to her master going to bed*

come sir, come all, who am i to defy

til i'm favored, by favors i abide

oh my america, how did you know

destiny manifest would help your growth

unzip yourself, for all your pantomimes

suggest that you can't wait long lengths of time

subdued, submerged in entertainment passive

numbs me: i see your glory, it is massive

with lighted screens as my own anesthetic

freedom i can deep throat, all apathetic



* based on a lovely poem by John Donne, found here!

suicide schmooicide

i remember your skeleton knuckles
black blown out lines
from heated hated prison hands
and shudder seeing your name

i remember your eyes that pierce
your self pierced septum
fierce as a hearse
14 gauges of metal
shoved through with cool momentum

the pop of skin from left to right
tensions breaking, blood blooming
on the day we both saw, nose raw
would be enough for most

malcontent, you slit your throat
calmly, like a shave
who found you exposed, i don't know
but they sure as shit put you away

your mind goes to the darkest places
racing to decay
i want to gather every mote
before you slip, lose your grip
and break like a china vase

hard morning

when I wake up, it's in a children's room
with rich purples and pristine whites and flowers flowers flowers.

pictures of them; dried framed ones; painted and stickered on walls; painted on paper then stuck on walls.
pom poms pinks greens blues.

i run my fingers through my hair and discover some wrapped in embroidery floss with a plastic bead, saying “s”.
also notice i'm wearing jenna's sweatpants, then pick plastic tape off my arms, pull plastic bags from bracups.

feel my head tighten and my stomach turn and my mouth smack with the dry thickness of a sunday morning in a room that is not mine in a house full of sleeping friends that are.

tired platform shoes/stations

Waiting for public transit
i sit next to a homeless man,
talking to a street performer,
playing spainish guitar.

He talks nonsense to him closely,
about space and war.
He plays, looking forward
with wide glass eyes.

The man loses interest in the musician and turns to me.
i tell myself to look at him
so i can hear what he says,
so i know what to write.

The burrito i’m eating is so poorly made
that i must perform cunnilingus on it -
eating it outright.
I hear about boys and girls on posters, i think -

My eyes unfocused, downcast.
He gathers his bags of newspapers,
but he does not wipe the phlegm from the corners of his lips
and i see his engorged left calf as he walks away.

mikey likes it

losing cigarettes in the people pack
while the hordes swarm
city hall dances too, swirling lights
the people gathered for eva's death
but then they knew not how to moondance
tonight, big haired girls stood smiling
limp plaid shirt men swung their bones around
and the city swayed with a long lost pop

retrieving records, rompers

there you were
and there i was
looking up
at your face illuminated
then not
and again and again like benevolent waves
backlit then apparition
always moving forward.

in the tedious, sporadically lit hallway
you rolled me past doors
that hide the precious and worthless
i look at you, feeling small
like a baby in a shopping cart
then we make all the faces we can
with our tongues and cheeks and eyes

pull the trigger

billy mays, a bearded dream
wants to sell me oxyclean
in a haze, I buy the stuff
tough on bluffs
is the washing machine

go go china

oh lord am i busy
learning about china
dissension hasn't caught on there yet, you know
the tallest nail gets hammered down

when they take over
you better burn your anarchist poetry
and say yes sir yes what can i do, memorize
you'll get the hang of it, we'll harmonize happily

oh oh castro

they televised your trial, you grew as viewers knew
locked you up, then to mexico you go
batiste, the capitaliste
trekked to the mighty mexican mountains
and nipped at the buds of revolution
but the weed of want is strong
and mud ate the machines of war.

if john glenn wayne
gleaned a skyburst
and waned with the moon
you’d be to blame

oh star spangled country
why did we try
to spray LSD on this guy?
or powder the mans feet
to make his beard retreat?
then it didn’t work when
they poisoned smokes and pens

so throw the proof away, CIA
and let Fidel be true today
the doves came to his shoulders
and they are here to stay

you know,

selling antiques is like selling street drugs
and selling your teats is like being in love
you have merchandise, and they pay the price
sure somebody's won. you'll know who when you're done
but it works like the roll of the dice.

