sleep lessons

i consult stones for their knowledge
only to find they are not resting at all.
exerting themselves to exhaustion.
"i won't keep you," i tell them.
inside my skull are balled up socks 
& an abandonded water park 
from outside of the town where i grew up. 
i keep most of my wreckage private.
tend a burn pile. leaves escaping 
in a gust of wind. ash-kissed flags.
we search the ceiling like a map
when it comes to this. gathering 
the room up. there is a pocket
for anything. to want something 
means you do not truly have it.
sleep turns into a golden calf
& runs the city ragged. 
we keep the curtains closed for fear
the creature will find us & demand 
payment. he does not know 
how to rest either. i ask my partner 
if she knows what the tallest building 
in the city is & she says it is 
the memory of a giant birch tree.
i fill a bowl with dirt.
put my ear the soil, 
trying to hear their music.
my body thrums. becomes a roost 
for bats. thousands of them 
in each of my shadows. the sun
tenses like a squinted eye.
light spills honey-like & loud 
across the morning sidewalk. 

appointment reminder

i'm scheduling the hairs on my arms
to grow. weeds in my father's yard
ask the important questions like
"when are we going to burn the system
to the ground?" i tell the grass
this week i have to let the doctor
tell me not to worry about fingernails 
& ginko trees. in a parallel world
i am revolutionary. my blood
is made of pewter & pledges. i rush out
into the street & free all the lamp posts.
here, in my real life,
i have less & less allegiances. right now  
all i trust is the color grey
& the space between your breasts.
i will inevitably forget
but that is why metal birds exist.
i open my phone which is slowly
becoming a diety. my device plans out 
the next hundred years without me.
date & time can get me through 
most mornings. a calendar nailed
to a tree on walnut street. 
the reminder says, "we require 
your body." i think "good take it!"
when the day is over there will be
more tin foil hats to knit
with future children. there will be
a bed for us to make puppets in.
i will still need to find a place
to store the jars of noise stolen
from that one night we shouted
into the bare winter forest.
don't worry. i confirm the future
or is that just a knot in a balloon?
have you seen these new screens?
a mirror without the mirror
opens blossom-like. tomorrow
is a distance i measure in leaves. 

instant shipping

our future desire will be 
housed on the head of a pine needle.
screen door blowing open.
a tornado in every heart beat.
kissing a man on a conveyor belt.
here is how fast we will learn
to put out the fire with salt.
a television for asking
& a television for receiving.
windows blinking away a new need.
once i ordered three pounds of bananas 
on a grocery app. a man knocked
at my door carrying the bananas 
like infants. lost-look in his eyes 
he asked, "are these all yours?"
this is how i feel about both
my purchases & my old lovers.
walking the length 
of a dead airport landing strip.
birds have advertising jingles
stuck in their heads. a lawn mower 
is here to cut the day moon in half.
you have to pay to see it full.
there's an app for that & another
to ask the stars what your body means.
mine tells me "introduce yourself,
you're fearless today." i am no such thing.
i am more hungry than i have ever been.
my socks are automatic. soon 
even my fingers will have staircases.
do i just want the say piece i say it do
or do i want ever single knot.
i fill the shopping cart again.
hover my thumb over the "proceed" button
for hours & then days until the items
are dust & i am still wanting them.

multiverse

we wash our hands in the rain.
eat pudding on the porch 
& do not fall in love. i watch you
turn into a lightning bolt.
dirt breathes. rocks kneel.
you take care of me using
knitting needles. i am as small
as a passing elsewhere. days 
fit into our back pockets.
i cut my nails. i cut my hair.
you miss me deeply & so you travel
from one side of the planet 
to the other. time is made
of wax & then fire. the solitary candle.
my hand on your back. oh you used to
want to take me apar just how i needed.
a curtain catches & engulfs the whole universe.
don't worry there are others 
in which we struggle just the same.
here inside my own we sit 
in a dinner booth & talk like brothers.
how am i supposed to wear my body
in exactly the way you like?
i remember another bead. i counted on
your elbows. you wrote a scripture 
across my hipbones. kneels to read aloud.
god was always a pile of feathers.
pushing around to find an animal
at the center just to encounter the needle.
throwing an old pair of shoes
over an electric wire. in the other world
we float them like viking funerals.
you promise me "next time, next time."
this is the other you & not the one
whose hair is eaten by the wind.
november once smoldered & reddened.
now, a simple leg muscle.
i have no more room in my desires
to fit another bone. you rest your head
against my chest. i become
a chocolate mousse. soft on your tongue.
gone. clouds darn mourning clothes.
it rains. our shoes float past.

