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. 

paper plate 

i set the day on a paper plate,
it's a good day, really really ripe day 
with skin all soft & mushy.

i slice the day & tell it
to stop crying, that it's just 
a day & there's a whole bowl 
of days on the table.

i put my parents on a plate &
i carry it to the living room,
setting it on the arm of the sofa.

they lie down like slices of peach,
nectar-dripping & thin.
the tv is black & quiet but i
watch it while i eat them,

holding out another paper plate
i ask you if you'll get on it
with me. i'm small & microwavable
& so are you & so is anyone at
this time of night

we clasp hands & look at
each other, the yellow pirouette 
of being spun on the microwave's 
glass plate

soft & softer, string-cheese knees
melting & leaving us looking
up at the ceiling fan,

at least we don't have to worry
about where we have to when
we're laying like this

another plate i stack with 
knives & another with spoons

another plate i put all
my book shelves & another 
my grandmother's grave is plotted on.

i leave flowers on the plate too. 

& then of course we have to
throw them away. the trash 
is a wonderful kind of museum.

it's big & white in my kitchen

i crawl inside so all
the plates can get spilled over me.

i tuck myself small &
the plastic lining become embryo,
i'm a yolk, dip your finger in me.

eating leftovers by myself
i remember that you were on
the plate too, so i dig & dig & dig

to find you, rotted & sweet,
the cheese getting a crust from
being left out too long,

but i still take bites out of you,
after  all we went to the hassle of
getting out a paper plate.

your last wish was for me to try
& fit all the planets on one &
i tried not to laugh at you because
that's so easy.  

god does that every single night,
he rings my doorbell, wipes
his shoes before entering &
swipes a paper plate from 
my counter so that he can pick

each star & planet out of the sky
& throw them in the trash with us
when the night is over
it takes them all day with the sun
to grow back

i crawl out of the trash,
offering you a hand. we shower
together. 

i put the morning 
on a paper plate

it's almost too big to fit.

all of them,
all the saints, 

they can all come out 
on the 1st of november 

they come dressed up as each other

st. joseph as st. lucy laughing with 
two grapes on a plate as eyes,

st. clare as st. francis,
with a fake parrot glued 
to her shoulder

st. francis as st. denis,
holding a papier-mâché severed head
full of cherry throat lozenges 

st. catherine as the other 
st. catherine, everyone pretends that they
can tell them apart but they're so similar 
that their costumes don't make
much of a difference

the end of the day 
is the best part

all the saints go house
to house martyring themselves,
even the ones that didn't have
a chance to be martyred in their
real lives 

don't worry,
it's not morbid,

they go up in a poof 
of smoke as they do,

the smoke smells like
cotton candy & comes in
all sorts of colors

i was excited when the door bell rang,
outside, standing st. leo,
my brother's favorite saint

i wanted to invite him in,
but i knew what he was here for

he put a water gun to his 
forehead & pulled the trigger

& BAM!

On growing

stuffed animals are filled 
with meringue & other sweet clouds.
i've had the same stuffed teddy bear,
we've come to know each other,
talking late into the night
about our bodies 

when i was 8
we would share clothes,
my red zip-up hoodie, my scratchy 
wool gloves, my knit winter hats.
sometimes she goes into my closet,
wistfully wrestling with 
my monster clothing.
she weeps because i'm big &  
she wants to be big too.

she sits up now at the foot 
of my bed,
her blueberry bead eyes
blinking in the light from
the garage

i tell her "go to sleep beary"

she stands up & tells me that
she needs to grow too.

in the kitchen she opens her
mouth full of candy corn
& knitting needle teeth, she
growls like i've never heard her,

swallowing handfuls of granola  
&  cups of coffee

i watch from the doorway & feel
myself getting smaller & smaller

beary chews wildly, she says
this is what adults eat right?
as she snaps another protein bar
in half-- as the coffee pot spills
over & onto the floor

in a small body i totter over
& hold onto her leg.

i inspect my fingers to
find them soft & apricot-like,
my night shirt, huge, all
the way down to my knees

beary picks me up & asks
are you hungry?

