you don't look disabled, you aren't really disabled  

i thought about lining
up all my evidence. i thought about
explaining how i learned
to use a cane. how my lungs turn
into hindenbergs. about how
i count the stars backwards. about how
i couldn't read for so long 
but still loved stories. a list of slurs
used against me. 
instead i want to tell you
a story about the empire. this machine
seeks to diminish anything 
which it cannot control. if i am not disabled
then maybe you can imagine that
you never will be either. if i am
not disabled then maybe you are
more comfortable with 
the sunsets of your body.
if i am not disabled then maybe it is
easier for you to believe the world
is just. do you believe the world is just?
maybe you prefer to believe
i am not disabled so that you can
rid yourself of any blame. how does it feel? 
i can tell you do not pick enough berries. i can tell 
you have never talked in the dark
with someone who moves
through the world like you. how does it feel to author
a version of the universe in which you are alone?
in the end i am not worried about
whether or not you think i'm disabled. 
my beloveds teach me who i am & who
i am not. i considered spending a hope
on you. hoping that maybe one day 
you are loved in a way that heals you.
i do not hope for that though. you can have
your own hopes to spend in your
tunnel of knives. i live amoung the dandelions.
i wear my knee braces when i need to.
tend to my hives & find a way 
to light candles in the eyes of 
this empire's ugly skull. 

phone book oceanography 

i found you in the yellow pages
& you were a dentist. we drove until
my father was a whale & my mother
didn't have a job anymore. i thought
you were my friend from elementary school
but you were just a man with drains
for eyes. i take a photograph of you
to remember the ocassion but when
i go to look at the picture you are
not in the frame. there are some events
i don't write about directly because
then someone might call me & ask me
about what really happened. nothing.
nothing really happened. in a child mind
everything is just a memory. the past
digging herself a place to lay down.
when i was really thinking of jumping
off my roof i looked at jobs every day.
i once interviewed for a job as 
a pet crematorium transporter. i think
it actually would have suited me more
than most of the stuff i've done. 
sometimes my dead pets call me.
they find me in the phone book. it's almost always
the quail because i could have done 
a better job with them. they don't blame me.
when i changed my name i became obsessed
with finding people who had my name too. 
there is actually a few. i called one once
& he picked up, confused. i breathed
into the phone & told him we had the same name.
he hung up immediately. what was he running from?
i mean sure he probably thought i was
a crazy person (i am, thank god). didn't he 
want to know more? my parents still
have phone books in their house. as a kid
i would sleep inside them. hear all the names
like a ritual around me. home alone 
i called whoever i wanted. flowers in the sink.
my father's whale calls. his hands holding
a shower curtain. the room, like a music box.

mouth piece 

i went digging in the yard
for the trumpet. there are alarms 
with people names & storms named
after colors of scream. when you eat me
i come out on the other side as 
a pill bug. come & feast with me 
on the rot. i need a really big bowl
of putting. the trumpet is angry 
because i gave up on playing it. 
i am not a ghost prone to music. i guess
that is not true. i sing poorly. i sing poorly
in the car when no one else can see.
a stop light keep blooming right
above my front door. the instrument
always arrives mouthpiece first.
an invitation to scream in another font. 
i realize there has never been an adult
in my life. especially not me. especially not
my parents who are busy in the attic.
let me be clear actually. they are in
separate attics. i am not sure if they
like each other. probably not.
i find a dinosaur & immediately google,
"how much can you sell the bones for?"
the ai overview says, "can you give me 
a picture of your face?" i rage. all i want
is enough money to not feel like i have 
to escape. like something is chasing me
& i am never getting away. the trumpet
can play itself. i have heard it behind 
my eyes. either that or it is my father who has
taken up a new hobby in his old age. 
either way there was actually a time when
i could play a song or two. i would put
my mouth to the sun & blow. turn my face
into a diamond. finally something to barter
with this neon god. i could walk into one of those
gold shops off the high way & say,
"do you play trumpet in here?" 

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.