the year i didn't show up in pictures 

not quite a vampire but similarly
echoing. the sound of strawberries
in every room i entered. my heart 
was a thimble of water. twigs came 
to inhabit my bones. i snapped under
each encounter. a mouth. an ankle.
a girl can come to crave decision.
seek it out in the eight-ball eyes 
of older men. his stomach 
full of sand. a girl can become a boy
in the shadows of small town buildings.
the corn falling down before 
a firing squad. i stood & posed
several times. there family pictures 
without me there at all. i am the frame
or maybe the grey background 
where snow leopards drink their own skin.
a flower would knock at my eyelid
& ask, "are you still a body?"
i would roll over. unsure how to answer.
between my legs a poleroid camera emerged.
snapped photographs out my window
which spilled on the floor. 
shamefully, i collected them 
like leaves. invented a coffin 
for them to sleep in. refused
to give them a chronology. that's exactly
what they wanted. when it was over
i missed the freedom of being noticed.
how time used to dance with me
like a yard's worth of wind. 
instead now, a skeleton. an x-ray.
my cobblestone teeth. the hooves 
of a minotaur in my jaw. a half smile.
stoops of my eyes. i used to be
a portal elk came to peer through. 
now an evacuation barrier in the midst 
of a fire tornado. hair singed.
ocean wary of my motives. 

tissue boxes in the underworld

inside my head is a waterwheel.
i hold a vase of flowers 
& walk around the block with it
pretending i'm delivering them
to a new goddess. when i feel manic
i try to look for hummingbirds.
it is winter & the hummingbirds
have all become piles of leaves.
i should spend less time 
feeling sorry for myself but 
then i open the silverware drawer
& there are all those spoons
i have to father. i never used to
buy tissues. i just waited 
to find myself in hell. heat so great
the tears would evaporate 
as they hit the air. no crying 
in self-destruction. my blood
was a cloud around us. red mist.
mars fell from the sky.
red bouncy ball. my partner buys tissues
& i'll often pluck one just
to have something to hold
& set fire to. a distress signal
sends itself from my chest:
a little mechanical bird.
i catch him & twist his head off.
feel guilty about it for weeks but
no one can know just how close to collapse
i am living. i'm one shoe away 
from running barefoot
in december. one tissue box away 
from pushing all the spoons
out the window & onto the sidewalk.
i no longer want to live 
in a box in a box in a box. 
there should be more 
spherical homes. i hollowed out
a pear to sleep in for tonight.
sticky & short-lived. this is how
i exist. sweet rotting walls.
a tissue box far away
rings like a telephone. 

shark legs

i backstroke through a field of water
where above the sun is a bleeding plate.
we fled like only sea creatures can
from the threat of being conceptualized
& turned into nightmare machines.
scooped pockets dark from the deep 
& ran our hands up each others thighs.
some sharks wear skirts 
when they're on their way 
to the tooth factory. others settle for
bare smooth flesh. becoming predator 
is a process of exchanges. 
here is my face for the smell 
of blood. here are my eyes where once 
doll trees grew & spit fingers.
my father used to tell a story 
of a shark leaving the ocean
to travel up a river & into 
a tiny creek by his home. 
he was just a boy staring into clear water 
at a shark. fin jutting from surface.
the shark was probably just
hoping for a quick evolution.
aren't we all? i look at my genetics 
& ask, "how can i hollow out my bones
to fly?" the sharks keep their legs hidden
in case they need to break ground.
a cave full of blue & grey legs.
child sharks go there & gaze fearfully
at their potential. i do not have
a closet of fins but i do 
search all lakes for sharks
before dipping a leg inside.
some animals are adaptable
& i am not one of them. it took hundreds
of thousands of years & still
i fear unknowns. wake up to the sound
of sharks running--practicing 
for a soon-to-be end times.
i don't tell anyone i witness this.
like all terrors, to acknowledge it
would only give it more power.
they return to the lake by my house.
geese dissapear one by one.
my legs are searching 
for a more promising animal.
they leer at birds & salamanders.
maybe one night i'll go out
& dash with the sharks.
pretend i have a cellar of teeth.
my father peer down into the water.
the shark looks into his eyes 
& stumbles away. 
 

