inter-planetary music box 

i told the moon to take it's shoes off
& stay while but she took it the wrong way.
it's been 2 weeks since i saw the moon.
the clouds are made out of wool
& when it is cold i'm making a note
to climb up into the sky & swaddly myself.
the pigeons have been more vocal lately.
they sing acapella when i walk by.
i'm not a fan of most music unless
it's heard from inside a conch shell.
my ears turn to shells if i'm not careful.
the words you say often lose their meaning
& turn to glass. i have several sculptures
of my father. where does your mail 
hide itself? i find my mail 
in the freezer & sometimes in
the medicine cabinet. i'm crouched 
& begging the moon to enter--
to take up my whole apartment with 
her white glow. the surface of my skin 
turns into cheese. gouda. 
all the rats in town want 
to chew on me. i tell them tonight
is specialy & tomorrow i will be
more disposable. tomorrow comes
& i pull the plastic wrap
off my face. there are factories 
that ship me my emotions 
in 1-2 days. if i paid a little more
i could be happy every day.
having windows is a priviledge.
they can easily be taken away 
by mischievious planets 
with nothing better to do than 
steal earth objects. on mars 
there's a house made of only windows.
in my heart there's a house
made of only toothpicks.
it knocks itself over & i pick up
all the tiny slivers of wood.
who is going to paint my portrait 
when all the cameras have turned 
& pointed at the sky?
it was supposed to be a lover
but she turned into a red rubber ball.
what i'm trying to do is be prepared
for whatever new loneliness
will find me. on tindr, god swipes left
on everyone. i change 
"bisexual" ot "queer" in my bio
to make myself harder to find.
i don't want to meet someone. i'm full
of lunar tendencies. the sky 
is emptying through a wound
in my shoulder. there goes 
the gas planets. 
there goes a prickly star
& a tiny astronaut.

community discourse

the food processor is good
at obliveration. it wakes me up 
in the middle of the night
to tell me its thoughts on armageddon.
all my appliances read the bible
but all of them are very different christians.
if i needed to i know i could
sleep in my fridge & never come out.
freeze my heart & wake me up
when the earth flattens out.
it's only a matter of time. 
gravity is always pressing. i tell gravity
to let up for a moment & 
i float to the ceiling of my room 
like a discarded balloon.
it is always someone's birthday 
but let's be honest, not everyone birthday 
is significant. all my tuesdays 
eat my wednesdays & so my weeks
are only 6 days long. everyone keeps saying
when this is over, i will. do you understand
this will never be over? the planets
are bullies. they are out there
spinning us a nightmare & having
crescent moments deep in the universe.
i shine a spotlight on myself
until i am only a shadow. my shadow
has always wanted to be a dancer
but i have been holding him back.
in the shower, i try to scrub off
my feet. i am left with hooves.
what are those horses in the city
doing right now? do they smoke cigarettes 
on their breaks? a handful 
of pennies goes a long way 
if you are in the right place
at the right time. copper 
is always sick. some boys' mouths
taste copper & that's how i know
they wriggled free from the pipes.
i tell them i don't need 
their service. i used to sell
pieces of myself off a may i laid
on the sidewalk. no one would bite.
i said i would through in my ear lobes 
for my chin & they all walked by 
to head back to their shiny white cars
& homse that smell like candles.
every time you burn a stick of incense 
an angel takes themselves less seriously.
the alley ways are getting smaller.
have you noticed? soon all buildings 
will touch. maybe even the houses
spread far far apart in farm towns like mine. 
a cow is driving a tractor
at midnight. he killed the farmer for sure.
i look the other way 
like a good neighbor does.

