last poem

I can't think of any fitting
last words

nothing profound

any artistic sense I might
have started the month with
is squashed
like a gourd
(a feeble attempt at pun and poetry both)

last piece of wisdom--

my toes are cold
they're waiting for Christmas
my dad turned the heat off

I need silence.

I listen to

The Waltz of The Flowers

and dance with myself

right down the middle of the hall.

I keep a healthy balance

between

mildly proficient socialite

and

the fucking crazy kid.

I take a double dose

of melatonin

and fade into my comfort zone;

a book held like an idol

to ward off evil,

and the room suspended

in an eerie silence.

This is my kingdom.

sometimes I wear this shirt of Alexandra's to bed

and ponder about

how many of my friends have slept together

sometimes I think about space time

and sometimes

I think about

my life as one big

young adult novel

hot cocoa and peppermint schnapps
this is going to be the drunkest
christmas ever i tell my grandmother
she seems nonplussed when i tell her that
i am going to marry the man with the aviators
that works at the pet shop while i am
imagining him bending me over
bags of dog food and thanking some god
somewhere
that mind reading is not possible

this poem is a grainy 35mm black and white print
of an idiot clutching a computer

this poem is falling off a cliff in the back
of a greyhound bus
at 200mph

this poem is measuring time and space

this poem can travel at the speed of light

this poem is tired of itself

this poet is going to go take a nap

do you ever get tired?

red butterfly finds itself
on my ass

i wipe the sweat down
and away

we commence another
altercation

coming home
soon

Nothing ever changed

You can watch yourself lose your mind.
True fact, look it up.
Before you are crazy, you go crazy.
A girl who wished to remain anonymous
watched calmly as everything turned to gas.
And she asked herself if anything was wrong.
but of course, she said it wasn't,
and then she made it a point,
to stop talking to herself.

A Constant Cold

I'm sure I'm quite tired of writing about

myself and tea and now

soy milk because there is this cancerous

tomb of a family about me my father

and my mother's mother and my uncle too

and my aunt

had her chemo and has a lovely head of hair now

and I say Repunzel, Repunzel

let down your long

life! [we say to ourselves]

and I will grab on to it hopefully

because all this business makes me feel like

my thoughts have some place in my body now

but fuck I'm a bit young to worry

Don't You Think?

Frankenstein

Young guns

carry clean guns

in fast cars.

Yellow tape waves like

the banners of heaven,

blood flecks are new-age graffiti

painted on the faces youth.

Youth who stand in a hospital doorway

clutching a bigger hand

while doctors use electricity;

try and mimic Frankenstein

-- there are shocks

one, two, three,

clear

one, two, three,

clear.

Sparks ring out just like gunshots

a sick thumping sound.

Skeletons dance along the riverbank,

you can hear splashes if you listen.

Solemn-faced men announce the names

live

on-air.

i google
james roday
shirtless
nothing happens
so i google
james roday shirtless scar
there is a picture of a cat
i hate the internet

ghost

my ghost left me last night
we were fighting again

he borrowed the blue prius
needed to clear his head
not sure how long

central was empty of course
here, ghostly sustenance:
streetlight coronas on
filthy snowdrift
unlit letters CHINA MOON

swooping slow on main hill
those curves those
sightless lowlands
oldest friends

the unseen horizon
twinkled its cities at him

here mountains flatten away and
juniper bushes
spaced at perfect intervals in the dark snow
mirrored by the stars
that shatter an orion sky

just before dawn
a thick-muffled thrum
of KUNM

electric car
ghostly-quiet
crunches into the driveway

who wants some breakfast?

the state of world affairs

Julian Assange woke up with a heavy heart. He flew to America even though he knew it was probably a bad idea. He noticed the man next to him on the plane was reading about 'cablegate'. He winced, then wondered how the man could be on the internet on an airplane, then said 'oh yeah it's the future', then put in headphones and fell asleep to the magically soporific accent of the southside BBC newsreader.

He slept for a long time, so much so that when he awoke the place behind his eyeballs hurt and he felt heavy and empty at once. Julian Assange thought about Hillary Clinton's face, about her body, about their 4:00 meeting, about her obvious displeasure with him. He wondered 'does Hillary Clinton like to be handcuffed with novelty handcuffs?'

Hilary Clinton is handcuffed to an expensive cherry oak desk and calling foreign embassies on her iPhone to warn them about the cables. They are leaking. Julian Assange fucks her softly from behind. He grins and scrolls through 251,287 government documents on his iPhone.

Hillary Clinton murmurs the words 'unprecedented internet leak' and 'I strongly urge you'. Tears line her sagging eyes. Julian Assange alternately whispers 'hush dear' and 'freedom of information'.

They come in waves.

Purple-Dotted Eat You Ups

I am so flushed and blush

ed yes yes not with pow

der

oh

what did I fall

[into] not a trap at all but some

trip to Norway perhaps

somewhere far away certainly not here

not here but perhaps

trip trap trip trap

blanket up to the eyes hiding turtle shell

feeling yet I keep wanting to write

about how I almost had a stroke

but I was really just a bit intoxicated

alcohol sloppy wine beer

and you

don't drink,

darling, but I seem to

have got you drunk

Quiet Company

The night sky

an ocean of ink

suspended by strings.

Hours tick away

like parking meter clocks

counting down.

A bitter chill

howls through the window,

icy jet streams

carry my thoughts

like migrating birds--

my blood feels heavy,

grounded.

I try to find some peace,

try to find some quiet

but the clock is ticking.

I wish I knew

how to take these things apart.

visionaries

I get out of my car
and clutch my keys
in my cold fingers like
a security blanket

a man walks up to me
he tells me he is secretly John the apostle
that his name means "Friend of God"
that Christ will save the parking lot
we stand in
I nod

he has been walking for days and
he has seen many things:
a city worker eating
dirt
dogs barking
his own breath

I nod
as he tells me he was there
when Christ was born

as I leave, I tell him,
"God be with you."
I mean it, even though I'm mostly
an athiest
he responds, "He's already everywhere."

and for the first time
I believe in something
bigger than
a parking lot

conquistadors will
remember the marvel
and splendor

a cave
explored for
the first time

seen with new
hungry eyes
it's moist warmth
enveloping all
those who enter

An Soda Haiku, inspired by JMBG

ten thousand mentos
suspended over a sea
of sprite, forever

proof that time is non-linear

when I started high school
I was an eight year old
girl obsessed with bra straps
and makeup
what the older girls wore
I wanted someone to tell me I was pretty

sophomore year I was twenty five
old for my time
the phrase "world weary sophisticate"
always crossing its legs
on the tip of my tongue

as a junior
I was a four year old boy
I made poop jokes and screamed a lot
I laughed when people said
"duty"

senior year
I write stupid poems about love
in a journal
I use the word "heart" often
I'm a cliche
a twelve year old girl in
a young adult novel

I'm glad to note that I've matured four years
just like I was supposed to

I can't keep

biting my nails like this--

I really should cut them.

