truth

This is God’s honest truth,

which is also a pit full of

arsenic nestled inside

my peaches, cyanide

in the white stars of

my apples, those

poisonous little pits

of cherries shining

like wet stones in

my eyes.

Throw Out

I take the apples

that have grown soft

and with a pitcher’s

stance and fervor

whip them out

the window towards

the trampoline

who knew that

ballooned and bruised

hearts would bounce

into the neighbors’

yard and continue to

rot

this is when i leave you

no heart to squeeze
between thighs

just a hole in the wall
next to the bathtub

dark enough
to be afraid of

I go to someone else
to get kissed

as the cats paw at the door
to our apartment

I cry between
spin cycles

water thrashes like thistles
around my waist

apples grow
soft in the night

my body is a nest full of
little open mouths

I do not want
you to feed them

this is the way heroism works

your hands like thistles

prick the skin so lightly

leave stippled pink scratches

on the part of myself

that never sees the sun

that trembles under touch

my body is a nest full of

little open mouths

and I do not want

you to fill them

Without Light

my head is full of diamonds

that cannot be fished with a net

they fall through the holes

clatter in a flurry

of sharp tumbles

he offers tweezers

to grip them like eyelashes

but I am afraid of scratches

and memory loss

so I leave them

in the darkness

and wonder

if there is no light,

are they even diamonds anymore

Why This Ended

I would have stayed with you

if it weren’t for all those starfish

losing their limbs in your pockets,

trailing saltwater down your pant leg,

pooling at your feet.

I would have stayed with you

if it weren’t for the way your handwriting

slants down and off of the page.

your words lead to nowhere.

I would have stayed with you

if it weren’t for all those birds

crashing into your kitchen windows,

leaving their prints on the glass,

eerie outlines of wing and feather.

I would have stayed with you

if it weren’t for that hole

in the wall next to the bathtub,

dark enough to be afraid of.

I would have stayed with you

if it weren’t for all those butterflies

caught in the grill of your car,

wings like confetti

whirling through your engine.

I would have stayed with you

if it weren’t for the low drone

of your synthesizer, vibrating

the walls of the bathtub,

pulsing through my water.

10/18/09

no one

can touch

my upper back

like you

& it's

breaking

my goddamn heart

Wants

wants to rattle the moon
around in my mouth like a jawbreaker

wants to show you
the tan lines underneath

wants driving
windows down when it’s too cold

wants to pick off
black fingernails

wants some bruises
from my car being too small

wants some whiskey
an apple & Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

wants to bake
to make jam

wants to undress
with hipbones touching

wants money
an impressive amount of books

wants to not be hungry
after brushing my teeth

wants these wolves
growling

wants you
and not you

(1) "ghazal" (2) bustin' out (3) rondelet

(1)

How can I think in the dark when all I can feel
is the white heat of all this swelling?

The eagerness of mosquitos brightens my sheets,
jolts me awake at three a.m., thick with all this swelling.

I spend these nights tearing at my skin with whittled nails,
digging at my heart that throbs in time to all this swelling.

We are making mountains around these knees like doorknobs.
We need to round them out with all this swelling.

Oh, skin of mine, the mosquitoes are arranging bites
into more than constellations, more than all this swelling.

There are fireworks like zinnias, blooming out of hot white centers.
My back is the Fourth of July, alive with all this swelling.
____________________________


(2)


How can I think in the dark
when all I can feel is the white heat
of all this swelling?

The eagerness of mosquitos
brightens my sheets,
jolts me awake at three a.m.

I spend these nights
tearing at my skin
with whittled nails,
digging at my heart that throbs.


We are making mountains
around these knees like doorknobs.

We need to round them out.



Oh, skin of mine,
the mosquitos are arranging bites
into more than constellations,
more than all this swelling.

My back is the Fourth of July.
There are fireworks like zinnias,
blooming out of hot white centers.

________________________________


(3)


I spend these nights
tearing my skin with whittled nails.
I spend these nights
with eager mosquitos, and the
white heat of all this heart-swelling.
Oh, bright skin, bites like zinnias.
I spend these nights.

Proud Expanse

Everything here is about limited space,
filling in the gaps of white, green,
those long shadowed rooms that
appear between houses, under eaves.

There is no great open plain,
no things that sleep and exist
on their own terms, on this
so-called hallowed ground.

How odd it must feel to live
in a world of no abandonment.

I cannot help but think
of the proud expanse of home,
which is nothing like the wild west,
but just as defiant.

The night looms with a lavender light,
the color of stars, smog, and a distant city.

The ground rumbles under the weight of it all,
hums with the sound of what I left behind,
the sound of where I’m going.

Lightning Coming from Somewhere

I’m trying to be good,
but now I have a book with an inscription,
a storm to rumble through the sea of my sheets,
teeth that clench, clench, clench their way
through night and straight on ‘till morning.

I am awake.

I’ve got a fever that gallops through my body,
rising up from the nape of my neck,
flushing my face, granting me the joy
of hearing my own pulse,
sharp as arrowheads in my ears.

