walk me home in the fog i pressed my bare feet to the surface of a blushing window-- the back seat of my mother's blue station wagon-- shy in another cloud escaped from above the foreheads of telephone polls-- we broke the bags of tea leaves like rhapsody-- like the blizzard that elected to fall as rain-- Winter found herself too heavy to pretend to be another crystal-- too heavy to pretend she didn't want to kiss you through a milky window-- there wasn't enough ash from the coal to pinch into diamonds-- so we forgot about the snow --tilled the field with an ice cream scoop and freckles of loose tea-- we had remembered January as the pale tip of a creamer-- but January has the type of memory only left by foot prints in the mud-- the grass soaking into a bubbling ladle of soil-- we re-learned how to walk on water-- when we were little and charmed star fish on a beach it had been so easy-- but now if i want to feel myself vanishing i have to think of you and tying a piece of yarn to m collar to walk to the belly of a mug-- have i told you i was to to sleep with you like chamomile?-- i've wanted to be held the way you hold a palm of chai-- warm as the mud bubbling into a cauldron of soup-- share a spoon-ful on the porch steps with me and watch the clouds tip-toe down from telephone wires-- scatter tea leaves like wedding rice-- we're watching the fog fall irrevocably in love with breath entering the cold-- with steam from a tangled braid of pasta-- and the broken body of a tea bag-- we used the leaves to plant strawberries in the yard-- swam to the surface of the mud-- harvest with ice cream scoops-- when i say i'm falling for you i mean i'm falling for you like clouds who get lost and find themselves ringing door bells on Main Street-- like the mute of a street light that makes diamond of the rain-- i was too heavy to be a blizzard so i fell as rain so that we could grow strawberries in the winter-- make jam the soup-spoons and our foot prints-- i don't mind being remembered in a stamp of mud-- i want to kiss you across a clouded window of a backseat where i've watched the sky crawl back into bed-- shhhh-- quiet like chamomile-- turn off the street lights so the rain can sleep and repeat the vows exchanged by the clouds and the air.
01/22
Body of relics, antique burials, and sleeping in the catacombs of the pantry When I die I want you to take apart my body like a saint-- No-- not like Saint Clare I know my body is already corruptible-- I've already seen my finger nails drop like marigold fire-- this is me dying like the tongue of the flame I am-- I have already begun to decompose-- felt my skin yellowing like newspapers wrapped around chipped tea-cups-- in the field of antiques we peruse to find a lover-- I want to leave myself in pieces to make you want to put me back together-- collect me in your pantries and in the corners of your book shelves and tell your children about how I died and fell into thousands of fragments-- I was never a whole body so don't bury me like that-- blow my ashes in the face of King-- I'm sleeping in the catacombs of the pantry-- behind the Bisquick and the solid bag of brown sugar boulders we'll break into muffin tonight-- the rocky cliffs of Main where the ocean's knuckles bleed on the rocks-- I sleep in a 1/4 measuring cup and wonder if you'll consider turning my ashes into brownies or pepper spray-- blind a back alley with my remnants-- these are the catacombs of a baker-- I mistake the dried chicken noodles for my own hair-- my own cubes of white meat-- All the while Saint Clair is still waiting to wake up again so she can cut her hair to fill mason jars-- she sleeps in a terrarium-- body untouched and frozen in cubes of white meat-- I saw her on the picnic blanket at the antique market and wondered who would have enough money to buy a whole body-- I wondered if they would take her apart in pieces-- turn her into a wax sculpture to put a wick between her fingers-- light these Saint bodies into candles-- burst marigold and remember the locks of my bleach-scorched hair-- Don't feel bad about saving my bones for soup-- I don't want to be preserved I want to be part of something again-- spit me into the soil-- we're not cannibals-- we're lovers and to love something you need to take it apart into pieces-- make it into bracelets and brownies and lay my body to rest in the pantry behind the Bisquick where everything is quiet as the roots of a marigold-- the inside of Saint Clare's terrarium-- she wanted to be fire like the rest of us-- So when I die I hope you will remember me when you see my locks of hair on blankets at a fleet market-- don't spend too much money on my relics-- they're barely antique-- put my finger nails on your mantel and wait for them to become candles-- don't believe them when they tell you any of us were incorruptible-- I was decayed before my skin wrapped a chipped tea cup-- I was a puff of ash before I knew how to move my femurs-- a tentacle of incense-- to remind you that there is a God who burns our hair like wicks-- She is lips puckered in marigold-- she has collected the chips fallen from tea cups-- she keeps our pieces her her book shelf-- behind a cliff made of a brown sugar-- sits and counts our hairs like waves.
