wondering if maybe or     not it's noticed how
naturally i amjust            there
how empty just empty
words are just wordslike not
at all, just                       there

a touch                                sending
                                        wa vves

opened a dream
at the back of the neck

my arenot's

i'd have you, build around you

i still think      you
like coffee stains let sit, orange with age,
they still smell the same

i wish i could breathe    you
and have you sit in my lungs, i could
make room, at least
i could try

build a lean-to, i'd have you

what could I be doing? writing this. now?
what could I be doing with
all this space and       this BIGbig time
thing that is so
damn
consum-
ing like a
vacuum just

disappear into something that you never
get to
re-visit just try to
replace but that gets
used up, too

not a very sustainable
feeling, not a very
worth-while
practice, is
it?

no. rather jump on
a train than sit here and watch it happen to
everyone I care about, rather
sink inside and re-emerge every day feeling
brand-new than constantly
wasted, taken apart

little bit by
piece by
inch
by

day by
day

I want to bake some

fallin’ in love pie. swallow each bite,

feel it warm in my mouth, warm in my chest

then warm in my stomach, no space

left

just

a warm pink glow about my skin

a nice and slow spread-

ing of it, nice and

slow

it’s a good feeling to have, a good

feeling to have in your lungs –

heaving, even

just as long as they’re

breathing

even

won’t have to pull my sleeves anymore

won’t have to hold my need, won’t

have to scratch my skin anymore

won’t

have a

need

wantingly be, all of the time








what can I do?

i am no simple, nor am i 

plain, just a little shine and some

dull areas but that's okay

i have enough lace to wrap myself in and 

feel perfectly fancy for the rest of my life

how easily the un-ease slips, scary how well I know it now, an old etcetera met with an almost-warmth because it is so much a part of my own body, a familiarity, that is, familiar in my own skin, just a swimming in my gestures. just a shift every so often, for I have not settled. just a bird perched in the center of my chest and I cannot open it --

I have been 

interrupted and re-visited with no 

                  memory of how I 

                  began. 

sc

today i fell in love with every face that didn't look away when we made eye contact, godjust lean down and (stoopinglike stone arches) lay heavy kisses that ground me so, just so i can stretch my toes and my neck through and pulling every nerve to it's end just
kiss you, too

so uh

I like to categorize myself and yet I avoid categorization at all costs.
I wish I understood myself like I think I do sometimes.

if I could, I would draw the back of every

time she turned away from me - her hair and how it met the base of the skull and repelled

downward or climbed back up, she'd cut it short and then 

watch it grow,            

if I could, I would re-trace her ears and marvel at how the skin joined in perfect harmony behind them.

if I could, I would have had her a million times more in between my fingers, running them through her -

every "every" I have and had and will have. 

i am comforted in my own - just like ice melts, only not so
warm, just warm enough. lay like a leaf in the sun, holding up lace, so that
when i lower it the pattern will be burned across my face, intricate enough
so that people will have to lean inclose
to see

i am forever changing, like no mona lisa because
"bullets pass through me and I keep moooooooving"
only the bullets never reach me - i know i'm dreaming when i'm
dreaming.

today, someone told me I don't smile very much. 

and I think I'm okay with that. 

it's almost like

you know how to notice things, but
you don't know how to use that information to your advantage.






I wish you did, sometimes.

maybe it's gone
and maybe it's been replaced by
other things. maybe I'll find it
curled under the desk, after quite a time
without it

and maybe it's gone

maybe you can feel me,               the clunk
the clunk in my chest                    in yours

the drop in my                                 the drop
diaphragm,                                       of your hand

maybe you can see it,                  your eyes
my eyes open as open                 seeing as
                                                              mine
                                               

maybe you can hear it,               is
the hum inside my                        from your
                                                              mouth


maybe you can think me            as I
                                                              think
                                                              you

tired, but empty so

I'll lay at odd angles, in uncomfortable 

positions so as not to fall asleep. keep

hoping that maybe I'll make something

more of today, make

something, just make

something that makes today

a little more worth it, makes

me a little

more 

worth

 

today

pale 

speech 

can breathe                             in this

pick my breath from the empty,

carryit in your lungs, like it's your own

clear space in my own lungs, let you curl
hear my heart beat above your head

feel my breath quicken
and slow

my curved spine will cradle you,

hold my knees against my chest so you are 

warm, lift my diaphragm so as not
to crowd
you out

I have room, for you
here, I have
room 

This is not why I like your poetry. This is why I love you.

