stomach death

i make all my mirrors from ice cream.
sticky & melting. i lick my hands clean. 
i am the zoo where the animals stand & stare outwards.
dear god i have done everything
to replace my stomach. i have tried
making a drum & filling it with teeth.
i have tried a great boiling pot
& even a feather pillow. if all my hunger
could have legs it would run towards
the interstate. i put my tongue on a leash
& walk it down to the creek to drink. it refuses.
instead, it screams in the language of fire.
in my stomach, a ferris wheel eats 
every child who approaches. haven't you ever
gone on a rampage towards your body? i've taken
scissors. cut off limbs. removed organs 
like furniture. in my bedroom there is
no bed. just a hole in the floor
& a sign that says, "don't fall."
when i suck my stomach in, i always pretend 
i am an alchemist. that i can transform myself
into the one & only blanket fort.
do not believe me if i tell you
i am a creamsicle. instead, take a spatula 
& flip me on my back. i am the halo
without the hole cut. a dinner plate
piled high with uncooked fish.
i want to love the body the way rain does.
the way it spills & drenches. i want to 
follow my throat not like a tomb 
but like a tunnel. on the other side
i am told there are geese. 

fog maker

i did not want to lose you.
the fog came like ice cream trucks.
like a knife without a father.
we were walking as if neither
of us had ever waded into a grave before.
did you mean to leave me
with all the skulls of the voles?
i wanted to hold on 
to whatever filament would
give us more light. the apartment
the size of a thumb. come my love
let us not be dangers to one another.
the fog poured from a wound
in the mountain's stomach.
he was always trying to eat.
i never meant to be a man. then,
there i was with all these hands
reaching in to turn me
into an organ. the notifications
on the apps where gutless people
would ask, "are you awake?"
i took a walk through town in the fog
in the hopes of running into you.
i mean the you where my eyes live
& the you i meant into a pine cone's teeth.
no one believes me when i tell them
there is no way out. they say,
"don't you have a shovel?" &
"don't you have a mother?" i ask you though
have you ever tried to find anything
in a world this thick? pureed moon.
a serving fork. i was hoping
the water would take me with it.
that you would wake up &
i would be what coated the grass.
what waited like jewels on 
your windows. i would let you wear me
as a ring if you came back 
& let me be my dead self. 

carnival apparatus 

that summer, i went to the carnivals alone.
everyone was dying 
like silverfish. you lived inside 
a telephone. i said, "when i die
will you please come & marry me?"
you spoke & the line cut out & i asked "what?"
too many times until i just had to give up.
sometimes you can feel someone else
slipping out of your orbit.
sand through fingers. colander 
of corkscrew pasta.  butter melting into silk. 
i went on a ferris wheel. just me. there was
not even an attendant. the ferris wheel 
looked out over the whole county.
trees & little wounds where there once
were coal mines & the rail roads 
crisscrossing the land like stitches. 
i find myself wondering often
about what was removed; from myself
& from the land & from you.
i want to remember you in a crowded cafe
sitting across a tiny table from me. 
the carnival became everywhere
i needed it to be. in the grocery store.
in the woods where i always found dead deer.
you can build machines to keep yourself alive.
the carnivals saved me
& took me apart. once, on a summer night
where my blood had turned to sugar
i called you & you didn't pick up.
i was going to beg you to come 
watch the fireworks with me.
to be terrified is to know exactly
where the carnival is. 
survival is sometimes a process
of motion. the tilt-a-whirl. the scrambler.
vertebrae of neon. the summer always ends though.
there is always a skeleton
on the other side of the flesh. 
the ferris wheel always stopped
at the top for me. just myself & the old trees.
feet dangling above your mouth. 
call me back please my love.
tell me where you keep your carnivals. 
what you see when you look out
above everything. 

