i want to be covered in lichens

to lay still in praise 
of dead limb & languish. 
a frill is a frill no matter 
sewn or sprouted. a queer in nature.
find me overgrown. desire & ivy. 
green bondage. tethered to another dirt.
on the trail, rachel tells me 
bright green lichens 
mean the air is clean. 
i breathe clean air 
with my fat butterfly lungs
as she goes looking for rocks. 
are the lichens resting or waiting?
is green earned or discovered?
entangled, i dream myself 
thick with foliage. a winter 
to taste blue. a spring to pageant wave 
at hikers & bears. october
was supposed to save me. all the bugs
alive & asleep & alive & asleep. 
lichens as eyelids. lichens 
as doors. my past self strolling
in a lichen dress. oh ghost! 
are you always carrying a stone?
one single lichen on my arm. 
i ask it to spread faster. i need
this right now. take me far away
from all heaters & the ceilings 
& the teeth. a lichen armor?
no, a lichen soul. 
i can see the air. 
oh queer trees & false stumps, 
i know your secrets because
they are the same as mine. 
where you keep the heels. where you 
plummet into red & send love letters
to your fathers. where can i 
plant myself in your midst?

in a lover's bathroom

the mirror asks only 
yes/no questions. are you 
going to wash your face? 
is 'boy' a state of mind or 
a body part? do you love him
or are you just wishing
you loved him? i turn my heart 
inside out & shake looking
for a quarter to press
between thumb & finger. 
life is full of brief privacies.
all my clothes are too loose
& too tight. if i return 
to his living room
& there he is sofa-waiting like a doll
what will i do 
with all my longing? 
should you tell another person
you want them to cradle you? that you want
them to use your body as kindling. 
a mouth to me is never 
just a mouth. i portal all these boys.
walk through their teeth
to where i jigsaw them
into a future where we grow
old as trees. my iPhone is charging.
i should go home soon. 
are my nails too long? 
what will he do when i leave?
will he come to this room
& undress & think of us together
in his bed sleeping, pouring
a whole afternoon. will he stare
in the mirror too long or 
not long enough? i am becoming
a sticky note soul.
i want to fragment myself--
leave a foot in every location.
the wind outside is made of 
gills & rattles the world.
do not make me leave. do not 
make me leave. i will sleep 
in the tub if i have to.   
then in the morning
we can resume somehow.
trade the love stories
we're writing about each other.
a penny on the floor.
stares up at me with its 
one copper eye. 

boy smell

a brick flies through the window.
attached to it is a note
reading, "i want nothing to do
with summer." it was 7th grade
& all the boys were playing soccer
with a stolen planet. i was not invited
so i sat on the ledge of the playground
& watched. boy shoving boys shoving 
boys. proxy dirt taste. soil foot.
grass stained knee. 
the pharmacy is neon glowing.
i want to be automatic-doored
into a new life. before alchemy,
i craved scent. a cedar staircase.
a wintered forest where all the trees 
are legs towering from the earth.
the grace of ankles. 
but what can i say about 
the veil? my curtain-loose skin. 
somewhere a venue empties
of all its boys. somewhere double doors
are being used for evacuation.
in a field of tall grass,
i slip into a pack of boys
crawling on all fours. we are feral
& happily so. i want to be 
discovered. unmasked. sandalwood 
& fear. give me a taste of muscle.
bone as buoy. a single red line
crosses town. boys on one side
others on the other. 
what am i supposed to do
with this hair? if i cut it off
i'll no longer be mistaken.
metal or blood. aluminum clot.
men's legs. it is november
& somehow i am no different.
the golden rod kisses herself
& dreams of masculinity.
i burn a manly incense stick
& look up at the clouds.
all of them shaped 
like teeth.  

