do you still like to eat black & white cookies?

all summer i buy you black & white cookies.
the house is humid so they live 
in the freezer. i want to try one
but don't. i imagine they taste
like newspaper & dominos. 
growing up my brother & i had a set of dominos. 
we didn't know how to play with them
so, we'd just line them up across the floor
to be knocked over. i'm imagining 
dominoes on your tongue. 
everytime i see the cookies 
i think of thick butterflies--
the cookies creasing down the middle
& flying out the window. 
has this ever happenned? you would tell me?
this summer is wide like that. 
like moths made of dough. i told you 
one night i wanted to sleep
through august & i meant it. 
i don't know why but i thought 
of us on either side of a black/white cookie.
i'm sleeping in the dark & you're bright & awake.
the dark is beautiful & hungry.
i am beautiful & hungry all through the heat.
how long can i live without a window 
in my bed room? 
i don't watch you eat the cookies because
that would be rude but i imagine
the crumbs on the counter & you wiping them away. 
whenever someone tells me they like a food 
i buy it over & over
until they're no longer hungry for it.
this is how i love you, i know,
& i am sorry. my dad likes spearmint leaves
& twizzlers. my mom likes apricot scones.
my brother likes necco wafers &
candied dates. i don't have a food like that.
i eat moths when the chance arises.
i have been known to suck on street lamps.
you don't know any of this because
love for me means i crease myself down the middle.
this side is for you to know
& this side is for me to walk barefoot in.
maybe we all need our darknesses.
in the summer, night is rare & precious.
the sun is loud & intrudes on every conversation.
i try to eat lunch outside somedays 
in the shadow of a building. 
i always melt in the light
& i think of the cookies so safe in the freezer.
one on top of another. they dwindle.
a layer of icing. half-moon faces
peering skyward. do you still crave
black & white cookies?
i crave their symmetry. 
the contrast. meeting in the middle. 
they flip like each day. they will burn out
like every moon does. which side do you 
eat first? or do you eat 
both at the same time?

a fear of horses

coffee cuts me open like a zipper.
i take off the skin. 
thank god, there is my day.
i'm swallowing to keep the tunnel.
here is me & my body is other there in a pink fog,
i hope he's dancing. i only dance alone
where no one else can see me. 
of course, god is always watching, 
but i can ignore him.
headphones were invented for people who make 
row-homes of their heads. 
i've never understood how poets can write about horses.
i'm terrified of them. 
i'm full of folded butterflies & the butterflies
are afraid of being trampled. 
i want to move towards a great horse. 
hoves like the stones 
we'd harvest alongside the busy road.
the road will take you all the way 
to where the cloud animals graze on glass.
a cloud never looks like a horse.
ripe stones ready to be steeped for tea.
i can't get myself to drink tea. 
i've tried many times to be peaceful 
but i favor the constant buzzing. 
be quiet & close your eyes & you'll hear it.
that's the gossip of light.
it's talking about how humans are  
so very fragile. so fragile they 
try to be immortal more than any other animal
beside possibly horses.
horses could run across a ceiling if we let them.
not in my house. 
we raised chickens once & one of them died--
turning instantly into a cloud.
a brave animal, falling asleep & collapsing 
into its small bones. now it rains chickens 
in the parking lot. i don't know any human
who would let go like that. a horse
would break the good china 
& kick a hole in the wall.
i put my fingers through a chain-link fence 
to no where in particular. on the other side 
i can see brush & all kinds of litter. 
i should get rid of my kerig.
i'm used to the instant service. i need quick
knives to pry me into a day. i promise
this year i'll recycle the pods or at least
use them for art.
my body relies on sharpness where 
horses bodies rely on heaviness.
i could float away any minute if i'm not
holding onto something. on a windy day
i watched a girl get carried away 
on a huge gust. now she lives in a tree.
a horse couldn't live in a tree--
that's how i know 
they're stronger than me.