alternative uses for a golf course

a place to scream.
set up a carnival of dragonflies.
a fire where we burn our hair.
bury the jar of a nails.
cut your tongue off & pray it becomes
a whale. dig in the earth until
you find bones. cow bones
& fox bones & the bones of us
as snakes. a wedding. a funeral.
a first communion. we eat handfuls
of salt. a place to run & forget your legs.
a place to go to tell your lover,
"if we do not stop, i am going
to become a moth." plant butternut squash 
& tell them they can grow as huge
as they like. swallow dwarf planets.
take pictures of our eyes. use a measuring spoon
& scoop out bites of the sun.
feed each other noise. pray there
is another winter. pray this year
wasn't the last snow. a place to lay down
& have a meal of only eyelashes.
hole to plant knives & wait
for the knife tree to grow. a place
to hatch children & tell them,
"escape while you can." a place to 
hold your lover's hand & say,
"what else can we do?" there are
few things more painful than trying
& failing at tenderness. 
this is golf course terrain.
this is the little heart smacked across
the field. the cattail that used to grow.
the milkweed & the golden rod.
your hand brushing mine.
i say, "take me home."
a not-home. a zoo. a place to 
run away & hide from hunger. 
the site of a future weeping willow. 
your space ship. 
my baby tooth's coffin. 
burrow like a lost fist
turned into a toad. 

vial

the velvet lives like your old sofa.
like a cupcake with cream cheese icing
that you fed me as if i were
a stray dog. we were children 
in the ocean zoo. your blood
& mine like curtains blown open.
i stand with my mouth full
of who-know-what. the nurses ask me
if i am still there. this is a seance.
the blood draw, like a tiny offering
to the old angel. a request,
"let us be immortal as trees." 
snapping off a twig & finding 
the tree's own crimson. i find myself
the jewel thief in the doctor's office.
i could take just one vial 
of my own blood. still warm.
run away with it. wait for it
to turn into a garnet or
a salamander. what of yourself
have you lost to the color red? 
trowel in my mouth. the roses 
that refused to grow in the flower box
out our city window. dear god
it is as if i am shopping in the window
of my own skeleton. i miss it.
i miss everything about it. 
about the dress made of card board.
about pretending we were
boyfriends in the disco ball fury 
of a middle school dance. 
in the car afterwards i search my self
to be sure i didn't actually steal 
the blood. i did not. i am heartbroken,
wishing i was a wilder ghost. 

when i was a cam grl

we all have boys in our mouths
telling us exactly how
they wanted to be eaten.
hunger can turn you
inside out like
a salted slug. how do you learn
what you want versus what
they tell you that you want
versus the craving for licorice?
the way violets would grow 
on the ceiling when i was live.
live fishhook bound worms. live
like a wire burrowed in the wall.
sometimes a man would stay
for hours. i would wish
we were in my  bedroom
with each other so that i could
find a string on his fraying lips
& pull until he was nothing.
a coin is like a seed. 
come back to me. everything i learned
i learned from sirens.
the ships that crashed into 
my thighs. i never loved 
being a girl but there were moments
i could convince myself
that it was a pleasure 
to decide what kind of feast
i would be. i had to pull weeds
from the floor. from my bed.
from the ceiling. they grew wild
& angry. if the night was good
i would put on clothes
& go out to target after. 
walk like a bow & arrow. 
string drawn back. aiming at
pupils like bullseyes. 
"there is a cost to look," i would
want to tell strangers. then, of course,
there is a cost to being
looked at. sometimes though
i was a just my feet. it was wonderful
to walk as if there was not
a whole body following along.
drinking a root beer 
in the parking lot. wondering
if the men were thinking of me still
an hour after the live ended.
i hoped they were. i hoped
they were left as hungry as me. 

amateur 

there is a video of us as balloons.
necks tied in a knot. i tell you,
"give me some of your air."
on the television plays the jupiter version of
our lives. the one for photographs
& open mouths. then, in the basement
there is a cassette tape where the real
blood comes from. haven't you ever
taken a picture with the hope that
you would be able to replicate the moment
a thousand times? the stop motion prophecy.
i bend my around into a knot.
you kiss me like a trough of water.
we used to put the window in between
our teeth. the window looked at
the other building brick wall to brick wall.
face to face. the alley, a little flute.
in this video i ask you, "am i an apricot?"
you laugh & say i am not.
on a computer a god watches us
& tries to forget his hungry. tries
to turn it into a needle. the good times
are always a place of worship. 
if you look on the underside of my tongue
you will see the tally marks 
of nights i tried to turn into a cockroach.
scurried to the bathroom & thought,
"what the hell am i going to do?"
the phone still recording. the future
bedrooms like colonies of eyes 
waiting to feast on what my skin 
could say if i just kept going. 
it always ends with you letting go.
i never let go. untangled, you go
towards the clouds. a red balloon.
people will squint to stare up at you
& think, "whose birthday is it?"
or, "she must have it so good." 

