women in my family
have a gossip bone
in their body

it's found in the throat
and reacts when they
see one of the other barmaids
or an ex boyfriend

my voice never quits
and Jaque's cigarette burns
down to the filter

I want to dig up your grave and die in it

I cage you
When you are free, you break yourself on windows
I lock the door

Weeks go by
I live stepping one way, then another

In my hand, a peach
the cleft pressed to my lip
sweet floral dust

Where are you now?
I am wondering.

Where is that silken grain
which my fingers pushed
and how come your body
weighed no more than a moth
and got no more than a shallow grave
wrapped in paper?

I smell you in his wet hair
dust and lime

I want to dig up your grave
and die in it

envy is the wrong word

I can't stop looking

at pictures of girls

I say, 'Girl'

she stares back at me

I say certainly you are lovely

certainly she is lovely

I cannot imagine what

being in love with her would be like

I will just sit here and imagine

and stare

I don't know it's just I heard today that

beauty is really cracks

like in a sidewalk or an old person's cheeks

destruction and experience create

the unreachable

but man I just love staring at these girls

I say, 'Girl'

but she doesn't stare back

Inimitable

I haven't written a poem in a very long time.
I ran away to Josh's house.
We sat on the beach at midnight
Watching the waves smash against the rocks
They crept threateningly towards our blanket
The sea rose up like a wall
its momentum was menacing
I watched it in fear
as the cold night air seeped through my sundress
He smoked a cigar
There was no moon
The foam crawled silently to our edge
closer
closer

Now I'm listening to the Christmas music play
and trying to be brave.

flip flops are for white girls

people underestimate me because
of my freckles
they think I am "cute"
they think I am a vulnerable and small white girl

all of which is technically true

well,
I want each freckle on my face
to serve
as the punctuation mark
at the end of a sentence,
marking my every word declarative

and here is what I want
those freckles to say about me:
"She's a bitch.
She's a bitch,
bitch,
bitch."

a series

prelude text
k doesn't want to sleep with you
why—because she thinks yr weird
oh—makes sense right?

verse 1, salute
a very long and overdue letter to
1. an exgirlfriend
2. a new governor
3. the bird that's been in my head
god—how she can pick my brain!
for my wriggling and vulnerable
pearl pink worms of thought

the word homeopathic
whenever we go home we go through
our old schoolwork and diaries and
laugh at silly tirades and butterscotch angst
simple drawings of kids on skateboards
railgrind my face against your tits

I'm bringing emo back—you other Smiths fans don't know how to act
I paint my nails black and dye my hair
there's grey coating the shower walls
practically swallow my cig
I smoke so fast that I turn into a cloud
and follow above your head all day

the caucasian new year
we're going to steal a cruise ship
tomorrow we'll do it, we deleted
our Facebooks, reclaiming our
Bookfaces at the library, grin
and bear it through
this rock river of a year

Shopping Carts

Trash

suspended perfectly

in the spines of a yucca plant

frozen in its flight

like a bird of the desert

as a car spits out

sick clouds,

riding low to the ground

following the storm drains

an old man holds himself up

on aluminum wings

as he walks down Central--

the wind tells him

which way to coast.

I wonder if he flew too close

to a son

and fell to Earth here.

I hand the man a dollar

I know I'm not supposed to.

he says thank you in his own tongue

and smiles no teeth at me.

There are angels here.

the martyrdom of St. Madonna on her rocks

your mother once told you
“ beauty is pain”
before she combed your tangled hair
and suddenly you wanted
to be a ballerina when you grew up

so now
you will tilt your long white throat
at an audience
like an antelope taunting the lions
blood in your pointe shoes
pink silk stained

your first dance recital
your mother combed your tangled hair
and then ironically knotted it
at the back of your head
you protested only a little
afterwards she said
“ beauty is pain”
to comfort you

you will train your heels
never again to touch the ground
you pirouette,
fold yourself
into an origami figure:
an antelope on slender legs

and you will let the lions have your neck
because pain is beauty
blood in your pointe shoes
pink silk stained
because pain is beauty

this is how you will achieve sainthood—

raise your eyes
and lift your arms to heaven
because you are not of this earth