where do you bury your bed time stories? the bunk bed was the confessional. my brother and i slept on the pews-- looked up at the sky cut out of stained glass-- picked up the pieces of the clouds in red & orange fragments-- a new collage to set the sun-- my uncle told us the same bed time story through out whole childhood but somehow it was still always alive-- the story of the silver airplane whose engine punched holes in time-- a glimmer sent the craft past the wings of pterodactyls-- soar above the sinking carcass of a city of stars floating as freckles on the bruised cheek bones of the titanic-- the crew played out of tune for us from the slant of the deck-- violin string & trombone bell frozen in the sea-- before the story was over my brother was already asleep-- face wedged firmly in the pillow on the bottom bunk but my uncle continued as i gripped silver bars of the bed-- the plane always managed to find itself home-- circling circling back to a runway where the man's family was waiting & the men would always resolve to hide the device away forever-- take shovels & give the memory a burial-- so i hung on to my own body so as to not wake up in a dream as my uncle voice faded into the hum of a fan & the flicker of a nightlight-- in the morning i walk out into the back yard-- bare foot & holding a soup spoon i am twenty & ready to unearth the air plane so as to dunk myself into the ocean from a slanted deck-- i want pterodactyl bites-- i want the glimmer of time travel to ignite me out of the soil-- i dug with the spoon until i broke through the roof of church to fall through the veil of stained glass i had used to build the sky-- they were singing from the pews again-- a gloating Ave ave ave Maria-- & my uncle was there but he didn't remember it was morning-- we broke time with our nightmares with our bunk beds-- held onto our own eyelids to keep from drowning in dirt-- i'll lace up my black canvas shoes & start at the far end of the runway-- leap leap leap we'll set the pieces of the sky in place-- bury our bedtime stories under the lake.
Uncategorized
03/22
in search of the loch ness monster in my backyard. i didn't set out to capture anything other than my innate a desire for conspiracy-- i was a black & white photograph for the coffee tables of believers-- bent my neck like a coat hanger to hold up my blue knitted sweater-- the one i wore in october when i used the fog as pen ink-- wrote mysteries in the mist on the bathroom mirror-- i am still a quiet & fervent believer in the loch ness monsters of our own back yards-- i sit on the back porch-- guard post of the white plastic lawn chair-- survey in my father's binoculars out past the chewed up pile of mulch-- watch the soil cough up rusted keys & door knobs-- the foundation of our houses was built on the thumb print of a lake-- she crawls there at night-- belly over grass-- wails painful like the slice of a knife through the torso of strawberries-- she's smooth-- looks for water-- lies on her back in the puddles after an august lighting tantrum-- i find her silhouette at dusk near the creek where she is hungry enough to chew the bodies of crayfish-- we are all hungry like a loch ness monster-- there was never enough of a real creature to find but she's hungry like a notion-- wide-mouthed as a dream-- she's wondering what it would be like if all the bird feeders fell & the children went out in search for hummingbirds-- she's wondering how far she is from scotland & if it ever mattered-- i take pictures of her foot prints-- her ice-hook neck poked out in between the maple trees-- the fallen leaves come and stick to her body-- she becomes a collage-- everyone mistakes her for a flower girl but i take more pictures in the hopes of someday finding a way to explain her to someone other than myself perched on a white plastic lawn chair-- i ask my brother now that we're older if he ever heard her crying when the moon made itself an empty plate in the sky-- i asked him if he ever looked out at the backyard to notice the creatures who made their way here because they knew there was someone who was finally looking for them like we all want to be searched for-- no we don't want to be contained-- we want to be swallowed in photograph-- written in the mist of a bathroom mirror-- my brother said he heard the slide of a knife through the torso of a strawberry & the clamor of rusted keys or was it the low empty moan of the loch ness monster eating bird seed spilled underneath the maple trees
03/21
