a trail of ants walks out the bath room window

their bodies form a string so i pull it. 
the house is made from folded paper 
& the room turns inside out
into a blow-up box. i put my lips 
to an opening & empty myself of air.
without air i am a just a knot 
of clothing. my skin turns to mist.
the ants are making patterns all over
the walls. they're making trap doors.
they're making promises now too--writing
words with their bodies. they explain to me
that they never believed in humans
until they saw me with my hands &
all my crying. i sit on a windowsill 
& contemplate jumping but the world outside
turns all to paper. folded street lamps
& folded sidewalks. nothing to 
break me on. i am an egg now. 
there's an expatriation date 
stamped on my teeth. i ask strangers 
to read it aloud to me. i have 
4 days to be eaten so i'm looking
for a good huge man. a man who understands
ants & who considers insects each morning.
i want a man who folds houses,
whose thumbs have made creases.
the asphalt is crawling ants--
all of them hungry for sweetness.
what will you do with your desires 
to shatter? who will fold you a house?
all the glass becomes water.
puddles on the floor. i drown 
in one of the puddles but not before
i walk on water. the ants follow me
across the water--their light bodies
refusing to sink. what do you really know
of a mouth? everyone i've ever known
wears a paper one. it falls off
in the rain & they have to make new ones.
the last boy i loved folded me
mouth after mouth after mouth.
i asked him if i could please
love him forever but forever became
a string of ants in my mouth.
he pulled the string. i turned
inside out. he became a bright window 
i now peer out of. i now sit 
on the edge of. there's a constant
sense of falling in my body. 
i want meant to be water. 
i am water.
the ants scrawl prayers 
on my palms.
i read them left to right
left to right. i am being
saved. i am making a god
out of glass. the house becoming
clear glass windows. the sun 
a wade of bright insect
screaming into light. there's 
a man laying down in my bed 
but i don't recognize him.
i cup my hands & fill them 
with water. i'm going
to baptize him. i pour the water
on his forehead & he disperses
just like i knew he would. just like
all men want to. 
they're experts 
at escaping.

when i'm old & have too many

i hope to have a stand at an antique market
when i'm old & have too many small sincere items.
dad & i would get up early on a saturday.
blue morning. the sun peering over all our objects.
we'd to go exploring the piles of antiques 
spread across adamstown's gravel parking lots.
a sea of trinkets resting on wooden tables 
& quilts. dad sifting through plastic tubs 
of old coins. he was trying to find just the right one.
he'd pick one up at a time & say 
not it, not it, not it.
i would find a toy stand 
& look for a bin of action figures.
my tiny soft hands rooting between plastic bodies.
it never occurred to me back then that those coins
& those toys belonged to someone. 
someone held them between thumb & finger 
with purpose. tucked coin in a back pocket.
walked the toy people 
across a living room carpet. where i'm from
we don't own anything notable
though up the street someone sold a boat.
it lay rusting in their front yard for weeks 
before someone bought it for scrap metal.
we take pride in our antique market finds.
a neighbor of mine had plastic cows
all over her kitchen as decorations.
another one collected old milk bottles.
he planted flowers in all of them each spring.
dad & i once found a giant stuffed trout
that i hugged all the way home
as we drove winding pennsylvanian roads.
what i'm trying to say is i want to die
by giving away whatever unique pieces 
i happen to own. i want to set my books in stacks
on a bright april morning & let strangers 
pick through them. all my old stuffed animals
tired & sun worn but still useful.
at the antique market nothing is useless.
the vendors walk with each other 
to the breakfast food stand & order hash browns 
& egg sandwiches. dad & i eat too.
sit next to each other. discuss
what more we'd like to find.
dad wants a world war 1 bayonet
& i want a nice felt hat. i will be sitting there
in a folding chair at my stand,
selling myself a hat with white fake flowers
sewn into the rim. she will pay in crumpled dollars.
a gust of wind will try to blow the hat
off her head but she will catch it.
i will wave 
as she leaves to show our dad.
i will go home with all the trifles
that no one chose. load them up in a truck.
this is a chance to pick each one up again
& remember what it meant when it was 
new in my fingers. i will consider
giving up & not selling any of my remaining items
but i'll remind myself 
that this is how people like us
are remembered. a quiet scattering.
dad & her drive home. she sets the hat
in her lap.

