a prayer to my neopets 

what color is the electricity in you
after all these stagnant years?
i want to know what your bodies know
cord thrumming in the dark.
tonight i think of you in your far 
& distant cavern between arches of code.
i fed you from a keyboard & you crouched
in the tangled wiring of it all. 
did you wonder when i would return?
did you talk amoungst yourselves?
me, a single finger in the mist.
i was so young with all my backpacks
full of soot. the library around me 
crinkled & tore. all the books flapped wild
as birds. did you know how young i was?
we all grow up with the desire
to take care of something smaller than even ourselves. 
some of us cradle baby dolls.
some of us plush animals.
i had you. 
a pocket of life in the virtual. 
your bright bold eyes peering through internet.
thank you for your patience, for not dying 
when i was fickle. i now understand 
why a god might be cruel. the world 
is so boring, sometime i feel like i'm still
just moving to fill time. 
tonight i am praying to you & hoping
the words emerge through the screen. 
you filled my time wiht your bodies. 
the whole knot of you.
danced you for coins. 
spun you in my mouth of crooked teeth.
i sat on a wooden chair.
i rocked back & forth. i walked home from you
on the gravel roads to my house.
your portal, a blocky library computer. 
me, a girl with freckles plotted
all over her face. she loved dragons.
he took care of monsters.
she drew pictures of you 
& folded them to store beneath her bed.
she fell asleep imagining you one day 
coming into her world. she tried to guess
how tall you would be. 
i am not that girl. 
i am wrapping myself in bed sheets 
& trying to sleep as you are wrapping yourself 
in static trying to sleep. 
here, take a fragment of the sun.
here, take bowl of ocean.
i lost all the passwords 
a long time ago. this prayer is ultimately
what all prayer is about.
forgive me for leaving. 
disperse in a way you know how.
soak into telephone poles 
& there in to a downpour or the dirt.

internship 

all summer i worked in a tall building in mid-town
where bouquets of elevators took us into the sky.
i was always in a hurry. my blood had legs. 
everyone was so clean. how did they stay 
so clean in the city? their clean suites 
& their clean shoes & their clean faces 
despite the heat & the grime. i sweat.
i fanned myself on the elevator ride up
to the fourteenth floor. it doesn't matter 
what i did up there in those rows & rows of cubicles.
i have forgotten my computer's password
& the name of the person who sat next to me. 
i did not network enough. i took notes
for poems. i thought about all the electricity 
coarsing through the building like a great monster.
i star-gazed at the neon lights overhead. 
this is why i'm not going to have a career 
& i'm fine with that. 
i have been thinking about how terrible it is
to fill giant buildings with work & money 
& fingers & keyboards.
i didn't look out the huge glass windows
nearly enough. in one spot i'd sit for lunch
i could see the people moving just the same
in the building next door to ours.
the windows made me feel important.
i wore the same three pairs of dress pants.
same belt. at lunch tables other interns 
talked about starting salaries.
at the window i thought about 
how proud my mom sounded 
everytime i described the building to her.
she'd ask for pictures & i'd send them.
once or twice i watched clouds out the windows.
they were thin & whispy with humidity.
i'm imagining a skyscraper 
in my home town. you would be able to see
so far. all the corn fields & all the pastures
& all of main street with its tiny shops.
if this were my building
i would leave it empty. o i want to see that.
the bones all white & gazing.
the staircases begging to be climbed. 
the elevetars would be the only contraption. 
bodies beaming higher & higher.
i should have tried to go to the top.
i wonder what they do up there.
does the city look like a diarama?
all the toy cars honking themselves apart.
i'm not meant for this kind of work.
it tour me apart. all the poetry. 
i always felt the impulse
to lay on the floor in the elevator 
on the way down. i never did.
i leaned against the wall. 
everyone small-talked so easily. 
i should have asked them about their windows
but i focused on my legs. the long pants swallowing them. 
the flower patterns on my button-up shirt.
the image of a skyscraper in the middle 
of a corn field.  

when do you remember you body?