last train, the forevermobile

end of the week
end of the line
and thats how it feels

tired feet
head heavy
and buzzing with the beat of the T

loud townies
yell to angry hollow metal
about failure


eyes like holiday marbles
they choke and scream on phones

then the blue voice of the baby boom
says they must leave soon

no rest for the wicked

late night experiments
make work hard
and naps easy

seafoam green discs
slip from under my skin
and into my room shimmering,spinning
flickering like an old projector

i wrapped myself in matts warm down
and you talked about detox,massages,lesbians,court dates
your voice fast, strong, needing something
the cartoon lines blown out and blurry

rolling my eyes to the sky
i set my alarm to four hours from now
anticipate a difficult and glorious shower
and drink down my tap

you will later take me
to draw circles of sleep
around tired eyelids

to jeffery amadaeus

soggy remains
after the rains
crows come round
adown on the grains

therapeudic sunday

i think
that, um
i’m getting
better, slowly
eating with family
and not wanting more
loving and talking at work
or too busy with work to chatter
nights are when i see some friends
not enough to be so reckless and messy
but enough to keep in touch and feel loved
i pet midnight on the head and plan out my day
then clean sean's bathroom and go antiquing for iron
or to diners where staff count change in lieu of filling cups
then, some red light racing high school boys in big white pickups
i hate to say it but i think i'm happy with it all and having some fun

the walk back, the ride home

i get just enough time in harvard square to keep me sane. the homeless vets humble and bad beatles covers by ponytailed jimmy buffets make me feel the strength of actual creation. i see fashions; ironic, real, incidental, purchased. books in windows, smelling soaps. yoga mats and meatless burgers, paying pretty pennies for strawberry smoothies. starts making me thankful for my humble home.on my way there via rickety red rails there are men that are now women with sneakers and nine west bags, blue haired lesbians with portly moms, the desperate, the tired. beautiful rich young things talk about picking out wedding veils and how homeward bound killed countless puppies in japan. privileged khaki men with button downs unbuttoned, drunk, talking about the value of time. all of this at snowballing volumes, clamoring, clashing, begging for a piece of my precious attention. tomorrow i will remember to charge my ipod.

donning dawn

good morning, mourning

good evening, awning

well-worn's the warning

pawned fondles yield spawning

typewrotwer poem

rivers don't have issues

today
i’m afraid
of the dark waters
and the inner storms

but my helm will not plunge
it will point to the sun
in sleep i await
tomorrow

Making A Great Nursing Environment Together

my father, the metal man
with millions of prickly particles
sometimes in every direction
ambivalent, unsure
sometimes in magnetic fields
he draws toward, assures

today a different magnet stirs
i'm pushed away for unknown days
no suitcase, just me
in my clothes, dirty
from worky
my ass thrown in class

hands shake, directionless
wanting the elements
to turn around and
dry, realign
my horseshoe head

classsssssy

lotus eaters
eating lotuses
with a xanax chaser

i will get old
i won't stay here

nonexistent, noneventful life
in provincial massachusetts
lends itself to chinese dreams

i will learn more
i won't know all

sticky rice
sticking sides
tasty travel tangents

sunday: family, drugs

old friends and too many cigarettes
you’ve gotten big
your little brother graduated
your nephew is going to preschool
your mom is the same, mommin around

i eat a watermelon with a fish knife and a broken fork
tell my little brother skin heads are fucked
not to get jumped like his friend
we smoke a blunt at the sea and skip stones stoned

tried to hit a pile of mud but never did
when he almost got it, i’d give him big flat grey ones as incentive
and saved cool looking ones for myself

no seaglass but there was a dead fish
what if there was the most beautiful piece of seaglass under it anthony quizzed
i still wouldn’t touch it I said
i know myself that well at least
maybe my fears will change with the tide, when we both get high

spectacles spectacle

in these glasses
i am not broken
cracked out
held together with sharpie and tape
like my old glasses

i am queen of the 80's scene
an inverted gender version of the breakfast club
is where i'm the nerd
geeky chic

in these specs
i'm not wrecked
i dont have holes from heels
on toes and balls of feet

i am full of grace
coo! shoes, doves replace
creamy arches, ankles
bangles of lace

i am the five hour steamer

sultry steam seeps into shirts
hawaiian, printed paradise

rehanging, refolding
reworking working.