growing a lawn 
after gina olson 

before grass, there was mud.
thick and viscous. a dried scab
we rode our bikes through.
the house is sinking slowly into the earth.
one day we will all return to our homes
& find them swallowed. 
i live in preparation for many disasters
& it is surprisingly boring. 
there is nothing to do ever 
unless you have money.
build a bunker out of mud. 
i used to tear out handfuls of grass to keep my company
when i was small & wandering.
i paint with mud on the back of my hand. 
sleeping in the mud
we will become grass or bugs.
i sometimes look at crowds of people
& i only see grass. the city is lush 
with shoes. everything is a lawn. 
the summer before i left for college 
i forced myself to read kafka's metamophosis. 
i was somehow completely unaware
the man would turn into a bug.
i thought it was a metaphor (the kind that ends)
& i waited & waited until i finally accepted 
he really became one. antennae quivering,
sometimes i wake up as a bug 
but it is less important than the metamophosis.
planting grass is such an ordeal.
we tried several times before it would take.
setting up sprinklers, we stood & watched
them pacing day in & day out 
until finally the blades started to grow.
they were so afraid of being judged. 
i emerge from the sheets like that.
one single blade of grass. fresh from the mud.
the yard lay drenched in water. 
the flood is coming.
the grass will grow backgrounds into 
the soil. the house will already be gone 
& everyone but me will have no idea what to do.
me, i have a plan. i am going to 
save myself. i am going to wake up
& dig myself free of a substance. 
i will wake up as many bugs
as i need to. beetle & gnat & spider.
i will be whatever crawling is needed to get away.
find myself a nice new lawn to hide in
until the houses bloom blue-doored 
& ringing. i an homesick for my dream houses. 
i am tearing a door off its hinges
to watch it grow back like a wing.
our basement has muddy floors. 
i used to love to go down there 
when no one was home 
& leave my hand prints.

the beached whales were little girls

with their pig-tails & their open mouths.
what could i do but get closer? 
the sand so small beneath me. i am a whale too 
but with two legs & a bouquet of toes. 
they lay face-up ready for caskets.
dead before i got here or maybe 
they are just an installation art project.
i'm not sure & that's why i sit with them.
two girls. green plants in their hair.
lips cut up. dried blood on a nose.
i lay down too so i can be like them.
above the sky is very expensive. shiny.
gold foil wrapped clouds. i think to myself
i can't afford any of this. but i'm too tired
to make the journey home on my inflatable raft.
there are so many tolls if i want to re-enter the city.
my passport is fake. it has the image of 
a flock of sea gulls where my face should be.
the birds land on the whales. i tell them
please do not eat their flesh. not in front of me.
the birds just laugh & laugh so i laugh with them
hoping it might influence them. the birds 
just eat the whale's hair--snipping the ribbons 
of each pig-tail before gobbling the strands.
this is all very complicated. 
i don't have enough storage space left 
in my brain to understand what these whales 
are supposed to mean. i'm convinced they'e acting
so i shout at them to get up. this backfires 
& seems to make them only more dead.
have you ever noticed how disobedient 
the body is? i tell the bones not to break
& they snap in all directions. is it just me?
i have terrible luck so i take very few chances.
i decide these whales are probably getting compensated.
benefits, salary, everything i need. 
i ask them for tips on how to look like
a work of art & their eyes flutter or maybe
it was only the breeze off the water.
i should have listened to my mother 
when she said the ocean is approaching.
our house in central pennsylvania is now
a beach house. i didn't need to yearn
for anything but shelter. another storm 
is coming. i tell the whales they have had their time
being dead & now they have to decide if that
is how they want to stay. no response.
i am too tired to hoist them up & back into the water.
trying to check the time, i realize my phone
is also a whale. so are all my fingernails.
whales everywhere. a whale is something
too big for its own saving. not 'big' as in size
but 'big' as in depth & deepending. 
the continent isn't big 
but the country is. my face is a whale but
not the grass spread all over my arms.
what kind of floating is left? 
the whales are gone. i didn't notice them leave.
i feel their impressions in the sand where
they once laid. i lay down in one & it fits me
almost perfectly. i close my eyes
so i don't have to pay for the sky. 

