city boy

the sheriffs clop by
on horseback and i can't picture you here -
not in the back of the truck
we are driving, or
standing in the fair
watching livestock. you'd
be more horrified by
the horse shit clinging to your boots.
country as you are,
you grew up too much
of a city boy.
no one had you weeding
the gardens,
shucking bushels of corn
in a front porch rocker,
snapping ends off the beans.

that was my life, and it
wasn't even our farm, but the
neighbors' grandparents, who
recruited our wild child energy
and took us home
bursting with vegetables, not
that any of this matters

although i still can't see you
among the 4-H and canning prizes.
when we took in the fair,
you briefly paused for sticky sugar
spun into a cloud
and then we whirled upside-down
for hours, held by
metal bars
and gravity,
shrieking wildly into the night.

transition

the more i think about it,
the more i have
the feeling
that the first thing
that will touch the next book
will not be words,
but blood
and i am trying to find
a small part of myself
that cares enough to stop
that fact.
but i have become numb enough
that bleeding seems such
a trivial pursuit
worth nothing more than
momentary distraction,
but also
nothing less.
and the only thing
i have the energy for lately
involves forgetting, if
only for a little while -
and if bleeding is
just another thing i can do
to forget you
then i will pull
on that lifeline
as hard as i know how to

for Timothy

the fiddler on the corner takes minor
chords and bends them to his will
as we squint in the sunshine,
he because he makes a living,
and i because the music
is amazing and it's warm
in february
and i must soak in as much
as i can before it flees -

feeling like gypsies, camped out
on the concrete,
listening, watching
the heat and shine
dance off his flashing bow,
and i wonder where
home is, when he goes.
the beer i abducted from
the fridge at work we
split, talking of school
and its hypocritical
uselessness
the irony
of educating someone
who still cannot make a way
with all their skill.
but it's okay, ale
in the warmth of the sun
cool and delicious contrast
to the stones
of the streets,
the concrete beneath
my feet as i walk away,
a jig
dancing its way into the air

february snow

falling so thickly in
large clumps it
would be magical but
the street slushes it
as soon as the flakes
meet pavement.
just a little too warm
on our ground.
so it runs
and drips off the building tops
and down the rails
for the streetcar
in grey ribbons,
which might have once
held a spark of the
mysterious blanketing
power of pure powder like
what trapped us snug
in our houses
for a week in december -
the thirsty old brick
laps it up
like sandstone,
and darkens.

personals section

and yes,
we really are that lonely
and desperate for connection,
you'll see it in
our faces, smiling too hard in the photographs
and our overly-optimistic words,
knowing even
as we write them
the types who read these ads
for a brief connect of some kind
will be skipping
down the paragraphs to the picture
or the part where i tell you
my bra size
so any person genuine enough to tell me
something that isn't pretty
i will drop a line,
if only to say,
your ad made me smile

the pathetic loneliness that comes
from our insular social patterns - to work,
to bar, to home and from and repeat the
same motions until
all we know
is the constant momentum
and a nagging sense of something
essential missing
when i page through
looking not so much for
someone to date or fuck,
as much as
the hope that someone
who finds me appealing will continue
to do so,
once pixels
become flesh, and blood

the difference between

outside the snow blankets everything
like a crutch
and it will fade,
by morning,
in our constant rain.
meanwhile, i'm resting my head
against the windowpane, not
as drunk as i could be, and not
as drunk as i ought,
holding the last beer of the carton
and wishing
the snow would cover more
than just the tops of cars, houses
& fences so i could feel justified
in sleeping through the next
few days
without appealing to the excuse
of mental illness
which, at this point
seems a lie
as i can't seem to find
the madder side of me, even with
a little prodding.
can't decide if i miss her more
than dulling myself with medication
is worth, or at this point
whether it matters at all.
so i watch this snow blanket
cover us, it's 3:47 and all
i think is that somehow i must
document,
for surely
tomorrow
everything will face
and i'll be left wondering
if i ever even saw it at all

waiting for winter to end

the snow silhouetted in
the streetlamp falls
thickly, but won't stick
so i know
tomorrow will have
only slush
and grey concrete
dingy wet sidewalks made treacherous
by what will soon
turn to rain, or
maybe just fade away.
so i'm waiting for the streetlight
to blink out, and
obscure everything
it might illuminate
in shadow.
and i'm wishing
for the dark to come and cover
what i am sick of seeing.
even the trees bow under
the weight of the wind
that keeps the snow dancing waltzes
in the air as if
when the lights go out
their world, too
will sleep

what lies beneath

i don't break words,
i shatter them
and meld from the shards,
scrape the shrapnel out of my scars
and pile the dented vowels
into a heap of things that could be whole, but
aren't.

the consonants get left behind,
like younger siblings of famous folks
smug on the rug, smiling nastily
at the vowels trapped in their tower of fragments
they don't try to fuse, anymore
tired of dismemberment, and
the vowels' persistent inability
to commingle

they no longer walk in stride.
confabulation
disintegrating into the silence
most define their lives by, the
taciturnity that turns
and bites at those who try
to demolish it.

willamette

i am 'heart'sick
and cuntsore
of talking about love
so let's look
at what's surrounding
the 'finery'
bearded men on the buses scraggling trash bags
of empties behind them,
leaking
beer in incontinent dribbles.
the college-educated
or[myentiregeneration]
working some deadman job
with holes
in their shoes& knees
of their pants patched
with scraps -
i mean, contrary
to popular belief, this ain't quite
no fashion statement
it's called poverty

around us our neighborhood sports 'storewideclearanceclosing'
signs, yes
and this is what's left
for us.

at the mall a delicious pen shop
houses a man who works
in three-piece suits&
looks like Sinatra did, forty
years ago,
and he remembers my name
every time
i'm by.
i wonder what he is thinking in
that deserted shopfront&if
there's anyone
for him to go home to.
i want to ask him out for drinks sometime, but
maybe that would be creepy,
coming from me, or maybe
desperately lonely, which
i am
and when i smile at strangers on the street,
it's because i'm wishing i
could make some sort of connection with anything,
even

the bums that root through garbage buckets
for bottles or cans with a 5cent
deposit
and i would wonder about where
they go, but
i already know
they huddle neatly in sleeping bags
on burnside
all along its accompanying bridge,
squatting out a life
suspended
over a river

for the poets who wrote in latin

i smell like hot
twat&i like it
a lot, yes
it's delicious
breathing in
the scent of my sex
diffusing through the place
&when i clench into you,
and you
fill my senses
cupcake sweet and tangy,
woman
we reach through the room
with grasping fingers and a sense
of entitlement, yes

this is my body and blood
which has been honed on you
which has been lapped by[&from]
your lips&labia
[lesbia]

i think catullus&i think sappho
would have been proud

after all they burned her poems&we're
burning now
so
she knows what it's like to taste fire

to lick it from the curved lower lip
ah,
goosebumps twist my frame
&we roll face-to-face
how is it
i've come to be here,&you
how are you faring
in my precarious bed,
young one?
does the yaw&pitch astonish,
or terrify?

