nestlings

as kids, our father told us if we could catch a bird
we could keep it as a pet. 
this is exactly how i feel about gender.
like running in the meadow by the corn fields
chasing after crows & doves. my brother calls me
to tell me he is stitching back on his face.
lately we talk about girls on the phone just about
every single day. i want to tell him,
"have you considered that you might be
chasing birds?" instead, i listen. he talks about
letting his lungs turn into moth nests.
all the wings coming from his mouth.
he buys a flower bag. he talks about wanting
to paint his nails. he tells a girl he likes her & she does not
return the feeling. i am driving on the highway
with the phone on speaker. at a stoplight,
i notice the telephone wires are covered with birds.
all kinds of birds. herons & ostriches &
cardinals & plovers. some of those birds i know
don't belong up there. feathers fall.
he says he does not know what to do with
his hands anymore. i get home. i do not want
to let him go. i consider reminding him
what it was like to try & catch a bird.
there was once when we found one robin too young
to really get off the ground. we could 
have grabbed him. bald patches. tufts of down.
instead, we stopped & witnessed. he finally managed
to get into the air & back up into the tree.
i don't know what kind of birds we are anymore.
i want to tell him there are never 
enough hands to answer this. still, we are all
running. we always think we're closer than we are. 

arches in woods

i showed you my favorite portal
& then you went without me. 
kissed the daisy witch on all her fingers. 
the portal is where the deer come & go
with their mouths full of bells.
once, we passed through the archway
& all the fairies came to us,
asking for our eyes. i gave them mine
so you could keep yours. you wept
& said, "it is so beautiful."
i could not see what you did
but everything was velvet. everything smelled
like rose perfume. 
there are not enough poems about 
losing someone not to death
but to time. how our bodies 
come to ask different questions like
"do you hear the knocking
at the door?" instead of,
"do you want to eat all the gold
we have?" i was raised to believe
money will always run out. 
i have only known this to be true.
i spent a whole afternoon trying
to get the portal back. the woods
had shifted. no more archway
where there once was one.
that is the thing about a threshold,
it is always moving. the point where
hunger turns to need & need turns
to avalanche. calling you 
& getting your voicemail. i say,
"can you help me find it?"
you do not call me back. 
i try to build my own but it isn't
the same. you cannot make your portal
as much as they try to tell you 
that you can. the fairies are laughing.
few people know that they do not
feel hunger. that is what separates them
from humans. instead, they only feel
delight. seeking the syrup. 
i can see exactly what they did 
with that pair of eyes i gave. often i'll blink
& i'll be staring up from the dirt. 
there you are with your hands full
of buttercups. you came even when
i did not think you would. 
a portal where your mouth should be.
i say, "is it for me?" which is such
a selfish way to ask, "do you want 
to still be in love or should we 
take all the doors off their hinges?" 
i want to know what you saw 
when i wasn't there. if the deer told you
they were leaving. if you came back
with any kind of perfect trinket.
even just a sliver of pear. a thimble of nectar.
a spool of red thread. promise me
i was there too. we can give each other
a false memory. tell me,
"you were there too 
when the portal closed." 

satanism or a love poem 

i don't know how to use a shoe
to breathe. i kick down the door.
wield a hammer to knock a hole in the ceiling.
"i can't wait for vacation," i say again.
there is no vacation, i just am going 
to lay down on the roof & hope to see
a passing angel. if i see one i'm going to catch him
with a butterfly net & make him give me
a little miracle. i know they aren't wishing creatures.
everything holy is something taken.
i'll get us gold chalices to drink
our diet coke from or maybe just
a telephone i can pick up & complain
to the universe. satan sometimes delivers our mail.
other times he is just sitting upstairs 
with the cats. tonight we argued until
all the windows opened themselves.
i don't know if you know me & that is
terrifying. i put a zucchini out for the hounds to feast 
on something other than blood.
i think we should take our eyes out
& roll them in sugar. i think we should 
try kissing in the dark. i always wanted
to be a stranger. i don't worship satan.
that is a huge misconception. i just buy him bagels
& sometimes we talk about sadness.
he is depressed most of the time.
i hate when someone asks me, "why?"
isn't the television enough to make you
want to become a basement?
he says, "you are not yourself."
i don't know if he means i am acting off
or if i am metaphysically changed. 
i bring him old magazines. he brushes his teeth.
i ask him, "will you promise
not to tell anyone i talk to you?"
how many times has someone else
asked that of me? i want to take it back but
he puts up a hand. he says, "of course. 
that is what i do." i leave him all the dead flies
i can find. he eats them like raisins. 
this is all to say i want you back.
i know i know, i am not saying it well.
i like to think there are old ghosts of us
still slow dancing in the kitchen.
i got this angel just for you. i think he has
at least one miracle left in him
before he starts to bite. tell me love,
what are you craving?