transitioning into a plum tree 

after surgery i craved foods i hadn't eaten for years.
they had me set up in the guest room. light came in the window
all times of the day. sun or street lamp. mostly, i wanted to be
alone. downstairs i heard my friend's family. the chirp of
pots & pans. the mumbling of the TV. i kept a jar of prunes
by the side of the bed--placing one in my mouth at a time
& pretending as if the prune might turn back into
a plum. i have never seen a plum tree so i 
Googled pictures. branches laden with fruit.
it was a bitter january. the prunes were so sweet.
the folds of their flesh syrupy-sweet as if they were
full of honey. i ate out of boredom some days.
i tried to keep routine. wake up at 9am i told myself
but never quite did. in my friend's bathroom mirror
i tried to take off my shirt to look at the scars.
couldn't lift my arms above my head. eventually got
the shirt off. i felt like there was no way
i was becoming anything. i wanted to take
the gauze off & be human again. or maybe 
not human at all but a plum tree thick with 
white flowers ready to swell into purple fruit.
i pressed myself into the bed like a flower.
i tried to read but could never focus.
i tried to walk along the creek nearby but never
had the energy. i filled my mouth 
with prunes. let the sweetness treat me
kindly. i swear i could feel the sun that dried 
each fruit though i'm sure they're made in a factory.
how dare a mouth provide such release. 
i was so sorry for being taken care of.
my mom texted me to ask to ask if 
she could see me. i don't remember what 
i said but she didn't & it wasn't her fault
or at least that's what i told myself.
i didn't cry at all the whole time.
no even at the hospital. i was brave,
i told myself. more accurately
i was asking each prune to teach my
something new about transformation.

a tree of skulls grows in the living room

cracks in bone spread vine-like & 
teeth chatter in their own languages--
fall out on the wooden floor still trembling. 
the tree is just like the one 
we stood in front of at the museum of natural history.
it charts the evolution of humans
& my roommates & i sit on the floor to get a closer look
at how each skull changed. the tree has
replaced our TV. the tree has replaced
all the windows in our house. we love the tree.
we point to the skulls we wish we had. 
behind glass had we made fun 
of the neanderthals with their 
large skulls & their knotted hair. their knuckles
thick with brute force. one exhibit showed
a male & female neanderthal walking 
side by side & we joked about 
what they might consider a date:
rubbing mud on each other's faces,
pulling up tufts of grass, chewing strip of sinew. 
the truth is i want to do all of that 
to love someone. i felt the contours of 
my skull. the tree rattled to summon us closer
but we didn't want to get any closer.
the tree grows bodies from each cranium.
soft ancient people. what kinds of dreams
did their bodies have? was there a moment
when only one neanderthal was left?
what did she tell herself 
alone between trees.
we are terrified of them. how did
we let our home become like this?
a site for the gathering of bodies.
the plaques explained that neanderthals
might have died because of clashes
with humans. we start apologizing to them.
we tell the neanderthals that we think
they['re beautiful. that we would
go back in time & make sure 
we never killed them if we could.
of course, there's other possibilities
for their extinction: climate changes,
disease, famine, & so on. we know those
aren't true though. we know humans 
always have their hands in death.
the neanderthals are forgiving.
they want to touch our skulls
so we let them. we promise them 
we are trying our best to be
good animals & they laugh like
snapping twigs at us. humans are
so tragic & we look at each other differently.
our apartment is too small for all
these mouths & all these teeth.
we ask the neanderthals politely 
if they could leave & they are kind 
so they do. we cry about the emptiness.
we pace the hallway. we remember how
at the museum the baby neanderthals
reminded us of all our younger brothers.
they're off in the world now
but the tree remains. we take it apart--
skull by skull. set them on the curb
to be taken away 
with two black trash bags in the morning.

several kinds of capture

i wake up again & again
in my childhood bed:
mattress sunken in
& sheets bright blue 
laundry soap smelling
in the hallway something is pacing.
i imagine the broken-rib bed springs
as a field of parched rose bushes. 
my green curtains blow open.
i remember nothing of the dreams
but sensation.
i stand in the middle of the room.
the last dream left me
asking lichens to dress my body 
in their soft green continents
as if to ask for reprieve from 
buttons & zippers.
they grew slowly & i pleaded with them 
to hurry because i was hiding from something. 
this was a time lapse video
of the forest where i witnessed
mushrooms pushing 
their skulls up from the moss.
the leaves blushed & fainted
to the earth. 
the worst part about a dream
is no one else in it believes you.
i was trying to tell someone how scared i was
of being captured but they were running away from me.
they were laughing. they thought 
i was playing tag. we needed to find
an exhibit of glass sculptures 
but all our phones had died. the subway was 
lush with ferns. 
a jaguar prayed the bible 
as he walked on the ceiling. 
a parrot said
over & over if you see something say something
if you see something say something
i spoke back to the parrot
we are going to be captured 
we all have to leave.
in my room the dream flicks. turns to rubber.
turns to carpet.
drags a finger across a window. 
i am too old
to be scared of the dark i tell myself 
i shine a flash light 
in every corner of the room. 
the full length mirror reveals me.
my face flushed. my body still covered
in lichens.

