vending machine

the first one came & i couldn't remember
if i had ordered it. there are always
those late-night desires.
a credit card in the dark. the delivery man
with all his unpriestly judgements.
i was pretty sure i would have remembered
requesting a vending machine. fully stocked.
it was the same as the one that used to be
out back behind the middle school
where i used quarters to buy sprites.
a cold can that i sipped on the walk home
across the field. of course, i fed it.
what you feed, you become. the machine
stood in the middle of the living room.
my partner & i tried to move it
but in retaliation, it always got bigger until
its head was touching the ceiling. 
we accepted it. started requesting cash back
at the grocery store so that we could buy
our little sodas & watch the television
to distract ourselves. the second machine
i was sure i did not ask for. it arrived
in the already small bathroom. a tampon machine
even though neither of use tampons.
the machine preached about all the uses
for tampons. earrings & garland & laughter.
so, i bought some. i had hoped somehow
that a purchase could make it stop.
the hunger that it planted in me 
was like a centipede. so many legs. 
over the next year, every room gained
a vending machine. one for forks & one
for televisions & one for 
holidays & one for lube 
& one for prepackaged apples. 
everything that emerged was always
slightly off. colors that did not sing. 
it became harder & harder to move 
around the house. my partner wept. he said,
"i won't be mad if you just tell me
what is going on." i did not know. i was 
terrified of my hands & of the machines.
appeasing a horror only gets you so far.
the most confusing part was how
they were always restocked despite
no delivery people coming to fill them.
i started to wonder if what came
from their little mouth-portals were real.
i came to the first one. the giant soda machine
in the middle of the living room. i started
to leave it offerings. i hoped to appease it.
sometimes then it would give me
two cans for one quarter. a steal.
drinking them in the summer dusk,
my partner & i dream of what other machines
might come. what they might bring.
how we might survive them. 

girl inside the fridge 

when i climb into the fridge
i am a girl. this confuses my family
because i am not a girl really
in the biblically accurate way but more in
the way that all mangos are girls.
alone (but not alone) i am so verdant  
in the fridge. 
no white hot light to make us have
to perform. sometimes i say "us"
when i mean "me." i am choosing
to not unpack that but really
sometimes i feel like
a little ant hill trying
to govern a gender. 
i love the fridge's cool dark.
the way the tofu speaks of sauce.
all the mismatched tupperware who hold
their breath. i could live several hundred lives
inside our fridge. watch the lettuce wilt
& turn horror. a dress of lemon bites.
get married to the eel over & over.
my gender gets thick & chewy. my gender
is like a pair of rubber boots.
inside the fridge i don't have
to have a government. inside the fridge
a crisper drawer can make promises 
that no one else can. "you are whole
& edible." thank you thank you.
when the door opens we all know
how to behave. smile. pose. hope
to stay. i have been living the doll house
severed wall life for as long
as i could remember. when i am really needing
a release i go to the back where the celery freezes.
there we get to be angels. my gender, gutted 
or butter. snow, creeping across our flesh
like scales. here i am glorious. a piece
of a star. my girl gender, a secret inside
my boy gender inside me elsewhere face.
i don't want to be real or maybe i do
& i just belong to the brief dark &
the hard boiled eggs. each, a harbored moon.
bellies full of bells. 

uses for water

washing your face.
becoming a fish. breathing
in the old way. breathing 
in the new way. rinsing the dishes
after a sticky meal. shampooing
your hair after three days
without a tongue. becoming 
human. becoming land. learning
the real story. hibernating all 
winter in the sweet mud. 
mixing a spoonful of crystal light 
into a red sickly drink. drowning
a fist. drowning a mouth. 
cooling a nuclear power gut.
bellying a bomb across 
the ocean. hiding a submarine 
full of fury. becoming not
the land. becoming not the
animal. blood. blood. more blood. 
your blood. my blood. the pig's blood.
what you are made of.
only the empire thinks,
"there are not enough data centers."
a warehouse full of little machines.
our bodies like lakes wrapping
around them as if we can brush
our teeth with horror. as if the salmon
will still be able to speak to us. 
a dry wishing fountain full of pennies.
we will learn to add a drop of water.
maybe even just spit. i want to be
a stream when i grow up & grow on.
i do not want to be a conduit for
this unnamable hunger. 

