warts

i reached for the amphibial too long. i blame
myself for all the ways i am not a smooth
beautiful animal. instead, i grow warts
on my hands & feet. belly white & toad-like.
i remember a doctor looking at me & saying,
"she still has time." the paper crinkled beneath me.
i wanted to jump out the window & be happily sick
in the star-soaked night. 
he froze away the warts. later, when i stood 
barefoot in the slime creek i decided 
i would do anything i could to grow them back.
i hunger for imperfection. to miss more buses 
& planes. to forget to text back & not apologize.
my reckless body. my reckless tongue.
we eat a pretzel in the rain. salt water on our fingers.
i pray to the patron saint of unruliness. 
they come to be in a vision holding a possum 
in one hand & a snake in the other. they wear
thrift store clothes that smell like basements.
i start bringing them offerings. a parking ticket.
a receipt to a secret shopping trip. 
they love them & tell me, "all you crave is waiting."
temptation is even better than giving in.
i bury the mailbox in the yard. start a fire &
throw in all my fingers like twigs. one at a time.
the truth is though that i haven't had warts
in over a decade. fallow flesh. cracked earth.
i beg them to come back. that home i had 
in my wilderness. give me the creek. the well. 
i go to the toads in the yard & they shun me.
i know i am one of them. or, at least, i am close enough. 
"help me break" i beg. they hide in the rotten
tree stumps. they do not even say hello. 
i go to the bus & do not miss it. rest my forehead
against the cool glass. outside, the toads sing. 

how to fold an envelope 

bite your tongue. eat every penny 
you can find. savor the metal taste of
blood & knees. if you have an address
take all the mail you can. pretend
every junk letter was written just for you. 
most instructions are meant to be left
unfollowed. try to do a secret handshake 
with someone you just met. 
use a sturdy surface to crease the edges.
i memorize addresses better than names.
streets like packer & walnut & raspberry.
once i laid down & became a street. 
a monopoly game ensued. trees & plastic
fences with dog sounds behind them.
before we broke up i wrote you five letters.
i put them in a dead mailbox. i did not know
the post office didn't check that one anymore.
i should have figured it out. it was green & rusty.
not blue like the rest of them. 
in its belly, the envelopes unfolded & turned
into moths. the letters swarmed. each word
an ant. nothing we say is held together
by much. just a few breaths & a hunger
to know each other. i wonder often
in what way you miss me. like comets miss
their mother rock or like a movie night
from a laptop screen? everyone's feet make
a unique sound when they thunk across
hardwood floor. i write so many letters
just to watch them bang their heads against
my porch lamp. i lick a promise shut. 
buy stamps in the hundreds. 
i do not use a single one. 

baby robins

they hatched this week. 
shells still at their feet. a nest of
trash & twigs & a strand of hair. 
their mouths open up 
as if to ask, "can i have the sun?"
i tell them, "will you take me with you?"
their eyes are still closed 
& i see the three little nestlings
as portals into the egg world.
maybe they could swallow me
& i could sleep there in the muffled yolk. 
i am so tired of trying to find nectar.
a place to sleep with fireflies. 
we don't stare at the moon anymore.
i don't know where my life went
& if i am the one who took it. 
i wake up with the dread of a future
in which i do not learn how to feed myself.
when i pass the birds i want to become
the nest. hold them in my hands.
walk towards the road & hitch
a ride to the oldest place. there i can lay down
& wait to grow feathers. the birds' down 
comes in patches. their mother waits
in the driveway while i pass by. i crouch down.
i say, "look, i can be small too." i used to be 
seventeen touring colleges in the snow.
i used to live in a big city with lots of guns.
if we lose the house
i do not know where will hold my sorrow
like this land has. who will talk
to the well spirits & who will come
& harvest the nest when it is done?
i collect them in a dark cool drawer.
only two. i lay down inside them.
sometimes the ghost nestlings will join me. 
they'll beg, "please never leave." i am a collection of 
of leaving. the breadcrumbs eaten behind me.
there is no going back. soon the birds will fly.
the nest will fall like a discarded sunday hat. 
i won't grow feathers. i'll open the window
& the air will smell different & i will
start over again with trying to find 
a place to hold me. 