the three of us were 15 

& we ate powdered donuts on her couch. 
we played kiss, marry, fuck
which was the older-girl version 
of kiss, marry, kill. i always struggled 
to order the boys. the problem of who to fuck
& who to kill is not all that different.
i was the only one who always wanted 
to use a piece of paper. i wanted to see them
in front of me. as we played we watched 
a horror movie. little light came from the TV
as the scenes were dark. in the movie
a little boy wanders away from his body
in his sleep. i wanted to tell them about
how this had happened to me. how some nights
i would wake up staring at myself in bed.
this didn't seem like the right time
because they were trying to decide
who to fuck. they always put 
a certain boy in my list & i found myself 
killing him over & over & 
by the i mean i found myself
fucking him over & over.
our conversation weaved between
the boys & the movie & what we would
paint our rooms if our parents 
let us do whatever we wanted.
she told me she wanted to paint her room black
& spatter the walls with neon paint.
she told me this would be good for fucking
& i thought it would be good for killing.
she said she was going to actually do this 
& that she would invite us over
to decorate the room together--
that she would paint our bodies neon
& we would glow there in the dark room.
all i could think about was how
my uncle told me once that dark colors
make rooms feel smaller. i room closing in
on three girls. i ordered my boys again.
i wanted to kiss them all. i wanted to
paint them in neon paint
in a very small room. in the movie
demons intercept the boy when 
he wanders too far from his body.
the world of his dreams is
full of fog. she screams as a demon
wraps his fingers around the boy.
the world is small & dark there.
she is fucking every single boy.
we never wanted 
to marry any of them.

when we were small & plastic 

i convinced my brother to climb inside
the plastic pirate ship with me.
the process of shrinking is seamless 
when you're still 6 or 8 years old.
being the older sibling means 
showing the younger one what a toy 
can mean. i wanted to hide from dad. 
i wanted to pretend we were orphans--
pirate orphans & we would be far out at sea.
in the attic all our toys became 
a canal--a great river--a strait. 
stuffed elephants swam 
& lego star wars ships snapped. i liked 
the pirate ship because it had little rooms--
each fully decorated. a room with bunks 
for the sailors & a wheel house for a captain.
we had no plastic pirates-- just our own bodies
made small & pose-able. my brother asked
if we could leave over & over but i told him
we were just playing. i have to be clear
dad wasn't evil he was just 
someone to hide from. he was just massive
& we were small & plastic. he was just
always tired. he once
smack my brother across the head
for spilling his glass of beer 
& then he held him saying
i'm sorry i'm sorry. i believed
if we stayed pirates
nothing like could ever happen again. 
dad would get tired of looking
for us & forget he had two boys
who had been playing in the attic.
i hated my brother's devotion--
how he listened from the deck 
to try & hear dad's foot steps.
if it weren't for him i could have remained.
i could have learned to be a toy--
let the plastic make stiff each muscle.
he cried & curled up in the wheel house
& made me leave with him. we stood
too big in the middle of the attic
staring down at the little ship
& its crooked mast. 

two men 

the year after the last bee died
all the fruit turned to glass
& i showed you how to chew orange slices
without the shards cutting open your gums.
a lot of swallowing. we went out 
into the woods to look for greenness.
not for science. we were searching because
we needed to feel useful--
you with your binoculars & me with my hands.
i wanted to love you right into 
the end. i wanted to be the last 
body you touched with purpose.
we walked deeper & you wanted to 
stop holding hands. the farther into
the woods the less gravity pulls at our skin. 
you told me you sometimes tricked yourself
into believing in memories that weren't
actually yours. i asked you to please 
tell me the memories. you described 
sitting by a river with another boy
who wasn't me--the river flowing 
& not made of blood 
like all the rivers we knew.
i was jealous of him. whatever boy
lived there only in the thickness
of your recollections. what right
did he have to describe an unfading earth
to you? would you know me only as
the falling panels of sky?
the limbs of trees turning 
to coal on the forest floor?
miles away the city was working 
every single hour to manufacture fresh desires.
i may not even love you by the time
you read this. i told you i wanted to sleep
but what i really meant was i wanted
one chance i pretend the woods
were just a house & we were living
somewhere easier. i wanted a chance
to be the boy in your memory.
you told me another one about
pulling an onion from the dirt
& have it not shatter. i bit your
bottom lip & you shivered. two men
need each other to survive. 
two men fell asleep & woke up
floating slightly above the ground--
gravity leaking 
from the soil-- gripped onto 
each other. promised to never 
turn to glass. two men 
were the only green in the forest.