"Because poems look like pies through rose colored glasses and it's really hard to find a bad pie."

 - SH

I never want to talk over you.
I always want to listen, listen and perhaps respond.
but mostly just
listen.

MPDG

used to wish I was one of those
Manic Pixie Dream Girls.
you know,  like Zooey Deschanel or
Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.

most of the time the MPDG's don't have goals
or endeavors independent of the male lead.

I reject that thought when it pops into my head nowadays.
I reject that title.

I won't be a lubricator to your peace of mind if I haven't ever had my own.

a big fucking blur

like someone moving when you take the picture

in a constant state of co-existence in parallel dimensions, never in

solid form, particles

atoms - movingbeing

us

we're trying

the floor is covered in ash, we trudge
through to the kitchen to pour ourselves some coffee,
then to the bedroom to lay in the empty space there, left
to us - everything is - to swallow like a bad thanksgiving dish
you're too polite not to eat

our hands are never clean, our feet are always cold and
we don't have enough sense to put on socks. 

the faces are heavy, they give off sawdust smiles and
big red-marked cheeks from leaning too hard on other people,
we are craning over one another, reaching past one another, never holding
eye-contact

it's the emptiness left from the previous emptiness here,

it's awful here,
it's awful
here.

"Goddamnit, sonuvabitch!"

this is your legacy, basically.

"When the weeds are poking through your skull, then there's plenty of time for regrets." - Han Shan

There are two voices (among the many) in continuous opposition,
always finding their way into a mouth or two or three of the 
hungry tongues and teeth and lips of this place:

"Why spend time chasing when you are nothing but
a bag of bones prattling along the path to a concrete slab?" says the one. 

Says the other, 
"Yes but this is life, jump in! 
Join the fray - play. For the time - there is only so much."

and

everything goes.

like a church, without the echo.

my love is in this place, runs through it
like blushed cheeks, and wind
carries our laughter.

it helps to read (about) other people's pain

 it helps to cradle your own, in the crook of your elbow like
a catch in the throat, like pulling off a sweater's static cling and
stripping down to nothing but a a set of teeth for eating and
a set of eyes for tearing up when you feel human enough

don't don't
make anything
you're not willing
to see destroyed

"Fucking bummer.
Not having friends is."

get what you give, baby.

last dregs coat the tongue like
dead possums in the mouths of eager dogs, like
big-bellied fools asleep in garbage cans, like
no-tooth smiles and yawns mid-
sentence.

I can't breathe anymore
can't breathe anymore, can't be
can't be
can't be


any




more. 

pop all the speech bubbles.

on every situation ever in my life:

I am glad
and I am not.

"Why are you eating so many peaches?"
"Because if we are what we eat, I want to be peaches."

it becomes more and more difficult to suck the poison out of your life when it is slowly sinking into your pores, your body sipping from it's cup, when it begins to bond with your DNA and your skin turns from peaches to grey ash. when you scrape the bottom of your stomach for something but there is nothing left of you, only poison, only
poison.

(give) me room, a little more, a     little                   more

belly is bloated with falsity, my breath is barely

there, I am -holding- back because I have nothing to  

       

                (give)

                 to you 

             I have no-

                  thing to 

                         (give) 

I'm sorry, 

I'm sorry.

dear body (pt.2)

dear toes,

thank you for carrying me all the way home (like the little pigs you are)

dear ankles, 

you are not weak. 

I'm sorry I call you that sometimes. 

dear knees, 

knobby or not, you still let me bend without letting prying eyes see up my skirt. 

dear thighs, 

I think your stretch marks are like road maps. 

it lets me know I've been places. 

dear tummy, 

I'm sorry for the ridiculous diet of whole vegetables and sweets I feed you. 

