I offer a few quiet
words under my breath. (1)

“I wish you a tongue
scalded by tea.”(2)
“I was born
of the fist. The hot Irish
Temper.”(3) “I am a master of Escape. Show me a body,
I’ll show you an exit ramp.”(4)

(For,) I want everything
to call me night.(5)

This is the dream where I play
God. And the front door opens(6)
In lakes, floating
logs ignite, burn. All the
fury is finally here:(7)

Once wayfaring strangers(8) as tall as steal as the New York Times(9)
that once they sang from our dark street (10), the song goes: Heart.

Ribcage. Envelope.(11)

______

(1) Adam Falkner, Poem for the Lovers at Pickerel Lake, http://friggmagazine.com/issuethirtysix/poetry/falkner/pickerel.htm

(2) Jeanann Verlee, Guilt, Not Grief, http://www.wordriot.org/archives/4780

(3) Jeanann Verlee, The Brawler, http://www.radiuslit.org/2011/04/09/radius-roger-bonair-agard-jeanann-verlee-adam-falkner/

(4) Joanna Hoffman, On Learning to Open My Eyes, http://www.pankmagazine.com/three-poems-37/

(5) Kallie Falandays, If Morning Never Comes, http://www.pankmagazine.com/two-poems-75/

(6) Benjamin Sutton, Notes from the Daydreaming, http://anti-poetry.com/anti/suttonbe/

(7) Jenny Sadre-Orafai, Treasure In Timber, http://www.pankmagazine.com/two-poems-74/

(8) Lauren Yates, The World According to My Heart, http://usedfurniturereview.com/2013/03/20/the-world-according-to-my-heart-by-lauren-yates/

(9) Robert Gibbons, These Mean Streets, http://www.poembeat.com/fall2011/RobertGibbons.html

(10) Michael Lauchlan, Unseen Larks and Immeasurable Intervals, http://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/march-2013-michael-lauchlan.html

(11) Leigh Philips, Dear New York City, Learn Gentle, http://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/march-2013-leigh-phillips.html

(*) Jeanann Verlee, Good Girl, http://www.thrushpoetryjournal.com/january-2013-jeanann-verlee.html

Your screensaver on your phone was my name spelled out in large, block letters. I avoided you by slipping in early to math and hiding behind lockers and lunch tables. This is the first time I learned to run away.

2. We held hands in the dark, and whispered into each other's ears. Your new girlfriend is sweet. I understand why she is not your secret.

3. I saw fireflies light up in your eyes.

4. I knew you never liked me, but I still kissed you anyways.

5. You told me 6 months ago that you loved boys. I've never been more proud of you.

6. I smiled at you the other day and you ignored my existence. I swear I heard every bone in my body break.

7. You slipped into my back porch door and I smelled a party, midnight, and her on your breath. My hands have never felt clean again. I hope she doesn't love you and her hands feel like knives in your back.

8. You are the recipient of all of my flaws. I'm so sorry you never knew me. Please continue to pray.

9. I think I loved you since the day we exchanged a pencil in sixth grade. I know we will never end up together, but it sure is nice to have a best friend.

10. It was all a mistake. My name burns the roof of your mouth but you continue to drink. You'r drowning in your own bitterness and desperately trying to fill your lungs with her laughter.

12. You were the first boy to ever tell me I was beautiful and truly mean it. I felt the word warm my skin and give me goosebumps. Your "beautiful" held no fine print, no bad intentions... no conditions.

13. You are sunshine and flowers petals tucked into shirt pockets, behind wisps of hair. I wish time had allowed us to...

14. Maybe next time I can muster enough courage to write a poem about the lightning bolts in my own limbs. I am trying to be done waiting on you. I am learning how to love myself.

Maybe I learned it face down into a pillow
          Feeling heavy day old mascara lift off light eyes, salvaging the reputation
that enervates, dead-beat bones. Maybe it was the way
     Boys seized at your hair
         only to learn that man-handling pins down your sanity
Left wondering if he really thought you were a *****.
    Maybe it was how I’d cut
         my knees scaling the rock invested grounds
of the alley between our houses; slitting my legs
     into paper cut towns, rolling with vigor. Maybe it was how you
         Didn’t learn to exist without being wanted
How the right amount of despondent desperation in a voice would launch her hips,
     and they’d sit layered in his smoke and your culpability,
         compulsive, taking in the show. Wishing you hadn’t attended
Or maybe it was how we read each other romance novels
     in the lunchroom, sharing particulars
          of genitals and true love.
Maybe it was the way we learned to be quiet
     our insides begging for touch one more time, the sweetness
          we discovered in the bones of each others backs, in the closeness
I felt when you told me about your relationship with your mother
    Maybe it was the face close, Lips on the side of a neck.
           Fingers run down your spin. His we still aren’t together
I wonder when Haley comes back. The way he alone,
     creates the complete ruination of a half broken body.
           The way I loved him anyway
the way you learn to stay quiet.

From "Unsolicited Advice To Adolescent Girls With Crooked Teeth And Pink Hair" By Jeanann Verlee*

"When a girl with thick black curls who smells like bubble gum stops you in a stairwell to ask if you're a boy, explain that you keep your hair short so she won't have anything to grab when you head-**** her...


Then, head-**** her."

jeanann verlee is on the kitchen table
in a pink mohawk and a polka dot dress
she is racing hummingbirds next to
the onions and the avocado, all
frills and lace and nosebleed and broken glass
like she's chewed a fistful of gravel and
spat out a mouthful of chipped teeth and ******
diamonds