butterfly release party

i don't want to pantomime liberation.
we wore silk gloves to capture
pairs of lips in the meadow.
their talk of revolution & corn preaching.  
whispered to them, "soon. soon."
waiting in line for a chalk bathroom.
i cross my legs. i eat a donut.
i punch my brother in face when he says,
"i can't do it anymore." i say,
"that's not what we say while
our father is watching." it's wild how
sometimes you can open your mouth
& the world can talk through you.
sometimes in beautiful ways & sometimes
in terrifying ones. i have never wanted
to be a seer. instead, i crave the life
of the wedding planner. his clementine heart.
a finger beneath the peel. as we let them go
i wonder what they will say about us
to the hibiscus & the pine tree. i know
for sure the butterflies will not say,
"they were so merciful." instead, they will
talk about television & ritual. 
one human woman weeps as she opens the cage.
she says, "i want that to be me."
she doesn't know what she's asking for.
new promise. new door. same fear.
fly for them. trace the continent & return.
they will capture you & say,
"i am god." they will capture you & let you go
& say, "aren't i so gentle?"
worst of all, they might weep with you.
pluck your violets & say, "we will bear this together."
then, they will leave & you will be
a metaphor & they will be race car drivers
or police men. i tell the butterflies 
"i am sorry" as they should, i do not think
they accept my apologies. 

kerosene lamp 

i sleep with all the lights on. 
i want wandering spirits
to stop here & eat their powdered donuts.
talk about fireflies & the death of mountains.
did you know there were once glaciers here?
they had their own gods & their own afterlife
which is now just a billboard zoo.
when i say, "beacon" i mean
a fire set in the middle of a static storm.
i mean there are pillows full of salamanders 
& blankets made of wood. i mean oil
pours from my mouth & into the lamp
to feed the sun. i mean my oil comes
from my ancient laughter. it does not require
the destruction of microwaves or 
resignation of a whole field of wheat.
it especially does not require weeping. 
all it requires is running from the big snake.
dodging the moose at the end
of the earth. i keep the lamp going.
i write my life story like a ransom note.
collage of "help" & "hurry."
when the spirits come i do not ask
"where are you from?" or even 
"what brought you here?" i ask,
"how would you like to feast?"
& then, i feed them everything i can. 

orchestra of sand dollars

all the toll roads have teeth
that bite off our tails. i am trying
to reach a destination. no more 
jupiter jelly. no more tear ducts 
to crawl up into. we fight for weeks,
trying to kill all the rats in the yard.
instead, the flood comes & we become
beach front property. the rats
are our landlords. it's only fair
after we fed them borax. i have
a shovel i use to deep the scarlet.
you tell my not to bother. i bother.
i always bother. my heart is covered
with gnats. is a banana peel. 
the last day for money was monday 
& now we will have to trade
whatever we have left. i have an orchestra
of sand dollars i don't tell anyone about.
i am filthy rich. i keep them in the attic.
there i crouch & ask them to play me
beethoven. they ask, "which one?"
i say, "surpirse me." instead, they play
beatles music which always makes me think
of my father. i do not want
to be rich. i want to be less hungry.
i want to have a fish hook that's sticky enough
to catch a comet. instead, we dangle our feet
off the side of the porch. whistle at sharks.
"i wish i had a sand dollar" my friend says.
i hide my face. they are mine. they are
all mine. a shark delivers the mail.
it's all junk. one card looks like
a genuine holiday card but it's just
my dentist announcing, "we buy teeth for cash." 
the sand dollars are humming. fluttering
like moth wings. like mother mother nature.
there is in the end no where to spend them. 
the television says our names. come when
you are called. we go to watch 
another sing-along funeral. 