6:36 train to penn station

i carried my eyes in my hands.
shook them like eight balls. 
asking, "do i glow yet?"
everyone became pigeons on the platform.
flocks on the train station's roof.
their iridescent wings flashing signals
to the oldest gods of the island.
you can work so much 
you forget you have a body. i craved
its erasure. ghosts i swept from the stairwell
to our dangling apartment above
the flower shop. the worst thing you can do
is try to plan for the future.
maybe that is just because we are 
the precarity class though. the next week people. 
i open my bank account & consider praying.
pretend i am on my way to something
other than an internship. you can convince yourself
you are close to a break. a moment where
money will not feel like air.  
the blue-purple of the morning
always spreads like a bruise. i miss a person
i think i used to be. i keep pictures 
beneath my tongue. the trash cans
overflow with fingers & wedding rings.
when the train comes, there is a boy
who always takes a picture. he is flushed.
maybe from delight. maybe from horror.
i want to see the album of trains.
each morning, the lirr arrives with all 
its monsters. i let it eat me.
i tell the beast, "spit me out 
when it's all over" & i am not yet sure
what i mean. try for a window seat 
& if not, stand in the flock. 
flash my feathers in the syrupy dawn.
push my eyes into my skull
one at a time. 

the tegan & sara poster on your bedroom wall

it was so easy to not be myself with you.
dusk in the city. my teeth falling out
& turning into christmas lights.
i strung them up & helped you hang them
on your wall. your cat batted at them
while i watched you play video games.
there was a tree on your block
wrapped with yarn & bells. she liked to tell me,
"you seem lost." i would plug my ears & lie, saying,
"i am home." to me home is wherever i am
currently gutting myself. 
sometimes i wonder if you ever felt the same.
if maybe you got to be someone else with me.
i know you'd just left your ex. 
some of her stuff was still on a shelf
in your bedroom. that afternoon i thought
you wanted to sleep with me but instead
we napped until our eyes were hard boiled 
& heavy. i looked up to see your tegan & sara poster
right above your bed. i asked, 
"do you still listen to them?" 
"no," you admitted. "my ex & i liked to see
their shows. the poster is hers."
i thought about how in my dorm room
i used some posters just to take up space.
how a portal is a portal even if it goes
in the direction you don't want it to. 
you said, "i'm still tired" & you closed your eyes.
i was wide awake. i tried to just appreciate 
the quite. my restless teeth gleaming
on the walls, knitting shadows throughout
the room. i think that was the last time
we were close to each other.
when we finally got up, we ate bagels 
standing at your kitchen counter. 
cream cheese. paper plates. the hungry tree
on your street. a cracked window & april air. 

instructions on finding a place to scream &/or being a sibling

you tell me, "get the pilot"
though we are not on a plane
& the sky is full of bison teeth. 
once, as children, i thought i could
run away. i told only you.
i packed a bag of pants.
you said, "don't become a dragon.
i need you." i stayed. 
there is a hole in the wall in our parents' house
that you made when you were angry.
we are a family of portals & lost stories.
sometimes i think we should be feeding the hole.
i drop in a ring. a pawpaw seed.
a single needle. the fissure is always
the hungriest part. i want to land
by which i mean i want to know
where we are. earlier this year
there was a small earthquake 
& books fell from all the shelves
in my house. you called me after
& said, "are you still alive?" you had been
in the woods & felt the ground tremble.
there are these little moments that
teach us urgency. 
each year is one year closer to me getting
a pilot license for us. i am told
it is a terrible process. it involves
an angel sacrifice & a pile of magazines.
waiting room after waiting room. i will fly us
to a waterfall. there we can scream 
& everyone will think it is just water.
don't you want to be just water?
i am only sorry for the times 
i woke you up in the middle of the night
to ask if you were still alive. you always blinked.
eyes like state quarters. you'd say, "what?"
& that was enough. 

bell tower

i tell you i am going to the grocery store
but i lie & instead i catch as many birds 
as i can. i fill the car. i sneak them inside.
fill the cupboards. i want to be hungry.
i want them to fill our mouths while we sleep
until we wake up cloud-bound. 
in my hometown the bell has always been fickle.
sometimes we'll go weeks with time being
thick & viscous & then out of the blue the tower
will remember who we are & it will start tolling
every fifteen minutes. birds come from miles around
to be my grandchildren. about a hundred years ago
i sat for a portrait with my whole family.
we were leaves. when the bell comes i always hope
it'll say something new like "congratulations"
instead of "maybe, maybe, maybe."
it's a shame i didn't go to the store
because we needed onions. we needed 
a sharper knife. we needed an attic for me
to keep all my teeth in. dear god if you could see
all the graves i've had to dig for birds.
a few times you've asked what they were
& i said i was just burying shoes. 
i want to get out of here. i want to have
enough birds to carry us & all our things
to a place without skin. we can go 
& be garland. sleep beneath beds &
cross our arms like the dead. they don't survive though.
most of them beg to go back
to their mountains & their bells. the bells
become rabid. every five minutes. every three minutes
every minute. i check again & the birds
were never birds. hole-riddled socks.
pillow cases. a walkie talkie with 
an angel on the other side. i forgot
about the garlic braided into our hair. 
you refuse to kiss me until i tell you 
where the dove came from. i confess
the truth. i found her inside my iris. 
i pulled her out in the hopes that she would
know what i am missing.  