re-invention of the wheel 

i don't want to write about the horrible 
even if just for today. i think it is
going to snow again & we still don't have
a shovel. this year i began like actually
worshipping the fireplace. i started by
just feeding her rosemary & cedar but now
i'm feeding the fire grapes & eyelashes 
& coffee beans. next will be hair then 
my fingers one by one. a little ribbon of smoke
spills from the chimney & gives the sky
a fashion scarf. i have been watching videos
of people who explore half-abandoned malls.
all the store fronts are vacant but
the hallways still have lights on. still have
faint music playing. i hate all the ways 
i was taught about history. i remember watching
a cartoon of an ancient person getting inspiration
& making the wheel. instead, i know it was
a gift from the land spirits. or maybe it was
the delivery of a small round planet.
in a way, we are all the only son in a family
of avalanches. i told you i was not going
to write any horrible but it's always just
a breath away when you live in the land
of holographic honey & rationed milk. 
i have a syringe in the bathroom full of cows.
if i had to i could try to survive in the forest.
the fire is kind. last year she was furious.
this year she lights easily. comes into the house
like a wheel. like a rush. a chariot. a cart 
full of potatoes. last night i could not figure out
how to cook the rice even though i have done it 
hundreds of times before. it came out almost
like a pudding. i ate it anyway. took out
the big spoon. set aside a bite for the spirits.
i am trying to remind myself of how i am 
a pillar & not just an obelisk. the heads of 
all the girl-boys who cut wheels from stone.
who pushed our blood into the trees.
when i breathe i hear the rain. 

virgo moon

i ask you on the ride home
with the christmas lights eating each other 
"do you think there's anything to
the astrology stuff?" my hands are dry.
it snowed yesterday & all the birds 
turned into mailboxes. i met the amazon driver
at the end of my neighbor's driveway
so that he wouldn't have to pull in.
the driveway was covered in ice. 
he took a picture of me holding the box.
i ferried it & felt tempted to discover
what was inside. my partner & i are both
virgo moons. i picture two dimes in 
a wishing fountain. i don't really know
what i virgo moon means but i know them
when i see it. by the book we are supposed to be
methodical. analytical. overthinking.
perfectionism. i tell you, "what if there is
really something to the time we are born?"
i prefer emotions over science which is
of course a flaw. i used to love christmas
when i was a kid. the smell of a fresh tree
in the living room. the way our bodies
seemed to stretch tall like dusk shadows
in the year's dripping light. i am different now.
i took a drive alone to go to target & just look
at christmas decorations. i didn't feel anything.
instead, all i could think about 
was getting coffee & sitting in the parking lot
while the day split too soon. the chickens
don't even want to leave their coop.
i know their eggs are bursting in the cold.
like unsold stars. we leave the astrology conversation
in a place that does not satisfy me.
i don't know what i hoped you would say.
maybe, "i feel a tether that must be 
celestial" or even, "a story of planets
could never hold how i love you." instead, 
we conclude nothing. the night sky is 
stuffed grey with another brief snowfall. 
we settled into the night like buttons on 
a shared shirt. do our moons talk to each other
when we slip into the winter routine. wood.
dogs. porch light. bare feet & dark. 

football tv

all the little men call for the little men.
tvs like stained glass. a sports bar 
full of little men. little men full of little men.
a window without any men. a man
yelling at me. this happens so often
that i am not sure which time i should
tell you about. most recently a man 
followed me & called me "it" over & over.
i searched desperately for a place to 
blend in. i am sometimes  
a little man in a jar of beads. 
i am sometimes a little man in a dress.
on the tv they tackle each other.
they kill each other. the crowd cheers. 
a stadium of mirrors. men are always
looking for themselves in each other's faces.
accusation in a mirror. they will
call us vain & then carry their tvs to bed
like wives. all the little men buzzing inside.
a hive or a cathedral or some kind of nest.
the football tv thrums all winter like a fireplace.
my father is a little man. his father was 
a little man. a then too am sadly also
at least kind of a little man. what if
we were all one gender? i guess that
wouldn't be any fun for the little men.
i always want to shout back 
when a man chases me or stalks me
or spits at me but i know that 
if i answer i'll be a little man too. i do not
want to be a little man. i want to be 
a little creature without a body. 
i do not want to fight myself & call it football.
put my brain in a helmet & run
at the sun. instead, i want to be
something else. it is exciting that i am not sure
what else i can be. the football tv will,
like any hole, shrink from lack of use. 
maybe one day be smooth & soft. 
the last little man digging at the earth
in search of himself. what if that is me? 

picto chat

my first ds was shiny blue.
i sometimes talked to angels
using the picto chat feature.
i drew glyphs. sent them 
to their spiral hoards of eyes. really, i always
hoped the chats would land 
in the laps of other not-girls 
floating above their own moons.
instead, there was night the nightlight dark
& the angels who, despite their 
skill at witnessing, never wrote back. 
when summer came, i would wander
the town with my ds out. the angels
peered down at me. made umbrellas 
of their faces. i sometimes stood outside
a friend's house, in the hopes that maybe
they were on their ds too & we might exchange
outlines of each other's hands. 
she never was. the angels were often
selfish. they wanted me only to write 
to them. they begged for more effigies.
more thumbprints. more hours
of my glowing face. i gave it all to them.
my tiny language of eyelashes & caterpillars.
they swallowed every image. taped them
to the walls of a glass house filled with the sound
of running water. i have never been there.
once i saw someone else online during
my many tours around town. i did not know them.
i cannot remember if we actually shared
an image back & forth or if 
we just flashed across each other's screens.
either way, i felt like i had just caught
a dream by the lip. fish scales in the streetlamp. 
she gone so fast but then again so was i. 