Survivor Man 

that summer we watched a lot of Survivor Man.
next to each other on the sunken-in polka dot couch
my brother & i talked about 
where we would want to go to survive.
my brother wanted to go to Bermuda because
mom & dad had gone there once & they told us
about the singing of the frogs at night.
i asked him what that had to do with survival 
& he said that it would at least be 
a nice to place to die if he had to.
he was maybe seven & i was ten.  
on commercial breaks the television told us 
we were young & beautiful & we should
make something of a summer. sometimes i felt like
it was just my brother & i in the house
alone all day together watching 
survivor man pry open fruit with a knife.
watching survivor man crawl into 
the carcass of a camel to stay warm.
on a raft survivor man told us he was
at risk of hypothermia & my brother
asked me what that meant & i told him
it meant freezing to death. i said 
i would rather die quickly like from
falling off a cliff. he said it might not
be so bad. i said he thought he might have been
close to hypothermia at recess the last year.
outside waves of heat were emanating
from the asphalt. sometimes we took breaks
to eat ice pops on the porch. 
the artificial sugary water dyed our tongues.
one day my brother asked me to promise 
i wouldn't grow up to be like
survivor man. he didn't want me
going places so dangerous. he said
he didn't want to watch me on tv
& feel afraid for me.
i told him not to be afraid for survivor man
because he knew what he was doing. 
he knew what plants could be cooked 
& eaten. he knew how to catch
a rattle snake & cook it over a fire--
the meat all fresh & white. the dirt 
on his fingers. he washes his face
in a pool of water. he drinks 
from a stream. he climbs a tree
to find a place to sleep. around 4pm
our dad would get home. we would
change the channel to cartoons & 
take our places next to each other
as if nothing had happened.
as if survivor man hadn't almost died
so many times that day. as if there
weren't dangerous wildernesses
i would want so badly to survive in.

i told him i wanted to see a drive-in movie

so we got in his car & drove for hours.
watched the landscape change seasons.
it snowed & the windshield wipers pushed
white frost away. it poured & the car
became i raft floating down a thick river.
he trembled & rubbed his hands across
his own thighs. tall river grass slapped the windows 
while we listened to a beatles album on repeat.
he wanted to hear eleanor rigby twice.
i began to realize i didn't know him at all
& not in some existential way-- this was
the first time i was in his car. 
i have this habit of telling strangers 
to take me far away. i seek them out.
i tell them i am a fleck of light. i tell them
i was a girl who needed to be buried
& now that i'm now a boy who needs to be escaped.
we get there finally after several years
of not even kissing. there's no one else
at the drive-in & i tell him the story 
i tell everyone-- that i'm from a small 
farm town where everything is made of corn 
or cows & that everyone's backyard 
has a drive-in theater. he tells me 
i'm impossible & dream like. he pressed 
a hand to my cheek to check that i am real.
boys never trust me. on the great screen
images start to play: a close up of feathers 
pulsing, undulating scales, & then finally
his hand moving across his own thigh.
he points & says that is me!
so i say i'm proud of him for being
made so huge & projected. there are clips
of our drive & of my teeth. there are 
scenes of cows along the side of the road.
i ask him if he knows that cows lay down
just before it rains. he says that can't 
be true but it is & it happens on the screen--
cows lay down. rain bursts open 
from the sky. we are drenched even though
it only rained on the screen. he wants
to go home. i want to stay. 
he threats to drive away without me 
to strand me out there in a field no one knows
or remembers. his truck turns into a blinking camera lens
i tell him to go then & leave me with the movies 
but instead of leaving he begs me
to take a video of him. he gets down 
on his knees in the video & begs
someone to come love him like he's always wanted.
i shut the camera off & tell him to 
let me take him apart even if only here 
in the middle of no where. no one is watching
the movie. no one has ever watched the movie.
he asks if i've seen it before
& i tell him to shut up. we kiss finally.
the screen plays bees. a whole hive swarming.
we are very bad for each other 
& it's wonderful & he drives back a few years
to take me home to where i live 
in an apartment with wooden floors.
i don't catch his name. my bed 
is covered in bees-- the same ones
from the movie projected 
on that wide white screen.