She gained ten pounds of muscle the summer she worked in Alaska.
She’d have that slight tone for the rest of her life –  
a glimmer when she flexed to stock shelves at Vons the next year or to take a turkey out of the oven or to climb a ladder or to carry her sleeping daughter fifteen years later.
A flashing tight tendril of muscle in her triceps.

Kelsey Martinez visits the glory hole at the local Vons
Every afternoon at 3:00
He fills holes in attempts to fill his holes
And walks away a little more empty
With a sharpie on the inside of the stall door he writes
This is The John Wilkes Booth

The ways we **** sometimes kills us inside

Moriah Carter lost her virginity hesitantly
like a semi heterosexual cowboy
Riding *******
Because sometimes we just can’t look our lovers in the face
She knows how sometimes we are objects
Just a means to an end

Amanda Lee Van Zetten thinks about the day she was conceived
How if her parents had done anything besides missionary
Might she have been born differently
How passion might be lost in translation

Do not lose us in translation
We are not math or language
Not some secret cuneiform
We are simple structures of bone and breath

Just ask Kacie Brumley
Who lays awake some nights
Translating her body like braille
The Kafka transformation into blindness
Fingers like antennae
Response like music

We moan like music
We **** like music

I **** like music
There is ***** soul in these *****

If you don’t **** like music
Go to your nearest guitar center
Plug yourself into the nearest distortion pedal
And
Rrrrrrrreeeeeeevvvvive yourself

Remember Janelle Gibson
Who dances like a slow hurricane
Whipping sweat like beach water
To wash away sandy rough places
She knows how to spread the wet

Or Jennifer Smith
Whose body is a fire most days
And she wants someone to kiss her
On the blue part of the flame
She knows how it’s hard to find someone
Willing to touch you like they won’t be burned

Touch us like you know how to put out our fires
But won’t
All this flame is show
All this fire is just some unrequited glow
So you can still see us against a dying sunset

Jaimee Sanders
Is fine ******* in the dark
Knows that we really are like insects
How we feel passionate and blind while the lights are out
But the minute the sun breaks the blinds
We scatter to some new dark space in shame

Forget having perfect bodies
And ******* with the lights out
We are sunsets
That don’t sit well
Like bedrooms in the dark
We are shameful passion

Just don’t regret me in the morning

Toffer doesn’t regret me
After that one night so many years ago
He knows as well as we do
How often we are just fleshy strands of light
Flayed down to some simple structure
Of bone and breath
And the need
To be needed

I want to want someone so badly
Thinking about them helps me sleep at night
He said

So know this
We are fire
And we **** like music
And we **** like shame
And we **** like insects in a dark room

This is how we ****
And it feels good

GLOBAL WARMING?
IDK
BUT 2018 IS A KAT SUMMER


Unce tice, fee tines a mady
****, sorry,
eddie murphy buh-weet flashback....

Once or twice upon a time
  or perhaps
     just maybe
        almost what must be forever

there was a woman
she was WOW
she was WOAH, MAN
  she was MEOW

Sometimes She Believed It
  She'd Strut when it Fit
But could be there's Artist's Block
  and the Goddess don't Rock

Pain HURTS
  Betrayal be the WORST
Try to Fly unto Forever
  with a son-****-father

the ******* height
  ain't gonna be every single night
lead guitar **** star
  don't always play on Wednesday

but the current underneath
  the love lust deep deep within
is supposed to be decades in its belief
  i've seen old people kiss remembering sin

Eyes Afire for each other
  Their Love Still Alive
holding hands hotter
  than any hard fast drive

If you're not in,
  then into the kiln
plate your ***
  this ****** too shall pass

I remember when she was Queen of Beads
  a bracelet had me hummin
    an anklet I wanna be drummin
      a necklace almost satisfied my need...

I had recently learned to be Grateful
  but basically just to expand my Party
    and where I hoped it might take me

KMM was the reason I let the Dead into ME
  a Dead song heard thru her eyes
    was being caught Without A Net
      seeing thru the Eyes Of The World

You see Your Rose
  I saw Mine
You say you Noes
  I say She Fine

did I mention forever ACTUALLY MEANS forever
  and you have every right and reason to be bitter
if you say you gonna stay whatever the weather
  be a man
    if you possibly can
if not
  at least let her know
    uh yeah thanx buh-bye whatever

people think they know what up
  their truth be THE truth
pain be personal is what up
  that truth is THE truth

you'll Noe when you're fully healthy again
  when mind heart soul friends
say uh yeah it wasn't me
  so ******* **** I'm free

there was a Kathryn I met
  only Kathryn I've known as yet
20-ish years later we re-met
  and this won't rhyme with “et”
but I have now Loved FB 3 Times,
  Aly, Eric, Kat, and, um, rhymes