the cows

the cows came first to 
the field behind our house. 
they did not belong to anyone
& i would stand there at the edge
of our yard taking pictures.
i could not tell if they were
small or they were farther away
than they seemed. in the night
they always climbed on the roof
& sang. i often would sleepwalk
to join them. i only learned this
because the damn neighbor's teenager
took a video of me & posted it online. 
i was in my blue pajamas 
& the moon was a toil nail
in the sky. the cows were the size
of dogs. i bought hay & laid it out
around the yard in the hopes that
they would come here & that maybe
i could coax them inside
despite the protestations of my husband.
i needed them. i wanted them to live
inside here with us. the farm inside
the farm. i wish i knew what
made them shrink. day by day they got
smaller. looked farther away. 
their footfalls on the roof, softer.
i begged them. bought a megaphone
& tried to speak their language. 
of course, the neighbor kid recorded
all of this too. somewhere along the line
he joined me though. started trying
to lure the animals to us. i almost 
didn't hear them on the night they came.
a gentle knocking like a muffled
knuckle against the wood door. 
they were the size of matchbox cars.
a whole little herd of them. i wept. 
welcomed them. feed them sugar 
& apples. we took a warm bath together
& they told me about the smell
of the first rays of sun in the morning.
of course, they were on their way
to the next realm. the following day
the cows were the size of pills. i considered
what it would mean to swallow one.
if that would get me closer to a life
without as many horrors. i stopped myself.
instead, let the herd sleep against me. 
i felt them fade. drops of water gone back
to a big holy cloud. i wept & cows
came out. i tried to catch them
but just as quickly as they came,
they were gone. my husband held me
for days after. he would say, "we can get
a farm. we can do that." i always said
something dismissive. "of course" & "maybe."
i know though that that would change things.
we all need the idea of a place we will not go.
the sugar farm. the rain dessert. 
a mansion full of birds. 

almond therapist 

my first therapist was made
of almonds. she said,
"you are a beautiful girl."
i watched windows turn into turtles.
i talked to her one the phone
while i ate my own fingers
& told her, "yes yes yes."
on the television a planet was born
& everyone held up their cameras.
took pictures & gazed at them.
two weeks later it came out that 
there had not been a planet. 
it was a just a drill. a test to see
how easy joy is to simulate. 
the sun went sour. no one had checked
a tiny expiration date on the label.
in some ways, i do not want
to get better. once in the middle
of an argument i thought,
"if i can just get away." i wonder if
madness is just a reasonable escape. 
i have had a lot of friends flush
their brains down the toilet
& i shrug & say, "i mean i get it."
i hated that therapist. she was always 
trying to comfort me. i wanted someone
to get angry. to say, "i see your wings.
god it must be hard." i put my fist
into an apple peeler. called a grandmother
from beyond the grave. she was 
crazy too. a body like an ice pick.
she hacked away at the world
& it never budged. when i eat almonds
i think of her mouth. i wonder
what she thought she could make
out of me. a girl without eyes 
or a tongue. i have always ripped out seams
& started again. she ate them 
one at a time. i make sure to always
have a mouthful. sugar & boots. 
my teeth like sidewalk squares.
i don't try to get better anymore.
instead, i try to ease the land. 
laugh when i can. grow antlers & watch
how like the buck, they fall off 
& become trees. 

baby name books

when i was in fifth grade
i checked out all the baby name books
from the library. i wanted help naming
the ghost who lived in my mouth. 
she was always rattling words & keeping me up
through the dark.  i did not have a mirror in
my bedroom but i did have a glass case
that i could use for divination 
if need be. a reflection the consistency 
of a veil. i did not care that they were
library books. i would dog-ear pages.
dance inside a name that really struck me. 
none of they held though. i imagined myself
palm-sized & soft. i took shovels to the books.
said names aloud. rolled them in sugar
& ate them past my bedtime by
the yellow lamplight. this could be a poem
about transness. about something innate in me
that craved to move. instead, i think it is
a poem about language fractures.
how a name is never really a name. it is 
an attempt to get a foothold in the elsewhere
of blood & bone. cats is my favorite musical
both because it is a poem & also because
the cats all have secret names beneath 
how they are known. i collected my secret names.
created a ritual around drinking them like water. 
i cannot tell you them or they would not
be secret but i can tell you that once a name 
is yours it never really leaves. a moon in orbit 
or a place where you pick raspberries.
my fingers are dripping with nectar. 
sometimes, i would take a library book back empty.