white trash news

it's only monday night,
eleven
&a game shop owner's duct-taped
two teenage
would-be thieves into the closet for the cops.
meanwhile, a house has exploded&
no one knows why.
just boom - ashes.
meth-watch watches the
non-profit anti-meth guys go broke,
or maybe
it was a bust, or maybe they busted
the organization, it wasn't clear which -
i really don't care cuz next
it's on to cockfighting!
then later, UFO's in texas,
as small kids
run deranged in tin-foil beanies, like
demented hershey's kisses
i want to hide in my room already,
but wait!
we've still got
octuplets and shortages
on oxycontin, DEA's fuckin
with the street dealer so now
everyone else is paying instead
food poisoning the people, yes
so now just lay off a few thousand more
and goodnight, amerika
watch it spiral
down the drain
and go
we're all going somewhere,
especially
down

obsession

it really was an accident, this time,
though
that hardly keeps me from fixating on
the oh-so-minuscule cuts
on my wrist

i dropped my knife while slicing through
plastic packaging and the serrated teeth
tore tiny holes
which transport me back years,
years ago maybe
six-or-seventeen, with my watch
belted tightly to that wrist, hiding
the flow

i've got tattoos now, over most of those scars
but you can still feel them, and now
a hard knot
of scar tissue's raised, again
visibly
slight infection resurrecting
the feel of tender tissue
over bone
with those small scratches
i can't stop staring at
flaming triumphantly
next to my tattoo

carpe noctem

and i do

foggy and 32 degrees

waiting for an apple breakfast
outside the corner store
fifteen minutes before its opening,
hopping foot to foot
hoping
kinetics will involve
heat of some sort
while steam seeps from my mouth
and my wet hair slowly gets
cold enough to freeze
and even when on the bus,
my hands are too cold to touch

just like my feet in their protective layer
of boots as the rest of me
will slowly freeze, the more silent you become
at the other end of the line.
being busy only goes so far as a valid excuse.
meanwhile i am planning
to become as busy as you are, so when
i don't believe you, it's because
i have done what you are doing,
only while working, also

standing outside a co-op waiting
for the doors to open so i can manage a breakfast
from the bruised fruit bin,
yeah
there is more to life than poetry,
or homework, or
using the above as any
sort of excuse.

so when i'm worrying
because i'm not bleeding when i should,
and i don't know what to say
about that,
or if it should be
any business of yours,
other than your involvement
in the potential making

so i'm running a test
and
with the results
i will decide if i should let you see,
and decide
what the fuck we are supposed to do
with this mess,
whatever we are
calling ourselves
lately

overcompensation

it's a strong point of mine
i'm waiting for my phone to ring
but it's you,
so
that means the phone will be in my bed
with the ringer off, and my door
shut.
and where i'll be
is the living room, blasting
music loudly -
which means i will finally
call you back around an hour
after you finally managed to dial -

otherwise it would be my hand
fidgeting the phone open&shut,
staring
as if my action could somehow alter
the timeline of your making.
i've learned what enough is, now.

enough is pretending
that you won't call, which
is a pretty safe bet

so if you ever do
come through
i can imagine it
as a pleasant surprise.

at this point

i don't even know if i want you
anymore,
rationally
when drugged the right amount,
and cynical enough i'll admit it
i don't know how i'll fare
with someone so blindsided
by life.

rationally, i mean, there's nothing
i'm really leaving
so it's a pity i've told rationality
to fuck itself, there
is nothing rational
in what lives between us

what with all the ways we've tried
to make it die and
failed, it's fine

although we look haggard
with our shell-shocked mouths,
which still dribble rubble
that means less and less
the more we say it
no matter how many times
it's repeated,
the constancy of assertion
will not bring
any more truth
to your tongue

so let's move on.
we've bombed the place and yet
we linger still.
among the hills are pristine places
and plenty of new spaces

in which, if you really prefer
the chaos,
we could recommence
the countdown

hump-day

the bad sign comes
when you stand to leave
and your center of gravity shifts
the bus ride to work's spent
head lolling from your neck against
the back of the seat
because you're too dizzy
to open your eyes
and you realize
how drunk you were the night before,
because it's approximately
how drunk you are still,
so walking straight
is a dicey proposition.
you'll spend the day looking ill
behind your desk, when
you aren't beating a path to the bathroom
to be briefly, professionally ill
hoping no one will walk in halfway
through, and find you crumpled
on the tiles, cheek pressed
to the wall, hoping to absorb
the stillness

maybe saturday

yeah, of course it's full of maybes, like
maybe you will kiss me
when i walk in the door, this time
or maybe i just won't show up
at all
or maybe i will drag
out of bed early on an unlikely weekend morning
after failing to sleep
and wear a path into my floorboards
until the coffeeshop is finally open,

maybe i will leave before you ask me
to stay, or
maybe you won't ask at all, out of fear
that i might

maybe if you lay out all
of your options you'll be
able to figure out how to focus
instead of wondering blindly because
you don't know
what else to do,

maybe
if you weren't so fucking caught up
with what-ifs and you could enjoy our time,
maybe yeah maybe
i'll just
get caught up in this questioning, too
and maybe when you are finally finished
with your dissection of all we do,
maybe there will be
enough of us left
to create something
from our ashes

a little constructive hero worship

we [whee!] sing
i fancy/frisk/frolic/fuck
with words too so you’ll have to
look [LOOK] look!
closer i’m
trying to tell you something

[tell you when my mind is wholly occupied with
beating a path into the pavement
and not breaking my stride, breaking
beating my brain over things
i cannot change i am
slithering down the streets]
tell you
about running rapidly shifting me
non-sequitously when i’m straddling
two worlds where i
don’t want to be

[i mean fence-tops are for alleycats and
the weak ones,
my dear and we
are not part of their number] i

don’t want to be here,
i want there
i want delicious holding arms, yes
[sliding over my face and breasts you, darling
must know all of what lives inside of me
to know how to touch me so
oh]

whoa

droll

i'm the youngest person
in the place
& the only one
not clacking at keys.
i wield
my pen with long-practiced ease
long companions,
i and she
not much satisfaction's discovered
with plastic tapping keratin.

i've callouses on my fingers
from my tool,
which will not eat
my words but saves automatically
whatever i am scrawling onto scraps
that will be stuffed in pockets
and hauled out, eventually,
like the days' catch.

i mean peripherally i'll be
mining myself deeply
all day,
to find something worth preserving,
a taste of a frame of mind,
a mindset so thick it molds
between your fingers,
so fresh
it still bleeds when you apply
a bit of pressure on the wound
i'll open to public display,
after all this is what writers are made of,
exhibitionism with eccentricism,
mixed with solipsism,
a pen
full of ink and twitching,
or, i suppose,
if you prefer, the clickity
clack click clackity
click

click

shakespeare we aren't, thankfully

so many writers in a room
yet only one open notebook

even my lined friend is drowsing on my bedroom floor,
too large and awkward to fit
into my bag
& it's far too cold
to carry things with my frigid hands.