A lady on the TV is serving justice

women lined up in front of her

botox injections are shown live

and some of them tear up

in awe of their new frozen face,

or because of the pain

--I can't tell which.

I feel sick,

cut my nails.

at the door it says
give me your boring,
hipster masses

they were gladly
accepted and
everywhere was
a grave
rolled over

Grad School

sometimes I add numbers in my head and try to figure it all out

every waking second of my life apparently it's because of

how I was raised

scientists say future future future

my aunts say now now now

go crazy

I say what crazy my dad

thinks it's crazy I don't want to go to California

what the promise land is

somewhere North of there

or maybe the middle of

the ocean

profit

1. crack a can of coke

2. take a sip

3. put it on your nightstand and hope that eventually you will forget that the crackling of carbonated water, sugar, natural and artificial flavors, and caffeine against aluminum can is not raindrops hitting your roof

4. hope that eventually you will forget all sorts of things

5. roll over and try to sleep through the storm

The Jellyfish

jellyfish drift over the city
unnumbered exodus
of every color
tendrils so close
close enough to taste

the perfection of invertebrate life
this insect life
silent against hope

why return? what escape?
useless to ask
useless to know
jellyfish, silent against hope
take me with you

oh god please
take me with you

stupid stupid stupid

tick tick nervous tick

'I was nervous once'

my cousins probably think

I say shake shake shoulder shake

no I will not come be next to you people

I love you, you're my family

tactile anxiety

is a form of defense you see

defensiveness from

this weird desert air

as we speak I'm some weird

pretzeled up mess

on carpet

on wood

suffocate me, Internet

there's never enough room

to feel truly helpless

Plan A is to fuck you
Plan B, for me, is to fuck
you and then to
invent a time machine
and go back in time
and stop myself from
fucking you

Morlocks tell me
that I will sleep
and the cold bitterness
of my soul will go out
and if I didn't fuck you
then I would never have
invented the time machine
in the first place

great expectations

all november I guessed

at what I might write

on thanksgiving day

I got too drunk to write a

poem

should have guessed

An Haiku 2

halfway home, a field --
November wind bends dry grass
it begins to rain

let them eat flat bread
sounds so much less interesting
than let them eat cake
no caffeine
no spicy foods
no fried foods
i see no reason to
carry on being queen

okay, Robespierre
take me away
I'm useless without
my morning coffee anyway

Blood Sport

Where you do the opposite of
what is done.

Pretend one thing and be another.
Quote your mother at dinner.

You're a romance builder,
a cauldron under the bed.

In the mirror an answer for
for your cheek:

he hit you,
red and flashing.

Thanksgiving

there are the normal

pleasantries--

you look taller

how do you like college,

the normal responses--

mumble, good, mumble, smile,

I'm awkward but please don't notice

mumble, mumble, mumble

the whole time

I have to hold back my natural instinct

to leap for the red wine

chug it down

hey, look everyone,

I'm a social fucking butterfly now

come dance with me

I know jokes

and

I can sing too.

Afternoon Drinking tends toward Sober Nights

cosmological constant!

I yelled at my drunk family

I was always rippin' on Enistein for his greatest

mistake

'boy, what you thinnkkiinn'?'

Phoenix, Arizona, you freak place

in the middle of nowhere-everywhere-

10-million-people

if I yell loud enough will someone

hear me

that is on the moon or maybe the Nuevo homeland

we spent a lunch once arguing about space time and

now I'm far away and I say

time, go faster

space, get smaller

the true meaning of underarmour

designers sell underwear for
breasts sized
mosquito bite to small anthill

however,
if you have real beehives
(nothing that can be contained
with some lace or ruffles,
lest the bees sting through)

then they get out the WD-40
and the medieval armor
and they consult some iron maidens
as a focus group

and then they attach an steel
breast plate to silk
and call it "full coverage"
manufacture bras in the colors of
bear trap
and contain-me coral
and peekagette pink

oh, bra the color of no-nipples-night
please knight me

four o'clock homesick

rain comes softly round again
dancing on the windowpane

so rain then, I got nowhere to be
and plenty enough coffee and weed

but all the green in west santa cruz
could not unstick
this north mesa blues

for Heather K

shitty fucking haiku I wrote for poetry class in the last five minutes of passing period
to trash on the ground
an ink ink raven speaks:
caw caw caw caw caw


five minutes later
last line evidence
of much procrastination
I probs got an F

Pregno, Bro

I dyed my hair to
look like this girl I know
and my family says
'black hair black hair black hair'
'big and black'
I say
what you think there is a raven sitting up there

I shop for beer with my cousin
he says snow and beer
snow
beer

My other cousin is pregnant with her fourth child and I say
come here, baby
come here, baby
come here, baby
the babies like me but they won't go near my brother
I hold them and my cousin says
good with children
good
children

my aunt asks when everyone is having children
now
everyone have children
add your babies to this house that has at least fifteen warm
breathing people in at any time

I say first let me travel the world
the raven on my head will fly me away

tip toes
the way a rat
runs across the floor
from one side of the room
to the other
stops and sniffs the air
doesn't peanut butter kill?
only if laid in a trap

bitch ass french fried onion wednesday november 24 2010 bacon bit

i'm a caveman, on the airwaves

wobc, woe is me, make believe

xerox sex, vibrator noise

tube amp guitar, good vibrations

psych, sing waves, haze

black boots, kava tea, eeeee eee eeee

rivet city, clay polpot bowl, ginger ale

snail mail, shovel pail, insane, texts

small town bois, pissing contest

piccolo, epiphone, les paul

richard brautigan kisses patti smith

sing wizard, shoegaze, steele street

bright pink bookmark, thimble, no

little hay, little ho, subaru fist, missed

calls 1

Sicilian Najdorf

not Trade, poison pawn
(this is war not wall street)
but Sacrifice

no misers of infantry, we
bargain with God

brown-faded stain
on the altar at Teotihuacan
whiff of incense
in the smoke over Austerlitz

Mad Insomnia

I'm lying and waiting
waiting for
my blood pressure to drop back
to normal again
the clock does not tick elegantly
thunk
thunk
I'm trying to be patient
waiting for my stomach to
quit feeling feeling full of holes and
my eyes to quit threatening to overflow and
I'm glad I don't get angry
very often.