in the dungeon with my mom

i take my mom to the old jail house.
i am trying to tell her i'm dead.
instead, we walk from room to room
& listen to the tour guide explain
that once this structure was a face.
people sat on teeth. men were hung
in the throat. the fence was made high
so no one could find out what
the outside world was crying about.
two-way mirrors. a juke box without
any music. the warden lived above
the cells. his house has curtains 
& smells like eyelashes. my mother 
& i have bad knees. we want to sit
but there is no where to sit. it is covid times
which is to say, it is when people
briefly worried about whether or not
they killed one another. we wore masks.
the face did or did not have eyes.
my mother hesitated before following
the tour guide
into the dungeon. there are no metaphors
to describe where the sun goes 
to molt. stone walls. choking words. 
i almost tell her. i almost say,
"your child has moved on & is now
just a collection of birds trying to do
the work of a child." instead, i hold
onto the hem of her shirt
as if i am a child. as if the darkness
is a burst pupil. the tour guide explains
how blood flowed down into the dungeon.
how, here, the ghosts nested
& ate what they could. knuckles 
& salamanders & spiders. 
briefly, the tour guide turned off
the light. the deepest dark
i've ever seen. i loved it. i imagined
spending the rest of my life
in that shadow. knowing one another
only by touch & question,
"is that you?" this is what 
my mother asks, "is that you?" 

two-way mirror

i took a knife to my tongue
& split it down the middle.
let one side turn into a snake.
i whispered, "go somewhere to tell the truth."
it is hard to speak with half a tongue.
who is watching & who is being watched.
to explain my selfhood is to ask,
"do you have a sock puppet theater?"
i make my hand talk for me
& it says, "keep your head under the veil."
when i first learned the term "fawn response"
i though of the forest where i would go
to whittle limbs off myself.
i would tell a boy without eyes,
"take this" & "take this." he called me,
"farmer's market." used my ribs as fresh moons.
have you ever tried to say what you mean
& felt the words each fall as rats?
scurrying away, i plead with them,
"i need you." they are too hungry. 
they do not need me. i watch myself
through the two-way mirror. she is 
trying anything she can to remove
what's left of her tongue. thinks of
the silent monks & wonders if
all their words are flowing into the ground water.
the well where i sometimes go
to find a ready supply of spiders
to pray to. what would you do 
if no one at all was watching? i think 
i would scream & then i would turn
into a lady bug & eat a hole through
the walls of my childhood home.
then, finally, return to the snake.
ask her, "what have you wanted to say?" 
kneeling down & putting my hear
to her mouth, waiting for a homily.
instead, she will bite as if to remind me,
"if it is too late. it is not the truth." 

upon learning presidents of the united states travel with bags of their blood type at all times

don't tell me you are afraid. don't tell me 
we have buried our kings in the ocean. 
outside my apartment 
an angel was drive-by shot.
turned into a flock of mice.
they put a chalk halo around his body.
for weeks it remained until the first
summer downpour said, "you are emptied."
a ghost does not need blood. 
i do not live in a country.
there is no such thing. instead, i live
inside a series of broken promises.
the promises we make to the soil.
to our bodies. to the signs that mark 
state lines. i play jump rope with 
a dead boy. he says his blood lives
in the asphalt. he says when the weeds grow
they know his language. flourish
when his favorite song plays from the window
of a car going way too fast. 
i do not want my blood 
to ever go inside a man who puppets an empire
or else an empire who puppets a man.  
feed me to the spirits if you must.
let the tree drink me. draw a halo.
give the boy my river. let him walk again
with his hands in his pocket
& his mouth full of rain.