techniques for gripping the dirt

gravity was a girl with fishtail braids.
lately i feel light as a plastic bag
haunting a tree branch. someone told me once
that a poem can't just sound beautiful
it needs to have a purpose. fuck your purpose.
i'm walking my shark down main street.
he is swimming so well & i am so proud of him.
people walking by don't notice my shark because
they aren't considering the possibilities
but one day they might have pet sharks too.
i noticed sometimes all the lights in my house
turn purple. a lot of violet light.
when that happens i invite past lovers over 
& we dance to no music in the silent purple.
that light reveals all our stains
& some of them resemble continents 
& some of them resemble faces. 
i planted an apple tree in the microwave.
it's in full blossom. i stab a white flower
with a fork & feed it to a boy who i have
happily tied up in my bed. outside the pollution 
is so thick sometimes it feels like 
walking through jello. slow motion. 
red jello where the sun should be. the trees
have given up on photosynthesis & have
switched over to wind power. they're just
trying to be consciencious. 
there's no recycling bins on our block 
so i send my soda bottles to the landfil
where they will learn to sing hymns.
my partner says i should go to church
if i want to see the stained glass 
but i don't know if it's worth the grief
of order. sitting & kneeling & sitting 
& standing & crossing yourself.
what do you tell yourself when you wake up
with a balloon tied to your arm?
i look at the balloon a few seconds before destroying it
& saving the rubber skin. i'm not a hoarder
but if i don't save these things who will?
life is a series of decisions whether or not
to hold on. i'm not holding on to the ground anymore.
there are girls who used to perform gravity on me 
& now they lift me up. i tell them i need 
to keep my feet on the ground 
but that just makes them giggle & tilt me.
it is seventh grade again & i remind myself over & over
one day someone will love me. my eyeliner 
with thick as a plum. 
i am fishing for a shark
in the river. when this happens 
i think about heavy objects breaking windows.
a rock. a brick. a shoe. i think of
all the knee caps out there. the girls give up
then & i'm left here with another balloon
in the purple light with all these boys 
hungry for flowers.

it is january & i shouldn't be looking for fireflies. 

i sleep with 
a jar in my mouth, waiting. 
waiting is a myth. i don't believe
in waiting. no, i am keeping a vigil over 
an uncertain staircase. 
i used to sleep walk 
in high school. not far, just out to 
the back corner of my yard where i would fall down
& sleep again, like a fallen tree limb.
i'm not scared of sleep walking 
because i know, even if i wanted to, 
nothing would stop me.
not a dead bolt. not a locked door. 
i have nightmares all the time
but especially in daylight. 
they knit themselves
overtop of the real.
i knelt down for a half an hour
& picked at the corner of a tree 
trying to get it to unravel. 
i thought i saw the tether. 
sometimes i see my own 
the little fibers around my edges.
when i touch you, i feel them loud.
like hairs growing from palms.
i want to hold one up & ask you
to pull but then you would ask me
what you're pulling. about the fireflies
i think they might be a sustainable alternative to lightbulbs. 
i hate lightbulbs
for their glowing loudness
& with fireflies we might feel 
less compelled to be on fire.
i threw out my matches but i do have a lighter.
the lighter might be useful
for getting the stove started
if it stops working again.
we eat can after can of baked beans.
glossy & thick & sweet. by 'we' i mean myself
& all the fireflies who are sleeping
& waiting for june. i tell they 
june is not guaranteed. we are living 
in an apocalypse. the clothes 
might fold themselves by then.
i'm sick of seasons. they are cruel 
& make it seem like everything is alive
& changing when they're not.
it snows just flurries outside
& i tell the flurries to be fireflies.
i tell them to remember their wings.
the tethers everywhere are swarming.
all those twitching legs. i miss
my sleep walks. i want to wake up
far away from everything.
i want to wake up drowning in the ocean.
kick myself to the surface & find
no land in sight, just a swarm of fireflies
performing above the water.
tomorrow is a knotted finger trying 
to point. tomorrow is the house stirring
itself with a wooden spoon & the mice.
it is january & i should feel reborn.
i should, for at least a sort time,
believe this year could be plastic. 
i take clear tape to press down 
the edges. my friends would be scared for me
if i told them about all their fraying.
i wish i could ask them 
to let me tape them still at night.
i don't catch a single firefly.
the jar is empty. i stay up for weeks looking.
i'm still awake. 
still waiting. 