Your visible collar bone
was printed in a medical
text without your permission

I recognized it instantly
the way you would have
recognized a wet skirt
stuck to my knees

or my looped
slanted handwriting
on a note
attached to said
medical text

Bird[RABBIT]sell Twins

THE NORTH IS BOMBING THE SOUTH
whispered coffee talk is all this is
because the news keeps blaring about
how Sarah Palin did a book signing
and someone at the airport can
see my candy ass
[oh my]

THE NORTH IS BOMBING THE SOUTH
not bombing particularly it's conceptual
all over the radio
there is a cold front in the southwest but Danny said
I feel good
I say I feel something building up all around the world
while you and I eat like rabbits
hungry we say
chomp on lettuce
chomp on tofu
carrots made my mom's skin turn orange
and now we are turning into her rabbit children
while Sarah Palin signs books
and some guy at the airport checks for explosives that are
in Korea

I feel sick to my stomach
It's probably just because I ate too much

I fall asleep to
the sounds of the heater--

a rush of warm breath on my neck
muffled coughing of a turbine
the snap and wind of a skydive

every night
I dream of parachutes

the desert winter

dryness cracks the skin canyons

lonely lights walk streets

filament frozen in amber

-- a timepiece for

the shadows

Blood Sport 2

you snapped the lid on
shuffled to the closet
to hide my instruments

It's such a melodrama!
I lay in bed, two versions lay
the one that had seen this before
and the one that could never
have foreseen this

I know you learned those moves on tv
your stiff hand
gently patting my back

grandfather likes his short shorts
and his truck hat—he likes to chop
wood and go to gym and watch the
news and plays windows freecell
in heaven he will continue
the 1.75×10^6 games he plans
on finishing, by god, in the
next 3 lifetimes
he can cook a medium rare steak

to perfection

grandmother likes to bicker
she likes to feed the hummingbirds
and flit about the immaculately birthed
house in the woods, remodeled within
and inch of its very life
she hikes faster than I do—still she can
quilt a mean ocean of fluorescent fish
where she swims laps daily
she bosses me around the kitchen
and we slosh our wine glasses

all together

also this:

so good

move so good
so good
move so slow
precise
seem so cold
no haste
eyes so cold
so ice

think so right
no waste
pull so tight
machine
move so nice
so good
move so slow
so clean

a poem I wrote sometime in 2008 that I found stuffed in the bottom of an ugly shoe in the bottom of a cardboard box in the garage and then revised slightly while transcribing due to not being able to read my own scribbly weird handwriting

Pick your poison from a list of names
Fold your menu, dig into the luminescence
of your unfixed etiquette
ending these sentences with predicates

This piece of plastic lets you live like
some kind of 6th story rebel
men named Giovanni take you dancing
while I stay home, saved by the bell
And if we had 15 minutes to sort this out
it would be so absurd to discover
from the incisors behind pretty lips
what I've so long see in your eyes
sinking unbelievably large ships

loose lips
loosen tongues
forget our lines
and we fail to mind
should we slip
on decks of the boats
recovered in outlet malls
and science halls
mortaring all the red brick
walls you put in
place to separate yourself from            those selves
you collect on each a more lovely mahogany shelf

You dust on wednesdays
Drinking poisonous sips
Huffing the furniture polish

the energy builds up

swelling like a symphony

at our backs

turn your palms to the wind

we are about to take flight

I think the wind

knows where to go.

MUG-GLE: What I get for taking a poetry class

deus ex machina

sometimes I cry
because the world is so beautiful

in these moments of clarity
everything appears impossibly
perfect,
all objects moving towards one
another with the timed precision
of a pendulum

I gasp, a fish--
grow gills and seep water
where the clockwork cuts me

an eloquent passage on a bike
sing-song wheels and feet

what about
grass going up
on shaved meadow

why in winter
what hope is there
for that at all

why now, sing-song, i trusted
that. why it's all have
to think about

before my frame crumpled
and I lay
in the intersection

You can simulate rain
on the internet
even a fireplace
it's like the internet
can replace our real lives
it's like you really don't have
to live anymore
it's like maybe
if you die
you can go
to the internet
where it rains
and there is a fire
and there is music
and porn
and you can be happy

isn't that sort of what
Tron was about?

An Haiku

in yellow moonlight
the aspens seem to tremble
your window is dark

Do what you should
over what you must
because lets admit that
being agreeable isn't
your best and
most winning feature

pillow case face

later that day I receive word
of her bed collapsing post
midmorning tryst
subsequent rolling suitcase
endless emotional departure

later that day I lay
in my childhood bed, warm, soft
free of plastics and carbonates
under fresh mom washed sheets
and wonder

how many beds
can I break
with my bare
body?

this theme is sentimental

I'm killing polar bears for you.
I took a ship to the arctic, I'm blowing them up.
I'm taking you to a rock concert on the moon
to celebrate. There is free beer.

I'm collapsed on the floor,
butt up.
I'm hugging the blanket
you put down as a rug.

I'm screaming about the holes on the floor:
This was a forest, there were deer, here, can you see the holes? Once, you wouldn't have needed a blanket. Once, snow lay in whorls of icing, undisturbed. Do you hear me? Do you love me?

I would have blown up every single deer for you. I would have built a floor from that forest for you.

I would have blown up every motherfucker, 'till it was just you and me, baby.

HOT WHEEL ROMANCE

the problem with being a

'writer' of sorts

[I don't claim to be the best I told you that

but I'm Violante's fave

and I MUST litter my ;poetry;

with RICHES of inside jokes]

is that while I am thinking

'this is the best moment

of my friggin' intense indie life'

I ALSO THINK

HOWEVER CAN I WRITE ABOUT THIS

on the Internet

childhood coal walks (control pt. II)

barefoot,
hot gravel feels
like hot coal

small feet
take small steps towards the house
I force each foot to remain grounded
for three seconds each

small heels
ripen to red apples
in the heat

and yet
my heart refuses to burn

this city becomes quiet

with the cold

a coyote

tilts his head slightly

lifts his nose to traffic

breathes out steam

headlights paint his eyes

two glowing suns

disappearing

into some alleyway

where codes painted

in neon strokes

lay in wait

for the light to reach them.

Jormungandr

Wolf rolls a warming joint
Packs her thick n generous

Outside, Autumn writes an obit
with naked trees
fractals against the sky
such cycles are keenly felt
at certain latitudes

Pensive Wolf in chain-mail
frees a swampy lungful
recall the pants of fleeing monks
their cloudy breaths
as they struggle thru the snow
recall the skullful crunch
of the throwing-ax

take a hit Snaky on that tail of yours
let the world spin a bit longer
every saga of human ambulation thus:
puff, puff, pass

the thin lines between

the road stretches out
before me
like a sleepy grey cat

everything is stranger in moonlight:
the air is the blue
of late night neon signs
OPEN!
OPEN!
there aren't colors for
closed signs,
just the grey of darkened
store windows

I play games when I drive
I could keep the wheel straight
when the guardrails curve
I could
I won't
but I could

control, control, control

as a little kid,
sometimes I liked to flip to
the last page
of my book before everything
was already finished

Love

you won best tweet of 2010
i won
laying in shit
shit piles

you went on a helicopter ride
i went on a bike ride
and fell in the rain
probably into a shit pile

you made salads
i threw up in the bowls
smelled like shit

im sure you won best face of 2010 too
your parents birthed the shit out of you

-------

deer prudence
a car hit the shit out of you
im boiling onions
in your memory

-------

oh yes that pizza is good
im making my own
i put corn on it

--------

what did i eat
are they trying to poison me
overbearing paranoia
step one
stop looking over my shoulder

what did i eat
i feel like shit

-------

this song sparked
coney island
and power plants
why these dismal white structures?