but that doesn't matter, i've got
scrap paper so
mostly i'm wondering
what the hell's beside the room's solitary notebook
as the owner types blissfully,
ignoring its lines
it's glass of some sort,
the type
that breaks easily
and i would swear
it was a bong, in miniature
if this wasn't the library,
although that's maybe not such a horrible idea,
excepting the inevitable toss-out
that sort of behavior would accrue.

still, the library, any library
is far overdue
for a little mischief.
i'm going to go investigate
the locks
on the bathroom doors.

when i ask far too many questions

how much of what we see
is lacking the bigger picture?
how many times will we
bypass
what will define our future?
i've watched so many times as
friends left what they truly desired
behind them, fled in search of
something with less power to thrill,
or terrify.
it is hard to reconcile the mind.

meanwhile i wonder what
it is i'm running from, this time
my love of women
or whether
i'm just sick of inhabiting
my own mind
and wanting someone else's
to crawl into,
like yours
when you are so far from me
and maybe
that's why i like it

you stand out

the silence
is more comforting, now
than i'd imagined,
the excuse to disappear into my solitude,
which
presently scarcely occurs as
i'm too busy distracting
myself from what i want my brain to drop
like a chastised dog -
the subject no longer has any meat
left to devour.

best to leave it aside
in the pile of useless things
than continue to worry it so, although
i sometimes wonder what i will discover
if i bite through to the marrow

imeanwhatelseareyougoingtodoreally

is it fighting, the way we hurt
ourselves,
and if so, what or whom
are we battling?
surely there is nothing left worth,
at this point, preserving
but scars that pale in comparison
to the struggle,
paltry marks to prove having
suffered
and then finally when
you've almost given up,
thought you've won
the skirmish -

it's taken ten years to realize
the extent of the sickness, how
it burrows, hibernates
until you relax the sentry and
then it bubbles
to the surface, hissing
mine, all mine,
and you let it back in,

i mean,
what else are you going to do really

pretty girls

slip glances sideways into
the conversation, exist in
the spaces between the words
and wait patiently,
yes
for your gaze to be drawn
magnetically

this one-horse tavern town

i can feel the twang in my voice
slipping back in
it's been marinating
in old bluegrass, and it's rubbin'
up against the kind of folks
found in trailer parks in small
hick towns
howdy, i'm saying, and the
y'alls are breaking free,
take
a girl out of the country and she's still
just as country in the city,
no matter
how hard she tries
to homogenize.

fuck it.
i'm repairing the soles on
my well-worn boots, gettin' out
my stetson and the next
dumbass what pokes fun at it
will get whacked
upside the head as hard as
only a southern girl,
who needs the knowledge,
can manage

black&white

this time, i got
photographic proof
perhaps a bit gory, but certainly no more
than the blurred snapshot
i took long ago
of my
bloody wrist accompanied
by a razor
i thought, shame to waste it
took another self-portrait staring
into the mirror unsmiling
blood streaming from my nose
as if it had no time to waste,
running away
from what lives in my head

just waiting

the ferocity with which i desire
to be yours terrifies me
how badly i want you to need me
as a constant, not
a flux
i am not, after all, a temporary
element.
you are fluid-like, mercury,
in that you drop and jump
freeze to boil and not much
contains you
but i don't care how hard
you liquefy
sooner or later
you're going to discover
solidification

refusing to censor

i don't even care
what words come out, anymore
paper or pen
tears on the phone

what i say to you
i no longer guard.
if i'm drunk and
inclined i'll speak
my mind, snipe
as far as i like

i think i deserve these
small and simple pleasures, the
righteous anger
i wield like a shield
against you, for after all
it will not do to
lower my defenses.

you rip to shreds
every tentative bit of trust
i put
in you

general application

to display my worthiness,
they asked for my work
implying my seriousness
would be judged by
my content

so naturally, i sent
the poems i deemed most inflammatory
each word carefully honed,
seriously
enough to prove my merit
but snide enough to let on
i was wise
to the game

they didn't take long,
letting me in
handed over the keys,
told me there would be no
time limit - after all,
i was working on it -
evolving into the person i would be soon,
and the new book
that would be placed on the shelf
showcasing
what we bleed
when left alone
to our own devices.

the ability to create

i always wondered
how we lost it, and
to whom
whether we used ourselves up in
the strengthening
of others
as i watched you submerge yourself
in him, in the stability
he implies

and i wonder
how long it will be
before he sees the selves
you've tried to drown in
your pools of memory, wonder
if you will ever come out
from under cover long enough
to tell me something about you
that doesn't sound like you
rehearsed it
in your room, very late
at night, like you do
when he's sleeping

trying to leave behind

i wonder how many poems it
will take to make
this volume sink under
its own weight

how many times i'll thumb
through, waiting
for a blank spot to appear
out of the chaos,
how many hours of
obsession
i'll eat like oxygen
wanting only
to leave behind the self
i'll entomb into the pages
in ink enough
to contain her

the [learning] curve

i finally learned
to drink myself to sleep after
your leaving
discovered
how many beers,
how many glasses
of scotch it took
to lull myself into laughing
a calculated process, involving
no accidents, this is no blind
mourning
i wanted to know
what it took to be happy
without you.
the answers to these questions on bottom of page:









five;
three;
nothing.

view

there's a window here through which
you can see no sky,
only
the skeletal winter branches of an oak
rubbing against the faded paint
of a brick building,
built sometime
before the new deal, but after
the automobile
greening copper on the roof,
starting to moss over
with age
over which a skyscraper looms,
shadowing everything in its path, even
me

prophesying

thursday night, 10:43 or
somewhere near, around eleven
is when i'll hear
your voice
calling to me, after silence
from sunday night through the week
until
you're again lonely and
needing me, asking if i'd
like to throw away my weekend
observing you toil
through what will give you
professional papers,
asking me
if i'm willing to come to you
so i can watch you run,
again,
when you've had your fill
of me

when my roommate asks me why i never follow through

and woman, when
i don't invite you back, and inside,
don't take it personally,
i'm hiding
scared to let you in for fear
i will run just as swiftly
and leave you, devastated,
behind

for i'm no more ready for you
than he for i
nor she for me, back when
i was learning
to touch another woman's body
like a cathedral, as if
something sacred is housed
within the center

when

when you are finished
running away
from your own head,
let me know

i won't hold too much
of a grudge,
until

you get to the point
where you know what you want,
it's not me, and
still
you remain

sure you did

you used missing the bus
as an excuse not to come over last night,
again,
and as i looked down at the phone,
seeing red
i realized
it wasn't just a cliche, i
really was,
as my nose ignored
the rules of engagement and broke
the dam, scattering
drops of blood across my book's
pages
wasn't even my book, but
the library's
so i smeared my blood
into the paper
with the side of my hand,
trying to wipe away
the stain your lack
of consideration leaves
on my mind.

