when no one is looking

i sometimes call my father 
& hang up. i sometimes try to find
my ex's profile & hope he is unhappy.
i try to find my other ex's profile
& hope he is doing well. i turn into
a cicada & call out like the moon
might answer. i open a death place
& buy a horrible death object 
that will relieve a sense of urgency 
beneath my skin. i will take off my face
& wash it like a food bowl. i will
pick at my teeth. i wash my hands
down to the bone. i consider taking
a bath but in exchange i just sit down
in the shower. i pretend i am a rainforest.
god it would feel amazing to just have 
so many organs. to get to rain as much
as i needed. i drink a whole glass of water.
i turn on the bad tv & love it.
i pretend my house is bigger than it is
& that i have a camera crew i'm taking
on a tour. i get a piece of paper
just to tear apart. i open the windows
& let the geese fly in. i call my uncle
& he doesn't answer. i call my sibling &
she is at work. i am usually soft as
a bowl of pudding. i will notice
my shadow dislodged & have to try 
& track her down. i usually lure her back
with a bowl of milk. i will talk to myself.
i will talk to the birds. i will get close
to sharing the rock's language but 
never quite nail the fist-like tones. 
you will then come home & find me 
like a window candle. here i am with 
my little bright face. i am just as you left me.

light pile leaf pile

i have been feeding my darkness
a jar of raspberry preserves. we didn't
pick apples. we didn't get to 
build the eclipse we wanted. 
the night stretched like a wild cat.
i am trying to remember what
i enjoy about myself. i think,
"tuesdays." i think "my shovel."
i want to be more than a train full
of shoes. i tried to buy a pizza but
i ended up just giving it to the chickens.
my mouth is like a screen door. 
easy to punch in. loud in the wind. 
i remember last year how you went 
on an airplane without a single tree.
once i planted a limb in my own back
& tried to convince it to grow into
a sycamore. instead, i shrunk. instead,
i chopped it off like a skin tag 
with a cuticle clipper. i bleed too much.
i bleed too little. the days shrink &
i start to shove light in the closets.
in the stairwell. in your face. 
then i go to bathe in it. i am selfish.
i use as much as i can for myself. i leave
tasting like a penny. copper on the tongue. 
i want a life full of earth smell & 
cool grass. i do not know how to be 
an animal any more. i remember though
gathering the leaves to burrow in them
with my sibling as children. once
i could not find them. i emerged, vole-like.
there she was peering out too. 
we had emerged together. the sun poured
down & made brief orange juice glasses of us.

manifestation journal for a personal waterfall 

i go back & forth about "manifesting." 
a part of me loves a return
to ritual even in small ways. i see hungers
poured into the comments beneath an instagram post
of a shining frog & commands us to
"manifest here." someone wants a first child.
someone wants to pass the bar. another person
asks the universe for an easier night.
the word manifest comes from an ancient word meaning,
"a festival of teeth." i lied there. but wouldn't that
make sense if that's what it meant? i am sick 
of poems defining words as if the etymology
is hiding the truth. i don't want to know
where it came from. just like i don't want to know
anything about the origins of the word "america"
but sadly i am enveloped in them. the other part
of me thinks the whole manifestation thing is 
big depressing. surely we must have better vessels 
for desire than little notebooks & comments sections. 
surely someone must but listening? i once asked 
a demon for a book deal. he was like,
"what am i supposed to do with this?"
i shrugged. it was a shadow night. i didn't get
the book deal. i am still writing though. writing
into catacombs & in comment sections. hosting
a festival of teeth where we can all remove one
like a dandelion head blown clean off. i guess 
that is not fair. a manifestation is not a wish. 
it is a belief we might have some power to will 
the future forward. instead, i usually feel like
the past & the future are happening to me.
present is just a meeting point, shifting 
down a play button line. someone will always 
point out that their manifestations come true.
i believe this. that sometimes maybe there is
a ghost listening. maybe listening enough
to reach a hand into the guts of the world. 
i probably believe too much in free will 
& not enough in bugs. i don't manifest but 
i do sometimes, in front of a lit candle,
ask for more than this dirt can give me. 