redolent of earlier eras
where fashion was in fashion
and retail ruled

wet all day

third day, three showers
my first at the ass crack of dawn
with no hot water

i jumped back in bed in a flash
hair had the frothy hum
of two in one

two was after a long, messy sandwich
i grilled at work and ate on the grass
by the bus that I took home

blew drew my bangalangs
and let the wind take care of the rest
sky sprinkled, follicles followed

three was at the very very end
a hot forever shower
that washed it all away

let's pi picasso

dada, baby, i’m so many shapes
crazy eights, cha cha
through the gallery

obtuse but not obscure
acute when minds refined
multiplied demure
when our squares are aligned

chillest past time

picking up habits
concerning picking up
while picking up

jay with an eye for glam
i pick shiny human leftovers
from the earth, beach glass
softened by the ever ebb

short stop at the street corner
then up three stone steps
into the sand, crab carcass
splayed, crunched claws
or whole baby ones, belly up

former sea life is the peril i face
but it’s not like i can wait
for the spare albatross or mallard
to finish picking the shells off

tisseranian, or that one time dan talked

my chest hurts
is it your lovin
or last nights smoke?

drinking warm champagne and weed
that went around and around and around and around and around
in a washing machine

sat on the surface of surf and turf sofas
where three chords is easier than two
but not as easy, dear, as you

family's up

my Grandfather, sitting
in his red and mustard velor track suit
head of the table
in the back of the kitchen
he tells me about skinny dipping in quincy
the black and white cars meant trouble
i thought about my skinny dipping
and how i knocked myself out
head hitting paddle boat paddle
not a right now story, i reckon

dine at ninety nine, party seven
three daughters, all mom hair
Dani, my blonde new bride texan cousin
has discovered my facebook
pictures of what I call getting an education
how are you and sean? she asks
he’s fine he’s fine, I say
building a racecar somewhere
oh she says i’m twenty i say

Papa: the only male, alpha wolf
discovers his third drink
the first spilling on his lap to heavy silence
by the third, loses three twentys to chronic generosity
helping him in the car seat
he whisper yells in my ear
don’t let this long thing happen again!
Denise, lady america fitness, first born
will tuck him in tonight
next to nonni’s nightgowns

if love exists, it hides in you

dammit
old habits
like comfort food
boys that aren’t rude
two beers
in the shower
means I have the power
to say cheers
for memories
of you and me
what we had
what we have
it’s not free
but it's not bad

memorial day isn’t for people that need to forget

with the homeless I sat
and named all the pigeons
but I had no adam
because my task
came after the fall

lazy sunday indeed

my face is melting off today
i know i’ve said that before
but on 3pm this morning
summer still with fontanel
i know truth

i can feel my foundation
and like silly putty on newspaper
it bends and warps the message
until it is nothing
and I start from the ground up
with a grassroots campaign
in consciousness

travelin'

hello again somerville
i missed your gutter punks
with soccer balls for pant seats

somerville, I get you between my toes
overbear me with your heat, noise, cultural clamour
suffocate me, forearms against my head
picking your grit from teeth
wiping your ash from feet
banging my suitcase
up your narrow staircase

somerville
i’m very small
wrap me
hide me
stick me in your hippest closet
or hang me out, dry
droplets of dye
runoff, run off.
flipping into the charles

scenic q town

ah, the formidable walk home
dead people in bed on the left
people driving on my right
mobile, presumably not dead
and looking at shayna's shortest skirt

too hot for cashmere
last night was too cold for just that
limited skins
in the baby blue suit case
gives me shivers

catching up

hate incarnate penetrating
whole days spent anticipating
writhing, cringing, lamenting tormenting

playing with the whitest fire
never knowing when I burn
leave marks in me, just you can see

mottephobia

moths fly everywhere
striking fear, such
unpredictable
flight patterns

needing nothing

kissing the skin
with wings for eyelashes

wanting more

transient caterpillar
that has a helped escape
remains weak, unable to break through
and expires in a cracked chrysalis

mayday

I'm chipped away
stripped
today
I start new

pink and vulnerable
two trim travel bags
baby blue butter leather
thats where my shit is

records, record player
stickered footlocker
costumes
books
on costumes
in a five by five
for forty

long long long
labyrinthian hallway
for forever
and at the end
the blue door of
memory, material

found poem: my kitten notebook

someone left a poem in my notebook
I think that's great

youre a kiss of sunshine
on my cheek
use the white light
regretting nothing
as my garden angel falls asleep
sadness waits at my door with you
silly creatures of death
in the light they glow
so brisk, before the moth falls
few know your beauty but me
as you waste oxygen, asphyxiating hope
the starving children have pot bellies too

I hope the hidden message in the first letters isn't for me :)

low visibility, high profile fun

a blind eye for three
leave me snake eyes to see
ah, hindsight perceive
steve; he spake sighs blue, free

FML

i'm not real
this isn't happening
i'm a white screen
to you, a black screen.