--------

on the toilet
i imagined my piss
a rocket ship
to take me to outer space
and beyond

------

why does this song remind me of
looking at pictures with my father
perhaps both
sounds were the same
floating down Acheron

Playland
the L and A blink
winking, like a whore
at a sailor

I like old
women that come
to these places
drink coffee
leave lipstick
coral, firetruck, maroon
on cups

they wear pearls
like they're going
somewhere

crunching noises

the dogs are barking.

it seems they are always barking.

we scorn them

for jumping at shadows

with that clouded

look in the eye

teeth bared

--we nervously correct them

because it is terrifying to think

there is actually

something there.

"There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can't be improved with pizza." -Daria Morgendorffer

I am devouring my pizza in the parking lot at 8:26pm #godominoes

Amanda left the store with my order at 8:16PM

Erik double checked my order for perfection at 8:12PM
Erik put my order in the oven at 8:06PM

ordering domino's pizza online really thrills me. Erik began to prepare my pizza at 8:04PM

Without you.

Without you I am like
Kanye
with no Beyonce

Yo everyone EVERYONE
I am really happy for you all
and I'ma let you finish
but

but

at 4:40 a.m. I had hallucinations

that every time you kissed me the world

burned a different color

I rolled over and played morning music

it was 7:21 a.m. and you were

laying there saying you had slept a hardy

30 minutes

and I thought I have turned you into something beautiful

you usual long-night rester leaving me to my neuroticism

post-10 p.m.

lounging in bed

we agreed that certainly every day should start

this way

Lovely, don't be terrified of me

I've barely had time to trickle down into

your palms from your brain

your finger prints don't quite scream

I HAVE LOST CONTROL

just yet

we are still two distinct planets

I orbit you you orbit me

Serenade

more stuck on youuuu
than a stuuuuck zipper

madder about youuuu
than a baaaaad tipper

got me feelin so coooool
like a claaaass skipper

youre a hipster girrrrl
but I’m a lil bit hipper

yellnafintohere

they will play
night at the jetty by panda bear at my funeral

where the song goes-lalalala-that's when my arms will open up to the sky-or shall I say-FIRMAMENT-or arch- or vault

at my funeral, you will get candy-melt in your mouth snickers-snickers everywhere-you'll taste the sugar sweet carmel-like dusk rolling in-nuts-whatever the nougat is made of

WIPE YOUR MOUTH~

it's closed casket so don't bother with your camera - all you get are little brown pictures out the back anyway

bury me on an emerald isle-out by New Jersey-where the fog runs into the sand-where you can run run run run run to see the coast crashing-and little flags marking the air-my first memory

shrinkage

we have resumed our session
on a twin xl covered in ashes
and roaches and pecan pie crumbs
the medication needed to be refilled
and an argument was presented
in a room of cheap perfume sex
we resumed our session via live
video feed on the internet, with
12 participants, I trolled them
relentlessly and without mercy
with french music in yellow
headphones and a piece of foil
between my lips old fashioned
analysis, lick the salt licks, yes
my mother told me once that it
couldn't hurt my little white <3

Haiku - On Decision Making

I have big hair to

hide the fact that I don't use

my brain as I ought

self-loathing, buttercup

my face

looks the color

of ash

I am leaking mucus everywhere

my voice is a chorus

of dying things

I wonder why

anyone

comes near me.

conversation #9

misanthropy is an art

the school hallway tiles listen
better than a therapist's couch
I'm forever talking to myself
"Goddamnit, where did I leave... car keys?"

the people I tell off in my head
are always charming conversationalists,
mouths unhinged in rebuttal to my
stinging insults
two weeks too late

sometimes I sing them
a swan song
to break the monotony

I swallow bitterness always
with water from a fountain

On things less appreciated

Sugar pumps through my veins
but I breathe
effortlessly now
I used to complain a lot.

I switched the TV off
I hate that demonic
talking box
I used to complain
about having dinner with my family every night
until I moved across the country.

I gently cover my seeing eyes
protecting them from
some unlikely doom
I used to complain
but I walk and my
knee caps don't crunch
I type and my
finger joints don't grind
My blood is so wonderfully
well-contained
I used to complain
about wearing my snowboarding helmet
until it saved my life.

ack ack ack

my vices are catching up to me
my bike tires are full of goat heads
walking along traffic jams bound
to a little red square and a white
paper tree burning leaves pop
music into yellow dollar tree
headphones bobbing bandana
skinny thighed chicken walker
full of david foster wallace and
cs lewis and xtx and french fries
she's on a—roll, oh my oh me

i really absolutely dislike you
because when your stars and nebulae
all align in the most triangular of ways
you see it all with a
blue ribbon pinned to your sweater
sweet heart
speaking your mind
doesn't make you intelligent
deciding which tracks
to delete from your mp3
doesn't make you

guest poem: like firewood and stuff

anger is for breaking things.
when things need to be broken
then anger is useful.
if you want to fix something
you should use shame.

Barentsburg

Desert under permafrost
vistas blank of human trace
enfold you wintry burg
orphan of distant histories

There were men here once
wrapped in itchy wool
lips chapped to bursting
flickers of homeostasis

Figures in concrete mural
the last of your villagers
backs straight faces firm
against a springless North

they survive
dennis says
no they don't
scoot insists and dennis
frowns and dennis
tells creepy stories about
how he killed a cat called cody
but dennis cannot remember when
he hired steve as he shows us a picture
of a human heart and points at valves
saying stints, stints, stints
while i am pulling stunts

cold thursday night

sometimes

me and the internet

can talk for hours

the TV is gone,

I notice

which is strange

(I think we had a TV)

my self confidence lies

at the foot of the bed,

asleep

I consider calling it a night too.

isolation tastes

like alcohol.