i've come to accept god's monitoring.
he hunches like a raven in front of a television screen
where a live stream plays of my life.
what differentiates gods from humans 
is really just attention span. most of the time
i can forget i'm alive but every once in awhile
i'm hit with the realization i am a body
& i am being observed. this is always unpleasant.
i prefer floating through my days. i feel this most often
when i'm using my measuring cups. i have three sets
& i stack them one inside the next 
like russian dolls. like a family. 
i would measure my every breath if i could.
i'm scared to tell my therapist about this 
because i don't actually have a therapist.
i always hated confession. it seems so unecessary
with god always peering in. i can tell god 
any moment i am sorry. i did this more often 
when i was younger. i would lay awake in bed
asking god to please respond to please forgive me 
for whatever small sin i'd commited.
maybe this is another difference,
gods have no voices to respond with. 
their glazes intensify. he presses his face to the TV. 
i drive to the ocean & i scoop salt water 
with the big 1 cup. i don't drink, i just pour
over my hands. i hope god is writing poetry about me
because mine is no good. i can't tell you why, 
but i know he hates my measuring cups. 
he wants me to live wild.
he wants to be entertained with my devotion.
i can't. these cups hold me together.
one day all my teeth with fit in a 1/2 cup.
one day i will have shed enough hair 
to fill a whole cup. i eat a 1/2 cup of bran cereal.
i eat it with my fingers at the kitchen counter.
i have trouble remembering to eat sitting down
so mostly i just eat hovering an inch above the floor. 
i am untethered in the deepest of ways.
i take 1/4 cups of my trembling & i toss them out the window.
it is snowing & god is pleading with me
to leave footprints across the blank sheet of white.
instead i am taking a tablespoon & dipping
into the frost to eat. snow dissolves on my tongue.
he flaps his wings & calls out with no noise.
i crr5y but only a 1/4 cup full. after that i stop 
& put myself back together. another day 
another measuring cup to climb into 
to sleep. i repeat i love myself i love myself 
almost like a prayer. can you pray to yourself?
does it always have to be for him?
i can feel him listening, feasting his eyes 
on my cups while i sleep.

i've been thinking about this horse who died
on the side of the road between my town & the next.

it was a long time ago 
& her bones are probably in the dirt,
so don't worry too much. let me worry for you.
it was summer & the corn was getting taller
& waving to us. maybe july. let's say july.
the horse was pulling a buggie up a hill 
when she died. the little black cart
was full of a meninite family. they stood 
on the side of the road as we passed.
they were all looking at the horse sprawled out
on the asphalt like a splatter of paint
or a mound of tree branches. 
the horse's body looked abstract 
in her death. it took me a few moments before
i understood what i was looking at. 
maybe i think about this because
i still feel bad for the horse. 
it was such a public way to die in a small town.
though, i'm not sure there could be 
a private way to die here. we all need 
something to talk about.
mom reads obitaries every day.
maybe there was one for the horse the next day.
she seemed like such a huge amount of muscle 
to not be remebered somehow. 
i wonder if it's just me who thinks about that horse.
now you can think about the horse too 
& i can be less lonely in this.
i know very little about horses but
they seem like they know what's going on.
i do know they have to wear blinders 
when they pull buggies down the road 
because they get easily spooked by the rush of cars.
if i were pulling a cart down the road
i would need blinders too.
what are horses most scared of?
they could run away from anything.
i don't live in my town now.
i live far away in a city where there are no horses 
to die. i sometimes want to be a horse
so i can run blocks & blocks & blocks,
so i can be scared & frightenned of all the cars
but i am a human so i have to hold it together.
most of all i want to know if the horse knew 
she was dying there. if she knew she was leaving
her family on the side of the road to stare at her
& cars to drive by & look at her body.
she probably couldn't have known 
but maybe a fragment of her thought of a great rest.
thought of her body laying without any destination
& her bones sprawled out. 
did she think of shade & a cool breeze?
a handful of oats? a soft apple?
these are what i want too. i want hands 
to reach out & offer me comfort.
i love that big beautiful dead horse.
they had to move it from the road 
with a fork-lift borrowed 
from the battery factory across the street.
the body of the horse 
in the grass by the corn. the corn
waving goodbye to the horse.
another buggie came along & picked up the family.
maybe they cried for the horse 
or maybe they swallowed & swallowed & swallowed.
it's been years since i could cry about the horse
but tonight i got myself there again
by thinking about all those bones
& the horse's big eyelashes. 
i have to cry about something & 
i like to cry about the horse because it's easy.
if i start crying about climate change 
or dead children or children in cages
or people sleeping on the cement 
or people searching in the trash for food
& so on & so on 
i will never stop. the horse died years ago. 
the horse is dirt now.  