hope chest

i swallowed dresses like water.
gulps of fabric. where do you become
a wife? i spread in the dark,
eagle-faced & hungry for tulle.
i had a man once hand me 
a pair of plyers & ask me
to remove each of my teeth 
one by one as a promise to him.
i did so. each tooth turned to dust
as they hit the air. "giving"
must be willing & eager. 
he divided my soul between 
a set of fresh pots & pans.
now, i make promises on other people's knees.
a prayer isn't always something done 
with only the mouth. i saved money 
for my wedding in a paper bag 
alongside stolen stars & rubber bands. 
you have to take what you can get.
i hammer together a basin. here is where
we will pretend to be ready.
where i will carve a new heart
from the bark of a rotted out tree.
a necklace from someone's grandmother.
three gold coins. i try to pay angels 
to teach me deception. men have
put their thumbs over my eyes
& told me it was night. i am holding 
a chest in the dark, looking for a place
to set it down. foot of the bed
where everyone waits. an infection
of lace on my back. girls braiding
my hair as i wake. roses bushes
are never as beautiful as they should be.
white roses wilting in a vase
inside the chest. i place a tape recorder
& a taser. the dowry is a spoonful 
of honey. he will wake up,
crawl on his hands & knees, 
& open the chest every day. find me there
sewing breath into rope. 
tell me i am the beautiful stone
in the whole world. i will weep.
maybe i should learn how to 
become a bird. preferably an eagle
or a hawk. never a crane. 
perch high up. give him feathers
to keep him company. 
sit on top of the chest
& focus on turning my eyes 
into moons.

homemade barometer 

give me the real axe.
salt & word-warm air. i want 
a leg without spiders inside 
or a back that doesn't barter 
for breath. i look inside 
the terrarium & ask 
"who are you who i have given
all my water?" the water chuckles.
this is a game i play with myself.
see how much pressure can fill
a lung until destruction.
i was surprised when this winter
seed pods up the street burst,
spreading their desires 
all over the sidewalk. i don't remember
how to crave, will someone come teach me.
inside my head is a machine 
that measures how much sadness 
i can ensure. i build new corredors 
each day. i eat with my fingers.
press a hole in the wall
where i'll be able to talk to 
the solitary self. "you are safe there,
don't come out." removing your hair 
from the drain i consider joining it.
becoming long & dead. the air pressure
has to find a way out somehow.
spitting cherry pits 
at the sun & hoping to make 
an escape. there is an exit side
on the back wall of my closet.
i press my back against it until
the world tilts & i'm laying down.
take me to target & buy me 
a new life. it doesn't have to be 
beautiful. i just want a lockable face.
spare teeth under the bed. 
lover with eight arms
& a mind-reading device
so he can know when i'm trying
to extinguish a good day.
taste-testing the atmosphere
i have to say it's no where near done. 
more sugar. more airplane scars.
i'm standing up again
& walking into the coat room
of someone else's heart. 
stripping down to only my socks.
i talk to you through the door.
"i just need a moment," i say.

adverse childhood experiences 

i am learning about the ways 
a piece of red yarn can pass through 
the needle's head unharmed. disbelief.
my heart takes a biplane
to a treed peach, ripe as origami. 
do you mean to tell me 
all children didn't run 
to hide in piles of straw?
curl to the size of a pistachio
at the thought of their names?
i used to weed the church garden
with angels tangled in my hair.
night feel like a dropped book.
scraped my knees on the promises
of my father's teeth. 
eating candy wrappers for their sweetness.
rain leaking in from a hole
in the ceiling. the world seemed suddnely 
like rotting fruit. catching flies
& befriending them. brevity.
suitcases full of shoes. the bus station
where bodies arrived as dolls.
i played alone to the sounds
of ghosts asking for turns
with my stuffed animals. two girls 
running up & down the hall. 
fear of drowning in the bath. 
monsterous rocking chair.
dull steak knives. i went days 
without anything but angel chatter.
choruses of dandelions. i joined them.
became the lovelist weed.
ragged hair. dirt under my nails.
my mother with a pitcher of iced tea.
brother, chicken breast born,
needed so much snow. i'd go
to the top of the mountain to scoop it.
returning resentful. why had no one
asked me how i wanted to live?
walking my goldfish down 
to the creek. telling him 
he would be better off up stream.
filing cabinet gills. 
rustling trees. 
angels perching there too.