with a camera
I like it here
You like it there
But I hope that one day we’ll get a break from it all
And with a degree in one hand and certainty in the other
We’ll take what could have been
And make it into what’s ours
For maybe more than a little bit longer.

It was not love at first sight. When you walked into the room the rest of the world did not slow down. There was no movie magic moment where our eyes met and I knew that you were the only girl I was ever going to fall in love with. Instead you were longing at first glance, yearning for a love that I never could have imagined before. I couldn’t picture our wedding or growing old together but I could vividly see the two of us together. Cuddled under blankets reading on a Sunday night. Decorating our apartment for Halloween. I could see Indian takeout in bubble baths with three cats curled up beside the sink. You were not love at first sight but you were better, you were real. You made love believable. I never had faith in finding a fairytale romance but in you I found forever. A reality of two souls bound together by a force neither of them can explain. You may not have been my love at first sight but you’re my love in every glance since. It’s heartbreaking that I can only look at the world through rose coloured glasses while you live in a world so far from make believe.

My brain is your atomic nuclear warfare paintings
All the while you face-lift X-box babies
Needle-thread we're dead babe don't you make a man crave
For things he can't quite understand but doesn't want to hit the hand.
Severance is fiction in the hands of friction,
****** deviance and erratic disobedience,
Covers the covers like a silk-screen layout
Jack it up and crack it up to be ****** up takeout.

Oh yeah? Well over we're starving ripping pieces off the mountains
Dentistry mythology, who needs a medical degree?
The label on the box said the tape was all in my head
But I don't hear a ******* sound except the fire all around
Grass is misleading and graffiti complaining
The AK is God here and through towns we're raiding
You think you got it so bad this is all the life we ever had
And don't you ever stop by cause our values are just alibis.

Okay, enough! This is all a double feature burger for here or to go
This is all a Catholic preacher in a Red Cross rodeo
Life is an airplane flying overhead carrying passengers with nothing in their heads
And turning all the lights out and pulling all the blinds down so they can't see the truth.
Disguise misguide and everything in between
Have you seen the ***** film with Jenna Haze and Jimmy Dean?
Garden salad, Diet Coke, check now and choke
Give us our bombs so we can run and go and rig the new VOTES.

Let me run it by the city council one more time
We're seeing flying cars and houses of cards and stumbling and tumbling
And rumbling and rumoring the hilarious splinter consumering
Maneuvering, assuming bottles fly with seagull eyes
The trees burn here like candy canes and run in the grass like membranes
Toxic fumes and entrails for reasoning and cold shame
Shudder at the thought of a shutter in a hot fuzz tee shirt worn by the slick insane
Generating heaterpuppy psychologic fragile now, undertow, the fifth row in the theater at the Apollo.

She gives us fevers and wraps us in time. She is the newlywed- our metamorphosis. Death clings to her open grave. Her movements are the executions of precarious and docile prejudice, ganged upon, and drenched in oblique misunderstanding and very indirect confusion.

We are all grocery shopping now. Your weapons of delivery are broadcast in takeout, Chinese or Szechuan Broccoli Scenario #96:

Where your mother finds I have taken the Mercedes for morning lemonade stand gallivanting, early Beach Boys mixtape scenarios fulfilled.

Sometimes you make me feel like a Chinese takeout bag.
I leave the building filled with holes and all I say is “thank you thank you thank you”.

It has no business here!
That salty ochre, pallet-chorus,
Clear plastic red dotted sachet!

Your lust for condiments freaks me out,
Buddha-girl, eat your meal.
Time won't run out so quickly
Nor your intelligence nor your zeal.

Pursed lips slurp a bowl of noodles,
I think of your warm hands
And banks of rivers, and cigarette quivers
Ashes falling to black sand.

