skin

last night i scratched my arm
open into a door way, went inside
& found a second room with nothing
but a mattress on the floor--
the rash had grown door knobs before
but not like this. my arm spoke,
it asked me where i would go when 
i was all alone & left with just
my own nails & an urge to feel peace. 
i'm reminded of poison ivy,
the way it finger painted itself
up my dad's legs in the summer,
i dip my hands in & cover myself.
skin turning angry & red-- pink 
a field of strawberries, i plant
the seeds in my wrists & grow extra digits.
the room with the mattress is cold
& i lay on the hard wood floor.
i ask god what he wants to do with me
& he sends an angel to tie 
my hands behind my back. the angel 
sings as he works & i squirm. he says
that we just have to wait it out,
that i just need to be patient 
& avoid the temptation of doors. 
flesh turned pandora on me & inside
i feel all the beautiful evils,
the strawberries, the finger nails
culling my arms for fruit. i want
to be left alone to fall into an 
infinite number of small vacant rooms.
give me an arm chair in the next one
so that i can sit upright while
i wait for morning to come. 
the angel just watches, shakes
his head & perches in the corner.
he is also a strawberry but he won't
admit it. i grow desperate for a mirror
& i cry onto the floor into
a puddle so that i can have a look 
at myself. my body all ornamented 
in rash-- decorated in blemishes,
i don't need to be lovely
but i do want my skin to stop 
it with its so many mouths,
always talking, begging to be 
torn open-- of wrapping paper 
i've been a birthday & an orange
peel-- juice spurting on the floor.
the angel pasts the bed & encourages
me to sleep. i give in after some
protesting & my own bed returns
in my own room. the sun rises first in
my bones-- surfacing on skin--
red & tempting. could i sleep
my way into another body?
the angel is a pigeon
on the windowsill.

broccoli & cauliflower 

august steams the trees
in the park into broccoli 
so you & i go out with our
craft scissors & cut off 
the florets, holding them
like warm bouquets all 
the walk home. 

i confess that i'm scared 
of cauliflower because 
i'm not sure where
it comes from. i imagine
them growing on the bottom
of the ocean, the deep 
white reaches where no light
can go--there the cauliflower 
serve as flowers for evil fish,
their gnashing teeth & their 
sharp edges. 

i trust broccoli more.
dad says if you leave broccoli
in the sink with water that it
will bloom into little yellow flowers,
this happened a few times before
& still every time i eat the broccoli 
i imagine it blooming all inside me,
we open our mouth & check
each other's throats for yellow.

late in the night
i go down to the fridge, bare foot.
i think of waking you up, but 
decide to go alone. i rummage,
i crawl inside on hands & knees,
listening to the hum 
of the cold white sun.
i find a head of cauliflower 
& feast, instantly flung to
the depths of the atlantic 

& there i think of all
of us, everyone at the kitchen table,
our forks poised & the salt
& the pepper chirping & flapping
their wings. what odd animals 
this all is. i chew & i turn 
all blank, the color washing
our into the water, the yellow
flowers pouring out my mouth
like air bubbles. 

in the park you bite
the side of a tree without me.
i shout from the water
but you're too hungry  to listen.
you bring the broccoli home
for the family like a good
child does. my body feeds
the evil fish.