it didn't work
i awoke at three, trying
to remember if you called
when you said you would, which
you didn't
and i lay staring
at the ceiling in
the bed you were
supposed to be
warming with me,
wondering why it is
you find it
so fucking hard
to hold me

"i need to be more careful with you."

yes, you do, but
not in the way you're thinking,
not
in the sense of us both making
decisions we're too smart to,
on taking needless chances
with our bodies

all these things pale in comparison
to the things that live in my head,
what lives between my hesitancy
and your tendency
to run

we should handle like fragile eggs
what we have in the small moments,
what we create at our table,
and savor all our smells combining to say
home, you are home, home
in my arms.
so yes, let's be careful
to preserve
what home we have,
let's not get so caught up
we make mistakes
with the spaces between us,
but don't be careful
with me,
let's just burn

the exclusive, by permission only, writers' room.

just walking in gives me
the shudders
naturally, it's got to be
stifling in here,
work-strangulating rather
than inspiring, sitting so silently
as if noise can forever interrupt
the sentence you're composing in your head
as if any single thing
could disturb you, the writer,
the special breed.

i write in crowded spaces, compose
in my head beside the copy machine,
crouch in the bathroom stalls to
scribble, it's not
so earthshaking as others
try to make it seem
the best writers go at it
wherever they can, in between
the chaos of their lives
we've all got our own process but
don't think it's brilliance, no
it's obsessively applying ink
to paper, hoping somehow
to capture something in a way
that seems you could almost
reach out and touch it

distraction sex

two days ago i lay
naked with a college friend, discussing
the lovers we were attempting
to leave behind,
discussing the futility
of our efforts

i said,
my life now could branch
into a thousand directions, none
of which will involve children, nor
marriage
and all of the stability
those things imply

and regardless
i’ll be just fine. but
if these things are
to be, they will be
only
with you,
my love



my friend said, "i
always wanted to fuck you
to understand
what it’s like to know
what you want so well,
and be unafraid
to reach for it."

it is hardly the absence of fear,
merely the knowledge
that nothing is possible if
i do not open the door, invite
something in, and leave it ajar

hoping, this time
what comes in
will not involve robbery.

there are worse places to be

in your bed isn’t one of them, although
when not fucking
we spend the time agonizing over where we are
or aren’t going

you spin in circles

i let life take me
where the current flows.

but it’s all too obvious
we’re down the same river – whether
we want or not to tether
together is still unclear, like every decision
we’ll make
in the next year. nothing is static.

this, i know – we are unwillingly magnetized,
polarized, pulling together as we attempt
to separate.

i try, in my way
to leave – i’ve got
my retainer of meaningless people i call
to entertain and distract me,
the ones i trample trying
to forget you,
these small and useless things

much like the open three-pack
of condoms you couldn’t manage
to finish, not even
with that girl you used, again,
as an excuse
to run
from me

she exists
as two
used condoms, two
shitty snapshots
in your photo archive,
a meaningless moment you ran from too,
for running is always simpler than remaining.

your flight pattern straight back
into my bed, asking me,
"tell me what to do,"
as if i could plan your life
for you, as if
i’ve somehow got more of a clue

the five years you’re got on me are as useless
as all your justification
for why i'm not quite 'right'
although when i tried to make you say it,
all you could muster was, "well
i wouldn’t say never."

this does not come
with a consolation prize.
there are no substitutes
this time.

so i’m nursing more beers
than i have the right to drink,
and when i call the next girl
i’ll use as a temporary you
i will be drunk.
otherwise i
will lose my nerve
halfway through her door as she tugs
me by my beltloops

and when she strokes me, when
she makes me come,
the name
i will be repeating over and over
in my head
will be yours.

destroy

sometimes i want to obliterate these
pages, the helplessly
hopeful verse,
i want
thick marks obscuring
what i cannot bear to see
without my throat swelling to
the point where
i cannot
even speak

what sticks in the mind

the nape of your neck is what
i'm remembering, i certainly
stared at it long enough
as you buried your face into my
collarbone, burrowing into my throat
as if searching for something
that cannot be found without
digging underground, without
turning away
from the sun.

i always wondered
what you found that far inside of me
sticking to my flesh as you slept
not beside, but on
me
sweat gluing us
to the bed.
stretched out side
by side, that was all it took
for you to curl into me,
shove yourself into the hollow
of my neck
and i stared at you, your nape
naked through your thick hair
and i ran my fingers through you
wound my fingers in your hair and
brought your head
to face me

beginning with someone else

"who breaks the thread, the one who pulls,
the one who holds on?"
- James Richardson


we both break it - pull
so hard it snaps and recoils,
hits
us with the suddenly slack ends
left grasping only a piece,
end
of many things and beginning
of none
so i drop that cord, leave it
like the gutter refuse it is
and walk on, kicking
at cracks in the sidewalk
thinking,
i can't ever believe i
thought of telling you even half
of what you know of me,
which is still
hardly the tip
of the iceburg

the stand

and i think
what she wanted
was someone to save her
from her rut,
she
could take or leave
me.
which is fine, i
took her
and left.

or rather
she did, tiptoeing out
of my bedroom
the morning after

blankets&sheets

when we wrap ourselves
into the cloth of our beds, i wonder
how many hours
you spend
just like me, how many times
you've wanted to call, but didn't

i wonder how many years it will take
for the memory of the way
my body feels
to ease into the back
of your mind

great

i want to know
your expectations.
why
you are here, eyes heavy and purple
head sagging towards the table,
staring at me, always
at&
into me.
i want to know what
you are doing here, why
you still insist
on paying for the dinner
i do not want
that you desire
i order
you gaze
intently as if expecting
some performance
i
don't know what you find, don't
see in my mirror where
your fascination lies.

my face pale
and drawn, stoic and lined,
my mind
too tired to try
for polite conversation.
there
is nothing left to say
between us.
we let silence ring heavy
in the air and
you stare.
what the fuck
are you expecting?

eventually

i will run
far enough to get
shot of you

but until i
become that cold, i'm
apologizing to my roommate
sorry,
sorry
i'm crying passing out
from my dinner of beer
into your bed

what do you have to be sorry for,
he says, and
i think,

there is not a moment
of the past year
i do not wish away

chaos coinciding

winter cold
the stench of the city streaming
through my bones,
diesel trucks
clouds of smoke spewing
from the smokers loitering
on every corner,
men with
nauseating cologne
applied so thickly i can taste it
when i walk past
the smell of ozone
in the rain, wet concrete
the constant clatter of well-heeled shoes
burnt espresso wafting combining
with greasy restaurant exhaust vents
i am
surrounded by stupidity so thick
i feel like gasping for air
stuttering, strolling
shitfaced drunks,
bums
demanding dollars as if
i had anything
to give

imaginary

say i'm sitting
at a cafe and you trip over me
or
maybe you work up to it after
watching me on the bus
for days
maybe i step on your foot
in some inane line or i
talk to you
when you're trying to read
on the train
and you humor me

and then again maybe
you don't exist
yeah maybe the next time
i'm staring at you, i'll
find myself
looking through you like
a foggy windowpane -
image shaken, but
still recognizable

who would you like me to be?

