funnel cake crown

i'm not that kind of beautiful.
i am in the fryer letting my skin
turn flakey & full. a bruise is a place 
to plant the future continent.
a living ground for meal worms 
& fathers we get to burry.
i do not want to be treated
like a dessert anymore.
running through the house
tracking powdered sugar everywhere.
there is always a war going on
even if it's just in a snow globe
to you. once i saw a man
fist fighting another man
on the sidewalk outside my window.
a tooth fell free from one of the men's mouths.
after the glass candy sirens
i went down in search for it.
i wanted a souvenir. but there are
other kinds of beautiful i could be
if you wanted. if you wanted
is something i say when i mean
i want you so badly i am turning
into a sawmill & cutting off my fingers.
i stop talking to my mother.
she becomes a quilt mice nest in.
the apartment is a refrigerator box
& then it's a dance studio &
then i buy an aquarium so large
it takes up the space of my heart.
sometimes someone does something
so bad to you that you have to
just operate as if it never happened.
i do not believe in death but i have
been dead at least once. 
i call for delivery. it's a pizza 
i'm going to feed to a bear. 
you tell me you are sick of people
saying sorry. the word is my beautiful slug.
i carry it into a salt field & say,
"we are going to be okay"
when i am certain the word is not.

grease trap

don't twist your guts at me.
i am only the knife sharpener.
i've never even eaten
a fried twinkie. do you know
on other planets
they don't worry
about calories & fat?
they just eat until they are
complete. once i sat outside
a mcdonalds & counted swans
as they swum down the interstate.
everything in the united states
happens on the side
of a road. we see a train & i remember
taking the train to work in the city.
my eyes often fell out 
& instead of putting them back in
i would eat a protein bar
that tasted vaguely of birthday cake.
the grind is sad & so is the grease.
i didn't mean to stop talking
to everyone it just was easier that way
& then i was free to set any fire
i had been waiting to. i do not enjoy
any fried food except when 
it is in my mouth. there i can 
remember the fryers at the back
of the malt shop. a bubbling grease stain.
how the grease became a god
in the throat of the contraption.
cleaning the gunk & livers
from its teeth. this is what it takes
to spit out a golden necklace. this is
what it takes to choke on
a planet. i am terrible at chewing.
instead, i swallow as much as i can.
my hunger is hapless & often rude.
don't mind me. i am not 
trying to make the best of anything.
i'm trying to unclog the machine
& see it flow with water. 
i'm trying to call home
& have the home be a different home 
entirely. one without mornings.
one with a toaster perpetually dinging
to say, "we are ready for you." 

self-portrait as a self-portrait 

i want you to lie with me
& tell me i am the creature of mice & weeds,
not a boy without an urn.
i have used tupperware
to carry my heart into a new bed.
every year since i turned seventeen,
i have moved at least once a year. 
in the long run, this is just one more.
a box for my hands that i kick
along the floor. a box for my tongue
filled with packing tape.
you stand inside the one
perfect pupil i have left. the other one
burst like a balloon.
i was playing with pins. if i have a home
it is not something i can dig for anymore.
instead, i take pictures of myself
in the yard. look up pocket knives online
so that i can really dig at the earth.
in a dream i am late for a flight.
sitting in a hotel room bed
i think, "i could live here." 
all my lives like unnested nesting dolls.
just tell me where the freezer is
& tell me what i mean to you.
give me a polaroid & a pill.
my bones sing to eachother.
i order an uber & then charge my mind.
i do not want to try 
to go back tonight. standing outside
the hospital with my lungs in a briefcase.
i called & called & no one came.
sometimes the false memories
are the ones that are truest. or else
i am just a liar & this is not my body at all
& soon i will move again. 