i don't think i've taken a bath in at least 2 years. 

there was a time
where my whole body fit neatly 
in my parent's tub.
i would close my eyes 
& let myself sink,
the tip of my nose peering out from the surface. 
i was a hippo. i was a rotting log.
no where i live 
has a place to hold water. 
the drain in this house 
is hungry & who am i to stop it?
besides, i'd turn into a sponge 
if i soaked there. fingers 
becoming sweet prunes. 
my hands wrinkle quickly. 
after only a few minutes i look like geography. 
i want to take a bath.
it's supposed to be relaxing.
i cup my hands full of hot water
& i pretend i am holding myself a bath.
there is an endless flow of mes holding mes.
whenever i picture myself bathing
i have long brown hair.
my hair is short now. the side are buzzed down
& the water doesn't feel as nice
as it did when i was a girl.
there are so many vessels in any given city.
when it rains i begin to learn where
water collects in the streets.
shallow bath tubs. i got out 
with my shampoo & my conditioner
& i try to find one large enough 
but never succeed.
this winter has been too warm & too cold.
i don't want a bath tub full of snow.
i take showers which are a kind of rain
& also a mark of adulthood. 
needing to summon a cloud to be clean from the day.
i think i could teach my bath tub to be deeper
i could tell it about the ocean not far away. 
holding my breath i pretend 
the whole house is underwater.
i am sitting in the tub. my dad has 
a plastic cup he's filling with water
& pouring over my head. he's gripping
the side of the tub. my skin 
is soft & new. do i want someone
to wash me like this?
no, not at all. i guess i'm just missing
my smallness. where did it go
& what am i left with now?
i turn to face the shower head.
water across my mouth, gentle on my eyelids.
i am so lucky for all this water to have arrived. 
my bare body surrounds me. 
mist envelops the room 
with all my own ghosts.
the bath tub below me gulps down the water
as it comes.  

watching dad play video games

a splatter of thick blood.
she holds a knife in one hand 
& a gun in the other. her hour-glass figure
is perfect for pixels. short cargo shorts.
purple hair. a low-cut tank top.
he played as so many impossible women.
from the games' angles it was as if 
they were leading us into their worlds:
resident evil, dino crisis, tomb raider--
he played on the upstairs TV,
leaning forward in the chair 
to get closer to the small screen.
the TV balanced precariously on a side table.
the room had so many windows.
i sat on the floor next to him.
together i pretended we were both player 1.
i tried my best not to talk.
he needed to concentrate, i told myself.
he focused hard, 
gripping the PS1 controller so hard.
twice the plastic broke.
clicking buttons. his thumbs moved.
the controller was small for his hands 
& big for mine. of course, i wanted a turn
but i felt lucky just to watch him.
sometimes when he wasn't around
i would sit in front of the device
& just hold the controllers,
pretending to play his games.
i had my own games but mom didn't let me
play his. too much blood.
too much violence. rated MA for mature.
i wanted to be those girls with their weapons.
i wanted to cave walls with my fingers
& do back flips with a press of the square button.
i was chubby. sometimes i would
look at my stomach in the mirror
not knowing what to do with it--
wishing i could just enter those games
& change bodies. what were those girls doing
when we weren't playing?
did they walk down normal everyday streets
in the summer? did they dream of quieter lives 
or did they love the thrill 
of each puzzle. who was my dad 
to them? a father? your own father
is everyone's father.
did they know me? feeling the weight
of my hands on the controller 
in their tall thin limbs. 
dad throw the controller too,
once or twice. i would stand up & step back.
his head in his hands. 
we had killed her,
our amazing girl. the screen gone red. 
it always felt the same weather it was
a monster or a dinosaur or a villan that took her.
he told me to get out & leave him alone. 
i did, went to my room
where i laid & looke up at the ceiling
imagining her as she came back to life
on his screen.