with you, i say my lines perfectly
as if i were winning awards
on a stage

i give you a nice, ironic one-liner
the last word
is always mine.

you, staring after me
with that look on your face i
can't quite place
into the way you say
you feel for me
like you're expecting something
around the bend that doesn't come
so intently


you read like an open,
well-worn book with the spine
cracked
at a favorite place

an unnamed, unspoken thing

strangers on the train, trying
to avert their gaze
the tension that ripples between them
the fascinated examination of the floor
which is streaked with rainwater,
and dingy grey bootprints
the pure blackness of night outside
the windows
reflecting only the distorted image
of myself.
i keep hoping if i stare
long enough, everything
will dissolve into patterns
without coherence or order -
the image i imagined looked blank
when
i stared out the window, but
it's more like feral,
so no one meets my eyes.
i do not mind.

they called me 'scary'

if i saw myself
on the street, i
wouldn't talk to me

all flapping long leather
trenchcoat and boots
to the knee, black
head to toe,
frozenfaced in permascowl

i understand now
why people are afraid of me

when i walk i move
like i have somewhere to go,
which i do
i go deliberately, placing precisely
thumping pavement with my long stride
peering out of my uniform noir
at the suspicious world, as if
i don't like
what i see.

i would be wary of me.
those who ask me why
i'm not afraid of walking alone
in the dark night
have not seen the apparition i become
when stalking the streets.

"a woman like that is not a woman, quite."
- Anne Sexton

this bitter winter

you hug me so tightly like
it's hard to let go
and
i lean stiffly into you, reminding myself
to put my arms around you
(what
i'm supposed to do),
i'm too tired
to get closer, i won't invest.

you look older, sadder. i look like
a tragedy mask
from a play,
frozen
into my role.

you move closer to my side, bumping me
as we walk,
though
i'm trying hard not to touch you
too raw, too much
after the sensory deprivation.

months ago we lay face
to collarbone, hips, knees and
legs intertwined.
these months i've spent in my bed, holding
my pillow.
no one touches
my skin and if they
move toward me, i flinch away
it's too much to want something
so fiercely that you cannot,
will not have.

you soak my touch like a sponge
and i cringe away,
so you don't notice
when i put a few more feet
of distance
between us

take nothing personally

you sometimes don't, and
sometimes do
leave a mark.

so i'll be in the bathroom now,
washing the scent
of your fuck-and-run
off my body.

red velvet

for a week, i drove
past the armadillo's armored body,
back & forth,
to and from
the obedient girl i was imitating,
contemplating
the diamonds on my left hand.
every time i passed his still form,
i thought
about the red velvet cakes they'd make
for the grooms' cakes at weddings,
grey frosting caked
into the armor of an armadillo.
the idea
was for the cake to resemble
the roadkill.

this road armadillo resembled
the cake at first, lying
on the center yellow lines
as if sleeping off
a night of rooting. i skirted him carefully.
when he split open
in two days, his red velvet insides
peeking at my headlights,
i rubbernecked past
the hit & run, staring into his center.

three more days transformed him
into a lump, small pieces flung
across the highway
and as he worked into a smear, i swerved
to avoid him
and thought about my own wedding:
when i saw my fiance's roadkill cake
would i disappear as swiftly
as my dead friend on the road?
my young stomach churned on it.

on the seventh day, as i drove
after canceling my marriage, i
let my gaze slip to my bare left hand,
my own empty body, and i hit
the armadillo, tires thumping over
the greasy lump that had once been
a grey thing, and then pink, and later brown
and as i struck him
i imagined the heap of flesh against the wheels,
my mind saying,
"ugh. guts
on my tires."
but when i looked
the thing had left no mark
of its body.

on being spokesman

we don't have to dig down
far, to find the selves
we used to embody
we still store them beneath the skin, or
in my case on,
visible within the dermis and
waiting
for acknowledgment.
marks holding their silence
in patient anticipation
and yes
one day i'll be dealing with this
more publicly than really anyone
deserves to display
telling them not to tread down my path,
and knowing
i'm far too late
for the ones who really
need to hear it

darning

i sew myself into my new life,
checking carefully to make sure
the binding tightens.
i'm carefully darning
what remains
of my holes, which are few.
the last person to enter
has exited
and i'm getting more and more
comfortable with reprising my old role -
seamed shut, a beautiful tapestry
with nothing inside,
not even a space
for what could one day be.
i do not leave anything empty,
just sew until there is no space
left for anything,
not even me.
but i don't take up much
time, or room
and i am comfortable without
a home -
i spent ten years searching
for one,
and then three more
learning that
there is no such thing.

waiting for it to show up

pissing on a stick
did not alleviate
my concern, merely
provoke a period of pausing -
waiting to bleed, or
failing that,
any appointment
to scream out,
what the hell
is wrong with me

inside i feel
something insidious,
really wrong,
much like the first time
before i bled out
what would have been
our child -
the bleeding that
will not come,
the imbalance
of body

and i, yes
am terrified

waltzing

my silence has not been
intentional.
i am not
stemming words of woe and
holding them inside. it is simply
that they do not exist,
my mind
is too tired to create that kind
of vitriol.

i won't cry through my words,
because i do not cry. i will not say
i do not feel this at all,
surrounding you: i do.

i let it wash
over me like a vague sort
of stain, a dye
that,
given enough washings,
begins to fade.
the parts of me i piece together
are undiluted, raw, freshly mined
and freedom is an empty shell

yes, empty. not damaged, nor destroyed,
or any of the adjectives used
to convey this

think pristine:
an empty ballroom, a
thing unused
echoes through an empty room.

rainy season, the

perpetual sounds of moisture
my shoes squelching through the dark, spongy leaves
the overflow of the eaves
falling against
the walls of my room while cars
plow through puddles and deluge
the sidewalks with gutter water
the patter of raindrops against
the ground,
as silent as the rain is here
i still think of rain as noise, a
soundtrack for a life.
a way to gauge the passing
of time.

wet tracks into the house, a trail
lurking on the floorboards
the impermanent marks
of occupation
you'd never know i lived here.
this
is not a home, and i act
accordingly:
withdraw
everything into my four corners,
wait the weather out.
rain gurgling into the gutters,
weeping down the shingles,
leaving rusty tracks behind
caressing the walls
i
do not touch, that do not
touch me.

