poetry

1

back then hours were pinker than they’d ever been before

and the bedsheets were pink

and the dresses were pink

it smelled pink and we all had lovers

i too was pink like the most secret caves in me

dressed top to toe in seduction

so i took the week to draw cards and grow flowers

and dream of sitting between you and my mother

dream of our wedding

i surrender to the rhythm of the buds

we prepare each others eulogies and promise not to die too soon

i told you if you died i would be old, missing you

i was here and we were naked and we were putting on new clothes

the seams coming apart a little bit

maybe it’s cause i’ve been sleeping on my old pillow

i’ve been waking up in the morning

and going back to bed

falling asleep instantly

and dreaming about you again

(maybe if i wake up early enough

i will be a little girl again)

running in the sunrise

endless fields of light

i will kiss these flower eyes as they beg to open

i listen to the music on the lines of your hand

i want to spend all winter with your voice in my ear

i will breathe through my nose

all summer long

2

Me and Holly are sitting near each other in the library and she’s wearing brown and blue and brown in a little nook reading a Zadie Smith book. Her bags are green but one of them has red on it.

Lately things are huge and gaping or colorless and flat. Lately the mountains are spiraling, snow-tipped, out of control.

Still the monks are praying. Still the girls are whispering. Still the lovers touch each other in their beds.

. . .

Two sharp thoughtless heads with horns collide. I sleep in waiting. I dream of bombs. I dream of sex and shit and sleep and bombs.

5

King of Beasts

snarls its mighty

loathsome face. he floats among yellow

shoes over the cracked

linoleum. i was in a

nother world but he

is tapping to the beat.

O yellow-eyed monster

are you just like me?

I am a free child

What would happen if

I fell into you?

3

if you are waving to me i am blind

ripping you out like a babytooth

taking me by surprise

baby when are you going to live like abandon?

baby linger a little longer

baby baby baby baby

i’ve missed you with my smoke and my sweat and my breath

i miss you but i’m gone

this is where i leave you

i find your taste in sushi

austere

4

forever we’ll be smoking in alleyways and leaving behind ashtrays

i think i knew you before, i really do

forever we’ll be breathing in the surface

forever we’ll be sliding back to the sea

shamelessly stretching and all at once

pissing cumming and crying and screaming laughing

breathing out words, unintelligible

of stars,

of prayer

we are not going towards love

we are riding in it

you know the secret in me

you sing it in verses

you breathe the water

you sigh me out

you are as soft as life itself

you are praying with your hands clasped and believing what you see

you in the light of the morning

your wetness and your teeth

there is something behind you

smiling, open wide

6

i wish i were a forest fire i could burn you down and all your cities and your farms. i wish i were a monster truck i could be enormous. i wish i were a goblin i could guard a mighty castle with great pride and providence. i wish i were a sandman i could grant wishes for children and they would love me. i wish i were a paper crane so that i could hang very quietly from the ceiling of a classroom, even at night when only the janitors prowl the halls. i wish i were a car so that i could hear how you talk when you’re alone. i wish i were a book i left in the yard and they’d take me inside when they find me next year, when i’ve gotten so wet i’ll never be dry again. i wish i were a vhs tape my mom had to do it because i always forgot how to rewind the tape. i wish i were a t shirt so when you have me near you no one would even notice particularly. i wish i were unconscious all the time, i remember it clearly; it feels so pink, the lines are neatly drawn. i wish i were a nightcap. so i could bring something to an end.

7

i don’t like girls, i don’t like boys, i just like death

(and boys feel more like it).

i sat on the couch looking down at my toes, and said, yeah,

i like the kinky stuff in moderation.

in the bathroom later he said, is this what you want?

i said yes, the truth was i don’t know.

no, the truth was N/A, it’s irrelevant, i don’t have

wants, i don’t want to. i want to feel like

i’m falling off a swing into the mulch of the playground falling.

or pinned against the wall of the gravitron.

i don’t want to have anyone to hold onto that isn’t myself

i dream of being a traditional woman,

the armless legless headless vessel, i dream of being born to die.

i watched movies, and in the chase scenes i’d just want them to stop. let the villain eat you.

so i stand here, i’m done running,

i was never running, i like it, in fact

i crave it, please, i will lie here

i want nothing, i’m sure of it now,

just grab me until i stop thinking, this is what i want, i want it, this is what i want.

Again and again until we can’t anymore

Sunroom Bookz: Paper Frames vol. 2

Feeling sad like an overwatered plant

sleepy like I can’t get enough

I’m itchy, like there’s something I have to leave behind

I waited in your room for hours, until the night was over

and woke up next to you, again.