my grandfather wanted to donate his body to science

he was short with wirey white hair.
a long beard that reached the middle of his chest.
i can't picture his face because photographs
put too much distance between him & the lens. 
he is always a few feet away. an ornament 
of the horizon-line. i don't think about him often
which seems cruel. the living's only job 
is to remember bodies. 
maybe i'm exagerrating, 
but everything seems to be about blood. 
blood sample. 
blood family. 
blood pact. 
i want to ask 
what he imagined science doing with his skin.
did he see himself 
crowded by a group of med students?
their bone cutters whirling in their hands.
metal table underneath him. 
there are too many pictures of me.
so many angles of my face. this doesn't mean
no one will forget me.
then again, i don't know if i want to 
be immortalized. it sounds exhausting.
you always look better 
with the camera tilted slightly down.
i was alive before the phone camera faced me--
when you had to use a mirror or twist your arm. 
what would science find
inside my grandfather? they're mining him
for jewels. they're looking for gold in the muscle.
they're prying out his teeth to make 
a very small piano. 
my iphone keeps reminding me i haven't 
backed up any of my data for years
& i keep telling it i don't care.
i say hey siri i'm donating my body
to science & she says that's nice. 
i want to be made into test tubes.
i want to be filled with science:
bright & blue & buzzing. will they find 
sound? an email notification ringing 
in my chest. an acoylte's bell 
fluttering in my throat.
everything is made of metal after you die.
i have to imagine him watching over me,
perched on the horizon. not like a god,
but like a kitchen timer. he makes note
of everything i love so that he can love it.
his face is a blur. maybe science used his face 
for some new machine. 
i don't wave to him. i nod & he nods.
we keep things professional. 
he is dead afterall.
sometimes i think to myself 
i hope someone can open my phone when i die.
i hope sometime is nosy & reads my texts.
i hope they pry open my ribs
& reach the core. i have always believed
there are diamonds there--clean & already cut.
this is cruel because i could really used those diamonds 
to pay rent this month. the truth is
my grandfather's body didn't get donated to science.
he was dead too long when they found him 
coiled in sleep. we made him
into ash 
& jarred him up.

do you still like to eat black & white cookies?

all summer i buy you black & white cookies.
the house is humid so they live 
in the freezer. i want to try one
but don't. i imagine they taste
like newspaper & dominos. 
growing up my brother & i had a set of dominos. 
we didn't know how to play with them
so, we'd just line them up across the floor
to be knocked over. i'm imagining 
dominoes on your tongue. 
everytime i see the cookies 
i think of thick butterflies--
the cookies creasing down the middle
& flying out the window. 
has this ever happenned? you would tell me?
this summer is wide like that. 
like moths made of dough. i told you 
one night i wanted to sleep
through august & i meant it. 
i don't know why but i thought 
of us on either side of a black/white cookie.
i'm sleeping in the dark & you're bright & awake.
the dark is beautiful & hungry.
i am beautiful & hungry all through the heat.
how long can i live without a window 
in my bed room? 
i don't watch you eat the cookies because
that would be rude but i imagine
the crumbs on the counter & you wiping them away. 
whenever someone tells me they like a food 
i buy it over & over
until they're no longer hungry for it.
this is how i love you, i know,
& i am sorry. my dad likes spearmint leaves
& twizzlers. my mom likes apricot scones.
my brother likes necco wafers &
candied dates. i don't have a food like that.
i eat moths when the chance arises.
i have been known to suck on street lamps.
you don't know any of this because
love for me means i crease myself down the middle.
this side is for you to know
& this side is for me to walk barefoot in.
maybe we all need our darknesses.
in the summer, night is rare & precious.
the sun is loud & intrudes on every conversation.
i try to eat lunch outside somedays 
in the shadow of a building. 
i always melt in the light
& i think of the cookies so safe in the freezer.
one on top of another. they dwindle.
a layer of icing. half-moon faces
peering skyward. do you still crave
black & white cookies?
i crave their symmetry. 
the contrast. meeting in the middle. 
they flip like each day. they will burn out
like every moon does. which side do you 
eat first? or do you eat 
both at the same time?