the morning after trash day

i tell the remaining plastic bottles that
in hundreds of thousands of years
maybe we'll both learn again how to be soil.
i hope we are trees with eyes. i hope
all the black garbage bags go to sleep in the sun.
i hope it never stops raining. 
i pick candy wrappers 
from the pokeberry that grows
on the side of the highway. the plants say,
"can we breathe with you?" i do not agree
to accept their kindness.
sometimes i feel like i am already a spirit.
i tell them, "i am sorry but i do not have
a mouth."
ghost upon ghost. it is what i am made for.
slipping between one word & another. 
a need & a vessel. 
the garbage truck carries an aching belly.
i know what it's like. i have lived with
people i'm afraid of. i have bargained with
the window & said, "tomorrow we will carry
all of this to the hole in the earth."
i take landfill pilgrimages whenever i can.
the piles the trucks miss always leave
a trail you can follow to the wound. 
the deer love to walk there.
they search for bones & televisions.
i ask them to help me hop the fence
but they want to keep the festering
for themselves. every once in awhile
i'll join a feast. a coven of raccoons as they 
hold a ceremony over half-rotten vegetables.
the seeds ring like bells. one holds up their hands
& says, "grow into a revenge forest."
the gods are not coming. we are them 
& we are stumbling in a land 
of rashes & wood. the truck's headlights
cast my shadow as a running man
even though i am standing still 
picking up a diet coke can from the brush. 

10,000 dollar chair

we go into the beautiful store
to cosplay rich people.
it is one of our favorite games.
you put on your gloves.
i take out my teeth & resolve
not to smile. you know the place 
is expensive if there are 
no price tags. it is time to be afraid.
the store today only has one chair.
it wears a sign hung around its neck
that reads, "do not sit, do not ever sit."
i imagine a world where
for years i try to save up for this chair.
maybe it is a thousand dollars
or maybe it is ten thousand dollars.
i would not put on my costume. i would
walk in here & say "i'm here to sit."
why do i knit fantasies of revenge wealth?
i do not want a chair. i do not even want
a mouth full of rings. 
instead, i live the tombstone tooth life. 
ghosts play hide & seek in my mouth.
when we are done i return 
to an apartment of an apartment.
i go to my room & find the chair
waiting for me. i'm terrified. i close the door
to contain it. i don't know what
it would want from me. i am just
a boy of a girl or a girl of a boy 
(depending on who you ask).
i am just a body with your average 
millionaire day dreams. i tell myself
"if i had blank i would blank." 
i open the door a crack to peer in
at the chair. it is closer. an inch
from the crack in the door. i cry,
"what do you want?" 
everything, i assume. i think it wants
my everything. my hungers 
& my tomorrow doorbells. i call you
but you do not pick up. i wonder 
if it has already gotten you.
"i do not want to play the game again,"
i say on a voicemail. turn to see
the door to my room wide open.
the chair at the threshold trembling. 

arsonists 

we stick together. 
i found you because you were
burning sheet music on your roof. 
we fall in love as our people always do. 
eat pizza in gas station parking lots. 
take pictures walking the railroad tracks. 
all of this just so we could
bring what we want to burn
to your backyard.
calendars & teeth. a pair of eyes.
the sun & the moon move
like dolphins in the sky.
up & down. we stand still
as the world rushes cuckoo clock.
i've always thought your hands
were too soft to kill me.
i tell myself this
when, in the dark, 
their shadows bloomed so large
they could choke me. 
your smile turns
into ash. you bring 
your axe body spray & play
it in the flames. a tiny little explosion.
you say, "that is my head."
i see the fires in your throat. 
i never wanted to end up
so angry. so contained.
first in my body & then in yours. 
the only thing left is burning.
we have never found anything
in the ash but we take turns
convincing each other that we will.
sometimes when we kiss
we find apricots. they're always
not quite ripe. you pull out 
your own hair to keep the fire going.
i do the same. this can't go on 
much longer, can it? 
one of us has to make the move
to add the other to the flames.
i know you will make 
the first move. when you do
do not treat me like kindling.
look at me & try to remember
the green lighter we found on the park bench,
how a fire always begins
with a soft but weighty hunger.
you cannot have a fire 
without a witness.