Kathryn Marie Maletich....not the 1st WOAHman I Loved, but the most WOAH I'd met as yet....She arrived at my house with my Sean telling me dude you'll dig her...pool table, beer, prob some misc, a late night in my suddenly electric backyard under the stars sitting talking about whatever and everything and what she could do with the insides of the washing machine which were currently occupying the back side wall of my parents' house, a Bday party with band at her house she invited me to and took flash pic in my face as she laughed and invited me to her garage room to hang out (nitrous, thy name is “Clint, you're in Kat's room, solo, laughing sharing phasing in and out of consciousness with bliss and I think I helped her Happy and I want to stay here!)  2 days later Sean asked me for you if I Liked you...oooohhhhhh Lady....me was broken boy, shy, no experience, ******, young but already shattered so many times, how could I possibly satisfy someone as Amazing as you. I said yeah as a friend cuz I had no idea how to just tell you WOW, your lips rule my dreams, can I share those dreams with you....Nope, said yeah as a friend and I was forever locked in that zone. Being Kat's Friend is not necessarily a bad thing. You and I shared so much, and I always felt like I knew more about you than the men you ******. We were REALLY close, and I was conflicted, cuz there was this dichotomy where you were both the replacement for the soul sister who hung herself out of my life just when I needed her more than ever and the 1st Love who chose the other she wanted less but was safer and her family approved of because he wasn't me. Kat, those yrs you knew me were really hard for me. I was NEVER not in pain, my ******* genius boy mind only not flinging images memories entire scenes actual physical sensations at me when I got wasted enough that I could scream them down. School was great when you can remember every bit of info automatically, but when my mind became my sister Carla's needles and Kristy's “your eyes are alive, your kiss is better, I want you more, but we can't go together where you're headed” I kinda went away..still above 4.22 grade-wise, little genius boy blah blah blah, but I was lost. I became a poet to survive it, but then you arrived. I was just kinda accepting 1st love was dead cuz I was a worthless druggie following my dead Sis as Kristy was excelling towards the Teacher we both wanted to be. I did all those drugs with Sean (however many hundreds of hits...a dozen in one night alone, ****.... of LSD I don't even Noe) and quarters of speed in one snort and then moving to smoking ounce after ounce of it. By the time we bid each other adieu I was finally ready to find out if I was going to just die or live on as at least semblance of the beautiful boy I once was. Cleaned myself up, returned to college, eventually got my degree from my San Jose State...you had lunch with a bona fide Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology with a Minor in Chemistry lol. Married twice...divorced, widowed. Worked corporate sales and then drug abuse treatment research (that actually felt really good) and some other blah yada then landed at Vons where I've been higher up than now but actually almost like where I'm at, lol, and the pay and benefits are good enough I can't leave, also lol.......of course I thought about you many times and other times and more (heck, you're part of one of my tats...not in a way you'd like, sorry), but I always figured you were gonna keep being great and Loving Life. Heard you and D made it official and thought it would work pretty fine. Blows my mind someone held you and let go. People are whack. L.M.M.H. (lolololol), I am REALLY glad you found my facebook with paul...Noe idea how much of each others' lives we'll be a part of, how often I'll actually hear you say Hello My Little Friend (don't get me started on that one heeheehee), but stoked is the word for Kat in my life....truly never thought I would look in your eyes again..it was wonderful to do so, Thanks be to You Milady....


some part of me will always be in that garage
  only place those days I almost believed I wasn't garbage
I just tried to survive the moments until the when
  Kat would arrive and re-invite me in again

not that boy anymore
  but you're still Kat for sure
I hope You Noe That
  You Are Still Where It's At

gonna preach
  gonna teach
    bout the things I see
      bout the things I Noe to BE

acoustic strings vibrating in tune with the moon
  kiss your **** like a lyricist linguist lover in june
however whenever you discover the start
  the drum beat can still hit your heart

please take me to your local dive bar
  I'll laugh with you my Diva Star
play darts with me
  and I'll IPA thee
bullseye wins the puddin pie

your art is still your life
  and your inner eye hath grown
so the universe is all right
  and I'm lucky to have known

about out of words for now
  HEY, I can hear that laughter from here
it does happen
  every now and again
     (for a millisecond or three)
so I'll bid thee adieu for now
  
it was the best of times
it was the blurst of times
******, stupid monkeys...I'm out