you make me want to grow thyme in the windowsills. this type of love poem is irrevocable-- the kind i didn't mean to write but haunted me like the ghost roots of the grass-- i daydream about you like potted house plants-- the orchids that grow into sycamores on my desk-- the bonsai trees whose roots could be no longer contained by the promise of a ceramic tea cup-- break the legs of the dining room chairs while i sleep-- oh love i want to plant apple trees in the floor board because of you-- let's break this place into an orchard-- i don't believe in walls anymore-- open windows-- open doorways-- this place was meant for seeds-- carpet reclaimed by soil-- oh let's go barefoot-- you know i don't believe that shoes have souls but i think that we do-- all we can do in plant them in other people's feet-- behind their eyelids-- plant herbs in the windowsill with me-- the basil plant is for my mother & the african violets bruised above the kitchen sink-- did you learn about planting yourself in other people from your mother-- or did you mimic the roots? i did both-- pull my legs from the earth each morning as thick purple carrots-- you make me want to plant thyme from every corner of the house-- let the roots reclaim the clock hands-- there's nothing you can cook with the clock hands-- throw them out the window or snap them into fertilizer for the herb bushes-- i want to grow rosemary with you-- kiss peppermint into your cheeks-- wake like a handful of anise seeds-- let's kiss like the buds of the orchid still waiting on my desk-- stain our fingers in cinnamon-- the thyme grows into a cypress-- roots tangle into fingers-- hold me here-- i grew what was left of the hours & the seconds & planted thyme so that the moon would hold still-- a dinner plate laid still in my sky garnish me with rosemary-- sit with my on the windowsill-- chew the peppermint leaves-- we'll make the roots shiver--
03/20
my uneaten sarcophagus; knock me over poltergeist-- we're running out of food i teach my body new ways to hide itself-- sliced flesh from rib cage under the red shine heat lamp of this buffet table-- my breasts r ur selection of petit fours-- furrow my fondant or suffocate under the sirens-- call me call me call me to the rocks-- this is where i've been stacking boxes into fortress-- into prayer-- into silence-- i hide handfuls of desire in the boxes i stack beneath my bed-- i tell myself this way i won't go hungry-- this way i'll be prepared when we've sliced down to the bone-- make wishes with my carcass-- a brother on each side of a wish bone-- eat the boxes haunted by my fear of running out of my own skin to eat-- crock pot my body into soup broth-- i am reminded how the morning crawls over itself with broken knees-- i creep out of an archway built of the lies i tell myself-- i say that i'm getting better when i mean i'm building a wall pantry thick enough so that u won't think there could be someone living there-- i removed the self-hate from my skin to build a city-- lay awake in a measuring cup with me-- my brothers both separately wish for rain & the semblance of what they once called a sister who is now an obelisk-- if u wanted to fuck me u'd have knock over a watch tower of cereal boxes & 100 calorie popcorn sleeves & granola bars i buy without the courage to eat-- what does it take to become a monument? have i enough walls yet to divorce my body of poltergeists? when u stand back u can see i've got a life of dominoes-- kiss me wrong & it's over because we're already running running running out of provisions-- i watch the steam from the towers of the nuclear power plant-- the two thick lips of uranium who kiss us into a bunker-- i'm not afraid of a real melt down but i'm running out of food & door knobs & closer doors to keep my ghosts in-- they sit on the porch at night to smoke cigarettes so that the whole house smells like chocolate chip cookies i'll never eat-- watch me-- i'm an architect of shame-- this is how the Pharaohs go to sleep-- a catacomb of uneaten fears-- write my name on the obelisk i want u to knock me over-- i want to be your haunted dominoes-- your afterlife archway carved from my wishbones--
03/19
glow sticks & other types of broken halos. how long has it been since you broke a halo? oh-- you firework child you were the girl we all wanted to love but never had the courage to-- the knotted hair & the grass stain dress-- blush blue-- dust of a cereal bowl-- oh firefly do we terrify? she was the feeling of dirt-feet gracing carpet in the living room-- the bunk bed queen-- i have yet to be as brave as you-- i didn't mean to stop climbing trees-- do you remember all the finger bones we snapped on the way up? gripped until the branches glowed iridescent-- we glowed to challenge the moon-- i still believe you when you said everything is possible if you can still hold a pencil-- you were the girl-body love who walks waist-deep in the creek & never worries about drowning-- i feel her in my freckles-- broke halo after halo to see her room ignite handcuffed in blue-- we grew frog eggs in our palms-- untangled the water snakes from each other-- the prevention of another ouroboros-- but that is what we always become-- i eat the image of my former self in the twist of a fork in a nest of spaghetti-- she wrote only on the first page of leather notebooks-- printed her novellas with her lips puckered up against a bubble wand-- when i was 7 i lived on the bookends of a summer always coming or going to blushed pancake cheeks-- she broke pencils like glow sticks-- broke tree branches like goodbyes-- folded old photographs like dinner napkins-- i turn the light off in the bathroom before i go to bed. watch myself snap the halo i've been saving-- crown myself in the mirror-- bite the tail of the snake-- when they cut glass for my stained glass windows they'll remember here my halo was blue-- glow stick blush & the collective memory of all the snakes who've bitten a firework child only to find their mouths blue fire-- green flame.
