what to take from the burning house

i want to be the one who carries 
the whole house out of fire.
arms full of diaramas & god children.
my singed stuffed animals & the phantom hearts
like toads inside of them. they tell you
you should leave with nothing.
there is still a ziploc bag of my hair 
in my mother's sock drawer from my first haircut.
what does it mean to molt? i have lost legs
in the process & eyes & lips. the house
isn't a house anymore. it's a breaking.
it's a super nova. the fire started
in the basement of photographs.
an ancient wink turned flame. 
once, kindly, my mom asked if i wanted
us to retake our family portraits
that hang in the house. in them, i am 
a burning girl. my cheeks are hollow.
my blood is full of mice. i shaved her head 
& peeled off her skin like that of a carrot.
no, i do not want to retake the pictures.
burning is about letting out the scream.
it's about telling the truth about our hair. 
i would take books from the house. so many books. 
trying to choose just enough to fill my arms.
then of course the tupperware &
all my childhood paintings. the windows.
the door. the bathroom mirror shaped like
a ship's wheel. all piled in the yard.
my family & i stand & count
each other's fingers. yes, we are all doves now.
i pluck worms like guitar strings.
my father blames the moon. my mother
pours water on the sun. no more fire.
nothing at all. the house i have not rescued
& the pens & board games still inside.
jar of glitter beneath. a haunted bunkbed 
galloping like a horse through the blaze.
i go back inside. i say, "i can carry more."
the flames have their own gods. they worship
& pray. swell. turn my into a crystal 
or else just an ember. blow on my tongue
& watch the glow of my cherry. 
the tree inside my throat waiting 
to bear fruit & then, years later, catch fire too.

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abstinence 

how do you keep from devouring
all the meat in the ice box? 
i was in sunday school & our teacher
stood in front of the class asking,
"what is abstinence?" i thought about
bees invading my mouth. kneeling
in the creek while a sledge hammer
talked into my mouth. my life has never
been linear. i turn corners & my father 
is always there to jump out & scare me.
i would fall on my back & become a pill bug.
the answer was "not eating meat."
it was lent & we were all planning
our sacrifices. when i think of abstinence 
i think of butter in the microwave. 
of everything i want to have done to me.
calling a rooster in the middle of the night.
the boy who confessed that he loved me
too quickly because he needed money.
our back-seat hookups. counting cash.
his guitar & ripped jeans. i have never wanted
to stop but especially not when it's for
my own good. the irony is that 
i don't eat meat. i go to roadkill
to worship. i fillet meat from 
my own bone. make bird houses of my eyes.
have you never had a man beg for you?
i have in every way possible. there is always
a little woman standing in my mouth
& a little man knocking for air 
from where he's pressed beneath my tongue.
if you are not careful a gender will become you.
i am nothing. i am just a pound of ground beef.
the skillet my mother used as a craddle.
sunday school teacher tells me 
he is free this weekend & it could mean anything.
a white board with a diagram of me.
the church is full of cows. i go & tell them
it is lent & i am giving up everything.
voice like a dropped chalice. it is sometimes best
to just keep you mouth shut &
not try to tell the full truth. 
use the fragments to make a stained glass window.

lead blood

filling the pill box with paint. my father
sits inside a space ship & makes electricity 
from his grief. in a man, grief turns 
into chickens. a whole flock 
to tend & tend. the factory sings 
like a scratched CD. tongue snipped off.
there is lead in our walls & lead in our heels.
once, i tried to swim & the ocean said,
"let's not dream too big." gulls with lipstick.
a jukebox playing only the beatles 
until it dies. everything about masculinity
i learned from the factory. men go in.
some men go out. lockers. uniforms.
how dirt nestles between knuckles.
i should not chew on doorframe anymore
but no one was letting me in.
we once set fire to the chicken coop.
don't worry, the chickens had long ago
turned into foxes. a wild black dog
wondered the hills. his eyes were made
from blackberries. i used to want so badly
to be my father. i worn his old shoes 
like mobile homes. collected pictures of him
when he was a smooth-faced boy.
turned to summon a gender from there
that i could run around in. instead,
i learned to be a man is to drink lead 
molten from the slit neck of a sow. 
it is to cast a statue of yourself
& sell replicas to whoever is listening.
smelter blowing ash into the summer air.
i wash my face in a contaminated creek.
all the frogs have third eyes & fifth legs.
i greet them & ask for their permission.
i want to be a spirit. weightless. return all allegiance
to metals. they bless me. in the name of
the father & the son & the holy heavy ghost. 