Happy as a clam in an oyster's shell
Life is one fell swoop.
Give me the keys, you doe-eyed girl,
For time is wonton soup.

step one.)
say goodbye to your mornings, don’t grieve them
set your alarm for an ungodly hour, no breakfast
drink your coffee, try not to taste it. the caffeine is all you need
sit at your desk and complete your tasks
attach your self worth to numbers :)
don’t think about it

step two.)
work during your lunch, eat your silly little tasks away
your worry will go away if you keep working
look. look at everyone working harder than you
compare yourself to them immediately
unrealistic expectations? standards too high?
look. look at them again. they did it. why can’t you?
compare your worst to their best :)
overthink it

step three.)
stay late. try to be the last one there. your superiors will be so impressed!
count up the number of tasks you have completed!
now count up the number of tasks you still have to do :(
eat take out for the third time this week
don’t worry about your arteries, those silly tasks are more important
ignore calls from your family, you have an important call waiting!
you’ll call them back. your phone dies -_-
stop thinking

step four.)
drive home exhausted. might be dangerous, but who else is on the road this late?
only your competition.
fret about the silly little tasks you have when you get home
you’ll take some of the tasks from your desk to try to beat the rush tomorrow
your bed is covered in tasks. your laundry is overflowing;
clothes stained with takeout and coffee you didn’t taste
complete your tasks. don’t worry about the sleep you aren’t getting.
there will be coffee in the morning :)
recount your tasks. are your numbers up yet?

don’t think for yourself :)

repeat steps 1-4 until dead.


why aren’t you happy?

and the weather is perfect outside where skin would be just enough.
i want to romp the world with you, naked as the day we were born,
feeling like with you it really is the first day of my life.
we will roll in the grass, and of course you are allergic to everything in nature
don’t worry, darling.
i will soothe your burning, blistering skin with butterfly kisses.
we will skinny dip, even though neither of us are particularly skinny
(we have your favorite chinese mexican takeout place to thank for that)
and i will slap your **** in the semi-darkness, giggling.
watching the sun go down, I will forget what anything feels like on my skin
other than your breath and hands

To F.

You're not the first person I've kissed but you are the first person I want to spend the rest of my life kissing. And it scares me so. I've never been loved - just rejected, at all my attempts of loving, and ever since then I've been afraid, down to the bone, of commitment. Of opening up to someone, of feeling love, of letting myself be loved in return. I've been used and abused, and manipulated, and made fun of. I'm telling you all this so I can emphasize how big a gesture it is on my side to admit that I have feelings for you, that I am willing to make myself vulnerable to you, and to you only. I've been strong for so long that I crave being weak for a little while. So, I'm baring my chest here, and handing you a knife, hoping you won't carve my heart out like the rest of them, scrap whatever remnants of a heart there are from the hole in my ribcage. I've never been domestic, so you need to understand how big a deal it is that I crave your intimacy -- not just having ***, it's not about having ***. I crave waking up next to you, with your arm cuddled to my body, with your leg thrown over my legs: I crave exposing myself to you. Hearing something on the radio and thinking, *Oh, I need to remember this so I can tell him. Seeing something in a window shop and buying it for you just because I know you'll like it. Your being able to order takeout for me from any place, without ever hesitating. Going jogging with you early in the morning, before I've had my coffee and you - your tea. Curling up on the couch watching stupid movies. Touching you just to reassure myself that I'm safe. This, to me, is more intimate than ***. This, to me, is scarier than ***. I used to think I was just lusting after you. Until you held my hand and I knew no one else's hand had ever or would ever fit better in mine. Until you pressed the side of your body to mine like you wanted to be closer to me that physics could allow and I knew I would never feel safer. Until you ran your fingers in circles over my bare knee and I knew this was the most intimate I'd ever felt with someone. Until I read my poetry and you looked at me like I'd put up all the stars in the sky. I am terrified. I am downright cold-blooded terrified of what I feel, and all this, this want, this need that creeps up my body, in every cell. It scares me more than death, more than oblivion, and what scares me even more is that you will take the knife and sink it into my chest down to the hilt, and won't even blink. That you will hurt me like all the rest, that you will leave, or make fun of me, or that you will never love me back. I don't know if love is the right word but I want to know your greatest fears, secrets and desires, and I want you to know mine. I also know I'll never send this to you because I've learned to be strong and to hide my feelings, and to tell myself that this, too, will pass. I'm a coward, because I'd rather be torn up by the pain of watching my love for you die a slow, tortured death than face rejection. I'd rather suffer from the unknown than from the dull, numb hurt of knowing you don't love me. And I will be alone, always. I don't have in me the bravery to face my greatest fear, so I'll let it eat me up. I'll keep myself warm on candlelight because I'm too afraid to light a fire.