theres a bug bite on my ass

i’m back, rollin pizza dough
dad upstairs, swatting mosquitoes
bringing the heat, a promotional t-shirt
makes a flat, clean thwap and stains stairwells

N + 7

sorry, avid fans, I'm trying this out. with a paragraph from Miranda July's first book

enjoy.

ahem.

all my everyone
i have had the same hands
its what they call knees
it always unfolds to the same time

except for everyone,
the sex began as it always does
in a low ceilinged consequence
where couples is forced to crawl around
on their hands and beetles.

phonicks, don't phail me now

i misspell a lot of words
i mean, alot

did you know
unrequieted love
is saying quit
and not quiet?
quit, not quiet
lesson learned!

and tommorrow
is shorter than I thought
every single one i have

i'm not a vegetable, dammit

no longer a slave to the kiln
buy the whitest wonder known
with paper brown crust
and no teeth needed

carb up, zone out
stumble videos, forget yourself

who needs to dance
when theres lindy hopping
posted, pixelated
unfocus your eyes and let your limbs long

no need to sing
there is no stopping oum kalthoum
why try, there'll be no riots when i die
stone myself, is my phone by my laptop?
keep clicking, my song sounds silly

simplify, simplify living
to the lowest common denominator
when i feel neither low nor common
when I feel this fire, energy
radiating, leftovers from being alive
self awareness!
glorious byproduct!

unplug me, let me feel the grass in my toes
I want to get dirty, be messy, explode
going to let my body sing
going to give my voice some room

learning how to live
from the bottom of my feet
to flyaway friz
every dendrite connecting, electric

cinco de mayo

mexico, i remember you
do you remember me?
i remember maguie
and her yellow dress
the lollypop excess
in the folds of her cheeks congealing

mexico i kissed your neck
and you turned mine black
with little brass butterflies

mexico, i starved all week
plastic fruit on the window
inside, real carne, i don't

mexico, your tawed tough men
bartered bread then
out of matte cadillacs
raspy speakers crack
some beg with bags
that flaccid on wrists hang

mexico, make me sing
shake me shake me
make horns bleat
i die for your harmony
and three four heartbeat

mexico, wrap around my waist
hang the colored crepe
i'm yelling your name today
we're stomping out
the dust of our yesterdays

go shorty

I'm going to reach up
from the porous forest
and get taller. sail, ascend

past the peacock pleasures of pride
and sloppy, single sloths
apocalypse cocks
holy tounges
grasping rungs

herod, you decadent dandy
you fatass
you don't have shit on me

gilded gold wings, wants waning

perfect ascension
bag the dove on my way up
bang a divine u-turn

then I'll be
so high
unseen

pipe eulogy: bowlympia

My dear bowlympia --

you spoke to me before you smoked for me. this little head shop in olympia, place of your conception. I looked for twenty minutes, and nothing. so I listened - I stopped looking - and I heard you. you were perfectly made, shaped, and priced. cobalt glass with green and gold stripes. with specks of real gold. but nothing gold can stay.

my brother made this, said the head shop owner when he picked you up. youre kidding! I said. you were such a labor of love, and i loved you. you didn't even need a screen.

I'm sorry I left you at that party last night. I didn't mean to. it had nothing to do with that other glass I was carrying with me. it was just a one hit thing, it doesn't mean anything to me. I don't even know its name.

bowlympia, I'm truly sorry. when I took you out today, picked you up from that coffee table, and said to you, and to ryan, 'oh bowlympia I'll be so said if and when I lose you. dont you hate that? how everythings ephemeral?' these are the daily conversations I have that jynx me. I'm so sorry, I didn't even know it was a curse.

you met your demise on the fucking stairs of the campus center, you just leaped out of my bag, like a dog running into the street, not knowing how those linoleum stairs can hit you like a semi. You, perfect in every way and a precious treasure I brought back from the west coast, getting killed by my messy purse and the weed-unfriendly campus that you graced with your presence.

this is a wake up call. I need to straighten up and leave this place. thank you for having your final act be one that opened my eyes. thank you for everything. especially the resin.