cross-dresser manifesto

i strive to make the ultimate
illegal gender. my favorite part
about being not dead yet is
that i can still get weirder. i learn the craft
of hair lace. i teach myself
to embroider. buy a pair of overalls
& get as dirty as i can (all meaning of the word).
i want to confuse
even the normie gays. i want
to be the catalyst for someone’s gender
awakening (all meanings of the word).
i do not think of myself as a prophet
but instead as a rupture or a hemorrhage
just like someone else was for me,
she was smoking on the porch
outside an arcade in a leopard print mini-skirt
with stubble across her face. smokey-eyed
& laughing. legs crossed. pleasers on her feet.
the cornfields around us bowed to her.
i was too in awe to tell her she made me feel real.
my pronouns have millipede legs. my pronouns
are little flags stolen from a golf course.
just like cats, i have secret names
that only i get to chew on. when i say
i want to make my gender illegal
i mean i want to live in a way that
breaks a milk carton or two. that makes a horror man
wake up in the middle of the night
& weep. walk himself down to the forest
& make a garland. the cult does have one thing right.
this kind of gender is contagious.
i have pinwheels for lungs. i wait for a breeze
to breathe. i go to an atm dressed as a business monster.
trick it into believing i am rich
& make it pour money into the street.
people come to harvest. i take only enough
to buy a cup of frozen yogurt
& a leopard mini-skirt & a pair of black pleasers.

glowworm wedding

it's time to be happy now.
i get a 100 pack of party hats
& start christening the raccoons.
i dig a cave for us
to sleep in. when i was small
i used to glow in the dark. i would
hold my hand up & the room
would light. i have not figured out
how to be bioluminescent since. 
sometimes i bathe in star water.
other times i try watching
dating shows & shouting at the tv
like it's a football game. 
if i had a mascot, it would be
a glowworm. 
let's get glowworm married.
i am embarrassed that there are
still things i cannot admit in poems.
what is the point then? 
alright, i'll say it. i don't know if 
it is going to work out.
if we are going to wake up & find a way
to crawl towards each other 
like gnats towards a phone screen
in the summer dark. i love air conditioners
& i love ice cube trays. who would
we even invite? maybe just a bunch
of glowworms? do you know 
a group of them is called, "a party."
a party of glowworms. that's not
actually what they're called. 
i've just decided it's the only reasonable
lable. i think i will be the one 
to feed the dress to the snake. you can
be the one who hunts the 
cave fish. i want to be more than 
i am. i don't know if you feel the same.
sometimes in your sleep you'll
illuminate. the cave, damp & cool.
i'll dance with you, both of us, sleepless.
the cave deepening. the worms, hungry. 
tell me, am i enough for you? 

sugar moon

i put the whole moon in
my mouth & wait for it to melt.
i wonder if i could have
made it work with that boy
who tried to stuff me
into the trunk. was it really
that bad? 
a hate commenter
on my instagram asks
"are you truly happy?" & i do not
answer honestly. why would
i give him (because i know it is 
a 'him') the satisfaction
of knowing how sad i am? 
instead i say, "i have a good life"
which in the grand scheme 
of human suffering
is pretty true. the moon doesn't
taste as good as you might think 
it would. kind of just sugar cookie
with a hint of amaretto.
once, i had to pull over
on the way to new york city
& i use a constructor sites
port-o-potty. it was as gross
as you might think but on the walls
were phone numbers
& cartoons & even a little manifesto 
that read, "i am going 
to talk to god." i wished i had
a sharpie so i could ad to it.
i scrambled back into my car
& sped out of there.
the worst part about the internet
is that it is always like
talking through a door. 
you are either passing notes
or shouting. my partner
yells at me when i try to talk to him
from another room. i bring him
a moon & hope he keeps deciding
to love me. i write out my honest answer.
the sun is choking on herself. 
"i am no longer worried
about being happy." maybe
that would give him what he wants.
i think if i drove to his house
right now he would be smashing stars
like gnats. some people are rushing
& some people are being rushed. 
i am lying to you. i don't let
the moon melt in my mouth.
i bite down. i chew like a dog. 

animal sleep

i go sleepwalking with the bears.
they mistake me for one of their own
& i get far into the mountain. we will
probably have to eat bugs in the future
when everything crumbles
& we get all survival mode.
i am okay with it as long as they
taste kind of tangy. i google "do bugs sleep?"
& discover they actually invented sleep.
there was a little locust who thought,
"the world is too beautiful
to stare at all the time." i scream at the moon.
i smash flies with my thumb & wipe off
their lives like question mark dots.
i sent my doctor a message through
the portal which sounds more magickal
than it is. i ask him if there's any way
he could get me to sleep like a dog.
i watch my pugs sleep & they know
what it really means to dig a hole 
& go dark. i don't think i've ever 
been as heavy as them while they
are asleep. i tell the doctor i could settle for
the sleep of a cat if the dog is too hard.
he does not respond. he blocks me.
the portal crashes & starts speaking bird.
i hate the bedroom. i always have. 
in my favorite apartment my bedroom
was nothing but a bed on the floor. 
yeah yeah i know what they say about boys
is true. it's my gender showing. i miss
that place so much it hurts. the quiet
was so thick & velvety. i slept beside the dogs
& when it snowed none of us had ears.
the layers dampened even the sound
of the sun. all i heard were crystals 
telling me, "close your eyes."
i shut them tight. press on the pupils
until i see a volcano. i bursts & turns
all of us into statues. i don't mean to be
so doomsday. i'm trying to mentally prepare
myself for no longer being able
to sleep. what will i do with my wakefulness?
the bears will turn around. notice i am
not one of them. eat me & when
they're done, feed my bones to the moon.
that is how she stays glowing & white. 