spore print

i ask you why we know
so little about mushrooms 
& you say, "i think people
are scared of them."
it's early evening
& i follow you through
the ferns & the forest brush.
i feel a kinship with mushrooms
because it is a queer feeling
to be delightfully misunderstood. 
rotted logs. swarms of beetles.
from here grows purple mushrooms 
& white mushrooms & mushrooms
that look like alien hearts.
we looked for mushrooms the first time
we went into the woods together.
you bend down. touch the neck
of a mushroom. pluck them
from the earth. turn caps over
in your hands. a finger
across gills. for a long time
this was as close as i could get
to kissing you. watching how
you undo the soil & the earth. 
now, i take your hand.
kiss your shoulder. we smell
like bug spray & dead leaves 
& i love it & i always want more.
i want to say, "can we live
off only mushrooms?"
in the cabin
you show me how 
one mushroom repairs 
its own gills with a latex.
you hold your pocket knife 
& taste the bitter secretion,
spitting it out in the sink.
you tell me none of them
are edible.
a basket of mushrooms.
i picture their spores 
like tiny altar bells. 
you lay each cap down 
on a piece of paper. cover them
with another. a blanket
for the mushroom skulls.
when i lay next to you i feel like this.
like a mushroom cap 
laying down all 
the language i have. the mushrooms
& face down saying,
"i love you i love you
i love you" along with me.

life inside a telescope

i'm interested in selling
parts of my body when i'm dead.
i'd like to see my ear
in someone's windowsill.
they might look at it & say,
"i should get rid of that"
but instead they hang on.
this is how i live my life.
every time i move i become aware
of just how many books i have
that i have never opened again
since reading. in my last house
i only had one pan. 
upstairs a man listened 
to the radio & the radio said,
"i don't want to be your daughter
anymore." i have been looking
too closely at everyone.
a lens is a horror factory. 
do you know half the people
i talk to are only reciting lines
from television shows?
do you know we all have pimples?
i thought everyone else
walked around with dinner-plate-smooth
cheeks. no! even the beautiful people
have pimples they're hiding.
i am not sure if i want to sell my eyes.
they feel the most intimate.
maybe i will have them 
put into raviolis. i've been
obsessed with butternut squash recently.
if we really needed to
i think we could probably 
eat moths for protein.
a huge one flies into the house
& i chase it as if it is 
a piece of my face. i think
my nose would go for the most money though.
someone might mount it
like a deer head.
do people hunt where you live?
they do here. a deer is 
a site of reconciliation.
when i see them. i tell them to run.

glazed donut ice cream

i took jericho turnpike 
to the edge of my mania.
the parking lot was big enough
to have a wedding in.
i loved that shoprite. dull yellow glow.
my phone like a pocket knife.
carts that whined 
as i made my way down
the flickering neon aisles.
everyone there was hungry.
shopping with fists full
of glazed donuts & ice berg lettuce. 
i always thought of parking
at the station in hempstead
when i was done
& just taking a ride until i escaped
my own veins. a city is a place you go
to bury your face. to become 
a vessel. i walked around as an urn
collecting the ash of any boy
who wanted to tap his cigarette 
against my lips. once i parked
outside the apartment.
terrified of being a skeleton
i ate a pint of glazed donut ice cream
with my hands. knuckle deep.
turned on the radio
quiet so only i could hear
& not any of the people
walking down main street.
i licked my fingers clean. spoonless
& shaking. i wanted us to be
elephants in a third floor apartment.
i wanted too much or maybe
everyone wants too much.
when i was done i found
a trash can on the sidewalk
to throw out the container. 
it was late. almost 11. still,
i stalled before climbing the stairs
with my hands full of plastic bags.
some kind of deserted bird
spilling on the living room floor
still hungry. 