I'ma see you in weed heaven.

it's 5 am

hot mess hot mess hot mess
like my greasy four thirty am biscuit sandwich

it was colder earlier
cause i was in a water spitting contest
which is cool cause I had beer poured on my bangs anyways
gave em texxxture

but everything washes away
then the birds sing
n' peck at those two temples

ode to my lunch

look at you, pad thai
acting like you're not hot shit
well guess what?
you're not shit, and I'm about to nuke you.

fucking love you, pad thai
you shine on, crazy diamond

shayna it will get better i promise

i woke up and there was an avalanche in my bed
resumes, pamphlets on resumes
calls, not returned
but the biggest boulder of all
trickled out of the radio
and broke my solar plexus
broken but shining
like a tiny gem refracting life for eternity
your voice came through
raspy, tired, but ever languid
liquid, beautiful even with chemo
you ask yourself, Henry
what is going to make you feel best?
i gather up the pieces of my chest
and, hiding behind steam
jam them back in place
hot streams loosening the void
gasps and cries resonating off white tiles
refracting, amplifying into the dark waters of forever

dayum its hot

shoulder blades popping everywhere today
tan taught bleach blonde
is what you get when april is june

four bridgewater girls running in groups
black matching sporta bras, shorts
someone passes, hows the run?
they are all:
awesome! awesome! awesome! so awesome!

minutes pass, two boys trot
slick, shaved, nothing but
running shorts and shoes
I'm not immune

unhealthy habits
reconsidered, resumed
no use changing myself
when watching running
gets me hot and bothered

shade cools everything down
slows my clove until the crackle quiets

it is all:
krrrkrrshhshhhhh
krrkrshhhhhhh
rrrrr shhhhhh

found poem: portuguese text book

conhecer ... ... ... to know, to meet
descobrir ... ... ... to discover
dizer, dizer ... ... ... to say, to tell
dormir ... ... ... ... ... to sleep
fazer, fazer ... ... ... to do, to make
fazer a cama ... ... ... to make the bed

just like that sears commercial

the heat is in the crook of my arms and legs
waiting for me to wake up in the morning.

when I rise
sultriness kills me
if I don’t take my moving slow.

the heat of the day is a new monster
no air in the library
words melting off rehydrated pulp
momentous musings of man mean nothing to nature.

well-being remains unremedied
until a cool 5 o’clock
when I sit by the fan
and motorize happy howls.

contrary to popular belief, house dresses have a myriad of functions

my wardrobe
once belonged to people
that are dead now

floral, paisley, dacron
boning about the neck
that tapers, anachronistic point

a little morbid
and garish memorial
like a sugar skull
or sun bleached plastic flowers

oh no

oh hey.

what?
you want me to write a poem?
oh jesus, it's been another day hasn't it
well. I'm boycotting.
this isn't a poem.
nopenopenope

when you take off the first n
everything is open..
I just thought of a word

nopen

its like a contradiction
not open
or something
I'm never not nopen.




ugh.
I'm wasted.
not even the wasted I was earlier
just wasted on sunshine
long day
of seeing people I care for.


I run my brain through laps
drowned it in smoke
hookah. tokes. cigarettes.
ooh, nat shermans with a touch of mint.
shut up.

my synapses need refurbishing
cracked at the corners
paint peeling
making connections
to the best of their ability
with no help from me.

smoke deprives your brain of oxygen, you know.
the terrible habits I pick up.
jesus.

this is my first morning poem

this is my first morning poem
see how cheery it is!
the exclamation point indicates cheer

it’s too bright out for my red eyes
but listen to the birds!
and the poorly dressed students
talking loudly to each other! voices
bouncing off the courtyard walls

there’s a siren too!
whose making trouble this early?
two now. whooping back and forth

trumpet took the walk of shame with me
brass was my action, nothing else
but who gives a fuck!

its nice out
roommates in a sundress
that’s how I can tell

deer in headlights is a good look for me

smoke going up
darkens the ceiling
I have a feeling
that we're both alone

wash out my head
let me forget
the words I said
respond, regret

I traded love
for lack thereof

to show that I know
that I should
be alone

I would grow
to my toes
all my hair
and not care

fyi

once there wasn’t
now there is.
first I didn’t
and now I am.
when there won’t be
where there once was;
once the sun goes,
you and me
won’t be.

for benoit and the endless infinate everything

Hey come here, I want to show you the exact grain of sand
where the land meets the sea; let me show you a world
bring you into a fractalinear, replicating infinity.
and when we get to our ultimate smallness
i’ll build a room in a room in a room
at the end of the endless mirror
the size of my thumbnail
and everything will be
just how it was but
now we cant fool
ourselves into
thinking that
we’re so
fucking
big
..
.