a cycle of new conclusions 

pull a golden beet 
out from between the floorboards
but it turns out to be a baby
so i put it back. i'm not trying
to be responsible yet. maybe later.
i have taken to feeding the birds. i toss
handfuls of old toys at them:
tops & rocking horses & teeth.
the birds are ungrateful 
& they don't eat a thing. 
if you really think about it,
no one is eating so how can i?
when was the last time you saw
a birthday cake? once a nail 
goes into the wall
it isn't coming out. there are
two nails in the wall from whoever
had my room in this apartment
before me. i imagine them
hanging portraits of dolls.
i think a child lived here because
there are marker scribbles 
on the back of my door. what else
can you do but decide 
to be a toddler & grip a crayon
with your whole fist.
i've been throwing out a lot
of my life, really just all my candles 
with just a tiny sliver of wax left.
i saw a video online that shows you
how to peel that last bit out
but i dont have patience for that
so i waste them. i picture
a rat at the dump lighting my
"honey vanilla" candle & breathing in
the sweetness. i found caramels 
in the dirt & ate them greedily.
sharing is no longer an option
not in a world like this. 
soon there will be no trapeez artists
& no refridgerator doors.
my ice cream is melting 
somewhere on the horizon. i can feel
the slow seeping. 
i can feel the tragedy of cream
a bubbling planet. a sleepy rock.
my toes are not meant to be
so heavy. when i leave this place
someone else will find 
a beet lodged in the floor.
will they pull it out? i hope not.
things like this are best as
secrets passed from hand
to hand. there is certainyl
a great whisper coming. i miss the way
the sun used to sing lullabies 
to the moon. now they just
scream at each other. 

everyday, every morning, every night 

every sea shell in the world 
fits around my neck. i am making
jewerly to remember broken plates.
i eat off the carpet today,
laying on my stomach & pretending
i am a snake. all week i walk outside
& see an old man
smoking cigars on the back 
of a sow. i think about his lungs:
two black lakes. sticky wings.
he could fly away any minute
any day now. i have been
testing how long i can hold my breath.
i imagine the world is full of water
& i do a free style stroke
down main street. everything is sleeping.
swim lessons don't mean you are 
automatically a dolphin, 
you have to work your way up. you have to
eat synthetic crab meat & pretend
it tastes right. whatever you need
we can make it vegan. all the gloves
are blue & lonely. they walk
holding each other by the thumb.
soon, the sun will be cancelled
& we can move on. 
i cradle my leg like an infant
until it cries. my limbs 
sometimes have their on consciousnesses.
it is a constant battle 
to teach them empathy. my thumbs
are horrific & so is my heel. 
a power outage will save us 
from all the work 
we felt bad about not wanting to do.
there in an outlet in my heart.
there is a blender somewhere
making pulp out of terrible book,
the blades are getting caught
on the spine. i hope the man
is still out there tomorrow.
i hope he doesn't slaughter his pig
without letting emsay goodbye.
let me say goodbye again
& again & again. my last lover
turned into a firework 
& i took a video at least.
play it over & over. every morning
leaves a tooth on my doorstep.
every night takes it away.
there are payments you need to make
in order to maintain this position.
i pour quarters in the bushes. i wash 
my face in a puddle left by a broken pipe.

today this is not my life

& i am a video game waterfall full of pixels.
i open the windows wide as a shark's mouth 
until they grow teeth. knives live
behind my eyelids in a little town
that's very sharp. god is a hole
in time. he is getting wider.
i have a dream where my underwear 
is slippery & falls off in a pool.
my phone floats on the surface
as a dead rat. meanwhile, the subway rats
are playing truth or dare. they are
braiding the tail of a comet. 
i will miss everything tomorrow morning
when the mirage is over. the faucet 
spills fruit punch. i punch a straw 
through the shell of an egg & breathe.
how knows where your fingers go 
while you sleep. caterpillars on tree branches.
my father wants me to be 
a zoo keeper. he buys lions for me
& mails them in giant cardboard boxes.
they are always dead by the time they arrive
& i am forced to dispose of the bodies piecemeal 
the way you might how to break a part a piano
to fit it into black plastic bags.
sometimes i hope one lion will be alive
& he will eat me & then walk miles & miles
to the ocean, jump into the ocean 
& that somehow i will become 
a small island where tall grass grows 
& no one thinks
to land their ships. it is always better
to do things alone 
by which i mean
if you do it alone no one can see
you make mistakes 
& no one will ask you
why you left so much behind. my father
is often at my door. he is a school
of pirannah or a aluminum baseball bat.
how do you learn to live 
in one body? i miss the fog taking care
of us all. i miss my fingers 
when they're away.

