feels good dead.

I love hearing you dismiss me
at four in the morning.
Dull and pukey,
I mumble something you could never buy.


Hearing that sharp-knife sentence
about how someones waiting,
and you have to go,
is cold and comforting
like the bathroom floor:
cold tile on my face.

I'm bored.

While watching the tv turn itself on and off,

I make matters out of my own hands.

Like a burn on my tongue

I say your name.

effortless

i step over the mirrors

that lay on my bedroom floor

facing up like pools of glass in the carpet.

i never hung them because 

i dont like nails

still, i like luck, and never misstep:

these next seven years are gonna be big. 

the patron god of little boys on playgrounds 

hides up on my ceiling, 

smiling.

jackie said write when i said eat.

The scissors were not sharp

and the table not level

when you cut me out of your life.

This is how it felt:

like someone took a paper crane and tried to make it into a paper snowflake; cutting all sorts of holes that would never be symmetrical when it opens up. I'm opened up. 

We didn't even kiss.

good morning.

This morning I woke up when a sparrow flew into my face. It was a little bird, that had come in through the chimney. She had been stuck in our house for a while, I learned. A dear baby. Didn't quite get glass. She flapped about our living room last night, slept in our house plant, and then while looking for light this morning, charged my face.

Did I really scream? Am I actually the sort of person who throws the sheets over her head? Runs naked downstairs to the kitchen? Calls her dad?

Later, when the plan was fully constructed- the window flung open and all of us in our correct positions, I loved my family.

The Epilogue

We found ourselves under that bridge,

crammed in the corner with our knees bent,

keeping cold.

Graffiti crawled all around us.

I watched you walk the tracks

until you were out of my sight.

I saw a branch with some yellow leaves and sat still.

I'm so sorry.

I had to kiss you when the train went by.

Afterwards,

your cigarette took a stylistic fall from grace-

our firework.

You believed in magic, momentarily.

It was like a light was going off in my head;

A slow red flash.

I write poetry for my poetry writing class.

Cleaning My Room 

I pick my way through 

layers of debris ,

find magnetic poetry pieces.

Pound. Chrysalis. Extract.

Here is that note from my mother

half crumpled next to the underwear

still upturned in my jeans.

the broken earring 

next to the receipt from the book  store

It seems I wore purple last Wednesday.

Pausing, I see that

my carpet is, in fact, beige

and capable of being

startlingly bare.

Windows

I gaze at each glass face

of the cherubim seraphim, 

their childish eyes

two shards of bright blue

catching light in adoration.

The sharp angle of their

eternally outstretched arms

is rigid.

Their small wings

flutter pointlessly-

opaque white tips, 

so far from feathers,

better for birds than fat babies

Their mortar mouths are all loving, 

and not knowing. 

But I want Michael, 

swinging his flaming sword

with a flourish and a roar,

playing poker with Gabe on Saturday nights, 

blowing smoke rings from his heavenly cigar;

forming clouds.

Strangers

Today I met a brain

in between the shelves

at the library.

We talked innocently

and liked each other instantly

I'll be fine.

Late Afternoon in Powder Valley

The paved trail breaks through this forest

like a pencil line scribbled across 

a sheet of grainy paper.

A spider stands.

I inspect her perfect tangles

the sheer dotted net, detected only in 

the ray of sunlight

that is bending off my glasses.

Nearby, a tree has given itself over

to soft moss, and fungus 

that wraps around its trunk 

like a lace collar.

It reminds me of me.

I adorn myself, talk too much

pick words apart 

like sunflower seeds between my teeth

in this quiet place.

Coming Home Late

In the hour between night and morning

I arrive to my dark house

the front door swings open, not inviting. 

The night is intermingling with my living room

the air is charged.

Locking the faulty bolt, 

I switch on each light

drag my hands against the walls

clutch my car keys.

With a sigh.

I pet the dog, 

and laugh without an audience.  

Still,

I think I'll lock my bedroom door tonight,

scoop up my small sister,

let her her sleep beneath my arm.

Riding Bikes with Justin

 

It's not like they say,

this isnt coming easy.

There is no flashbulb childhood memory

of my father pushing me down a grassy hill;

no thrill of rememberence.

 

Justin glides on my left,

effortlessly.

His shoes are clipped into the pedals.

 

I gently lift my grip away

from the handle bars.

 

An hour later, he is a distant flashing light.

I'm tired and should turn back.

But I've never felt so self-propelled,

and I would follow him anywhere.

 

 

 

This Road Trip was so Carefully Planned

 

An anthology of mixed CDs

rests on the dashboard.

A glare from the windshield angles itself

towards the cooler full of iced coffee.

 

I think back to that gas station,

the long walk to you took to find a place to smoke,

while I breathed in sweet gasoline

and bought a map we haven't dared to unfold.

 

We were good at not talking.

We spent all those nights

practicing sitting still

and watching the world go by--

on your couch.

 

I guess its just funny

how we have no idea

where we're going.