mirror tree

have you ever walked so far
you lost your face?
i stand at a truck station bathroom
& try to make eyes with a sharpie marker.
i cannot draw as well as i wish i could.
we say a hail mary
as a siren cries out
in the deep forest. there is always
an emergency. on the radio
aliens are landing & offering us 
cream corn. a turkey is
plucking himself 
in the middle of time square. 
bare flesh. bear flesh.
a bomb goes off but it is also
a false alarm. no one is concerned enough
about the jellyfish. they bloom 
like bruises across my face.
i hit myself until there's a garden.
someone can love you
& also not know how to love you.
i think of scrubbing my eyes out
in my parent's bathroom
& wanting to be something 
they could put in their pockets.
i have never been something
that could fit into a wallet.
i used to be easier to love 
or else i was like a birthday cake.
buttercream roses. terribly cliche 
but always yearned for. a girl
is usually a birthday cake if she's not
a hachet. i don't want to be 
loved like this. i want it to be 
urgent & full of ripe pears.
i want the mirror to spit mangos at me.
i burry a hand mirror
beneath their tree. the tree says,
"be careful what you run away from."
the very next day 
the tree started to grow mirrors.
i stood in the driveway. saw
so many versions of my face.
i had to run away. walking until
my legs were coat hangers.
weeping until my eyes were
thankfully gone. i dream of returning 
to the mirror tree. cutting the fruit
& covering each one. 

mildew

i mowed the lawn until it cried out.
we were selling our souls for a discount.
buy one & get one half off. 
a half a soul is a tuesday. i am
setting the fire alarms on fire.
who knows if we will survive 
if there is a glitch. i don't need to know
there is mildew in the basement.
sometimes a shut door is a mercy.
i spent years inside every door
that would have me. the figure
in the hallway. a ghost without 
a ghost. when we are visited 
it is best to welcome whatever comes
or so i tell myself. the portal is
just as mundane as a dishwasher.
there is hell right on the other side.
i don't fear places like that. 
i am a witch before i am a gender.
scraping fungus from the wall
to pray for more teeth. i want a sharp row
like a sea monster. i can bleed the ocean dry.
i can crack the planets like eggs 
& bathe in their shimmering yolks.
i do not need a clean house. i need
a knife & a yard full of goats.
i need a man who is just passing through.
tell him the basement has
his name written on the walls.
turning on a radio & hearing
my own voice sparkling. she is long dead.
i keep her salamander tongue
in my purse. sometimes it comes alive
& demands we collect quarters
along the side of the road. 

a man 

sometimes a man
is standing in the lawn
& you don't know who he is.
the phone rings &
it's an angel on the line.
he speaks in dropped dishes.
sometimes you forget 
you are a man then you remember
you don't have to be a man 
even if that's how 
the world sees you. then you remember
you once tried to be a mailbox.
opened your mouth
& let the junk mail come.
dead birds. dead beetles.
the smell of finger grit 
& folded napkins. sometimes 
the man is kind & has pockets full
of butterscotch. sometimes
you equate kindness with sugar.
sometimes sugar is a way in.
there are tunnels that throb
beneath any given furnace.
sometimes they are
full of men. sometimes
the man in the lawn looks
like your father. sometimes he has
a jesus pamphlet & sometimes 
he eats his lunch just standing there.
the curtains turn to wings.
the living room fills with hair.
nothing to see. nothing to regret.
sometimes you think
"if i just open the door
& tell him to go away."
of course you know
he's not going to go away. 
that's just not the way men
or lawns work. they are 
thresholds & pocketknives.
one akin to the other.

echo city

come here says the forest
of suitcases. once i loved you
so much i turned into
your reflection. we talked
like stone sisters do:
of the earth's hidden rage. 
you carried me in a lunch box.
the ice pack kept me alive.
leaves falling & turning
into slippers. have you ever tried
to barter with the moon? have you ever
asked a tree say your name?
my voice has divuts where 
syrup can congregate.
my teeth fall out as piano keys.
there is a song you cannot name
that plays & plays until
it is a scream. i once shouted
so loud that my face
became a basement. everyone
took shelter there. the storm
was not as bad as they said
it was going to be. knees
tucked into chests. shivering.
i give you back your paintings
& wish i would have hexed them
before returning them.
how do you stop coming back?
i return to every knife
at my knees. the knife says,
you look amazing tonight.
i kiss the blade.