on going 

when your plane takes off
i will turn it into a bird
& catch it with my bare hands
from the sky. 

the feeling of feather
on skin & you will sleep 
nestled inside the bird. 
what kind of bird

should i keep you in?
i have a love of barn owls
but they would be hard 
to hold onto. blue jays are bright

but there is not much leg room
inside a blue jay. i want you
to be comfortable. 
i want you to fly laying

on your back. eyes closed.
shavasana. the floor of the bird
rustling. a bird song
playing through your head.

do you remember when i told you
i dream of a huge hydrangea bush
to keep us all? i remember 
when you said you were

made of firewood & when you drove
with your left foot dangling 
out the window & when your jeepy
turned into a toad.

it does not have to be
a bird forever. i promise i will
let the plane return. let loud engine
replace a throat. 

did i get a chance to tell you
about how my brother & i 
used to make paper airplanes
& fly them across the living room all day.

i want to fold you carefully
to feel each edge again. i am 
standing on the roof of our apartment now
& i am in a sea of pigeons

none of which are you. i am feeding them
stories & poems & none of them
are you. i am tossing your plane
back where it belongs & 

it is becoming, finally,
a great machine designed for 
departure. i am a small machine
on the ground grasping at birds.

i am an alchemist of dead birds

they go to die on my windowsill
singing radio songs. static.
a crow. a cardinal. a blue jay. a hawk. 
this began the first time
i cradled a dead bird in my hands.
no one cares about dead birds. 
their bodies get absorbed into the asphalt 
& into the grass of parking lots.
when you care about a dead thing
it becomes just a little bit alive again.
what i really want 
is to ressurct them. i want to speak to the birds
so clearly they have to wake up. 
when i was small, 
i would try to wake up dead birds until 
the sunset came peaching above & it was time
to return home. in bed, i became a dead bird.
i felt all my bones. i splayed out. 
i came back to the same dead birds each day 
until their bodies melted away & then their bones.
right now, i can make a dead bird into 
a pocket watch, a pair of opera glasses,
or a compass. though, the compass
never points in one direction.
i am trying to broaden my craft
to other dead animals. there is 
a dead mouse somewhere in my apartment
but it is not responding to me when i whisper to it. 
one day i want to turn a raven
into a deep black umbrella. then maybe
a blue jay into a bow tie. there are
so many dead birds when you start looking for them.
then, they start looking for you.
i guess you could say i'm also
an undertaker of birds. everywhere
is a bird cemetry. i often wonder
if birds die in mid air & just plummet 
to earth or if they have an instinct 
that instructs them to land.
on the sidewalk once i found
only a wing without a bird. 
i searched for the rest of the body
& found none. the wing still had feathers
even though they were ragged & thin.
fried chicken bones count as 
a dead bird. who else is going
to show them into their afterlives?
god doesn't care about birds 
so we have to. i am up late
practicing bird calls from recordings i find
on Youtube. i am laying down
another pocket watch. a single wing
is beating without the other 
somewhere in the haunted night.