No more crying anymore

Those days are down the sink garbage

I made you hard from across the room

because I am powerful now

I wiggled my middle finger through

the layers of skin on your chest until

I reached your red hot too much somethingsome

Where I squeezed and could feel

us spinning in place at the center of a

Ferris wheel world, falling off

You were sad by yourself, now I’m with you

and I let you take me inside

It comes back like the moon, like the tide, like I miss you

Whatever beast lives between us never learned to survive

You train with no track

You starving museum

You are in the sand, you are letting the waves wash over you

You are critiquing my second person poetry

You are the waves, I am the moon

You are listening to songs I showed you because I loved you

You are listening to me, I would have laughed if I were you

This is you saying “you” to me

This is me clinging

This is my flesh

I spread it out

I cut it into a heart for you

This is my home.

I walk in and out of it

I smell the sea air and I think of you

This is my house will you live in it?

and stay with me for the weekend

If you come here there’ll be incense and the window will be open so we’ll always be outside.

You will come to me crying in the middle of the night

cause you want me. It’s a tidal wave

I wake up from dreams of you leaving me

I guess I want to kiss you

I guess I feel it pulling now

Did you catch yourself in my mind wave?

Did you see yourself in me?

I want you so bad I can’t sleep. I want to rub myself all over you.

You make a sound and I want to wake you up and say what? Did you say something?

Were you dreaming about me?

I disappear into longing and you find peace in silence

I show up at your door and you let me back in.

I take you to church and hold your hand

in some pathetic past life dream

When I’m back here again

When we are standing at the sink

and you look at me so tightly

You hold my breast in your hand and say,

Oh god. How I’ve missed you.

Good, this is how I like it

with you close to me

and visions of soul connection

Tell me again you’re sorry for the pain

so I can tell you again I don’t feel it

This is how the scene goes

You pretending I’m not there

Me trying even now to make you wonder about me when I’m gone

Me grabbing and clawing to get to something within you

You are always gone

You are always at the surface

You can’t stay underwater so you have to go up

to breathe the air.

I’m sad so often and in so many colors

I’m wondering if you’ve ever lied to me

I’m crying as you hold me

I’m hoping you notice

Will we come back again

and again

like lovers from books

and ask each other if it’s different

this time around?

Baby, your house is haunted

I have to find a way to get out

I will wash dirt from underneath my fingernails with hot water and know I am feeling something

from the feelings of less, when it’s like release

and you, and your fingers in my teeth

are far too much

for me

(whispered)

I want us to kiss and I want to be the one to stop it

I want you to stop staying so I can stop being afraid of it

do you let me go?

Will you ever forgive me if I leave you now?

Anyway, I’ll take your wrath when it gets me

Bend the details and change your name

You are not allowed to love me anymore.

I am not allowed to pretend you do

I’m in your room

I’m waiting for a movie to be over

at the end I always wake up

lucid and crying.

8

the door was closed

but the room still existed

so i locked the door and

pretended the room didnt exist

but the room did exist

and it was calling to me

it was swelling from its hinges

it was crying to be seen

it was stinking of liquor and incense

someone told me it was okay

to listen and even to open

and i looked at the door and said no

but i found the key anyway

i opened the door to the room and i looked in the room. it was dark

i stood in the doorway hanging on the frame

and even though i closed the door to the room

again

i remember what it tastes like

on the tip of my tongue

like being open and things

flowing through me

shards of glass, absolution

if i leave it open will you come out?

what if i were to go in

and sit inside and

curl up on the floor

would you be there?

waiting for me?

9

i am orange blossom drifted by wind

i am coming home to see you again

i come to your forehead

it’s a blue moon

i’m in love again

i imagine you leaving, i imagine you come back

i am leaving again, you remain here

i don’t care, all i care is i have you in the evening

your stubble and my adhd fingers

and god, i feel like i’m the goddess of love

accompanied on the strings by nighttime bugs.

I rub my face on solid ground and pretend that it’s you

Silver Operation Sep. ‘22

i bled myself blue trying to be cool for you

i want you to come to me, i am in hiding, i am overflowing

i need to find a bed of salt and dissolve

shuddering with heat lightning

falling hard the long way down

we have been together for four seasons now

you who never loved anything more than the world

you, who never committed to anything but love as a disembodied voice

you, the alien

you who never learned to love. Never got it right

you who lost the music and couldn’t afford to buy any more

you with your iPhone nearly silent pressed to your ear

playing love songs

you who know no language

your eyes closed

you lonely ghost

til the phone runs out. So it goes

i need to open it up and find the source of the bleeding

like how we only say i love you in times of desperation

my eyes are wet like leaky faucets

the moon is so white it makes me whimper

you say, why not do heroin?

i want to be wracked with joy from the very core of me.

i am hungry to eat the whole world. So it goes

i will catch the spiders

and you will make the bread rise

we have cold fights and warm forgiveness

quicksand, night vision

one night you told me you loved me

on accident. So it is. So it goes

four seasons we’ve been trying

we’ve been crying

we’ve been licking at nostrils

and picking our toes

we’ve been playing in the sandbox

you always push me down. So it goes