WONS4PK - recent writing not very poetic

I was always convinced that

"She Belongs to Me"

was written about yours truly

"She never stumbles/ she's got no place to fall"

hah hah, mere mortals

underwearing quick run to

the computer up the stairs

quick fall

bricks a place to fall - apparently, Bobby D

shit ow shit shiiiiit

my big toe has shed skin

but sadly not much like a snake at all

cool and complacent of course

now positively hissing like

Terb Wons the king of prom fallen off a bike

hit hit hit my arm

proving gate-control theory

bandaged-up in-tight foot slides into a

black shoe and I say

'Damnit, fates'

ego check

check check plus

Mata Hari in a blanket with sleeves

Snuggies
are
hospital ball gowns

I prefer to wear them with
nothing
underneath
and one shoulder slipped out
like a fallen bra strap:
a wardrobe malfunction
for wolves in sheep clothing

I readjust my glasses,
set teeth against my lower lip
like small white almonds
and pick up my dog-eared copy
of Lolita

a femme fatale to the end

a ski trip gone bad
by the river mouth
you fell in
mauve flowers
on your skin

like those breaking snow
on the first day of spring

i don't look for them
i listen

I don't want to be perceived the way I am. I just want to be perceived the way I am.

in the age of multitasking
adderall is king
and yeah, it's an age of
five things at once
five points of my
body are electric
even when I'm sobered
by the organ mountains
at five in the morning
on my walk with god
asking him what do
about these five x's

New Glasses

faintest mustache
on a sandwich girl’s lip
sprinkles of dandruff
on a lecturer’s suit
my own face
framed and pimpled

+1 intelligence
binds on equip

One night without sleep

my eyelids fluttering
in their lilac sockets

what can flourish here?
each eye is a crease
a lid on the pot

my tongue lies slack
bridled and saddled

i expel
hot breath

By now we were supposed to be fully assembled

I've always loved assembly lines
all kinds
I love watching each piece move by
one after the other
reaching each new step
one at a time.

I turn every thing into an assembly line
shirt folding, cookie baking
Education does this too
with children
but they forget
that assembly lines don't work
when each piece is different

Bring the Boys Back Home

even when I am laugh out loud crazy happy

insane cry and stressed out and nothing going right

ate undercooked pizza totally smitten

Suzie Birdsell type

I keep thinking

where is Michael Swadener

where is all the porn

on being a hermit

sedated

reflecting

out-of-focus

someone screams in the hallway

I remember

there are humans here

a book falls limply from my hand

the door swings wide

people are laying on the floor

laughing at their hands

a video is playing somewhere

seemingly on a loop

but they laugh every time

I curl up like a snake

in the corner of my room

pretending I'm inside a book

running through the ink.

the feeling of frustration
is stuck in my throat
this poem is going to suck
i say and i write it anyway
i say this poems sucks dicks
and i write it anyway
this poem is a throat fuck
away from being a porn star


porn stars don't even read poetry

listening to saved voicemails from my father

1. a loud noise
I can only assume is a sneeze
"Shit"
a clicking sound
as the phone is disconnected

2. "This is Hal
The computer from
Space Odyssey 2001.
Your voicemail sounds
like a fellow computer.
Emotion reading is zero.
Are you human?
Are you human?
Press enter or delete."

3. "Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday, I love you
Happy birthday to you."

my father has gone to the store
to buy me strawberry ice cream

before he left, he grabbed my toe
and called me his "little maladjusted
poet kid"

the two of us are straight out of a
Hallmark card
if Salinger wrote
Hallmark cards

fine, I admit it.

obviously, he had has enough
of scrounging, scrimping, breaking into bedrooms
billy jude, mr. bj himself, departs in a speeding car
and as he (finally) buckles his seatbelt
realizes I stole his wallet

I remember on that day, today, a song I made
'dead girls don't send emails'
listen to it w/ fear repeatedly and wonder if spilling
coffee on my keyboard might electrocute my
sad computer and me

This ain't Love, it's Land Reform

the peasants are revolting
I wonder why
we built that funny old castle
who was it supposed to keep out?

sweetheart I’m gonna miss you
but at least with the guillotine
we’ll get some kind of closure

dosvedanya my darling, my world
It’s been a real slice

chaparral
the desert opens
can I go home to
somewhere I've never been?

Words Part II

our relationships seems

to be one of words yours and I

I tell you things quickly sometimes

almost hoping you won't hear them

and think 'I am a book.'

You study me through your glasses

once you took them off your face

and put them on my nose

I said, You are blind!

But when I get up close enough to

your face you recognize me clearly like

words of a book

the moon

tries to hide herself

behind thin sheets

I am walking in the dark

my breath like wine

my knuckles like coal

my lungs on fire

walking in the dark.

blind man's bluff

biology class, 4th period:
thirty future
gas station attendants
and porcelain sanitation
majorettes
stick gum on the bottoms
of their desks
because they are under the
impression trash doesn't
exist if they aren't looking
at it

well, I've got to stare at garbage all period

four kids whistle sharply
with their fingers in the back
of the classroom

I ask, "Please stop whistling."
they do not stop whistling,
so I ask, ever so politely
"Excuse me, how fucking old are you?"

they do not stop whistling
(I blame it on self-loathing
and a destructive impulse)
"Hey, man, after school let's burn stuff"

today
I am bleeding out of my vagina
all over my best pair of underwear

I don't have time for this shit

tomorrow I will inform those four
little songbirds, ever so politely,
that I am a high functioning autistic

and they could keep whistling
they could whistle their way
to an early job at the gas station

only if they wanted, of course

I do love a good game of poker

jeeeezus why am I so rhyme-y lately, crimeny

we're back to the old analogy of mine
with the heart and the chewed gum
and the differing directions
I stepped on an emotional landmine and my macbook
girlrections, missed connections, craigslist mania
'weird gay slob seeks same'
has brought me Milagro Coffeeshop fame
'dear god I hate myself'
has been a recent obsession, thanks Max
Sketchy Broad's Late Night Lunchbox
chef buys me a passionfruit
while moot battles meghano
I scan twitter, skittering cats in wool sweaters
underneath the recline in the chair
with a backhanded stare
at yet another girl whose name
is a motherfucking color
just blow my brain now lest I birth and not
munch on an aggie school cow

the coyotes are screaming
the sound carried from the desert
into my bedroom

in the sixties they
built this house on
a cement foundation

while tapetum lucidum
watched from the tall grass

Too Much, Too Soon

I found some abandoned Man-jeans
upstairs so I wore them
My bra was two sizes
too small and I didn't realize it
yet.

Oh, you pretty thing
so flawless at 15
how infinitely envious I was

Too much too soon
it led you here
A sh*tting, screaming little machine in your arms
Though your looks have not changed
You seem different
You are no longer pretty
And no one is envious of you
anymore.