milking the snake

if you want to be venomous
i have a beautiful gold leaf life for you.
i spend at least half of my day
taking care of the snakes. most people
would not know that i have
several hundred of them living
right here in my house. i used
to name them but eventually 
it just got to be too much. i catch men
to feed to the snakes. did i say men?
i meant mice. aren't mice a lot
like men though? aren't i a lot like men?
aren't i a lot like a mouse? i run 
from shadow to shadow. i eat 
with my hands. i skirt along the wall.
first thing in the morning i milk 
the snakes as if they were cows. 
save the venom. drink some 
in the hopes of becoming a fire escape.
i have had my hair catch fire
during this process. the fangs 
plunged into the cup. i squeeze 
gently behind the head. all my snakes 
would bite if given the chance. they all
do not want to be my snakes. 
i try to be kind to them. they traveled
all the way here from a manic island
just to keep me company. once, a lover
found me holding a snake. he said,
"i thought you loved me."
i said, "i do" but he had already
talked to the snake telepathically.
he had already decided i had lied to him.
in the end, i had. i told him
that the snakes were just a religion.
he didn't know they were there
living in the walls & the ceiling. 
waiting for me to extract the ancient
from their skulls. it is hard to store
this much venom. that is why i drink it.
slowly so as to not cause a jupiter. 
a little off the top. like a sleeping cream.
my blood strings up christmas lights.
"what are you doing?" my mother asks
& it is the first time someone has
ever seen me with a snake. i am in
my childhood bedroom. i eat
the whole thing. snake skeleton 
& all. i say, "nothing at all." 

plastic dinner

we eat the perfect turkey leg.
the perfect corn & perfect brownie.
everything is the size of a starvation.
kneeling in the kitchen. i used to 
taste everything. bit the neck
of an ice cream cone & drank out
the innards. now the popcorn tells us
we are supposed to chew neatly. we need
to maintain calm. hunger is a place
where we lay down our faces. where
we all turn into chickens. where we run
wild & chaos-ridden. i open a cupboard
& see a television there. a commercial for
the one & only plastic dinner. it's what
we ate last night & the night before.
it arrives on a tray delivered by 
a pig. it is up for debate whether or not
the pig is plastic. he always says,"i'm sorry."
when i used to eat animals i would 
apologize too. i would say, "in the next life
please feast on me." chewing is
the hardest part. gnashing plastic.
chunks stuck between teeth. the commercial says
"you can save the world with what
you buy." there is only one thing to buy. 
this makes salvation the easiest it's ever been
in all of history. i do not need 
an escort. i do not need a grandmother.
i need a fork & knife. i need a pig 
full of hard candy. tell me, when was
the last time you felt full. i went out
into the static yard. found my secret
patch of dirt & swallowed as much soil
as i could manage. a potato grew inside me.
i told no one. could not bring myself
to remove it. my own private child.
my little root. any day i could remove it
& we could roast it over a burning television.
add a little taste to make our skulls ring.

pet snake

would you like to see my pet snake?
he has so many concert tickets 
& so many flashy hard drives. a perfume
meant to mimic the scent of maria antonieta.
a handbag made of his own skin.
would you like to talk to my pet snake?
he speaks only in bitcoin. he has a gramophone 
where he plays records of past gods
as they talk about gold. when i say i have
a pet snake you know what i mean. i mean 
i have something dangerous. i mean i have
something that will eat the softness 
from the soles of your feet. i mean i have
an apple salesperson. i mean there is a ceiling
without a ceiling in my house. a collection
of pigeons looking down & waiting
for the right moment where the coast is clear
& it is safe to watch a children's tv show
without any shame. what was the last joy
you partook in without any shame?
mine was eating a bowl of whipped cream
in the kitchen. my pet snake watched
but at least it was delicious. at least there wasn't
anyone to blame but myself.
i take my pet snake to the abandoned
blockbuster on hamilton street. he wants
to talk to the carpet. would you like
to pray to my snake? he only requires 
an offering of 15.99 a month. if you sign up now
though you'll get the first month 
of prayer free. i used to ask for snow
but now i ask for a waterfall. something
to fall over. something to deliver me
where there are no more answers.
the questions come like mice. urgent
& hungry. i feed them to my pet snake.
to each he says, "soon." "soon." "soon." 