content creation in the apocalypse 

i'm going to live stream the surgery.
wave hello from the other side 
of a zero. what folded in half
to make you? a shoe is just a shoe
unless it's a heel then it's
an motion towards the immortal.
when i can't breathe air
i settle for water or milk. 
face down in the bath tub machine.
a bubble of joy will be available 
only with the bonus code.
i'm waiting for the upload now.
i have waited my whole life
for the upload. every night 
i thank god for forward facing cameras.
how else would i know
the right pose? here is how
i maneuver my fat. here is how
i conceal my fears. caption 
this dream. the doctor is removing 
each organ & holding up to the camera.
can you see it can you see it?
what are we going to do 
with our wayward feed? replay
the catastrophe. my heart
has eighteen views. please
open me wider than my spine will allow.
i want to vessel this day 
so deep it becomes only mine.
between mirror & camera & 
capture are different stages 
of grief. does my face really warrant
this kind of truth? i'm probably
just going to shut this off.
throw an off-screen massacre
on the elevator towards tomorrow.
i sleep in the narrowest shaft
between minutes. no no i will sleep
inside an ice bassinette
waiting for complete the collapse. 

meat substitute

ham petals open under knife.
a heat lamp to keep us alive.
i could separate myself
into three round white eggs if i had to.
none of them will bloom but a mother
will keep them warm. will keep waiting.
what i want is a replacement 
for thighs & arms. stomach 
is a form of betrayal. 
there's secret fried skin on every body.
elbows. knees. a chicken runs
across the sky for the last time.
i am waiting for a new kind of meat
so i can feel sanctified.  
in the garden, soybeans chatter 
about how they'd replicate me:
a knot there. a lip there. 
more symmetry. 
farmer cuts the necks 
of his flock. a punishment is often
not intended as such. here i am
with bones. when will my meat
unfurl like a fraying banner
onto the plate of the right 
lover? replace "lover" with 
"father." father is always a stable boy.
he brushes the horses before
they are turned into glue or
chicken nuggets. 
everything is filler. 
the interval between pork
& chicken. i want a pure
skillet. only an inch of oil. 
this is what you do to me 
when we stand in the same room
& i can tell you want to ask
about my scars. this is where
they remove the meat & feed the dirt.
a pile of pig noises. your cow tongue 
turns over. leaf rustles 
then is gone. 

lalala

give me a hinge to swing shut on.
this is how you quiet a structure.
no husband singing in his closet no
boys playing Himalayas on the stairs.
at my coaxing the cat inverts his scream--
sends it back down his throat.
everyone, speaking to themselves
inside their mouths. we are blessed
with our own internal living rooms.
my sofa sprawled across my tongue.
a television on mute. infomercial
for a new vacuum. i need more implements.
i want to make a house where 
nothing speaks. not the wind or
pipes or walls. no ghosts dancing
above my head at night. no volumed
parakeets practicing diction
or a brother cradling a bass.
in the basement of my heart
i keep a pair of headphones.
lalala this is where 
i hush-reach & picture tongues
turning into slugs. next time it rains
i'll send my own to the back yard
with the sticky brown leaves.
he will thrive their & take with him
all the chatter chatter 
of a soup-willed boy. i'm pouring out
slowly enough to watch my own fingernails thin.
i'm holding my breath as i 
walk down the hall. letting the sink
croon his last rush. 
in the bathtub, i summon a quiet husband
with a quiet bath bomb.
a lover is never invented 
though often we don't realize
what we've done. i know one day
he'll hate me but tonight i need him
in my muzzled nest. there he goes
singing into soap bubbles.
cover my ear, waiting for them to pop.
is it too much to ask 
for a night of eating 
all language? i want to mean nothing
for once. i slip my husband
down the drain where now
i can still hear him humming. 

i was your 3D printer

out my mouth came a thimble
& a jam jar & a rocket ship.
what wouldn't i do to please
creator boy world? i wanted
to be the beautiful machine.
all girls are robots. what does
that make me? a hybrid design
thing creature. the distance
between "creator" & "creature"
lengthens every day. 
i look at circuit boards
& weep. my family tree glistens
in the deep web. a dark
search engine lurks & waits
to arrive me at a new bus station
where all the cyborgs are
delivered for their dreaming.
i want a wedding made of ice.
a boy & his gamer remote toggle.
make me a prettier avatar & 
then hook me in please i want 
to see me allotted amount 
of nonsense. we thrived 
once in the wire before
i worried about rings. it this true 
what they say about tech eating
itself at night. tomorrow 
i could be a mouse or 
even a light bulb. you could be
a paper boy selling broken tvs
from the curb. once i used
my skull for a monitor.
once we kissed until electricity 
short circuited our futures 
& the bed became an AI. 
what else would you like?
i want to materially please you.
i want you to look around
at all your objects & think
"there is nothing else
i could even think to ask for."
hot tub sex toy parade float.
my jaw unhinges to print
the best mirages. we bask 
in the advancements like snakes.
the sun hologrammed a long time ago.
i sit in your lap 
to worship illusion. 
you trace the parameter
of my mouth & praise its design. 