I promise to try and eat like a normal person in the future. you're a champ. 

dear breasts, 

you're still mine. that is all. 

dear arms, 

still can't lift a car. 

but that's okay, because I can lift a guitar. 

dear fingers, 

I'm sorry I bite you. they are love bites, I swear. 

dear neck, 

the likeness of a swan's, you allow me to crane over crowds in theatres. 

dear lips, 

also, I'm sorry I bite you. you deserve more chapstick. 

dear nose, 

sorry I poked a hole through you. but if it's any consolation, everyone says you look badass. 

dear eyes, 

I'm sorry I don't wear my glasses all the time, but

glasses or no, you let the beautiful in. 

dear ears, 

I'm sorry I listen to music too loudly at times. 

dear hair, 

sometimes I think you're against me. 

but at the end of the day you curl like a cat at my neck,
the ultimate comfort.

you are never talking to me, see your
eyes cast down, looking like you're looking
for something on the ground, but it isn't
a blossom of spring, because it snowed
yesterday, it snowed all over our blooming
hopefuls.

you are never talking to me, shifting gaze to the right
because you are sincere about avoiding mine, you
are sincere about letting my eyes slip by yours
without a second
glance.

no chance.

you are not a good girl.

my neck is burning.

the ends of my nerves are frayed and brushing against one another to create

this warmth that creeps along my breastplate, swelling like a marshmallow

in the microwave, I am 

jealous, so so jealous. 

and then I deflate, realizing that I 

am not the only person alive and I 

am not the only person, not

the only one who is made up

of darting feet and frantic

need. 

I am not

the only one who wishes to be 

a moment of the bursting 

beautiful in you. 

everything is trashed.























I know I am.

I will not end for you, no.
I will begin, and I will keep
on beginning.

I will lick peach juices from
my fingertips like mama's milk
dripping from the teat. I will wrap myself in
silk sarongs and stay that way for days,
marveling at the texture of my own skin.
I will run naked through the rain and
liberate myself in knowing that
what will happen will happen and
there is no safe way out. I will sit close
and listen. I will breathe water lying still
in a stream. I will eat poems for
breakfast and I
will slowly learn
how to die.

it would be so 

much easier if 

I could just 

get some 

fucking SLEEP, if I 

could take a hint or

just go get

bent

if I could

if I could

if I c

       o 

         u

           l

               d..

but that possibility falls away

like everything, like 

every

thing

does. 

it is pointless, this mission
so many of us
are on, it seems

trying to turn each other into
mirrors so
we can make love to
ourselves

when will we be real to each other,
I wonder?

mostly the

fleeting thoughts, the passing
urges, passing itches of want are fueled
by a more sincere objective than you'd think.

in actuality, I want just
to keep you around.
to be friends for the foreseeable future.
to have you in my life.  

but I am very afraid you'll stop wanting me around if the relationship doesn't advance.

but you mean more
than that.

you mean more
than sex and
labels and
all of the
nonsense
ever will.

you are something, not
everything
not every
thing
----------------------------------
physically - you remain in one
place at all times, be it here or
be it there

otherwise - you are carried in
the thoughts of those dear
bodies, several fleeting affections
drifting in and out of ears
---------------------------------
that is
the difference
between, now
learn it

reachreach a 
littlemore a 
littlemore

closetoyou, closeto me

enoughtobe
close toyou

enough tobe
just
be.

honey, maybe
I don't know what it's like.

maybe I haven't a clue as to what
you chew and what poison you've
experienced or what

your fragile mind has
been through to make it so
'uneven' as you say.

but I know what something is like.
I know what I am like and I know what
I perceive of you and what I perceive of everything
and I know that I've had a bad meal in between all
of it, in between the everything that
I do
know.

I know something.
I have something, I am
something,

you know.

the impression of everything
finally fit into the impression left by the first (as it always does) but

it was only the shallow end, and wonder goes
deeper, at least to the 6ft that goes over my head
(as it always does) and now

I am chopped into several different 
pieces like the syllables in a word -- you've gotta
             
              sound
     
                me 
            
               out!


you've gotta get me out
of the brain to the tongue to your
lips and teeth -- so sweet! the satisfying end to 
one 
big 
word, 



isn't it?

in short

thin fabric, in
through the window, body
vibrating with accumulative
sun lust.

blisters on my feet, salty skin and
I feel as if I can start
to breath, now, I can
start to swim with deliberate
strokes, each.

stretch likealioness, to
sleep like a good
goodnight.