Mmm.

that anyone could make me feel naked in
suspense, a need to curl my fingers? I'll remind myself 
that I need my bed rest, that I need 
the thing that heals, that I need 
anything at all is too much, it's too
tedious to need, I won't admit to 
it, most of the time I won't. 

groaning grows from the throat,  trickling down, 
my voice isn't sweet like honey,
but more harsh harsh harsh in ways like
dry swallowing big pill after pill after pill. 

the ends of my fingers are beams, they are brightest 
when I touch the space between me and
the space between you and the soft space
left after drinking what we 
bottle 
up,

every time
every time.

I know you're as hungry as I am.

Let's let the hem out of every 
skirt we own so we can
be
  long 
     belong in
their fraying ends.

writing this while I'm not writing something else

there's something to be said about
the time it takes for words to
formulate, make their way
all the way down to the tiptips of our tontongues,
I savor the ringing silence that comes
after the bitter ones leave, the after-taste of
arguments and the residue left from things I didn't mean.

if I could I'd pour nectar down my throat and
speak in whispers only in whispers and then
quiet quiet
quiet
down, I'd
whisper,
quiet down.

these gaps in between the teeth of my
abilities, no lips to cover, I am
lost for words, so to speak.

perhaps the next go-round I'll be able to write epic poetry like Gilgamesh.

halfway between home and the nomad's life

In my room there was
a strand of christmas lights
lining the four walls,
eating itself where it
began and my records are
filed in a cardboard box in the corner.
When I left I left two piles of clothes,
one for keeping, one for
burning. For
I left a pair of scissors on the floor and
the smell of moist towels molding the air.
-----------------------------------------------
It seems the clothes have evaporated with the tears,
leaving the scissors in a cup on the desk while
the strand of lights no longer clings to the wall
but droops in the center of this
purged,
tired
room.
The records, thank god, haven't been touched.
-----------------------------------------------
When I left I thought I left what I cared about because
it hurt too much. As it turns out, I left a pile of shit
and some fucking
christmas lights.

fourteen to fifteen I was

I remember having long hair. I remember,
I felt like the wind would ruin me as it whipped me about, as it
tore me from behind curtains and into sunlight, I felt
naked. I loathed the wind, I loathed
it. I closed my eyes. Everytime, I closed
my eyes and thought "if I can't see them
see me like this, it isn't real it isn't real"

I remember feeling that easily-swayed way, that
trembling-all-over-all-the-time, that shifting-sliding-about-to-break
feeling of insecurity.

I don't
miss it, I
don't.