mmmhmm

today I left
but I haven't gone anywhere
messy bangs
tired elbows and foot arches
belly full of cucumbers

hitlers birthday
is up there on
my list of favorite holidays
but this one
is going dark and slow

sun day

I see skinny white boys playing
drums and
bearded scholars yelling
chants with
teal xylophones
going off
a dozen at once

there wasn't any time today
my pores melting into
first sunburn of the season
and warm metal struck

heres my ode to strings

you sing the third of beethovens third
and you hold my shoes together

if I was in the time of my grandmother
you would modestly detain my house dress
in the backyard

there are theories about you
pieces of my life
too small
to see

but I can hear you best
raked against horse hair
by players in all black

I spent four hours as mokey the fraggle

believing in fairy tales
dressing up like monsters
paying for plastic paradise
living by the disney dogma

don't go to madrid
or bother with greece
we shipped in the culture
and kid proofed the booths

general booze

welp, its thursday night
and have a giant panther on my tits
and had it there when with my comm prof

I couldn't survive in alabama
I'm too liberal and crass
"look at me, I'm wearing a shirt for a dress for godsakes"
she agreed

I couldn't survive in the ocean either
a whale would swallow me up
with his chin inflating like an industrial balloon
or a hammerhead shark
would find me with electricity

plus
fish just mate in the water
sperm everywhere
I'm more selective

unless I'm drinking a jug of wine and watching planet earth in an animal shirt

the pits

I have this pit
right here
like between my chest
which means I forgot to eat today

breakfast was coffee in that place I used to live
hot skim sugar
second breakfast was in that second place I used to live
americano skim no sugar

lunch was pizza crust with peppers
and a fountain

dinner was opera
puccini menotti handel

and a found mozart record
li nozze di figaro
pristine untouched
by someone 30 years ago
that was missing out

they probably had a bigger pit than me

sand is glass

you follow me around
like the sand in my shoes
leftovers
from when I got drunk
and pissed on the beach

and I am the waves
always crashing
into a foam
of excited white nothing
before the black ripples
pull be back again

to clarify

my savings account
is the keef catcher
on my grinder

my vagina
is the queef catcher
for grinding

good friday

end of the week
minus one toenail
left eye red
green eyelashes

black branches stiffly
crawling up the spine
fever shriveled arms
thick tired neck

who cant be happy despite
morbid physical inventory
on a sunny friday that
ends this week forever

who rips off their toenails, honestly

smelling of old books and sweat
this room is too small
to turn the crumbling yellow pages

cracked the spine open at fifteen
three years later I cracked another one
now I’m just wondering
when these stories will wrap up

I didn't listen to enough bach in the womb, I guess

what was that name of that girl who sang
that thing in the pink dress?
you cry every time you hear it
even though it's silly
it's beautiful too

or that guy... with the songs
he wrote about the end of times?
he was french or some shit
where was my mind
when I heard these things

I can't even tell you
how the overture to marriage of figaro goes
even though I listened to it yesterday
or why I thought that bald mountain song
from fantasia was about a funeral

if I'm overcome with emotion
when I hear beautiful music
but can't remember it later
how can it leave a mark on me?

unexplained muscle pain rules

I didn't deposit my checks today
or go through my credit history
or read medieval literature
or write a paper about creative non fiction
or introduce the topic of gays in the media

I mostly just had a fever
and tried not to throw up.

but I did get to see the blue purple yellow lines
next to the lamp
where your shutters
across the room reflected

student government association can suck my dick

the early april rains keep fucking coming
I borrowed my roommates purple hoodie
and my other roommates purple umbrella
the bends played me over to practice

two days before opening night
my shit gets canceled
like, all the shit. everything.
at least till may
when it stops fucking raining

on my walk back
from the lines I didn’t say
earthworms scattered the asphalt
like so many flaccid pick up sticks

a quote

"what happened last weekend?"

did I get an answer or was there never one?

I feel light today

my pores opened up last night
and breathed in cigarettes with cloves
liquor with deer blood that ran through my body to my toes
past the prickly chemicals that got in there too somehow

and in my orange floral dress they remain open
soaking in the first warm day in april
trying to recollect conversations and cure a hangover
staying still, walking slow

slumped up against a concrete wall I peel a clementine
a parting gift from somebody
and my fingertips soaked in the sticky sweet rind resin
revealing insides, opening doors that weren't there
until my fingernails demanded them to be

I fucking hate worms

You are blind and eat only dirt

But you still struggle for it

Loping a wrinkled, naked appendage

Toward the grass

Bloated and slimy

Your skin slips off into the shallow waters

And finds a place in the concrete cracks