babysitters 

i have several babysitters
& i don't know any of their names.
they're very beautiful & young,
all of them. i didn't know
i would be getting anymore
babysitters & then they started
arriving, coming to sit beside
me in the living room. they asked
me if i'd eaten dinner & if i 
wanted us to order pizza. 
the babysitter knocked on 
the big window & opened it,
in came pizzas, hot & fresh.
she brings napkins, this one does.
it makes sense though, because
i also don't remember any of 
my babysitters names from
when i was small. there was
one girl with bouncy curly hair
& we ate bagels on the porch 
in the summer. another one 
was good at playing stuffed 
animals. do they think about me
still? do they not remember
my name either? in their memory
do i exist as a girl with 
vanilla pudding fingers &
a bob haircut? 
the babysitters don't understand
privacy. they follow me around
the house & one pulls
up a chair to watch me while
i fall asleep. i ask her why
she doesn't go home & she
nods her head & smiles. 
another babysitter walks
up & down the staircase all
night long. i hear the wince
of each stair & they feel as
if they're my vertebrae. 
i went to leave the house yesterday
& the babysitters assembled,
they laid themselves
in front of the door & sobbed,
they pleaded with me not to go.
i told that i promised i would 
be back & that i would bring
them cake pops if they were good
& stopped throwing a fit. 
this calms them down a bit.
i had one babysitter who liked
to take us to Ruby Tuesdays so
that we could fake one of
our birthdays & get a slice
of freezer-burned cake. i always
felt guilty, blew out the candle.
when i came home i brought 
the babysitters a blank sheet cake.
at first they wouldn't look look at me,
pouting about my absence, but, as i
sliced the cake they warmed up,
i said that it could be
all of their birthdays as long
as it wasn't mine. we each stepped
onto the white surface of the cake
& the babysitters took to lighting 
each other's hair on fire. 
i didn't try to stop them.
i stepped back & blew them out
& closed their eyes.

To Will who sat next to me on the train & read me a poem

i want to be your pockets
& what you keep in them. 

i want to be the subway 
that's taking you back some door
made of zippers & buttons,

i would empty myself
of all other passengers &
tell you that you are safe now
& that no one can make
you older.

you will stay on this
train forever & 
read aloud a poem 
that's printed out 
& folded four times
into a square.

i want to be where you 
crease that page, 
my knees & elbows
folded & re-folded,
you will never have to fold
that is my job.

Will, can you tell me
why the lights underground
are always orange?

Can you tell me what the
last book you read was
& what you did with
the flyleaf pages?

you make me want to 
give up my life as a poet
& live in subway carts
to find you again, to ask
you what your parents names are
& what the first poem
you wrote was.

i fall down the cement steps
on Christopher street
like a dead bird & 
i jump down on the tracks,

not for the train to 
hit me but for the train
to eat me.

all that metal, 
we were in all that metal
moving fast towards
some doors.

i think the first poem
i wrote when i was probably
eight was about butterflies
& color blue.

our train cart fills with
them, with butterflies
all made of words.

they land on our faces
& we can no longer
tell who is younger or
older or coming or going.

if i read my poem to you on
the train would you have
listened to me?

i think you would have,
& you'd tell me to keep writing
& to never be older 
& to be safe 
& to feel the lining
of your pockets 
& to fold the poem 
another time

girls roller-skating

a bowl full of rainbow light
on the rink's hard-wooden floor

that winter
you took me roller skating

on a monday night
& no one else was there.

just a snack stand man
& the shadowy human who 

chose the music from 
the booth near the rink.

we protested him to change 
songs but he never responded,

just shifted in the dark of 
the booth. he might not have been real.
you were effortless, gliding
around & around, kicking 
the lights with your wheels;
a vehicle of skin

all the while i inched slowly, 
gripping the wall as i went, watching 

your acrobatics. your smoothness,
like a cake-topper in motion.

ankle-deep in sugar-frosting
& food-dye flowers

you came & grabbed my forearms,
tugged me out to the center

where the disco ball 
hung, a ripe unknown fruit,

your blue eyes turning into
wheels to escape away with me,

& i knew full well that we were
supposed to be girls & that this 

was what we were meant to do.
i got the momentum; side to side

each leg like the tongue of a clock,
sweaty & straining to make 

the skates embrace the awkward 
7th grade body they held up.

i sometimes still wake up with 
the skates on,
the shoelaces don't come untied
so i just have to shuffled,
clutching counters in my house, & 
there's no disco ball just 

a ceiling fan. the wheels like 
to laugh at me-- they have girl-voices. 