the flat earth 

they say we're supposed see saturn tonight,
faint like a thumb print on the glass dome.
i don't look because i don't want to know
whether or not it's too cloudy to see stars. 
okay, i'll say it:
i sympathize with flat earthers. 
i too distrust
obvious science. to think, all these planets
as thin as sheets of paper. what are we 
held aloft by? maybe it's trust. 
a collective belief.
that's so dangerous, i love it. 
how am i expected to believe saturn would
bob to the surface just for me? i stand 
outside. it is hot & shimmering sun. 
tomorrow in the city the ground
will roll out humid & grey & 
i will think nothing about the surface of earth
or saturn or stars. the sun is not
a star. the stars out there are scattered
& beautiful. the sun is here to haunt us.
this is the different between fire 
& salt. i steal salt packets from the employee kitchen.
this building is worth more 
than any planet & more than 
any one of my family members. tall & glass. 
at night it reflects city lights, not stars.
whose job is it to work the projection
of the night sky? how do they keep 
that secret? or maybe they don't, maybe
they live alone like anchors did 
in medieval times, alone in a room
praying all day to reach god. 
each day i get farther from anything divine.
it's wonderful. sometimes i can imagine 
the edge is close. maybe if i walked 
too far up the street i would find it.
i could sit & hang my legs over
the depths. i did not see saturn tonight
because i didn't remember to look. 
i was more devastated than i should be.
it's just a planet. just a great big 
sheet of paper. there are no 
wandering lives on its surface. 
no maps & countries with violent borders.
there is just a blur of color.
the person operating the sky tonight
curls up on the floor of their life.
i sleep in a room with no windows
like like theirs.

my life as a device

i put another CD in my mouth
i picked up off the street. the mirror side
called me prism. i flossed with its rainbows.
the pieces of trash on my street 
are my neighbors.
i wave hello to several condoms hiding 
behind a street lamp. 
the grass is dying again.
patches of brittle beige. every tree dreams
of living in a world with more ways to breathe.
breathing fingers. breathing teeth. breathing bark.
my face recognition technology 
doesn't notice me anymore. i blink. 
i hold my mouth still. it blinks & blinks 
& asks where are you? it's thrilling
to slip away. a bird eats bread
from the trash tangle & dreams of surveillance.
a few weeks ago images of hong kong flickered
on the TV screen. people gathered to destroy 
a camera. i was watching with my family.
we all agreed it was horrible, 
nodding to wash our hands before changing the channel 
to a commercial for an eyebrow trimmer.
i thought to myself i could use that. 
the eye converts light to 
impulses. i find eyes where you wouldn't expect.
there are three cameras leading 
to our apartment. one out front.
one pointed towards the alley. one pointed
towards the stairwell. i picture my landlord 
watching hours of footage to catch us
entering & exiting with no particular purpose
other than the need 
to make the cameras feel important. 
when my parents bought me a video camera 
for one of my birthdays my first project
was to keep vigil over my stuffed animals.
i believed they moved when i wasn't there
so i pointed the camera at them 
& dared them to move. i never caught anything
though once i thought i saw one breathing.
i slowed the video down, viewing it
on the back of the device on a tiny screen.
another day i set the video on the tri-pod
& captured myself dancing.
i hated the video i had looked better
in my head. when i'm in the bathroom
sometimes i worry there are cameras 
behind the mirrors. i remind myself
there are no cameras in bathrooms.
maybe there's a two-way mirror.
what do i know about the texture 
of a CD? i have pressed my tongue there
to feel each recollection. we used to
burn our crushes CDs in middle school
when there were still eyes 
on the rooves of our mouths.
i could take a video right now out the window.
i could crouch & be a camera. 
warm my organs with secrets 
as they unspool from light.