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

the allfather is
all around us
the tree that is pinned to
my shirt
i wipe the smudges away
and count to nine
nine
nine
nine
just like the beatles
just like the end of
the world

Sunday Nights are for Lovers

I throw words around

don't worry I know

I'm an ENTP

'yes, you certainly dominated everything'

Yes, I certainly did

I don't know if you're throwing words around

but I like your words

I open them up like little gifts

tightly knotted sometimes because

I seem to leave you

tongue-tied

Sick

--full of mucus

tired as hell

ready for snow to fall

from those low, heavy clouds

onto my shoulders

I'll wear it like a blanket

and go the fuck to sleep.

my heart fades
i say goodbye heart
my mind fades
i say goodbye mind

lift me up and place
me
that grave you dug
i love it's sides
so even
it's depths
you made a perfect six feet

thank you
now lower me
slowly

alerin yazzie

I call it eau de navajo
but really it's just cheap vodka
and cheaper orange juice

the game of life

a couple of drinks too many
four of us are playing board games

Brian's car veers over to the child
space, where a convenient card awaits
him
"Congratulations on your baby boy!"
Yvonne asks, "Who's having your children?
Who's having your children if it's not me?"
she says it like she's joking
but also like her voice
is holding a knife to his
testicles

she's playing bored games

Brian says, "Uhhhhh..."

women always win

but what's the use, anyway?

shuttling a breeze through my house
by letting the windows out
a swirling promenade of leaves
ego-centric, centripetal motion, i think

i hang between two caves
to be with you and
always to be alone

but today wasn’t so bad
i invited someone into my house
i fed and wrapped them
in my blanket of murmurs
and whispered joys

little by little
some part is
always escaping

but don’t let it go too soon
too soon
let it hang
softness in the mouth

people keep speaking numbers of death

mother

father

20% chance of this

10%

40%

aggressive

nonaggressive

I thought those words referred

to school children

Nicer Than Bukowski

today
I devised a metaphor
on learning women

I said it is like
climbing a mountain

on your way up,
full of adrenaline
praising your own hard work

once a month you are
stuck in a blizzard,
screaming
"I'M GOING TO DIE OUT HERE"

some clear day,
you reach the summit

now you just have to
make it back down.

please don't touch
my liver I cringe and
shy away from
the knife
the needle
the whiskey

it is a lovely wake

palms flat
i smooth out
my dress and step
into the confessional

forgive me father for
my rosary is around
my rear view mirror
since i only fuck in my
car anymore

oh oh oh
he breathes
and pauses

can I get your number, father?
i ask without stopping

mars bar (she says scary shit)

we're running out of chocolate, she says
did you read that article too, scary shit
no what are you talking about
nevermind, protecting her from fear
we observe a bed full of wrappers
we eat when feel happy too

run, the shadow of my youth

How can I escape
the gauzy redundancies
of your white underclothes
bunched up to your thigh

perforations as doors
moth wings as couriers
luxuriantly furred

How can I escape
the triple chess game
the sweat on your brow
rolling to the crease of your lip

polar bears have it easy

the fabric of my T-shirt
is thinner than my
father's hair

I specifically did not
want to be naked
but
my nipples are traitors
sharing insider information
with the entire grocery store

oh, refrigerated food section
you are a cold mistress

acts of espionage
through
my cotton shirt--
two little betrayals
the size of
quarters

I Like Quoting Zack

I had a dream

the skyscrapers kept rising taller

all around me

I woke up in a tall building

the tallest in all the world it seemed like

the tallest woman on earth I felt like

but not much of a folk singer at all

and yes I am very much a Woman

I'm just stuck in a child-like search

less than three
is how much
i love
my book collection
my knitting supplies
the way the sun shines
through my curtains
whales, earrings, snacks

I'd rather be alone
than intimate with you


<3

they stand just like

the terra cotta soldiers

in rows on the field

while men scream in their faces

these are children of my generation

being packed up

saran wrapped in submission

roll them out,

the new shipment,

on the hot desert floor

watch them burn.

nice girls don't stay for breakfast

several times each year
the favorite infection comes to visit
it loves the tonsils so
it brings gifts of gold, frankincense,
—and pus
the man at the pharmacy proffers dxm
—for free no less

diving into a sea of sweaters
feeling like death microwaved for 0:30
feeling like the most blessed of robots

fast food at the speed of 25 mph

the differences between
cats and people:
negligible

barely more barbaric
hardly less civilized

my cat also looks out
the window and thinks

red robin
yum

i hold my hand over
the bare light bulb
to see the pink ocean
that runs beneath
my palms

i want to recreate
that scene with you
the one inside the whale


you know which one

I struck

six different keys

as I walked past the piano

they brought back

one memory a piece

the setting sun over the harbor

ash falling on the windshield

as I cried, wondering how close

the flames were

wondering what made mom so sick,

what made her smile look sad

the first time I saw snow falling,

felt my hands get cold

pressed up against the glass

a circuit was formed

the first time we kissed

the mountains rising above us

we were on top of the world

we were invincible

we're still invincible.

Worcester

Today I crunched on leaves
crunch crunch crunch
said if I come here I will never crunch numbers
crunch crunch crunch

I wrapped my new hat scarf around me and thought
I wish you were here to explore with me
I saw a sweater you and I could wear

These words sound familiar like cereal
crunch crunch crunch

Ke$ha told me I'd drive you crazy

i nap from 9 pm to 12 am
jesus christ

i am thinking of chopped agaves and dead trees

cutesy rhyming poem for the day after

hey little fire eater, crank the ac
turn off the tv, go down on me
drink this, I made it, weed and tea
let's eat all of the damn sushi
can I hold your hand while you go pee?

Worshipping False Gods or Traveling With My Parents

"They're building another church!"
my Lutheran-born mother
doesn't like the Lutheran church

my dad bought a TomTom
it says
turn right
we turn right
it says
turn left
we turn left
I say, "what a piece of shit"
TomTom says
straight on

wow

i said something so profound
that the TA had to pause
and utter "wow...that's..."
he was flabbergasted

the class looked up at me
smiling, amazed
the girl who keeps trying to talk to me
gave me a knowing nod

i felt great
i felt better than great
i was biking with immense speed
i passed three people
i was an acceptable human being

i was so glad
he didn't ask me to elaborate

PHDs glance
serendipitously
at their assistants perfect
bottoms

they feel sleazy about it
five minutes later

smells like sex
when she arrives
home is my
Native American
name

if I could

I would write this feeling down

on a little piece of paper

let it slip from my hand

over the edge

recoil quickly as the wind

carried it upward and away

among the buildings

and towards an ocean

to be lost among

the waves

Ode to Snuggle Bear

Hey.
I know 20 years is a long time
for anything to be alive
There's been a lot of falling
down the cracks

Hey.
I know 20 years is a long time
to be suffocated underneath it all
There's been a lot of squeezing
and crying

Hey.
I know 20 years is a long time
to be this faithful to somebody
There's been a lot of ripping
at your seams

And I know it probably hurts
when I stab this needle
repeatedly into your neck
I know.
I feel like my head is falling off too
but I don't have anyone
to help me sew it back on.