the human in booth plays the same 
songs still, only now they're in the corner 

of my kitchen. these mornings i wish 
you were here to steady me.

stuffed animals

i want to protect 
all the stuffed animals
from being alive. 

yesterday we were at the mall
& there was a bin full of
them, i lifted
them up one by one like
a bin of infants, all soft
& squirming. 

dinosaurs & rabbits.
unicorns & pomeranians. 
i know that it's odd for 
a 22 year old man
to care so much about them,

whispering to each clothe body 
i will take care of
you if you let me. 

i slept with 
my stuffed bear each day 
last year accept for 
the nights that i replaced  
him with a random body,
boy & girls & humans 
all flesh & fingers. 

the bear would get jealous 
& come alive
& i would have to chase him
down, begging him to not
be alive, telling him
that it's better to be quiet & 
full of stuffing. 

we'd drain out the blood 
& drop his heart in 
the waste basket & i'd
sew him back up, washing
the blood off in the bathroom sink.

when i was little
i would cut them all open,
all of my animals, 
the red bull, the ostrich,
the manatee. i wanted to
check that they hadn't 
snuck into a life without me.

occasionally i would
have to pull out the veins
& every once in awhile
a kidney, a liver, a stomach
full of rainbow sprinkles.

i tell you to be careful
when you set my bear down,
the prop him up nice
& you do even though
you don't understand.

when you're asleep i
cradle my bear into the bathroom
to check him for signs 
of life. i say
i love you 
i love you

& i cut him back open
always along the same seam.
i pluck & swallow a handful 
of stuffing like a spoon
of mashed potatoes. 
i take out a rib-bone.

as the stuffing goes
down my throat
i see all the images 
that my bear sees,
the stillness
the sun juggling 
out the window, 
each day
stirring.

i thank him for this
& he asks to keep  
the rib. i tell
him no.

watching you steal from victoria's secret

hands over bras,
touch this one you say 
& i squeeze 

its soft, just like how i would 
imagine touching
my own chest would feel,
in the middle of the store
with everyone watching.

you slip them 
into your pockets somehow, 
crushing each cup
like a fat foam carnation,
you're full of bras,

they bloom under your 
breastplate & they flip over
to cup us both, two soft nests.

you made me want to be 
become a bird. 

i believe that god has hands
made of bras or at least
that she is as soft as one.

i want them all over me,
a different kind of tortoise,
i spill, snail-like & slimy.

we fall into a table of panties,
they slip over us as water,
water with new colors,
the pinks & the waists of lace
& the polk-a-dots purple bubbling
escaping from our mouths,
thongs dripping in between fingers,

i think of what it was
like to undress for you,
how you watched me come apart,
each body part on the bed room floor,
first my feet & then a rib at a time.

the mall is closed now & 
Victoria still has so many secrets

we ask her but she doesn't tell
us any so we just share our own.

i told you that i steal from
Target sometimes & you say
that you want to kiss me 
until both of us dissolve,
until we're strap-less & satin. 

alone & after hours 
we knock over all the displays.

we wear six bras each, 
beautiful & monstrous

neither of us are girls 
or boys 

& we feel wild & gender-less,
luscious & luminous

panties in our teeth,
growling & on all fours,

we tear the garments apart 
& admire each others teeth.

back at home i watch 
you undress. you try the new bras on,
you have a trick to remove 
the little tag that is supposed to burst 
when you try to pull it off

we're thieves. 

you set it on your dresser
& model each one from me.

i become a mirror & bask
as i become your body,
& i'm thankful to be someone else

blues & loud naked-pink &
a each rib made of lace
& the underwires grinning
full of fang.

