august / not august 2020

i put the month in my mouth
& chewed it like bubblegum.
it was cinnamon flavor.
no one else in the world
was alive. it was just me & the ghosts.
i left my apartment only
to drive to the creek where the bears 
were trying to worship.
i asked several times if i could join them
but they just laughed at me 
& said, "if you want to be eaten."
i considered this a valid option.
the warmth of bear guts 
could swaddle me. i slept heavy & often
on the sofa & beside the bed. 
sometimes when i woke up
i found my eyes 
in the sink. i would try & wash them.
hoping the halos would leave.
sickness left me an amphibian.
i needed the bath. i needed salt.
i needed a telephone without a portal. 
you called me less than i wanted.
i knew we couldn't have a future. 
i imagined sending you a letter 
from inside the bear saying,
"you will never guess where i am now."
the end is always too soon
& not soon enough. august collapsed
around me. a demolition. sidewalk heat. 
here & gone. i tried to claw the month back.
chewed the flavorless gum. 
went to the creek to find the bears gone.
that was when i knew i had to accept
that i had survived & it was september. 

exam

i take my pomegranate 
to the doctor. the doctor has a waiting room
full of people holding fruit in their hands.
a banana & a mango & even a handful 
of kiwis. we're all starting to rot & the flies come
like rubberneckers. i shoo them away.
i consider what the internet told me to do.
"squeeze as hard as you can." nothing
left to do but find the nectar.
i could sit in my bathtub to do it. i wouldn't
have to tell anyone, just wash well enough
to get the stains out.
i turn the fruit over in my hands,
searching for the legs. search for the mouth.
i have lost all my teeth more than once.
planted grass seeds in the holes & waited
for them to return. i am not convinced
the doctor has ever seen a pomegranate before.
i might have to show her the trick 
to opening them. i might have to hold it up
& say, "did you know they think eve actually
ate a pomegranate & not an apple in the garden
of eden?" she might smile or she might
write something in the mythical chart 
i have never seen. i like to imagine it
as a poem about myself. i watch someone else
in the waiting room give up. peels the banana
& weeps as she consumes it. 
we avert our eyes. i don't know
if she wants to be watched. finally,
they take me back & i regret coming.
i blurt out to the nurse as she weighs
my fruit, "i have been devoured
with a spoon." she laughs & says,
"you & everyone else." i feel sick. the pairing knife.
she sits with me. she says,
"we will eat it together then." the door is
far away. the neon lights say, "good luck."
my fingers red. my palm red. the pith 
like wadded up wedding dresses.
the nurse shakes her head to say,
"you have nothing at all to worry about."
i finish & she add, "we'll call you 
with the results if there is something
you need to know." weeks pass.
the phone doesn't ring.

beautiful poem 

i don't know how to write
about beautiful things anymore.
i do like the color of testosterone 
in the vial. a light gold. at least,
mine is. i still remember 
the first time i saw one.
the testosterone vial 
wasn't my own but a lover's
on the edge of their sink. i wanted
to touch the vial but didn't.
the tiny glass. pock-marked top 
from the dip of the needle.
months later, 
my friend took me into the city
to get mine for the first time.
it was december & i was 
wearing my binder longer than
i should have. we fit ourselves into
all kinds of vessels. sometimes i would
sit on the windowsill in my dorm room
& just let the headlights 
of cars on main street bathe me.
i decided not to give myself a shot that night.
instead, let the light pass through
my three little testosterone snow globes. 
recently my lover asked me,
"why don't you switch to the gel?"
suggesting that maybe i could
stop taking injections. i felt sad
& insisted i did not want to stop.
it's hard to let myself 
find anything beautiful because 
it is always too late. i want 
to save my life 3 milliliters 
at a time. do not tell me there are
easier ways to be alive. i want the ritual. 
the alchemy. another election ad
pops up on my youtube video 
& says, "trans gender ideology." 
it is so bad right now that you have
to laugh. i am so afraid to tell you
what i think is beautiful. 

