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.