bad witch 

i don't know why i wanted 
to be a good witch. i stayed away
from curses. believed only in 
wards & binding spells. knots tied
around make-shift tongues.
jars in the freezer. it is so strange 
that i have & (sometimes) continue to strive
for something so nebulous as being "good."
i know lots of people that are supposedly "good"
who buy murder objects & ignore 
people burned in their homes. i wish i could say
that it was some deep realization about 
systems of injustice but really i think 
it was that apartment 
that changed things for me. we had
a building super who would play music
so loud it thrummed the walls. one deep night,
i walked over to his door & knocked.
i asked in a soft voice, "could you
please turn your music down? i have
to work early in the morning." he laughed
a wild grin. shut the door without saying anything. 
the music continued. i don't even think 
he was a bad person. i made a curse that night.
my hands shook. why was i so afraid? 
a jar with hot peppers & vinegar. that man's name
floating like a sick shrimp. i don't know
if it did anything but i felt briefly better.
my ghost, no longer a jungle he could kick. 
i take that into the world whenever i can. 
sometimes i am naive & i feel that urge to be "good"
creeping back up. instead i try to replace it
with words that mean something to me.
i want to be a just witch & a caring witch 
& sometimes when the moon is dark,
a vengeful witch. i do not bother to curse 
the empire. instead, i sew. i feed. i do whatever 
i can to make it weaker. i know it is not enough.
when i moved out of that apartment, i left the jar there.
i try to leave jars whenever i depart in one way
or another. i like to imagine the super finding it
when he inevitably had to show those rooms
to new tenants. i imagine him seeing his name 
though that is impossible because the name 
had long blurred from time & bite. 

this week the geese started returning

in my dreams last night it was
both of our graduations. i did not
have a gift for you & i was already late.
i am afraid of being empty handed.
once i filled my purse with chicken eggs
& forgot about it. yes, of course 
they all a shattered leaving a sticky regret. 
you keep saying how much you want
pet ducks. you want to hear them
singing in the morning like fresh horns. 
sometimes when we go walking 
at the throat of the world we'll find
ducks preening themselves. winter is 
probably already here. i see the geese
like bible darts. can you believe i once
tried to read the tracing pages of that book
as if god is just waiting in a bush of words?
i think i will give in next year & we will
be overrun by ducks. there are worse creatures
to be ruled by. right now i am ruled by
border wounds & thumb-eating men. 
a male duck is called a drake. i am hoping
for a sweet one but i assume he will
be just like the rooster. a vendetta against
any form of domination. i wish i was 
a drake or even a rooster. instead 
i am a creature at the edge of all things.
the corn field & the winter & girl.
when people ask if i live on a farm
i sometimes say "yes." i would argue 
most of us are living on a farm. the sun 
brings you something to harvest. you are
talking to the land like an uncle. 
"yes, i am hungry. no, i do not know
how to talk to the moon anymore."
once, last year, in the dead of winter,
a goose came to our back porch, lost.
we fed him/her. left out water for him/her
to drink. i hope that goose is a duck now.
i hope she/he lays eggs the size of 
really nice river rocks. i hope one of them 
hatches a golden door. in the dream i bought
as much as i could. i had a wad of cash
in my wallet. it was a strange time
for a graduation. i am so proud of you 
despite not getting you ducks this year.
sometimes it is too soon to be happy. sometimes
the land is not big enough. the cusp guardians,
us, like two creek islands where
the herons stand to watch the geese fly overhead. 

moses in the storm drain

i wish i knew less about the bible. 
it came to me in patches. the church talking
book like a drill into a vat of heaven's grease. 
i find angels in the sugar. mary 
on the back porch in her nice
blue clothes. once, i stepped on a snake.
my favorite prophet has always been 
the the rooster. his call when the day breaks open.
in the middle of the last summer
rain came heavy. i heard a baby crying & so 
i went outside with a crumpled umbrella.
there was infant moses reaching.
i am lucky that i am not a pharoh. 
with a stick i dislodged him so he could
keep drifting in the brief stream towards
whatever royalty he was seeking.
i don't talk to god if he is there. he is
certainly not there. a myth is knit by 
hunger not be truth. please let there be
an explanation for why the night hurts. 
for where the dead go to gossip over
& over about everything that happened.
my favorite character in the bible is mary magdalen.
i relate to her. a disciple in purpose but not
in name. i want to know what she does
with her hands now that the story is over.
i think she keeps a river of blood. i think she
knows every ghost's names. 
if i could forget the bible i think i would
replace it with a big gaping whole
just like the one my father once
punch in the wall of the house
on main street. was that him or me?
maybe it was god. when all else fails
i guess it can be god. i did consider
keeping moses. i could have raised him to be gay.
take him out of school. learn in the yard
with the deer. use the basket he came in
for picking chestnuts in october. 

i attempt growing feathers

i was not trying to be an angel.
quite the opposite, i wanted to be
a vulture. i wanted to crouch over
carrion & ferry them to the blue place.
instead, i noticed a sharp light.
i woke you up early but the sun
could not hold us. the frying pan 
sang all night. i hope you remember
what it was like those first two weeks.
sometimes i think knowing someone 
is always an orbit. only, i succeed
in only every getting farther away.
eggs hidden in the sacristy. your voice
on a downward volume until 
our beaks were moving with no sound.
when i was really little i thought 
that angels were just dead people
but that is so so wrong. angels are
living people with no where to put
all their eyes. people who could not
manage to become a hawk or an eagle.
i would have settled for a drake. 
instead, here i am with prophecies
to deliver. i shirk my job. i call you 
instead  & make up something beautiful.
you tell me that i remind you 
of a hole in the wall you used to love.
i do not ask if you mean a literal hole
or a run-down restaurant. i prefer 
to imagine you meant a literal hole
maybe harboring rusted razor blades
in an old house. the evidence of our love
is in the bay. my left shoe. my feathers,
always molting. i am not good at 
surviving change. i hold funerals.
for me. for you. for anyone who will
give me flowers. who will lay still
long enough to be mummified.
can you go from angel to screech owl?
i hope so. i want to sit on a branch 
near your window & scream. 