You’re a cherry-blister on my palm,
a wailing garbage truck at five a.m.,

the humidity wound up in my hair
which I try and calm before I go out,
before people see that I’ve got
lightning coming from somewhere

cloud-to-ground, cloud-to-cloud,
heart-to-heart.

As Fast as Rockets

I’ve got bushel baskets of hearts,
the wood stained raspberry-red,
juice pooling in the bed of this wagon.

Things like this don’t just happen,
they collide, slip and stumble
across slick floors, meteor-fall
into your lap, stain your hands
when you try to cradle them,
pat them dry like soft berries.

The magnetism of things interjects,
calls you out beneath the sheets,
rebels against your better judgment.

Your eyes are as blue as hotel pools,
your lips as tempting as having just one more.

This is an entanglement, a predicament,
a first-walk-on-the-moon
without enough air.

These boots will leave unmistakable prints--
tracks in the snow leading to my heart.

Love as fast as rockets.
We accelerate towards heartbreak.

All That Corn in Those Silos

I could use the kernels to count
all the times I've thought of you.

All Those Other Galaxies

there is something heavier
than these feathers in my throat,

these horses galloping
from one plush corner
of my heart to the other,

these ropes tethered to pull tight.


...if only it were so easy to cut through
longing with silver shears.


a comet burned through my life
and I expected it to stay,

to say, this is happiness
and you are happiness
and this is different
than all those other galaxies.


you’re even inside my bruises
where violets and rhododendrons are blooming.

there are gardens in my knees.

on my way

I am on my way
to somewhere sleek and soft
with my eyes out of focus,
my blistered hands
shoved into sweater-pockets.

I’ve got a fever for more,
a word so expansive
I can hardly breathe it out.

but what if I want to live here?

buy that tiny house I’ve admired for years
with the silver trashcan on the porch,
& the stars it its window-eyes?

what if I want to
catch the stormclouds in my cheeks
as they rumble down-river?

Lightning is only as thick
as this pen I am writing with,

and this town is as
enveloping as leaves
that flood the storm drains.

Sustain Us

In a way, we were like lovers.
in another, like those who
do not know each other at all,

but the magnetism of things interjects.

...& if only it was that easy to forget,
to not want to share this bed with you,
these lips like soft buds.

I’ve got freckled shoulders
and nights filled with bells,
electric eels that keep me awake

with only the sound of the wheezing &
whistling delivery vans of the early morning.
& as the newspaper slaps our porch,

wasps clatter at my ceiling

as if to say sustain us
as if to say love is waiting right here.

freewrite, may 17

we try and cut down
on our hip inches,
try and whittle out a space
for light to peek through our thighs.

we will never get it right.

continue to cut out, to deprive,
to not slather with butter,
to keep our belly-wolves growling.

my cat laps up rubber bands
with sandpaper kisses,
fills his stomach with a nest
where no birds will roost.

I stand in front of the mirror to pinch,
to see what could be gone.

I Am

-last year’s news

-a newspaper covered in coffee rings

-the things I give up to end up with nothing

-the kindest no-thank-yous

-overstaying my welcome in the hotel rooms of others

-all angel hair and confetti.

Jaundiced in this March

We’ve fallen like pennies
down into couch cushions,
with stomachs full of whiskey.


You, who do not belong to me,
but to her-- someone I have seen
just once, heard speak, just once,
yet I pretend does not exist.

I am a hostage, a runaway,
the thing-being-chased, stiff inside
a roll of carpet until dawn
when I wake up in my own bed,
realize there is no chase, no danger.

I look at my hands in dreams
and it never puts me in control.


You occupy a millimeter of my skin
and it itches all night long.


Under the yellow light of day,
I am jaundiced in this March,

this gallant season,
that rides in on horseback
but stumbles in the flooded streams.

mad flurry.

I don’t mind much if we blame this weather on my outburst,
my bombardment of honesty, the true nature of text.

It came from nowhere. I turned the corner of your cheek
and there was a mad flurry of things I suddenly needed to say.

The words tumbled out like gumballs from my chapped lips
and I should be saving quarters for laundry.

wants.

In this night, I want...

fries, I want love, someone to see the tops of my legs in this nightgown and think “wow,” to show you my tan lines, the white swimsuit I have on under all my clothes, to go for a drive, windows down when it’s too cold, I want to paint all of my fingernails black and then pick off all the paint, to wear long white button-up shirts with wide belts, I want to bake, to make jam, to water all of my plants over and over again, ride a silver subway train, read more, read a lot, read an impressive amount, drink some whiskey while eating an apple and listening to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, to undress slowly in front of someone other than the me in the mirror, to dance slowly with hipbones touching, to count my money, to clash fabrics, to learn what your mouth tastes like, to remember it, to ask for a reminder whenever I’d like, to write something that is about everyone/everything, to not be hungry after I have brushed my teeth, to ignore this growling, this stomach full of wolves, this yearning that is/not you.

3-16-09

this is what I refer to as
the explosive quality of waiting.

fingernails dig into the palms of soft pillows,
of the way we carry ourselves

down and out into the air, the afternoon,
this in-between season.

how fitting that it is warm,
cool, all temperatures falling
under the category of “not quite.”