doll house fire

o miniature catastrophe.
let's save the dog. let's save the dog.
let's save the plastic cake & the plastic
lemonade. i had a matchstick voice
& i always tried to keep it under control.
so much can burn & then you zoom back
& there is a soup commercial. there is
a pine nut. there is a boy punching
another boy over grape flavor.
i watch on my iphone as a genocide 
becomes an ad for flip flops & 
then the capitalism angels know
my eyes like to feast on blood. tell me
"here is a product that will save
the world." i put my teeth in a shadow box.
point to it when guests arrive & say,
"once i had a mouth." once i was a bull horn
or a bugle or a budding broken plate.
dear god does anyone have a cloud?
i just want to put out the ashes. i just want
to put the rocking horse to sleep.
there are memories inside my memories.
there are ghosts that dress in doll clothes.
a paper moon that we have
to be so careful with. who is your
fragile keeper? i have a mammoth who visits
at the back door of the house.
he opens his mouth. i place my eyes 
into that wet darkness. i tell him,
"run as far away as you can." the doll house
is as big as it feels. sometimes just
a scorch on the rug. sometimes i am walking
in the rubble. dear human, i am sorry.
dear human where am i & where are you? 
why were we not holding each other
in the rocking chair by the plastic fireplace? 

safe search

i took my eel for a walk & that was the end.
all i could see were horror windows
& adds for single men 100ft away.
the internet has a plastic mouth. i put 
training wheels on my eyes. tried to watch
my same monster videos & they were
blocked, replaced with video 
of everyday disaster like froot loops.
the eel died from lack of water & i used 
his body as an ethernet cable. refreshing my life.
a loading ball is the holy spirit 
or else my hunger. i wanted a way 
to scratch the itch of being human
without touching fork to outlet.
i see a video of a woman with no eyes.
instead of eyes she has turn signals.
stop sign without legs. the eel is not really dead
he is just dormant. loading. leaking.
i wrap the cord around my wrist
so i can't lose the desktop. the whole family
uses this oracle so we get mixed messages.
leave the guts alone. fire a cannon
into the ceiling. pray to your pasta.
i used to believe in safety. i used to 
put caution tape around my playground.
the eel says, "don't try to be dangerous
& you will not be dangerous."
he is a victim blamer, but aren't we all
on a tuesday? now i know that safety 
is something taken but never given.
here is the safe search. here are only
the vanilla ice cream felonies. 
aren't they soft? aren't they sweet?
security footage of the ocean. the eel told me,
"i have seen enough." he pulled the plug.
went back to being a worm. 
dug himself deep into the fresh earth. 

butter handcuffs 

they tell you that you can walk out of 
the sea of bottle caps & teeth
any time you want. then, there is 
the loaf of bread your mother baked
& expects you to eat. then there is 
the threat of turning into a pie crust.
butter stains on lips. a melted moon.
bone broth. broken rib. 
a shackle is a nexus of decisions.
it is wrong though to think those decisions
are of those wearing them. instead 
i become a site of other people's choices.
i can hear their thoughts aloud:
do i want to be a god? do i want to be
a gender? am i hungry to make a spoonful
of this little skeleton? what a lovely sculpture
or else a knife rest stop. sometimes a light bulb
will turn on so yellow that we all
taste like the butter around our wrists.
softness can be mistaken for mercy.
mercy can be mistaken for divinity.
we eat the bread like good girls. remove
our ribs. rooting the adam out of the body
will take more than this gesture.
"will you help let me free?" i ask what i think
is a person but become a bus stop. 
why is it so hard to conspire?
i thought we were supposed to be
the most mutinous species. 

see through

i went outside to get punched
by my own sense of urgency.
we're going to be late to the funeral. we're going
to forget to be a cardinal.
all the flowers i plant grow see through.
little ghosts. i hand out pots with dirt
& i am promising you that there is
an african violet present. sometimes
on my worst nights my whole body
turns see through. there's nothing left
for me to hide behind. everyone can see
the television there. static. cirucs.
a pair of his muddy shoes. steal toe boots.
have you ever asked the cards 
for help & got the fool over & over.
that is me with my arms stretched out
to the wingspan of a fallen goose.
one i bit an egg & it turned out to be an apple.
the truth is too though that i want
people to see my guts. here is exactly
what it feels like to go on my rollercoaster.
here is where i keep my teeth when they fall out. here is
a chariot made of snakes. it's the only way
i can ride back to my head when i'm in my body.
disposal cameras are on every surface
of my house. i tell guests. "can you please
take a picture of me." i haven't developed
any of them but one day i will bring
a whole garbage bag. i will sit there
are the photo technician works 
& then i will have hundreds of photos 
of my funhouse. my fragments.
finally, everything tangible. glorious evidence.