husband in a jar

the government-ordered 
love story is a photograph 
in the sink. i buy you flowers
from costco & by the time
i get home they're furious bees.
i also get angry when winter
comes to make soil of me. 
i thought the husband would be
like a snow globe. shake & feel
transported. instead, it is like
a jar of pickled eggs. beet purple.
he has nice hair i guess in the grand 
scheme of men. i try not to think
too much about what he is for.
instead, i go to sleep to make myself
dream about an ex. not in a "i miss you"
way but in a "remember the horror
of our loneliness." the worst relationships
are the ones that make you feel
more alone than when you're alone.
i feed the husband fish food & sometimes
a leftover cookie or something.
he is not satisfied. i was not made
to satisfy men. especially not a husband.
my first ex had so many ideas
of what i could be. he made me stand
on a wedding cake for years. the cake rotted.
birds came but there i was still
without any words left. i think the husband
is not so bad actually. i call the
official hotline to ask if it would be
appropriate to move him into a terrarium.
they scold me for thinking about myself.
the thing about being feminine is that
no matter how much you try to steady
your voice, they'll be able to tell on the phone.
no terrarium i guess. i put the jar on 
the nightstand & he whimpers for me
to let him crawl into bed. i say, "no. i did
not ask for this." the curfew has arrived
& everyone is supposed to be in bed. he says,
"i love you." the joy officer peers in through
the window & waits for me to say it back.
my husband knows that i do it out
of obligation but still he hangs onto those words.
in the morning i will dress him & myself.
make us food. he will hum the sun alive like
a mourning dove. in that moment 
i will love him. a siren comes & goes.
his shoes by the door will get bigger & bigger.

rose water

believe me, the sink is bleeding
like a dandelion wound.
not milk but rose water. i am 
drinking flowers until 
all i can see is your big pink mailbox.
i wrote you letters when the world
was a pile of bones. i would go 
only at night to sift through 
the wreckage. the truth is that 
i love being alone. the way your own
silence can wrap you like deli meat.
wax paper. a petal of ham.
once my mother came in the window
at night. she said, "i believe you 
about the sink." i was not sure 
if i could trust her but we got to the glasses
& we drank long & wild. we drank
until our eyes were tunnels. 
we drank until my father was 
a hole in the sky. in my dream i tell her
everything about him. he buys 
enough wars to fill the yard. 
she tells me, "i used to sometimes escape
into a hydrogen balloon." i become
afraid of fire. no more hindenberg.
i have seen enough skies burn down.
the sunset is floral. we milk it into 
tall glasses. i used to run all the way
up the mountain to a rose bush 
planted decades ago by the ghosts.
there, a faucet & dishes. something
to do to pass the bleeding. my father
in the shower, waiting with nothing
but his eyes on. i try to work up 
the courage to bathe him. the rose water 
steam will maybe remind us of 
that one garden off the highway.
the one with the god statues & 
a wooden ark. 

mad woman

i keep my mad woman in 
a little space ship. we go to pluto
to be forgotten. her fists are made
of video games. her teeth, rubies. 
she is my favorite parts of myself.
i visit her but it takes twenty-seven years.
each time she is bent into more
& more of a spiral. she loves to eat books.
she dreams of being a mother to something
wilder than herself. in the building times
where i am walking around like 
a zoo, i think of her. i see her in her
little ice garden on the blue surface
of a distant mirage i want to take her
to the mall. i want to let her break 
a huge window in a death machine.
just one would be enough for us to be whole. 
i do not know her as deeply as i should
after all these years. i don't know what kind
of cereal she would want to eat. i don't know
which sound sooth her. all i have done 
is banish her from my flesh. give her
sporadic kindnesses like a ring pop 
or a milkshake. she seldom indulges. 
just stares at me like a wolf in the dark.
she rarely speaks but when she does, it is critical.
"you think you can leave me," she said.
i did not reply. of course i thought i could.
isn't that what we all do? try to escape
the self who wants too much? 
only once did i lash out at her. it was 
a boiling time. i had no money in my account.
she chided me & i said, "at least i have
a credit card." she laughed long & fearless.
i felt so small. how did i become so small?
the planet is slowly shrinking. one day
she will come home. i do not know what
i will do with her. maybe we will finally reconcile. 
maybe i will run with her until i am nothing
but bone & wind.