03/18
for candle wax girls who play with fire. 1. altar girls serve so they have a room to light their hair on fire-- alone in a sacristy is where i learned i have skin made of wax & watching myself melt is an art form only meant for solitude-- this is what the tile floor is for-- bleed in fat hunks of wax 2. my mother braided my hair into a wick-- there's something comforting tugging at you roots like the bristles of a broom-- we didn't mean to catch on fire so easily but there's nothing you can do with a body of wax 3. happy birthday & other days i lodged my feet in a tidal pool of a vanilla icing-- he made me sugar flowers to adorn my feet-- step on the marble cake snake-- i can't remember how old i was when i first felt my blood grow thick and drip 4. i'm becoming shorter but better at lighting matches beneath myself 5. self-destruction is hereditary-- an advent wreath crown-- call me pink candle & at least i'll know you'll buy another body when you burn this one into a toad stool-- 6. keep lighters in the top drawer of the desk 7. i buy matches in case i decide i deserve to melt tonight 8. do you see my hair on fire in the window-- i look out & make a star out of my wax body 9. This is divination-- this is measuring where the wax falls on the pentacle to ask if morning was something made for you or if you were a born with a wax body to give the illusion you had some say in how quickly you fade 10. i never asked you if you wanted to blow out the candles-- i'm not your wish or your promise-- singed hair & flint tongue 10. i'm not bleeding for show 10. i light matches to watch my own body contort & change-- it's such a shame it takes fire to shape a body-- 1. strike the match & sing your body rapture on the windowsill-- you call me your candelabra-- i burn-- i drip--
03/17
black dogs who die walking into the sun. stick on my fur like a car horn & tumble down the rabbit hole of headlight-- what better date to die? when i was seven my mother hit a black dog coming home from work on halloween night & still no one else believes in ghosts-- the restless body of a shadow-- four-leg hungry sun-- maybe she tried to eat the sun in the face of the car-- no, i know you won't believe me but you will when you face a pair of headlights hungry & burning to run-- it is only a matter of time before we'll all be that black dog-- our body has been saving up our shadows-- to wake up in the two-tone stupor of the kind of autumn that sulks of august-- tongue lapping star milk-- no you can't drink your fur the color of squozen star-- you have a contract to deliver a martyr comeday you'll tell me the legend of walking headfirst into a the sun to bleach out your own shadows-- you'll say it doesn't hurt to be swallowed by light-- i'll believe you but not enough to eat a star-- i'll save the headlight crucifixion for a day when i'm more desperate to wallow in the ache of bone-- for now i've broken myself well enough toss the bones down a rabbit hole yes-- where were you on halloween? did you watch the black dog howl itself into a sun?