lure 

he had boxes of fish lures 
& i asked if he could show me all of them.
i was on a playdate at his house.
i always thought of playdates like trying on
someone else's house. in the bathroom 
i'd smell the soap & open the curtains 
to so what kind of showerhead there was.
i missed the house i lived in where 
the shower head was detachable. ours was
fixed overhead like a sun. 
he placed them in my hands one at a time.
the lures smelled like wet leaves & 
sometimes like some kind of oil. 
slippery, they left my hands feeling slick.
my favorites were long & neon green.
i asked him what they were meant for catching
& he laughed & said girls. 
i laughed too. i was so drawn to it.
i couldn't help it. if there were a hook 
i would have slipped it into my lip
for that lure. he told me his dad took him fishing
on a huge ocean-like lake. every body of water
is eventually an ocean. he took me to his bathtub 
& asked if i want to go fishing there.
i agreed & we filled it with water. blue salt water.
the window on the other side of the bathroom 
blurted grey bright light on us. 
i want to be fished for & he helps me into the water.
i'm surprised when it comes up to my chin.
holding my breath i go under.
brain thrumming with lures. a thin black lure
with two tails. a pink lure with glitter in the gills.
i wanted lures too. i would ask my dad for lures
when i got back to my house. would my mom
let me fish for her? i should have ask him
to be a girl. a wanted a hook through my septum 
like a woman i saw at the pizza place. 
i forgot i was sinking until i saw the glimmering--
a whirling lure with a feathery tail.
i could wear it as an earring. i bit down 
& he realed me in easy. no thrashing
just my body pulled out of the water & on top of his.
spilled on the tile floor 
of his bathroom. i scrabbled off quickly
aware of being young & warm. was i a trout?
a bass? i wanted to be a sunfish. huge & balanced.
unblinking. before i left he told me 
to pick a lure to keep. i wanted to ask him
which lure would capture him but instead
i took the simple black one. dangled it 
infront of his face & he smiled. every boy 
is a fisherman somewhere behind his mouth.  
i slipped the lure into my pocket. i walked him
dreaming of pulling a girl from my bath tub.

i ask dad to build me a deep sea diving suite

he gets to work in the basement. smell of mildew 
& stone. one single light bulb dangling above a work bench. 
dad usually crafts with wood.
he grows trees from the ceiling just to chop them down.
what i love about him is doesn't ask personal questions.
not why do you need a deep sea diving suite?
but instead how deep do you plan to go?
i don't tell him i'm visiting friends in a trench,
i say miles & miles & miles below the surface.
he's not scared for me. he knows i am 
a durable person. he will construct safety for me.
i've never told him anything & it is better that way.
a boy raped me in high school. i wanted to tell him so badly
but i knew if i did he would respond by 
building something awful. 
violence is a kind of contraption.
i could imagine him driving to the boy's house 
& turning him into a tree--into material.
so instead i just take a tiny hammer
& smack nails into the walls of my bedroom
until i can almost forget. dad is brilliant.
before this he built my brother all kinds 
of bodies for him to try on.
my brother paces in the hallway upstairs
trying to decide if he is a machine 
or a ghost. i have never been an apparatus before
& i am so excited. he hear the welding tools at work.
i hear dad as he chops limbs from a metal oak 
he grew just for my suite. so the truth is
i don't have friends yet deep below the ocean
but i want to. i think maybe if i sink & sink 
& sink i might find something easy down there.
a city of eels or a village of tuna.
i would be willing to nestle among angler fish 
or even sharks. i am not a particular human.
i know i should be grateful for communion.
when he finishes the suite he pours me into it.
the garment resembles a space suite 
only made of metal. there is a great tube 
coming from the helmet. a umbilical chord
decades long. i ask him who will hold 
the air source above the surface & he says he will.
he says he's coming with me to the edge of the water.
you can't say no to a man's determination--
the ways he will try to prove his love for you.
i can't admit i don't know where i'm going.
drowning doesn't require water. drowning can be
full of air. i hug him & thank him for the suite.
i tell him i can't believe how perfect it is. 
later that night he will lower me
into the night black water. i will walk
as far as the chord will let me.