a fear of horses

coffee cuts me open like a zipper.
i take off the skin. 
thank god, there is my day.
i'm swallowing to keep the tunnel.
here is me & my body is other there in a pink fog,
i hope he's dancing. i only dance alone
where no one else can see me. 
of course, god is always watching, 
but i can ignore him.
headphones were invented for people who make 
row-homes of their heads. 
i've never understood how poets can write about horses.
i'm terrified of them. 
i'm full of folded butterflies & the butterflies
are afraid of being trampled. 
i want to move towards a great horse. 
hoves like the stones 
we'd harvest alongside the busy road.
the road will take you all the way 
to where the cloud animals graze on glass.
a cloud never looks like a horse.
ripe stones ready to be steeped for tea.
i can't get myself to drink tea. 
i've tried many times to be peaceful 
but i favor the constant buzzing. 
be quiet & close your eyes & you'll hear it.
that's the gossip of light.
it's talking about how humans are  
so very fragile. so fragile they 
try to be immortal more than any other animal
beside possibly horses.
horses could run across a ceiling if we let them.
not in my house. 
we raised chickens once & one of them died--
turning instantly into a cloud.
a brave animal, falling asleep & collapsing 
into its small bones. now it rains chickens 
in the parking lot. i don't know any human
who would let go like that. a horse
would break the good china 
& kick a hole in the wall.
i put my fingers through a chain-link fence 
to no where in particular. on the other side 
i can see brush & all kinds of litter. 
i should get rid of my kerig.
i'm used to the instant service. i need quick
knives to pry me into a day. i promise
this year i'll recycle the pods or at least
use them for art.
my body relies on sharpness where 
horses bodies rely on heaviness.
i could float away any minute if i'm not
holding onto something. on a windy day
i watched a girl get carried away 
on a huge gust. now she lives in a tree.
a horse couldn't live in a tree--
that's how i know 
they're stronger than me.

growing a lawn 
after gina olson 

before grass, there was mud.
thick and viscous. a dried scab
we rode our bikes through.
the house is sinking slowly into the earth.
one day we will all return to our homes
& find them swallowed. 
i live in preparation for many disasters
& it is surprisingly boring. 
there is nothing to do ever 
unless you have money.
build a bunker out of mud. 
i used to tear out handfuls of grass to keep my company
when i was small & wandering.
i paint with mud on the back of my hand. 
sleeping in the mud
we will become grass or bugs.
i sometimes look at crowds of people
& i only see grass. the city is lush 
with shoes. everything is a lawn. 
the summer before i left for college 
i forced myself to read kafka's metamophosis. 
i was somehow completely unaware
the man would turn into a bug.
i thought it was a metaphor (the kind that ends)
& i waited & waited until i finally accepted 
he really became one. antennae quivering,
sometimes i wake up as a bug 
but it is less important than the metamophosis.
planting grass is such an ordeal.
we tried several times before it would take.
setting up sprinklers, we stood & watched
them pacing day in & day out 
until finally the blades started to grow.
they were so afraid of being judged. 
i emerge from the sheets like that.
one single blade of grass. fresh from the mud.
the yard lay drenched in water. 
the flood is coming.
the grass will grow backgrounds into 
the soil. the house will already be gone 
& everyone but me will have no idea what to do.
me, i have a plan. i am going to 
save myself. i am going to wake up
& dig myself free of a substance. 
i will wake up as many bugs
as i need to. beetle & gnat & spider.
i will be whatever crawling is needed to get away.
find myself a nice new lawn to hide in
until the houses bloom blue-doored 
& ringing. i an homesick for my dream houses. 
i am tearing a door off its hinges
to watch it grow back like a wing.
our basement has muddy floors. 
i used to love to go down there 
when no one was home 
& leave my hand prints.