03/16
my spider legs. spider legs grow back when you pull them off-- one by one-- for you it's as easy as cherry stems-- apple neck-- pluck the tight artery of a strawberry skull sway low-- low low-- we watched them hang themselves in the spring which is wrong because things don't die in april-- you're supposed to wait till november when the leaves are ready for bodies-- daffodils have gaping lips languid with frost bite-- this is me watching myself regenerate in a mirror-- wait with me while i grow back myself sitting on the hem of another midnight-- i fall asleep wishing i wasn't a spider-- but don't we all? how many girls cried when they counted their own legs-- there's so many pieces of myself to keep track of that i don't notice when you dismember me until i stop before the mirror-- oh what did god not think of little boys when he made our legs? did he not know how much fun it is to watch a girl grow back after you've picked her unripe and blushed in green-- pin her up against your bedroom door and kiss off her legs until she is nothing but a tree torso-- oh there's only so much you can lose until you have lost too much to still remember your own name-- my father is a cricket so he named me after the temperature of an august moon-- round and welcoming as a dinner plate-- he used my legs for guitar strings-- my mother--was a jupiter beetle and she wanted a daughter to shine but instead she fills the trash cans behind the house with my limbs-- i want to blame boys-- i want to blame the fallacy of regeneration no no no they lied to you when they told you i grow back the same after i've been harvest as easy as cherry stems-- spit out my brain-- the gory vein pit-- oh four-leg boy how sweet are the cherries this season? did you remember where you put my legs after you pulled them off-- tossed them in your hamper like boxers-- oh boy yes the legs will grow back but keep the last ones as souvenirs-- a bouquet of my stolen body-- the trophy-- my spider legs-- did i meant i bite back while you sleep? oh this is how you love and still grow back your limbs--
03/15
the lights go out one by one. do you remember what it was like when we once had light? trapped fragments of stars-- angry as wasps behind the glass-- we pulled the bulbs from the frostbite earth from in between the unborn tulips waiting to stick out their tongues-- suspend yourself with me in the filament of another light bulb-- kiss ourselves into fire at the flick of a switch-- it was the lamp in the living room that went out first-- a dark blotch in the far left corner of the room-- it reminded you of the night in December-- there are few things more irrevocable-- we avoided it-- you said you would change the bulb when you had the chance-- when the stars came back ripe enough to steal-- so we forgot about the corner-- the magazines on the shelf had never been anything more than distractions-- their pages now sucked free of words-- that's what shadow does-- eats words eats colors eats faces occasionally a guest would get close to the smudge so we'd warn them-- we'd tell them there are creases of this home that have expanded into darkness-- we've yet to have time to fix them-- the hall light to the bedroom went next so thus we gave up sleep for the fear we would lose more light-- i said let's buy light bulbs but you stared at the shadow as if watching a wolf trot on the parameter of our yard-- it's hard to watch someone you love fall into love with an idea instead of you-- oh how i mourned you fire-lips-- you said to me we never welcomed enough shadows into the house it was time it was time it was time to stop closing the windows at night i kept a lantern-- turned myself into an island-- flashlight flesh cut the darkness-- sliced fresh-- do you remember my face? i called out for our front door that had long submitted to the shadow-- she too only a memory-- i savored the time i had left with the lantern but like all stolen light i too became part of the silence of an open window-- is that your hands on mind or my hands on my own your or your hands on your own hands that i can feel through the unraveling of our senses-- whoever you are it's easier to touch you where it's dark-- we're blissfully unaccountable-- and oh oh oh there's still fire in you-- the light bulbs were too prude to watch us.
03/14
the snow was hungry for words. blank mouth open-- she's hungry for words-- she's waiting for another poem-- the snow is here to claim a piece of our tongue-- she's jealous of lips-- of teeth-- of whispered memories from either side of a bed too small for either of us to sleep on-- she's laying her body on the door steps-- pleading for our dictionaries-- what can we do but appease her-- i tell you to grab your favorite book from the glass shelf-- rip out a page from the middle-- the first chapter-- the last page so at least she gets to know the ending-- thread it under the door-- in a glass bottle-- tell the snow your free to read aloud-- that's what her plan was all along-- hold us here captive until we had nothing left to do but to read our lives into her blankness-- so hungry she'd eat the apostrophes from our eye brows if we weren't careful-- she likes most when we talk without words-- tries to build herself a body collecting at the ankles of the trees-- she's trying to be sexy-- undresses herself with cough & flurry-- somehow she can only become more pornographic-- what the snow really wants is to taste those things we say without letters-- holds our vowels in the ice between her thighs-- the snow is looking for the one thing that makes us human-- the scream-- the fracture of all those words we used to build a book with-- bleeds ink from pages-- bleeds blood from gums-- the snow wants you to teach her how she can scream like you-- open the back door & let her consume all that has rattled around within your bones-- the memory of you past without the alphabet to chew on-- this snow is so ravenous you lose all that was left of your language there with the door swinging open open open-- your mother tells you to stop letting the snow in the house but you can't-- it is already too late-- you already speak cold-- lay your body on the welcome mat & come the grass for any letters left that you might have dropped-- you find the first page of your favorite novel-- silent petition the snow to read to you now-- it's her turn-- take the pages in a gallop of wind-- pluck off each letter-- tossing them one by one like grapes down your throat-- teach her there are words other than a scream that make us human-- the-- a whistle-- a sustained hum-- the rocking of our mother in the wooden chair by our bedside who tells us it's okay to let the snow take our words-- it's only temporary-- everyone deserves a chance to speak-- even if they don't know what to do with the words once they steal them.