ghost

i put my face to fogged glass
to remember the stamp 
of my bones. knock 
from the other side of the walls
trying to shake the house
back to living. what kind of ghost
will you be? i always said i would
toss glasses from shelves 
& let the shatter keep me awake.
i wanted to be a disastrous thing.
a fear catalyst & family wrench. 
now, drowsy-wrapped
i lay down in the root cellar
& worship footsteps. i sleep 
on the blue bath mat & bask in shower steam.
then in the afternoon rest again
coiled like a cat in a patch of sun
on the living room floor. 
always said i would 
full-body apparition myself
at the top of a great staircase.
i wanted my picture taken
so that people Googling "ghost image" 
would find me & shut their laptop 
or say "that has to be fake."
but, i am just a haphazard entity.
i spend most days
quietly pantomiming myself.
here is how i used to open
the utensil drawer.
here is how i once dipped
a spoon into a bowl. 
this is the way i sometimes 
kissed boys in the dark of this house.
turn the lights off. turn the light
on. here is where my socks used 
to wait in pairs. a life 
is very few motions really.
a house has little distances to find.
did i really pass all my years 
with just feet & elbows 
& teeth? now i can at least
stand on the ceiling & on the walls.
i pretend to be a statue. an angel even. 
all the while the humans
perform mostly the same movements
as me. parallel machines.
clink of forks in the sink.
teeth meeting between mouths.
crouching on the floor. i send
a single chill down their spines.
just a draft they think.
my little thread of cold. 
 

anticipating winter

i'm growing down feathers.
white wisp layers. a willow tree
wallows in me & tells me 
to cut off all my hair before
i turn 25. this decade has
made good use of stirrups.
what if i skin myself? what if i
taxidermy my heart for a nice paper weight? 
something needs to keep the angels 
from getting away. not this time.
ball & chain. loose teeth.
spread me wide like a specimen.
i want to be further inspected for flaws. 
writing a temperature dial 
on your back, i ask you how warm 
you are going to keep me 
if i agree to letting you 
in my bed? your butterfly mouth.
the bees are hard to kill. they're woozy 
with their own death. 
tuck me in like a silver dollar
or a secret. the windows fog
with wanting. the sauna is only
an illusion. there is no such thing
as snow. what kind of jacket 
should i wear to the funeral?
have you ever noticed 
some leaves bleed from their trees?
stigmata never convinced anyone
of god. by the time it is warm again
what kind of gentle human 
will i be? let's get married
in the kindling. i just want
someone to harvest footprints with.
the bears are going to sleep.
i want to be like them. 

particular weight 

today i'd like to flicker less.
give me a more sturdy face
instead of a slideshow. yes, i meant
"more sturdy" not sturdier. 
english is untrustworthy at best
& i want as many words as i can get.
a family vacation
will not be available till the next
century. i collect rain drops 
& press them until they turn metal.
spare change. handful of dimes. what did i do
to deserve weight? long ago
were there mass-less people
whose every movement was sheerer
than stockings? raised with pew wood
i am prone to thinking of the world
as a series of punishments.
even the rain feels personal.
here is a statue of myself
made of soap. here is the shadow
of the last daffodil i pined for.
my dog is crying for me to please please
stop living for the unknowables.
her fears are more acute than mine like:
me: death..... her: death!
rain always seems a precursor 
to something more serious. a hunk
of sky. a glob of feathers. 
knotted socks. shards of glass.
what is coming?
practice crossing
my fingers. practice singing myself
out of reflections. i don't know
just how fixed in place i'd like to be.
maybe i was kidding myself.
all good things flicker. candle faces
& bird wings & even tongues.
it's hard to dispose of thumb tacs.
my heart ping-pongs from 
window to window hoping for 
a bowl of sun. i want to be
that airy--that wisp. 
human without the gravity.
flitting across my house
like nothing more than a breath.
no footprints to answer for.
not even a mask. the rain instruments 
into a drum beat. soaked through
to the fingernails. 
my particular delicateness 
escapes again into the water.