Hey.
I know 20 years is a long time
but you and me
we have a long way to go
and I'll keep stitching you up
if you keep hugging me at night
as I fall asleep.

today I interviewed julian koster

julian koster loves adventures
julian koster plays shows in houses
julian koster isn't famous
julian koster doesn't own an ipod
julian koster likes billie holid-ay
julian koster believes in magic

jordan gillespie was at this gas station once
jordan gillespie smiled at the cashier
jordan gillespie stole a lighter from that gas station
jordan gillespie only uses white ones
jordan gillespie is down to fuck
jordan gillespie believes in luck

in the hour of the rooster

the clock in the corner
struck with my mother's hands;
the hospital room was
the white
of antibacterial wipes

I slid out into the world
a mottled baby
umbilical cord wrapped around my neck
like a Christmas bow

white, the difference between
purity and sterility

I don't know who to blame
I wasn't born that way

I remember the first time I saw the literal early bird getting the literal worm.

It sat on our back lawn and violently stretched the creature out of the ground
ripping the worm from its safety
thrusting its head back wickedly
and diving down again.

I was horrified.

I found their trail in the morning
got down on my knees and scrubbed
later traps
watching them come in one way
and leave out the other

That sweet, heavy thought:
I would never see these ants again

Using Names

I just had to boast of course

Madison would put me

in one of her circles of hell

I feel like a bird

singing out a confused song

and Zack said only simple emotions

write songs

flaws are truly the most

attractive thing on earth

tea leaves

I look up at the leaves falling
oracles, all of them

I think the word "future"
a leaf drifts, an aimless paper plane,
through cold sunlight

doors swing open inside me
the doors to the
cage where I used to keep
the butterflies

grey cat

yeah—I trained my cat to be just like me
so he's mean, you know, he'll bite you in the face
I like to let him claw me up, the pain is nice
and the scratch marks look kind of cool

I named him Mr. Shankly, after a Smiths song
and frankly, he is an ass
grey striped, small bodied, a bundle of fear

people prolly all become their pets eventually

rises in east, sets in west

I am so scared

that one day

your eyes will glitter

as they reflect the rising sun

over the Atlantic,

and where I am it will still be dark.

And when I wake, I will only feel

the weight of the clouds

on my eyelids,

so I will go back to sleep, back to where

I can still kiss you.

You rise in the East,

I set in the West.

Called by nickname,
"Chi, they're all faggots"
Cody is quietly watching the
Bengals get their asses kicked
and resisting his laughter

I adjust my socks and wait for
my phone to light up
and move across the table

full of kinetic energy

STEINER SAID

do not only seek wisdom

you'll turn into a bitter

fool

because wisdom for wimdom's sake is like

toothache for toothache's sake

my dentist was probably an Anthroposophist

laughing gas makes us forget we are foolish

roundtree

the chemicals in her brain are all wrong
she keeps adding and subtracting more
the receipt is rolling along the floor

fresh from the most recent asphyxiation
conceptual physics becomes intoxicating
maddening at mirrors, she laments

for a time, a place, alaska
a place without wires or wifi
a place where you can't coordinate sex via txt

blowing up balloons at the zoo

the balloon tied to my wrist was
bought with my life savings
it drags on the ground behind me,
a deflated rubber pet
on a leash
asphyxiated with a ribboned
noose

I have been crying
for
fifteen minutes

my father's face
is an angry red balloon
he pulls me by the wrist
the veins on his forehead
are translucent,
the plastic color of a birthday party

I ask him,
--please do not pop

Preaching

a man stood

on a pillar of concrete

and held a tattered Bible

up like a shield

against the masses

he told them

you're all gonna burn,

they tasted blood in the water

and began to scream

Juanless tied a
cherry stem in a knot
with his tongue

My blush was artificial
when Cody closed the blinds
and insisted that we fuck

There were coyote on
the number seven hole
when I recycled the cans
that night

Puerile

I come across an empty picture
or my brother’s pale face?
What did I lose, between there?

I am turning, I see the dark pit.
an ant’s eye
a dead fruit
stains the earth

Bittersweetness
playing on my smile, widening it.
An ill night, sucking on the corner of the blanket,
I see the roof bends warm over me.

The rain comes, cold and silver.
Death will come, it will mow its ground,
it will build a ramp to you.

In my fort of hay, I killed a serpent
I placed the body on the hill
and rolled it into the stream.

I had nothing left but
a funny face on

The Sporting Life: an adaptation

At times I'm afraid
that love is like high jump

I try to think of all my details
A half-moon run
small quick step
knee up
arch back
and when it's all over
I sit up cautiously on the yellow foam mat
looking to see if the bar still balances delicately on its wobbly posts
looking to see if I did everything exactly right this time
because I never can tell
until it's all over.

Tribute to Liz

although it's been

three months

since we took a walk

among the silent houses and

weak streetlights of our hometown,

things still feel the same;

just two bitter kids

drinking wine

and laughing at the moon.

a cliff jump

my wrist
is so breakable and hollow
like a ceramic figurine

hiking on a narrow road,
I look over a precipice
the delicate bones
of the cliff face
stare back at me

if all my bones were joints
flight would be an option

the automatic car wash

is like a sudsy Sunday canal of rebirth

zen zen zen

I ran into Ms. P in the grocery store

everything is vaginal

it is all very clear now

video killed the radio star

I sold my head on ebay
and bought a television with my profits.
Using a staple gun
and some super glue
I have achieved the ultimate makeover.
I have 346 channels
and a power button now.

car ride takes ten minutes
the shouting match that ensues
only takes about seven

a full seventeen minutes
and you are saying
"I wish you were mine"

the moon isn't full
and my stomach is a knot

oh i'm alive im alive
oh magic little phylactery
oh remarkable red remedy

oh sing modern science, sing
for your prisons you have pills
one for my heavy heart
one for my woes
one for the hole inside
that cannot be found

On Being White & Middle Class

scholarship grants!

fly right over me but don't you see

I have to jump through so many hoops!

now that I lost those two pounds I wanted nothing to do with

my ribs show luxuriously through my skin

even though it is white

Seinfeld is Universal

the TV

keeps fading to black,

flashing in red lettering

"NO SIGNAL".

I fumble with the antenna

looking for this lost signal,

imagining it may be avoiding me

in outer space,

carrying Seinfeld

to other planets.

junk food

I remember looking at the countertops
of my house
as a child,
mail piled together
like a salad

each letter for me
was a section of orange
on my tongue
peeled birthday cards
littered the kitchen

I dread the day
when I will think

bills, bills, bills

to achieve sainthood
i subsist entirely on
guacamole

Tick tock tick tock

My house is full
of girls watching shows
about child birth
and weddings
and more child birth
and talking about who got engaged today
and looking through wedding magazines
and sighing at rings
and pretty dresses.