changeling 

sometimes i'll have otherworld memories
of before i was swapped into this one.
the ringing of the flowers & a cactus
with thirty mouths. as a child,
i was always trying to go back to being
a fairy. i have never been good at any 
of my changes. not a boy or a girl or 
a spy or a secret. i am trying to believe
that it could be a blessing to be a portal.
people visit me sometimes to speak
their pasts into my throat. i hold them.
let them turn into birds. my partner jokes
i have "tell me your life story" eyes. i am
not sure if that is a remnant of the previous world
or something i have learned in this one
in order to survive. that is the hardest part
about knowing i come from somewhere else.
i try to sort out all the pieces. which memories
are invented to try & salvage myself?
which ones are made of wood & which ones
are gasoline? there are rainbows in all kinds
of fires. i once walked away from town
with a bundle of white cotton-tooth flowers.
i had this feeling that i was going home.
why did i stop myself? i often wonder
if there was some mission i am neglecting.
changelings must have a purpose or else
maybe it is my job to make it. not all legends
are parables. instead, sometimes we are
writing another story of how everything 
falls apart. i have changeling friends. we never
admit that we know this fact about one another.
i can see it in their eyes. i picture my human child
in the fairy world & wonder if they are
are lost as me? if i had the chance, i do not 
think i would want to meet them. 

jellyfish religion

i always find a way to worship. 
fill the sink with fireflies or 
draw a face on the ceiling 
above the bed. i wake up with
a tick on my thigh. he is gorgeous
& i almost let him keep drinking.
when i was small my father would
paint the ticks with nail polish
to get them to fall off. i sometimes
mistook them for gems. 
i cut him in half though & his
little parable concludes with a drain
& gushing water. 
i drive to the nearest aquarium 
to witness a tube of jellyfish. they pulse
& i try to talk to them. none 
are interested & so i bring offerings
to the glass. a doll & a pile of my hair.
they are too busy being gods
to have time to bother with me.
i keep my truths in little ziploc baggies 
like sandwiches. fill the freezer to the roof.
i wake up so early that it is not
the next day, the day has just grown
a lovely velvet twin. i think if the jellyfish.
how years ago i swam out to the sandbar
& found myself surrounded. i had 
a chance then to join them. i chose
to take the wild swim back to shore.
i was not stung even once. they spared me
& i do not know why. their bodies
like breaths. on the right nights 
i swear they fill the windows. i dress
in jewels of ticks. walk on clouds.
join them, a slip of kelp in the tide. 

conflicting reports

some people still believe
in angels. i just believe in a mailbox
where i wait for enough money
to eat as many locusts as i want tonight.
do not get me mistaken for a prophet,
i am just saying stuff. i'm just opening my mouth
& hoping no crocodiles come out. 
there are conflicting reports
as to whether or not a ufo
landed in the corn field tonight.
i could go either way as to whether
or not i believe it. 
i ask the frogs & they say, "that happens
every night." i guess i should have
assumed. so much is going on
that i don't eye-witness. 
it is best to assume there are several 
joyful mysteries & several terrible horrors
all happening right now. some people
on another planet start a rumor
that the earth ended two hundred years ago
when a specific whale species died 
& was never known by us. i start a rumor
that i am actually dead. that i died 
a decade ago & whatever i am now
is a hologram. what a hologram.
i turn the house over in pursuit 
of a projector. i used to have a room of chickens.
now they stalk the yard in search
of snakes. i hold all the space ships 
inside me. i see a field & witness it
tail dove. one side one fire. the other side
ripe with gummy worms. 
don't listen to me. i try not to listen to me.
the place smells like rot. 
i just want a clean little runaway 
to fly a plane out of here from. 
i write "help" in the corn. the cicadas
are the only ones who come. 
all we can do is scream.