workhouse/horse 

you asked me if i ever stop.
it was midnight & i was trying
to write another version of us into existence.
one where we lived in a snow globe
& both got rich off ideas.
our apartment lost windows
every week. i tried to keep them open.
stacked books in their mouths. 
i went down to the train station just to breathe.
the pigeons would say,
"you are no longer in love."
i begged them to stop. i told them,
"i am not ready."
we had one key which lived
in our mouths. taking turns
reaching for the teeth. 
on weekends we stopped laughing.
stopped taking the train into 
the graveyard. hungers that turned
into needs. please make me into a kite.
please do not read my texts.
let me keep my secrets & you can
keep yours. the windowless 
apartment where everything that entered
became trapped. trapped knees.
trapped dogs. trapped horns. 
once, i tried to scale the walls
of the hallway. my foot went through
the drywall & on the other side
i found thousands of photographs.
they were all of us. i stuffed them back
inside, urgent & terrified.
i thought i could work enough
to make something new. that miraculously
the eyes would open again 
& light would turn us into ivy. 
instead, i lit a candle. saw your face
tangerine. you asked me again,
"do you ever stop?" 

what do i look like?

i rub the mirror raw
until there is only water.
in the mailbox, there is nothing
but screaming. i put my ears
in the wood stove
& listen to the red horse.
sometimes i see myself in pictures
& i am convinced it is an actor
who has been hired to play me.
not even a very good look alike.
on tiktok i watched 
a hallucination simulation. 
i thought, "mine are usually better."
of all the utensils i think
it's safe to say i most closely resemble
a spoon. vessel garden 
where we pot our hands
in the hopes of oak trees.
the raven says, "lower taxes"
& i am naive because i try to ask
follow-up questions like,
"will you actually help us?" 
i already know the answer is
"no & i am going to eat your arm."
it is best to duct tape saviors 
& put them on the moon. 
corvids are the best kind of radio.
a blue asks me, "whose land 
was stolen today?" i try to make a list
but the list turns into a snake
& escape between the rocks.
my life feels like a handful
of salt. i touch a grain to my tongue. 
stop showing up 
in movies as an extra. instead,
i find my eyes always in bowls
of soup. i can see too much 
& i don't sleep. 

blue bath towel

in the death box, i always used
the same towel to dry my body.
steam on the bathroom mirror.
i never wiped it off
instead thrived in the blur-pastel portrait
it left of me. it is not possible 
to find yourself. or, at least, i never was
very good at it. i went to the city 
of hungry souls. walked down 
avenue of the americas like i was 
not just a girl in a little blue towel
from target.  
upstairs the neighbor made
his horror mash. shoes throw
at the floor. my blood grew windows.
from them i could see all of my lives.
each of them on fire. i called home
only one holidays. i would say,
"i am so big." meanwhile i pinched
grains of salt. let them dissolve on my tongue.
the towel hung on the back 
of the bathroom door. often grew wings.
once, i had to catch it as if tried
to escape out to front door.
it is an emergency when you notice
even all the objects trying to leave you.
i begged the towel,
"please, you can be so warm."
it was true, though mostly
i left her mildew ridden & damp. 
sometimes, the day after i did the wash,
i would find her breathing.
i fed her thimbles of diet coke
& sometimes a jolly rancher or two. 
the not-sugar & the sugar. i like to think
maybe we were either side
of a buried stone. i still remember one night
when i laid in bed for hours 
wrapped like a fresh corpse in the towel.
i was trying to think my way out
of a night. find the pastel world 
where there was nothing more 
than stories about faces. 

company

all week i walked to the graveyard
without a nose. my legs had given up 
on being real. all the ghosts were
watching the shopping channel 
& buying useless kitchen toys. 
i would sit with them. it was sophomore year
& i survived between breaks by cat-sitting.
stayed at the window house 
where i pretended to be someone else's child.
the vacant bedrooms. in the yard 
bamboo that could not stop talking
about "the big city." we all have dreams
just some of our dreams are punishments.
i loved to eat at the end of the long dining room table.
you could tell she liked to entertain.
so many plates. all my faces reflected in them.
i slept on the sofa in the front room
by the fake fireplace. the graveyard got closer
every day i was there until there were
headstones in the front yard.
i worried aloud, "what am i going to do 
with you?" the cats stared out
at the new dead garden. i put a finger
to my lips & begged them, "do not tell
your mother." cats are, if nothing else,
enamored with secrets. i never wanted
to leave. i only regret not having the ghosts
in for dinner one night. we could have played
cootie catchers & confessed all the ways
we have died. when i left, their packages came. 
brownie pans & knives. i buried each
to the spirits' delight. by the time she returned
the cats were walking on their people legs
but, to my relief, the graveyard was gone.
i still miss them sometimes. the obelisks 
& the smoothed face stones. late october sun. 
a chill that never leaves my teeth. 