people watching 

sometimes i am just a lychee nut seed.
suck the sweet veil from my face.
i go outside & look for a prophet. i am a witch
but sometimes i get religious & want
to follow a questionable man 
into the cathedral of his mouth. this is
what it means to grow up catholic.
my priest would ask me to help him dress
when other altar servers were not asked the same.
i still can't tell the line between worship
& weapon. i am shaving my head again. 
the neighborhood kids play house 
in the middle of the street. i am doing the same.
i am playing house in the middle of the street.
a man looks around to see if anyone notices
him leaving his dog's poop on the sidewalk.
then i am at the mall & i'm nineteen & alone.
i have a notebook & i take notes 
on how different people move their arms.
a woman waves them like wings. a man
crosses his tighter & tighter. everyone 
has money fingers. i have knees that ache.
outside the house yesterday i heard 
a couple screaming at each other. she says,
"get out of my life." children played a block away.
played house again. a little girl laughed 
& said, "get out of my life." a mail person 
shoves letters in the box. everywhere 
people are moving like ants or like prophets 
but i can't find a single one. i decide i am
my own prophet. go to the street lamp 
& confess that sometimes my dreams 
are poison gardens. my blood boils over.
spaghetti bones. either to watch is to be
or to watch is to be without. 
i buy a terrarium & fill it with paper people. 
i name them after their ghost counterparts.
now i don't have to go outside. now
i have enough to watch right here.
a sun creeps into my window on eight legs.
little earth. little religion. the priest says,
"help me eat the bread." so we do. we eat
& eat & eat. dense & grainy. alone
in the sacristy. the nuns come in & watch.
the other servers come in & watch.

knee high socks

you made me into a pingpong ball 
& put my in your mouth.
all the chickens are automated
& the eggs come out as shrapnel.
a dog inside the dog house. a house
inside the god dog. i tell you the story
of the monk cheese & you paint
an angler fish on my teeth. in the ocean
the fish are all gossiping about me.
i saw another shadow man & he was
trying to bring me groceries.
i told him, "i don't need those.
i have my own." there is not enough money
to be a person. i sell my fourth wall 
& let the gods have at me.
doll house little lover. that is what i am.
dress me up in tin foil elegance.
i look into your eyes & watch as they
become young instars. the milkweed 
weeps & weeps until there no more milk.
i once fed my iphone to a dragon.
the dragon coughed & begged
for it all to stop. i open my venmo to find 
fifty dollars i forgot i had.
i'm rich now. buy my a boat. buy me
a planet. i tried to make a sling shot
from rubber bands in the junk yard.
there was a poet there claiming he knew
how to rhyme in a way that doens't sound
cheesy or sing-song or like it's taking itself
way too seriously. he was wrong. 
i put on my girlhood to get something i need.
in the attic is where the father lives.
you ask me how i feel about the word, "daddy"
& i respond "knee high socks."
did all of our fathers put goldfish 
in our soup? mine told me,
"eat them, they are drowning." 

shadow bruise 

i am bleeding in the sense that
i no longer believe in elephants.
my father & i used to sit
& feed peanuts to squirrels
in the park. some of them had 
tracking devices. do i think the government
has a list of transgender people? yes.
do i think i am on that list? also yes.
i live to make old white men terrified
but then sometimes i get home
& my shadow is swollen with fear.
i stroke her head & say, "we are not
alive. not anymore." to be a ghost
is to be decided for. you will not
eat figs from a tree grown by your grandfather.
you will count pennies in the front seat
of your car for a toll. highways 
like ribbons tying my hands behind my back.
the question is not whether or not
you get tied up--it's whether or not
the tying is in a sexy way or inevitable way.
maybe there is some overlap. when i find myself
in the bedroom all i see are shadows
eggplant purple & bruising all across the floor.
i've had so many lovers who turned
the lights off. a thumb. a hand. dark dark
dark. now, we fuck by lamp glow. 
our shadows are fed lavender &
queen anne's lace. don't tell me there are
elephants. i have seen the world & it is
a bar of soap. i carry a pocket knife 
of all my grief. do not listen to me.
my heart is a peanut i should have fed
to the squirrels. salted. tiny buttons of sweet.
my father was a spy too or maybe i was.
collusion is a resting state. i carry my shadows
to the forest & we stand there. hear
loud car engines from the nearby road.
boys laughing & pissing in the creek.
is there no where to skin yourself alive?