I sit in the next room
pretending to be uninterested
but I really want to crawl
under my bed
bitter
and
terrified.

i don't feel like a poem today

i feel like a bike locked to
a gas meter and like tinted
windows and an eclipse

scooter didn't say anything
interesting last night

I got blackout drunk last night

my head is throbbing
I am making spaghettios
I wish I wasn't alone all the time.

sex in a church parking lot

a light on in somebody's office
upstairs, but
our windows are fogged

I say to whoever is watching
--this was the darkest place we could find

and wonder why I don't pray more
often
at ten on a Thursday night

the hope is in the Proles

I am constantly ensuring myself that

I love the common man

(a fanfare for him in fact)

but then the commonman opens his mouth

in human geography

and we become forced internal migrants

Cold Front

A cold front blew in
today
My feet began to protest
my perpetual use of flip flops.

On the way back from Sarasota
we pulled over to look
at the stars
and our peculiar, wild laughter
echoed across the countryside
the air hung like one enormous stone
and for a moment we forgot
our tropical prison.

Chris Cravey keeps having heart attacks
and I run around
screaming death death death

There are no comfortable chairs in the hospital
I'll keep my vigil in the bathroom
next to numerous buttons
'help' says one

i'll press it
staring at my urine

As long as they keep me in a dry place,
i'll last as long as the mummified cat on tv.

potential energy

with his life savings, everything
he invented an engine

it was beautiful, efficient
each day he polished it
'till it gleamed on its throne
pressed his ear to chrome
the perfect hum of pistons
so powerful with nothing to push

with his last breath
he wished he had been
a big picture person

Wisdom From My Hairdresser

She says,

"I'm turning 50 tomorrow,

Chris"

I tell her age doesn't matter,

and when she laughs

the ink teardrops around her eyes

disappear in wrinkles

forged by 49 years of living

in this desert.

She says, no,

what matters

is aging.

I know
I know
that chewing your nails
is not good for you
It's a bad habit and I have so many

I lay my hands on the bar
palms down and Orlando laughs
and slurs

"Even your nails are so white"

here, jita, let me get that for you

my hands are the lurid white of a tourist's
but
a man called me his "hijita" today
opened the door for me and called me
his daughter, here:
where I am the pale dust
of a foreigner
in this neighborhood of
earth

If it were up to me

I hate that all I can think
to write about
is how dissatisfied I am
with my hair.

If it were up to me
I'd have one room in my house
That was so full of pillows
that you couldn't find the floor.

And when I was tired of my existence being acknowledged
I'd dive in face first
and drown myself in goose feathers
and polyester.

jesus...

I've been staring at this baby for an hour
do something, baby

your mom would sell the house
before losing you

moi? i say they let you suffer
a life not lived is not worth ending
so they say

now, you're harsh
go easy on me

you eat eggs

not homicidal, No

man vs. himself

I said aloud to myself

(i'm a bit batty you see have been for years)

up a bit too high on my horse

a dollface! of course

'you emit waves of internal conflict'

he smiled at me

because I am completely helpless

up on my horse

I turn the light off at

12:17.

The air of the room

is still and hot.

Through the open window,

I hear the soundtrack

of a city--

ambulance wails.

man shouts.

subwoofer cracks windows.

plastic bags tumble.

It won't let me sleep,

so I get up and walk to the mirror

like a zombie.

I look at myself and say,

go to sleep

you mediocre fuckup.

4Loko is not a meal

your giant watch may glimmer in the fall sun

luck, it may be on your side, skybiker

well slept greasy hair, thick eyeliner

cursing halfgrinned, fair skin, what things to behold today

you pedalpeddle around under the impression that

an organic coffee drink brings all the bois

to the yard

you've been dreaming about Oprah again,

haven't you

"I am destined to be alone,"
He says as he drinks Miller light
Imagine him in his large, empty house
His dog resting her head on his knee
as he looks around the bedroom
and I am just so very glad that
he has shaved his mustache off.

Today was not a poem day

Preamble:
Following a profound malaise
I open up a book
here the stories are sad

Plot:
I could never be this sad
I could never be, locked in a car
mother yelling things

a piece of shit
she yells
you are worthless shit

my friend says:
my mother called me a piece of shit

I could never be as sad as a book

a teenage poem regarding 'The Stranger' in my own home

I love speaking to the world as if

it existed only so I could perceive it

my dad said 'you just don't fucking

get it. You have no idea how to understand

the world as it turns.' and I replied

as snarky as ever 'You should hear your-

self speak. You ascribe meaning to

everything and I'm an existentialist.'

I lost my shoes

Here is a grocery list of gazes you're going to have to avoid
since you want to wander in my shoes today.

Here is a new pair of shoelaces;
those will surely break from the stress.

Here is a sock.
I know it's filthy, but it's all I have on me. 

Here is a sole.
Try not to step on it.

Envenomed

he braved
great dangers

he wanted
to be valuable

bring sustenance
to his children

contribute
to his community

but he didn't know
what we knew

he was beguiled
by our deception

and what began as heroism
ended in devastation.

and that's how we solved our cockroach problem.

leap of faith (hebrews 11:1)

the fall
from my hand to the fountain
is for pennies
a suicide leap

wishes drown in the well

but leap they do
from my hands
like rain

after the last page

has been turned,

after the last fluorescent light

cools to darkness,

after the last echo

is swallowed by night,

there is nothing

but the beating of my own

green heart

--longing for the sound

of your silence

sleeping next to me

i always lock my car doors,
chain up my bicycle,
turn the deadbolt
because i don't trust anyone
in a town where V-Rod leaves his
engine running

one day
i will steal his truck
and he will learn
not to trust anyone
either

A Womanly Poem About My Insides

no one seems to talk about the

week a month where there is

a haze that clouds everything

fuck fuck fuck

ah, little egg, you must want to be fertilized

but that boy Jade would look better

as a rock on my finger

Lessons from an involuntary muscle tissue

Today in anatomy lab we took each other's blood pressure.
Air hissed out of the dark blue cuff that choked my arm
I felt my blood thump thump thumping
as my heart forced it back through my artery
and down towards my hand again.

My heart will always have to beat.
This makes me want to lie down
curl up in a ball
and quit breathing or something.
Give my heart a vacation
Let it have a little rest so it doesn't wear itself out.

So I apologized to my heart
saying I'm sorry you have to spend every second of your day
slaving away for me
but there's really nothing I can do to lend a hand.
And my heart just kept on pumping and said

You don't always need to be the one in control.