solitude

i am inundated
with silence. blank pages
scream their accusations, beg
for a passion it seems i've
somehow buried, stifling myself
in order to tamp down the riot
in my mind.
i've
bombed to resume peace
and order, and so i kick,
scuffing through the ash.
the rain has come, & i crunch
through yellow leaves each morning shrugging
my hood closer
to my face.
drops scatter against my glasses.
nothing moves early in
the morning but
cars slushing through the street,
the winds blow and
trees shake water into the air.
the early hours grow bitterly colder.

alone,
i pull on chilly layers
and stand pebbled
and plucked in front of my mirror,
relearning my face.
it is hollow-eyed
and rarely moves.
i leave in, and return to,
darkness
to a place where silence remains.

for andre

what i want to do is call:
say
you have no idea how badly
i still want you, even
though it's been years.
i still
want to lie in bed with you
while you blow smoke out of
the cracked window, deliciously
naked, pressed thigh to thigh.

you say i would not recognize
your current condition, too skinny
and strung out on love
but
if that's true, i'm unrecognizeable too

you wouldn't know me either.
perhaps
we both are different people now
than who we were,
who
had delirious sex after nights and nights
of touching.
now i don't bite off
my desire for you. it bubbles inside
i know
how badly i want it. it's
crossed my mind more than once
that you and i might have made it,
if we'd manage to live
in the same state
might have turned out differently,
in some alternate place
and all these foreshortened maybes
don't get me anything but
a bit regretful

sometimes
i wish i'd stuck out that town
and seen where it would go,
you and i,
the misfit couple sent
straight from hell
and it's been
two, three years but now
i want you more than ever
i still
want to be pressed to your side,
thinking about old possibilities
and the ridiculousness
of figuring everything out
a bit too late.

lock

i've slowly locked
myself away, through the years
behind layers of armor until
no one is left knocking
on the doors to get through.
tonight
i'm realizing
that no one's through - i
don't know a single person who
is past my bullshit,
my straight-on i-don't-care, not
family or blood
or girls whom with i shared my head
and i'm sick of it

sick of wanting to peel out
waiting for someone
to tap
on the knocker, look, ask
if you can use it
chip a little
at my layers of paint

i
am not invincible, just
put on a good show.
i wish you would know.
look at me,
ask me
what i'm made of, and maybe
this time i won't
throw up my persona,
maybe
i'd put it down,
build
a bridge of it, let you come
picnic at the edge
of it,
really
want to know.
ask me who i am
and maybe,
maybe
i'd tell you
the truth.

and yes

yes
i am disappointed/indifferent/crushed/stoic /lonely
i am not who you'd think i'd be, although your
face feels smug in its worry and i hug myself

remodeling

blank, i feel:
canvas prepared
but abandoned, still white

i am letting the lack of color
remain.
it doesn't seem to matter
what the other hues could be.
me, renovated:
freshly prepared
for the next person i
won't let in,
stilled and repainted

enough paint will disguise
almost any flaw
the cracks become invisible
lines of glue begin
to smooth.
holes
are harder to fix,
maybe
a little plaster
but give it
a thin layer.
soon the dent
will go unnoticed.

get your hands off of me

you still touch.
drumming beats onto my knee,
pressing your thigh to mine
the oh-so-casual lean
against my shoulder as you listen
to me.
you bump my side as we walk.
i shy away
touch
has become too much. when
you press against me
i move away
i want to
but will not
touch you.

but your easy reach for my body
has not disappeared
you hug tightly and
won't let go.
i cringe.
squeeze back, and run.
closeness is only pain.

you left, staring
through the windows on the train,
hands pressed against the glass
as you gazed at me.

i return your stare
but do not wave
i run
as soon as the train has passed.
i try
to forget the look
on your face.

whatever your dark desires

know this.

light piercing down
will flay them,
penetrate
until the darkness
has washed away
and you will only be left with
the cold, naked,
quivering
truth

wish list

what i want
is something thick enough to do the job
not too long, but
not so short it can't
hit the back of me
don't care about the denomination,
paper, plastic, animated biped,
give me a hand[or two]
just
make me drift out, and then into
my body -
make me remember
what it's like to scream and sweat

one or the other, or both, of the sexes
as if there's enough change to
make a difference, as if
any person or thing could possibly
alter the thrumming solitude of
this bed
say rubber, or latex,
let's
go for hard and indifferent,
so it
won't care when i don't
want to cuddle
don't want to let it settle in my bed
long enough to get comfortable
and stay

foxwoman

look -
white snow speckled by flung
droplets of blood
the red fur of the fox
clamped into the trap, steel
teeth in its foot
to the bone.

and i, i am that pitiful animal,
duly gnawing
through my leg,

look -
i'd rather limp away
under my own power, bleeding
missing a limb
than be caught in your trap.

frost

this winter seems suitable for saying
all those words that never
came out before:
i'm sorry,
i love you, i'm sorry for loving you
really fucking sorry.
yes
winter devolving into a soggy mess,
as we all hide in our layers

who can even see us
underneath it all.
who
can really tell what we hide
underneath.

gaps

in the spaces we conscientiously place between us
unspoken longing lingers still.

i
do not believe in hope, so
say nothing.
you've heard it before.

what i do is disengage
a little more every time i see you
i wrench my body away
in degrees.

soon i'll be separately self-contained,
restrained
from acting as if
my desires
in any way
coincide with reality.

to ash, to bone

i walked you home, you
asked me in. i
said, "i'd rather be set on fire,"
your face fell

but this is why: it's memories
that rage in my head
and
stepping foot into your warehouse
of them
would be akin
to setting plates of food
in front of my starving girl, saying,
touch, savor, smell
envelop, hold it
in your arms, snuggle close
but do not give in.
DO NOT want.
do not taste,
open your lips, do not
inhale and let your mouth water
do not want do not do not
do not cry
do not desire what
you cannot have

do not
pretend as if
none of this matters
to you.

i would rather be burned alive.

election

the fireworks, explosions
in the rain,
flashes of light
as the neighbors run by screaming
honking their car horns,
it's late
election night
i listen
and look forward
to picking up the paper
tomorrow morning,
finally see it
in ink,
irrevocable.
change,
blowing in
on the wind.