a future in which i am inevitably a chicken

you buy precooked chicken
in a little plastic container
from the grocery store because it's easier
than buying a chicken & sitting it on the stove
& telling it hush hush
this will not hurt.
the meat is cut into perfect slices
& i open the fridge to think about
where the flesh was on the body.
a wing? a chest? 
sometimes, to be sad, i watch videos
of huge farms. i don't believe they exist.
seas of chickens all trying to talk
over one another. they run like
toddlers. stumble. foot to fence. 
chickens climbing on each others heads
as if they could stack themselves 
towards some escape. i am not 
a chicken today & hopefully not tomorrow.
i used to have to cut chicken meat
at my deli job. the knife cubed breasts 
without much effort. meat is always 
becoming smaller & small pieces. 
with gloved hands, i would hold each 
lump of flesh steady as i worked.
touching animal. a far off heart beat. 
chicken feathers floated down 
from the sky at haunt me. simple feathers.
i collected them & burried them 
in the yard behind my dorm. 
in a factory somewhere the chickens
are singing to each other. they are maybe
unaware of their meat. 
teeth need chicken 
& so does our fridge & so does 
the plastic bag who would be lonely
if it were left empty of meat. 
someday soon my time will come
& i will wake up in a farm 
with all the loudness of the city.
i will try to write poems as a chicken
i am sure i will, but my chicken brain
will only flicker through images:
hand, plastic, beak, tooth, 
eggshell, god, light, fingers.
then a white darkness. flesh separated
from bone. bones ground up
into dust. dust inhaled. 
a fridge door smooching open.

nocturne

the neighbors upstairs are creating their own
organs & rearranging them. they roll 
stomachs across the wooden floor & hold 
their marbel eyes in their palms.
the world is hard & shatterable. i count
my teeth. in a room with no windows
you can easily convince yourself 
the sun has quit. has the sun quit?
often i live in a world where all my organs
turn into musical intruments but then
there are days i am full of rotting fruit.
a mango in my chest. a march of strawberrys 
up my spine. i fill my veins with neon.
i am a sign blaring only for myself.
what word i am? i think "glass"
or maybe the word "once."
can you tell something is wrong with me?
i can't most days. 
the neighbors are finding happiness 
in the fragments of their bodies. 
when i spin my heart nothing happens.
a rush of dizziness. i lurch.
are teeth an organ yet? will half dollars 
save me? i used to knit. 
i should pick it up again & knit myself
a body bag. slip myself inside
& pretend to be a knife. in the parking lot
behind my apartment i say goodbye 
to the dandelions who are rushing to turn
white. i am telling them 
to not waste their yellowness 
on anyone. boys
are not worth it & neither 
are pigeons. in my room i burn
the face of a daffodil & pretend 
it is my face. i feel the flames spreading.
the smell of a tongue fills the room.
a tongue is the best organ. the neighbors
are laughing. i bet they are
making a mess. i wish i were
making a mess. finger painting
with blood on the hallway. 
no don't worry it's just red paint.
i am not bleeding like that.
it's a slow trickle. a sink left on.
i am laying on the floor 
& looking up at the ceiling until it opens.

10 years old at the hair salon

a book of boy faces sings a song 
about fingers & teeth. smiling 
boy faces. stubbled boy faces.
posing boys with their grey backgrounds
& their blue eyes. their hair cuts 
are made of stair cases. outside the frame
the boys are all at beautiful locations 
like the side of a cliff or the ocean.
i am on my knees. in another book 
there are girl heads. everyone 
tilts their faces to the side. every book
is worn around the edges. is yellowing paper.
dad is here, bouncing his knee like he's 
a father machine. 
the clippers hum like they want to sing
but can't. my thighs brush up against each other 
like scissers' bladeds meeting.
i am trying to choose a head to be my own.
my own hair is too long. it bleeds 
down my back. the edges are frizzy.
each morning, mom tries to pull a comb
through my mess. i have dreams of bats
getting tangled in my hair. mom says
it's too messy to donate anywhere
not to hurt me just to be honest. 
i imagine being one of the models 
in the books. practicing a distant smile,
i stare off into the distance. i feel a camera 
hovering just out of sight. so many heads.
all across the page. all those bodies out of frame.
boy bodies with their coarse fingers &
their playground laughing. man bodies 
that always resemble my father.
families of people with great haircuts.
all the boy faces visit me like ghosts.
they tell me what i already know
which is that i want my hair so short
no one will recognize me. some of the faces
don't smile. some of them just 
press their lips together as if they're closing 
an entrance. the hair dresser makes small talk.
the pages of a magazine are being flipped. 
dad is looking around. i wonder if he's
counting the ceiling lights 
like i do. he could be a head 
in a book. i want to pose him.
take the picture 
on a stone-color background.