texas roadhouse 

this is how i like to remember you
even though you are not dead.
it was between lunch & dinner
& we were the only ones 
in the texas roadhouse off old 222.
we are far from texas 
in our pennsylvania weeds. 
an uncle & his nephews: me & my brother.
our server's name was "paisley"
& that prompted you to teach me
what the pattern looked like.
you drew it on a napkin & i thought,
"centipede wedding." we ate ribs.
you are not dead but now you stand
in the driveway with a flag in your mouth. 
i haven't talked to you 
in years. sometimes when i visit home
you are still eating those ribs. 
wiping the barbeque sauce on a nice shirt.
it looks like old blood. we ordered
a chocolate lava cake to share
between the three of us. you still call me
my old name. in those moments 
we trade places. i am the undead one. 
truthfully i'm not sure who is dead anymore.
the hot chocolate poured from
a wound in the cake. i licked my fingers.
you laughed. my brother used his fork
to plunder the whipped cream.
everything was easy & none of us had
to have a gender. in the dark you watch
your horror videos. all the tongues
like ribs. a paisley pattern knit across
the screen. i don't know how or why
you changed or if you always wanted
to be this angry. i don't eat meat anymore.
the texas roadhouse is closed & replaced
with a raising canes. my blood turns 
to lava when i see you. i look for a wound.
pouring out on a white plate. not enough time. 
let's not pretend anymore. let's be dead
or not. tell me, do you remember 
that afternoon too? will you come 
& draw me paisley on a brown napkin again?
i just want something to keep. 

blown egg

i break the shell with my own makeshift
egg tooth: a bent leg fork. 
have you ever had someone
put their lips to your ear
& blow? i have felt all my yolk 
mix with my veil. a bleeding daylight.
washing my hands over
& over in the bathroom. i counted down
from one hundred while he did
his blender speaking. i walked with him
as far as the land knew how to carry us.
we grew children beneath the dirt.
already roots. ghost carrots & leeks.
the shell, like a windchime house.
never enough light
to see the moon's evil twin. i try
so many times to tell him
what he is doing to me & instead
all that comes out is guts. my guts.
he strokes my head. braids my hair
& chops it off with a butcher knife.
eats it. fish tail. frog house.
i am trying to find someone to believe me
when i say there was a little chicken
in my head once. i loved him & now 
all his gold is in the sink & my lover
is promising me i have always been 
this hollow. he carries the feathers
of a million birds to my door.
knocks until the house comes apart.
this is why i empty every egg i find.
lips to the skull. blowing until
i see fairy dust in my vision. 
close one eye & peer through the hole.
it gives me a tiny motion picture.
there is a boy but he is just
an outline. there is nothing at all inside
but a flock of lips. they mutter,
each a fresh instruction.
i crush the egg in my hands only once
it is vacant. it feels like cracking open
my own skull. i had hoped 
something, anything, would escape. 
he makes the world's biggest omelet
& i watch him devour each bite. 

benches 

during the year we died five times
i watched the benches turn
into horses. they always wanted
more than just the apple core.
i started to bring dates & honey. ankles
& a hooved moon. i went there
to sit with my bouquet of teeth 
& my heaven pill bottle. the tourists came
& took pictures of the sky.
the sky covered her face & bruised.
sometimes a hand would emerge
& puppet talk until i acknowledged him/her.
if not for my spearmint bush
we would have all starved. my green guts
& my green face. i put the dogs in my lap.
they turned ragdoll & then into papayas.
my mom would call & ask, "what does it feel like
being dead?" i would shrug. 
describe the smell of centipedes.
i invited a date once & she only talked
about wanted to fly an airplane. i bought her
one & she wept. she said, "why would
you do this to me?" i know i have
honeymoon tendencies. nectar
from the faucet. bridle on the bench.
my favorite thing to do was to sit
with dead men. they told me
to try on their clothes. fashion shows
for the morning tangerine. a mountain god.
i helped roll them into little balls
of lint. the dryer caught fire
but i kept using it. turned each dress
into ash until my skin was bare.
the dead men bent down. begged to be
new benches. i explained, "that is not
how to die." so, i showed them.
you start with the hands. left & then right.
down your throat. then, you close your eyes
until they turn into pearl in their sockets.
the rest comes easy. the breading
& the frying. the cold bench back.
the headlights carving pumpkins
in my skulls.