if there were a saint for shitty timing, i'd pray to her

when you said it at first
i thought you were lying,
i mean
what a way to admit,
years after the fact
you'd wanted most
what you would not do -
ask me to be more yours,
than simple fucking

and i, unknowing
the frail hold you had on fraying nerves,
a snake lying in wait
for the next sudden movement,
which i got all wrong,
so i got bit

which is fair,
i suppose -
after all
i knew i was handling something
skittish,
and wild

spilling

i dyed today -
myself, i mean
spilling ink all over my knuckles,
which now as if i've engaged
in gloveless boxing
and it won't wash off,
but settles into the lines
of my wrist so i can
see the tiny creases
we normally don't notice
all over our skin

i look like a law
office suicide
pants&sweater set
off-set by my
blood-like spatter pattern
that clashes with the decor,
and my shirt
should've used black,
i suppose
better to look
a fool with an inkpot
than someone who might
bleed on your files

liquid parts of life

the shock and suddenness of
unexpected bleeding
as your lower lip blossoms and
all you can taste is iron, dull
and lifeless
or the smell of it, as you crouch
behind your desk and hope
a handkerchief is enough
blood caking inside your nose
or the vividly visceral watching
a razor part the skin and peel,
in layers, the truth from
whyever you are doing it, even
while knowing how
maladaptive and unnecessary
and useless the action is
and knowing you do it because,
not in spite of these things -
always a conscious choice,
for you - the need
to show something,
and knowing
exactly how
to do so

if we still love

eventually,
i answered
my own questions,
as i often,
accidentally do:

yes, no; maybe
[indifferent, i believe you are
but i am livid with it]

yes, the relationship remained
and no, it devolved
into tears, fears, and
other excrement
and maybe in a few years
this won't seem so urgent, or desolate
indifference may one day remain
for more than mere moments

in the meantime i bide time
dulling myself whichever way works well enough
and i hope
that in enough time
the answer will be yes
and i won't be using
your name
in the same sentence as
the phrase,
"stupid fucking man"

fall

instead of hiding inside
the sickness that lives in my head,
i bide my time
biting my lips.
they eventually crack
and bleed
and it's painful when i smile, so
i rarely do
especially when thinking of you -
i just chew harder
when wanting your face,
so
now you evoke for me
the iron taste of blood,
a clenched jaw,
a nosebleed
i can't stop

police get called

sirens swirling through the still dark street,
who knows
where or what or whether
the cop just felt like running
a red light
or whether the red is blood
reflected in the blue and white
night light
on the pavement

the time has come to say these things

ad infinitum
until the brain stops responding
when you drift back to the subject
and i hear
what you're saying, but
i just can't care
anymore
about what you have to say.
talking like, what if
i have kids &how will my
fucked-up mental case
of a mind handle
that scenario?

all the while saying, i
don't quite fit into your picture

but you're the one who started bringing
up potential offspring

and maybe it's lodged
in your mind, because
however briefly,
i did carry for you
unintentionally,
unknowingly, until
it was at an end

and i suppose i'm not
the only one still wondering
what would
that have been like,
you and me

i mean, really

dryness in winter

i wonder
how long it will take
to stop bleeding,
how many
handkerchiefs i'll dirty
and leave stained for you,
whether any
of the marks we make
will fade.
how many days
holding my hand over my face
so when blood runs down my nose
no one will ask
if they see,
i wonder
what are the lengths to which
you will go
to run from me

tracks

the wrong end of town,
i don't mean bad
just opposite
side of the city,
where it is all too apparent
i do not belong
from the strange glances i accrue
walking in my winter coat of wool
my office shoes stark
against the shifting gravel
of a supermarket lot
with a worn sign,
three letters on the face
and the stamp
of poverty
on all the faces

cavity

i imagine it is something like
what a heart patient must feel -
ribs cracked apart, sewn shut
around a chamber
necessarily larger
to fit the hands that molded it.

a chest must gape far
to remove
all of what you left in me.

so i walk through the room with
the peculiar feeling of a weight
removed,
the space beneath the
breastbone hollowed. scooped out,
sanitized and clean
for its occupant.

there is little that remains.

now i hold my chest high to hide
the fragile nature of its incurved bones
the ribs that fractured beneath
your hands, on the coldest night
of winter. the ache
of a cavity in a tooth.

i bite down harder in hopes
the pain might dissolve
into the sudden rush of fire.

something out of nothing

i wonder
how anything
can be made from loneliness,
from nothing at all,
how something can spring
from a lack
of something precious.
and when i drive
all thoughts from my mind
in some pathetic attempt to pretend
i don't ache
for another so hard my teeth clench
involuntarily in the night when
what little sleep i get
fails to throw
my body into any port of solace,
no
nothing springs from the tension sprung
tight-wound in my aching spine
there's no such thing as something
made from an entity
that only subtracts.
in the morning when
i wake, head pounding, memories
mere blurs
and i stare into that mirror,
loneliness is not a component part,
there are no parts
with holes that need the filling
but some things can contain
emptiness, yes
and when i stare into my eyes,
that is the only thing
i see looking back.

automated autopilot

if i never stop
i will not have to process anything
but what must proceed through
in orderly fashion -
the march of days melding
into a steady delirious deluge
of information
i let pour through,
although it will not
touch me.
i live life
in a haze of things i take
to forget you
and i wonder
how much of this year
will be left to slumber
in the dungeons of my mind,
while i try to get a few
pieces back
from the ravages of time.
but don't try too hard,
lest every piece
i tried to bury
might resurrect somehow,
and claw its way
to the surface
like a wild thing i'd
go out of my way to smother,
if only
i could get close enough
to put
the pillow to your face

stairwell

voices muffled behind closed doors
i can hear the cadence but not
the conversation
from my perch on the unused steps
between
the ninth and tenth floor
the elevators
give me my solitude.
i need it
i do

trying to erase everything in my head
and wondering how far running
is far enough
this city's not large enough for me
to get lost in.

i can feel insanity creeping in, silent
as a cat
don’t know whether to fight it or
welcome madness back in
like a long-lost lover and enfold it
in my arms.
there is comfort, after all,
in the familiar.

returning

all the way home i took the curves blind,
hand sure on the wheel,
body clenched
around the hard knot of my stomach.

staring at the waning moon as if somehow
it might shift things.
all the way home
i imagined the touch of your hands on
my body,
arching against the seatbelt,
along in a sightless night.

you asked me to
tell you what i was thinking,
i had
no idea where to start so i just shut up,
which means,
i want you to
hold me so hard you bruise my skin,
make me feel my own body,
touch me
let me know you are here.

antiphon

i repeated the words,
a sickening mantra to myself:
not need, not need
do not feel
hoping to bear down
and force my longing for you
into the same box
as all the other former lovers
i never really left behind, just
scrubbed their stains from me

i'd mouth it silently to myself,
not need, not need
banging my head against the wall
behind my bed,
hoping to somehow sleep
wishing you would hear and come up the stairs
to me

i couldn't even feel the pain.
not need, not need
i'd plead not to
but i do.

and i'm not finding it a weakness, but
a strength, standing
and facing you
when i could have ensured
i'd never hear your name again,
run
until i'd convinced myself
you never meant a thing

but i find strength is not,
ultimately,
self-reliance. it's
the willingness to face yourself,
and everything you attempt not to see
when you confront your mirror.

negotiation

i'm watching the sun shriek up
over the horizon,
mulling over
your inability to claim me the way
so many others tried

i refused all but you
so now you
refuse me.

you talk, about restlessness and
the feeling you're still looking for something -

something you won't find
until you understand
what you search for
can only be found within you,
and the rest of us
have nothing to do with it.