glass recycling

i sort my shattered broadcast.
goodbye moon says
the helicopter. we have to recycle 
our hope. break its neck & say,
"tomorrow." sometimes i open my phone
& become a second class citizen. sometimes
i open my phone & the government
is drinking gasoline. i say we swamp
the swamp. worship the oldest creatures.
dinosaurs trying to press the little keys
on an iphone. lay back & let
the apocolypse kiss you. it's going to come
in as many flavors as you want. i floss my teeth.
i put on setting powder. i hold my lover 
& tell them i no longer believe 
in snow. the old broom i used to use
to sweep the porch. dead ant in a line
marking where the poison starts. the news says,
"hungery? why are you hungry?" i eat
a handful of whatever the fuck i want.
there's not enough doritos to go around.
to my they taste like being a child 
& believing in disney world & family members
who did not grow gardens of matches.
i shake the etch-a-sketch & shout.
money comes like moths. i pluck them
furiously from the air. tell them i love them
when really i mean, "i am dying 
& i disasterously need you." a field 
of flip phones. a record player 
singing, "tip toe through the tulips."
don't worry & by that i mean 
a worry has no teeth. go in the wet soil
& dig for anger. get grit under your nails.
then, come with me & sort the bottles
from the cans from the paper. 
save the pickle jar. i'm going to clean it
& store stray tongues inside.

ice cream truck

i bite down on my scoop of the ice caps.
no one is saying there isn't a glacier
that looks like your father.
i had a yard sale to sell my decades.
a man with a trunk full of pineapples 
buys my 20s & runs away with them.
maybe if i was a girl my days 
might include more sighing & windows.
there are people in my life who still pretend
i'm a girl. they pick at my hair 
using chopsticks the wrong way. 
i'm often standing in front 
of an open fridge door eating my "dinner"
& "relaxing." i love how quotation marks
turn a word into a question.
what do you mean you're in love with me?
don't you see i'm on fire? do you want
to be on fire too? i remember standing
& watching the house of bronze burn down.
how i felt like my life was becoming a pebble.
the good thing is i'm easy to pick up.
in our neighborhood now 
there's an ice cream truck who drives himself.
little kid fingers reaching for a bite.
i do not believe in stranger danger anymore.
those who said they loved me the most
were the ones who took from me.
bottle caps & a bloodied nose.
a voice that said, "i didn't hit you, do you
hear me?" the ice cream truck is
a place i live. figure eights & flights.
a trunk full of skulls. would you like a taste
of something sweet? would you like
to spend the night with the stained glass sun.
i am sweating lemonade. i am jumping rope
inside my heart. let's not pretend 
the melting doesn't have consequences.
i feel like a girl standing in my driveway.
i hold an ice cream cone & someone 
is telling me, "you can't eat that yet."
cream down my wrist & elbow. i'm begging. 

birdcage with balloons

give me your gusher submarine 
& i'll raise you a goat on the moon.
i walk outside & there are
torando warnings. the tornados each
have instagram accounts 
& they are on live with their hunger.
i have always been shy about
posting a severed tongue. the truth
is a place we all grow ghost peppers. 
i have no water to spare
only whatever spit i can conjure. 
getting a tattoo from a crow,
he suggests we take shelter & i ask
"what shelter?" the parking garage 
where we kiss is marked as a storm refuge.
i imagine living out of my car again.
"things could be worse" is my religion.
come though. let's pick out 
a birthday cake. let's plant in it
a field of roses. did you know 
roses have their own dating app?
no pictures are all, just favorite lines
from love poems. they are hopeless
just like i am hopeless. do not ask me
how i am doing, as me what i have
burned today. ask me where i plan
to run. my knees pop out again 
& i don't put them back. become 
my own little rag doll. someone please
braid my hair. that is a silly thing
to ask. i have no hair. at least, 
not on my head. it's all on my legs.
taiga forest. wolves run there.
the snow doesn't visit another year
& another. when did we arrive 
at dystopia. this is a time for dinosaurs.
a time for birdcages filled with balloons.
do not waste the sunset. help me steal
a piece to eat. i am told it tastes 
like peaches & cream.