i play along & let her 
make me warm milk on the stove
it makes her happy

i tell her that this has
gone on too long 
& i take her to the bathroom
where she open her mouth
& lets me pull out handful 
after handful of stuffing,
opening the window to let
them out to be clouds again,

as i do i grow again
& i cry because the milk 
was sweet & the kitchen's a mess
& she fits in my arms
& i carry her back to bed,

i tuck her in & say
sleep

hot peppers 

i noticed a short hot pepper plant
sprouting all on its own by my window.
over night the plant grew, it's changing 
emitting the sound of crackled knuckles,
the twisting of a spine. i sat up 
in bed to see the plant coming into view,
it's fruit like red & orange fingers
tapping on the glass. i asked the plant
what it wanted with me at this hour
& it responded by continuing to drum 
on the glass, only, now more rapidly.
i said that i have no use for hot peppers
& it reminded me the time we stood in
your back yard, the rows of hot pepper
plants that grew everywhere you walked,
your footprints full of acid. i opened
my mouth for you & you put one on my tongue.
a piece of the sun perched on every small
grainy seed & my teeth shone 
like glow sticks in your bedroom.
the sun, dipping itself into a glass
of milk. i remember your laughter 
like the smacking together of stones,
the tapping of fingers on a window. 
all those years i was convinced that 
eating the peppers was my own idea 
but there you were, pointing a long
red one towards my lips, begging me to open.
i lift the window because i know
the hot peppers will find their
way inside anyway. i tell them to have
a seat anywhere & they spread, 
they caress my skin & it burns,
their acid & oils seeping through flesh.
i lay out as they touch me, they laugh
only this time with the sound of 
wind chimes, the ones that hung on
your back porch. i hope that wherever
you are that someone has fed your 
hot peppers. i don't mean this our
of revenge, but out of necessity.
i bathe in milk to try & wash out
the sting but the peppers find their
way to the bathroom too. i say,
please stop, it's time to stop.
but they can't help it, they don't
know any better. they blink like
christmas lights. they are so happy 
to have found a home. they love me
deeply & furiously, did they climb
out of your mouth? how long have
the peppers been watching us &
do you chew them as you eat?
eventually the honeymoon phase fades
& the peppers become more docile,
i rub them & it scalds my skin
but eventually they swell, becoming
bell peppers, green & yellow & orange.
i slice them in the kitchen &
eat them in slivers like ribs. 
have they found you yet, then
or was it just me?

sculpture

i want to know if i threw myself
like a comet to the bottom
of the ocean if the silt & 
the sediment could cover me
just right, like a body of 
the borealopelta dinosaur, 
tripping endlessly deeper into
our bottomless ocean. 
a miner found the fossil, 
deep in the throat of 
the millennium mine in alberta 
canada: skin & scales & all. 
the most preserved
of all dinosaurs. when he
encountered it, did he touch it
to see if it was still alive?
it's body a time-sculpture,
the fingers of a reptile god 
digging in the layers of rock
for dead animals to make 
into heavy pieces of art.
i think i would like all
that time to think, covered 
in quiet, feeling my own
body getting heavier, the surface
etching my body, a stone photograph.
i would write poetry in my head,
spinning un-catch-able words,
did the borealpelta do the same?
his language getting harder 
with each passing century.
did he write of his body?
of the fall to the bottom?
i want to curl up down
there with him, feel the ocean
gently peel away, leaving
us as objects to be discovered
by a miner, the colors of
our skin bleeding out, finding
their way to the autumn leaves
in some other area of the world.
the scientists will ask us
to open our mouths so they
can know what our last meals were.
both of us have stomachs 
full of stones. oatmeal too,
baby carrots & a silver spoon.
i go to the museum where you
lay, i open your mouth & crawl
inside your body. there's a whole
ocean in here full of green water
& stalagmites dripping like teeth.
i hoped this would wake you up
& you could tell of about
everything you dreamed in
those years at the bottom,
under everything. you don't stir.
i touch the remnants of your ribs,
take me with you
beautiful beautiful beautiful.