you call us contentment, when i ask
if you are happy
where you used to call it love

and i'm screaming this,
sickened
as i watch this devolution

your problem is in front of your face:
it's not that you're not done
looking around for
a better bargain
but that you do not give
even value
for what you possess:
you don't
count your losses when figuring
on next, or "better"

and you know i love you, but
i'll say it straight:
by the time you figure out
you might just want me,
after all your posturing,
i may have become disgusted by the fact
that you call this merely contentment
and do not take what i freely give

you shelve the offer, tell me
you don't know how
to let someone closer in
as long as you're still shopping, you never will.

i'm starting to feel
like the bruised banana you leave
on the counter and won't eat,
but watch it slowly darken
through the week.

you dissect the idea of happiness, and whether
i belong inside
and i'm tired of this weight[wait]
sick of persuading my shell-shocked self
to try

this morning's cold
i'm shivering two hours
of sleep from my eyes,
waiting my shift through to
come home to you, and not know
what to say

so instead i'll go drink beer and shoot
bleary photographs
and on that film
i want to show
the bruised look
of my eyes,
an honest portrait of what toll
i take from you

i won't come home to the cold sympathy
in your eyes.

if you will not claim me,
i will reclaim myself
and fucking piece myself
back into my patchwork life
scraps into a quilt
until the holes are again
made whole

cicatrix

this is what they
do not tell you:

it doesn’t end when the scab closes,
and the skin heals.
scars
penetrate deep beneath the surface,
ache
when you press their newness,
itch
until you rake your fingernails
over the sensitive new tissue:

they do not tell you it can take years
for the tenderness to leave.

doctors will say: stop
cutting yourself, you
keloid
[scar visibly, raised, violently]

patiently waiting for your skin
to finally start to assimilate,
when the redness
starts to fade
– these
are the lessons you learn on your own
lessons you relearn,
every time,
as,
each time, you manage to forget
and the agony of healing
surprises you

on razors

stop trying to tell me what this means,
let me
tell you: it's
release
(release?) yes, of blood, but more

pent-up energy that, left untouched,
will explode
the tears that will not come
what you attempt to drink away

this impetus begins in the mind
the cyclone of thoughts
that won't let go and so
you get frantic trying to kill it, i mean

wouldn't you do anything to make that hold
release?
to force the storm to be through?

anything will do
whatever makes you slip into a state of staring

the terrible desire to crawl out
from your skin, or,
failing that, let something escape
and not knowing how

blood, (tears, if you can make them)
the need to run like hell
need
like a drug, like any other escape
escape
yes, it is

i said it

so imagine, if you will
not how hard it might be
to work yourself up to do it -
put a knife to your skin and pull
and part

but instead
what might horrify you to the point
where bleeding is a desperate haven.

volatile

the trees are vomiting
pink
petals into the streets
nature's finest display
of flowery fertility
& i'm slouching along in my newly
baggy jeans, perversely pondering death
the dying confidence i have in myself,
the new kill of the trust
between us,
yes,
i tried hard for that
but won't work anymore.
this time i want
something to come from you.

scuffing through fallen blossoms
thinking wanting
to run
until i forget
you
but that won't do
i can blister my feet all i care to
but there is no forgetting this

i tried
sitting on the couch staring
through you like a window
as you asked
me why friendship wasn't enough
you said, stop it. don't
don't turn off.
stay
with me.

so i did
because you asked
and shrank within myself
to fit the way i feel
growing smaller
and foundering in my self-loathing,
i've
expended too much of myself
on you.
now i'm failing myself,
unable to run when i need to most
too ashamed to admit
my failures, &
angry enough to stick out your bullshit
but vulnerable enough
to tell a stranger, when she asks
me to call her,
that i will.
and i do.

it's NOT that i don't
want you.
but it's nice to feel,
even for a night,
that there are no ghosts.
and it'll be just me that she desires.

stripping

i get asked often,
by men
who've never tasted desperation on their lips
how
i do what i've done.
"i couldn't do it," they say, shaking
their heads,
and i'm thinking,
you have no idea what degradation is.
something more like humiliation: like
standing barefoot on the filthy floor of
the local convenience store,
barefoot because
beer from deposit cans
has soaked through
your shoes & socks, thirty minutes
into your shift,
while
dirty construction workers throw dusty money
onto your counter
as if you, not they,
are the one covered in grime.

degradation: reliving over and over
the moment
your lover says he's looking for something
better than you

standing swallowing bile,
palming
cash while thinking about $20,000
of student loans and that bachelor's degree
that really helped your career!!

i tell these men, they know nothing
of how humiliation is made.
they've never seen it.
here i own this stage.

i roar.

intensity

words scatter through my periphery
and i only grasp
one
at a time.

solitude.
longing.

when your lover wakes each morning,
contemplating whether or not
to keep you,
what can you say to that,
what do you do??

i spend my mornings lying awake, while
trying not to be -
curled into myself,
counting down days to destroy what is left
of this month, the last of this house.

waiting for the space that is ours
to disappear.

he does not touch me

naked in the bed, you
wrapped around me
you are further away than when i go back
to the city
and leave you behind

and i know what's running through your mind
like an endless marathon
whether to stay or go
what the hell you're to do
about me, and
where i fit in your picture

sometimes i wish you would let me go
but you say you're not ready yet.
yet.
as if
sooner or later you'll work up to it.

i want to build a life with you, but
hold my hammer loosely.
no sense
constructing something you may tear down
without warning.

darkness

even the sunshine
through the window is dingy
today, as though my brain sees
everything
through a thick cloud of pessimism.
i'm not trying to cultivate this lens
to focus the world within,
it comes unbidden
much like your dreams at night
when they snatch at your ankles
and you run
faster than you really can
but they never let go
and they always catch up.

life's too short

we spend too much time
on the unimportant things,
what will leave us,
in the end -
laughing times with friends
you'll never hear from
again
when they leave the city,
girls who want nothing
but your naked body
beneath your sheets.
we misplace the time
we should use with the friends
who will not leave our lives,
the time we should spend with family
and the types of lovers
who won't go
when the reality of life begins.

your priorities are an exercise in
error of judgment.
and i am sick of waiting for you
to decide
sickened by the fact that you
don't know what you want,
or who, or why
so if you don't feel
like coming over,
fine

but don't make me waste my time
waiting to see, if
this time
you'll be thinking of me
for once,
instead of being
so caught up in your own head
you lose sight
of everything

only years, love

i wonder -
how little
truly separates me
from the people
i have been?

the things we know only when sleeping

i ran through the sheets
of a portland thunderstorm
splashing through freezing puddles,
laughing at the crash of lightning
coinciding
with the city.

i was still warm from sleeping
in my lover's empty bed,
curled up and contemplating

"stay," he said
despite his weeklong absence,
with the half-hearted excuse of
watering his plants

i know well enough
it's not about tomatoes, or
a house that needs no sitting
this is about having someone

creating a home
to return to,
about sleeping solitary,
but not alone.