no, you don't have
to take one for me

bubble wrap

i thought it was raining last
night but it was just the sound 
of dozens of little girls running
across bubble wrap-- their small
bird-like feet bursting each dome
as they scurried. the whole house,
wrapped up safe in bubble wrap.
i tried to open the window but
it was squeezed shut. packaged
for shipping. sometimes i get 
ordered on amazon by accident
& carried away to the front porch
of a happy couple who wanted a girl.
they peer inside & see all
the bubble wrap & me: a man 
in a sweater & they wrap 
me back up again & get their money back.
when i was a little girl, one body ago, 
my uncle would save
the bubble wrap for me & we'd
lay it all out on the kitchen floor
for me to run across. the snapping
would encourage the rain outside,
the clouds gathering,
a metal bowl full of blue berries
spilling down the roof & staining 
the sides of the house, we live purple.
we'd open windows. all the berries,
a ripe world of bubble wrap. 
when they finally take me
back home i spend all afternoon
cutting the bubble wrap 
off the house. i lay it out
on  the kitchen floor but can't
find the desire to pop it
so i'm careful. i treat each 
dome like a planet & i apologize
to all the bubble wrap 
i stomped over before.
they turn into berries &
i eat them alone on the couch
& cry. i don't know what i cry about.
i ask you to wrap me up in 
the bubble wrap & we take turns
doing so, packaging each other
like dollar-store figurines.
at night we wrap the bed
in bubble wrap & somewhere
past midnight we were laying
in a metal bowl of berries.
you fed me from your hand,
i ate. 

dog's teeth 

i want to know what will happen
to my dog's teeth when she dies.
inside Piper's mouth they're like
aquarium pebbles or tic tacs,
all crooked; a shoreline 
in Maine where both of us stand. 
we throw out fishing lines
& catch pig ears in the water.
gnawing them, she licks her lips,
lays down in the sun. wheezes,
her pug-nose whistling as she breathes.
she ambles along the ceiling
of the house-- her ghost made 
from bowls of water. how do you 
write about the love you have 
for an animal? i tell her that
she's not allowed to die.
i get on all fours
& i ask her what she knows of me,
if she recognizes this body 
that has changed so much.
does she remember the first night 
in our old green house? chewing on 
all the beanie babies in my room,
i laid down & told her she could
chew me if she was nervous,
if that would help.
i took out my bones & laid
them on the speckled carpet.
sometimes now her teeth fall out 
on their own. i collect them. 
i plant them in the yard 
& they each grow differently.
the first became a sweet potato tree 
the next, a river, tall 
& emptying into the sky.
one was just a bush of chewed 
stuffed animal eyes. another a
vine of measuring cups, each 
ripening full of kibble.
when she dies i'll plant her
too & hope that something marvelous
bursts from the earth in her place, 
something worthy of the life of 
such an eager, soft body.

someone said the urge to kill yourself 
only lasts 20 minutes, so you
just need to distract yourself 
that long. for me, it feels 
like a few thousand people 
who all go shopping at the same 
time as i do. they buy beautiful things
like powdered donuts & jello.
they're all too close to me, 
sometimes our carts clang together.
now we're all at the same stop light
& they all play different sad songs.
i like the sad songs but i also 
don't want to listen to them.
i ask them to turn their radios down but
they turn them all up. 
it's a loud place, my body:
like a shopping mall, i go into
all the stores just to pick a few items up,
carry them around the store, & 
then put them back down without buying them.
the urge is like a display of scented candles,
i peel off lids: apples & cinnamon 
autumn leaves, pumpkin & bourbon,
sweet pea. we smell them &
they all smell delicious, almost edible.
i dip my fingers in the wax & lick them
while you're not looking.
i don't tell you when i'm thinking
of killing myself because there's
nothing much else anyway can say after that.
i just live with a lot of people,
all of them made of suicide letters
that i write on the drive home.
i roll them up & put them in plastic
water bottles set out for recycling.
all the people at the supermarket 
they live really beautiful lives,
all of them. they buy white bread.
they split a box of sour gummy worms.
they climb into my cart & tell me 
that the end is always like this.
that it's not too loud or bright or climactic.
i park the car & sit inside for nearly 
20 minutes.