01/21
Spend some silence on me-- I can be bought with door knobs and keys bent into promise rings. have i told you about how i am enamored of the possibility of you and me in a room? lock the front door behind you-- has no one warned you yet about winter? if you don't lock your doors death can find us as unaware as scrambled eggs-- he spoons mashed potatoes from a cloud-- boils the gravy in the mud-- winter is looking for a cold place to hold himself-- he finds no more use for blankets or layers of filo dough-- it is alright to feel bad for him-- he mistakes porches for confessionals-- attempts to brew holy water in milk and lavender from the gutters-- here inside a room we are a possibility larger than a spoon of winter or the patience of a scrambled egg-- draw the floor plans for the sky with me-- i have a blue crayon and a diner place mat-- we'll order a black and white milkshake from the windowsill-- our waitress is a cardinal because red is too slippery a color to be grasped by death or winter or a ploom of whipped cream-- maraschino cherries we're meant for sharing-- they were meant for sacrifice-- we'll ask for two-- bleed bright in a crown of cream-- oh my queen you turn the door keys into rings-- promise me you remember what a closed door is like-- what it's like to fill a room with someone else-- bless me Winter for i have sinned-- i re-imagined the sky without a cloud of a sun to take us away from the blue-- the sea became a cloud because of me-- became a spoon to float on-- promise me you bent the keys for us and not just me-- promise me you drew the sun back into the sky so we can make the blankets into filo dough-- crack cardinal eggs in the pan-- do you remember how to be born out a window in the snow?-- become a cardinal and thrash scars in the white-- heal maroon as a sugar maple in melting September-- we shouldn't risk a door knob again-- that's how everything rushes out of a room-- and we just got here-- spend a little more silences on me-- i want to be spoiled-- remember this silence in a jar-- -- the kind of quiet i don't eat with another spoon-- the kind of silence of a cardinal-- waiting to run again from Winter-- he's lonely without someone to share milkshakes with but it was never your obligation to be a lover-- i have a pocket full of door knobs whenever you're ready to write another sky from a room where you make silence with someone else-- promise you remember what the door were like when they were locked and what the keys felt like as promise rings-- i promised September i would let the scars on my forearms grow into trees after it snowed-- i promise you to give you door knobs-- and milkshakes-- bless me winter for i have sinned to listen to the confessions of a season from the porch-- i can be a confessional-- a cardinal-- a cherry-- crawl out the windows with me so we can keep the key we've turned into rings-- i like the sky we made-- i'll put back the sun if you help me fish the clouds from the blue that once was a sea.
01/20
They forced me to sing for the president
so i brought a three-string ukulele and
a pocket of thumb tacks
in first grade they charmed us like
cobras--
held a flag dangled as a dead rat
and told us to jump for the dreams
we shook loose from McDonald's wrappers--
this is our Big Mac-- the greasy bed
sheets of another morning
where i smell his sweat on my blankets
even though i've been washing them
for six years--
i have been swaddled in processed cheese
squares-- melted-- devoured--
that's what they want us for--
a sexy wrapper strip tease of this girl
in oil-- breaded and chicken fries--
when i was twelve i could
sing happy birthday on the
dissonant three sings
of my ukulele--
ask me to sing about a fist full
of hair in the hands of another man--
this hair is the reigns of
his horse and carriage sex fantasy--
yes mr. president yes
i still remember what my rapist
smelled like
yes mr. president yes
i'll call you daddy because you
have no problem fucking the
freedom out of another daughter--
use as the horse
to get to your throne-room--
i'm told to sing in the corner
of the office-- the oval
of another male gaze--
they didn't ask me to vote-- they
didn't take my thumbprints in ink
this is blood--
i voted against you with my blood
with my throat bruised
in lavender roots--
the men shaved my head
like a cobra--
laughed how they could
teach a whore to sing between the
strings of her ukulele--
demanded
a song and they'll get one--
i'm going to sing your words
into our truth
the truth that you can
grab me by the pussy but you
can't keep us silent for
four years--
America-- i see my rapist
gilded as a God-- i see
the racial slurs on the bathroom
walls--
and i'll say i'm a faggot so you
don't say it first--
yes mr. president
i'm building a wall--
i'm building great wall
longer than the one in China--
my wall holds immigrants--
my wall holds Syria-- Muslims--
my wall speaks Spanish
La pared, la pared y
voy a cruzar el río
con ustedes
son familia
son familia sin sangre
en sangre
my wall is sung on three
ukulele strings-- my wall
is built with this skin
without virginity--
this wall is for the fat
bodies-- this wall is for
the black bodies--
this wall measures the inches
of ice caps melting
into squares of processed cheese
on the hamburgers of our monarch--
for the next four years
i'm keeping a pocket full of thumb
tacks and you can take that how
you will--
these are for fists--
for flyers--
for patches in a wall we're going
to have to build and re-build--
for pinning ourselves
to the torso of
trees-- for hanging the carcass
of the flag above our children's heads
and telling them there's something
still left there to sing--
so yes i'll sing for you
mr. president--
i'll sing for you
with a pocket full of thumb tacks
and a ukulele with three strings--
take that how you will--
01/19
My limbs dangling in the jungle gym, becoming the knot of an albino python, and jaw breakers-- jump rope with two bodies-- i severed-off my legs in the sand box-- stuck in the ground like the trees crooked finger bones-- abandoned my arms still limp on the monkey bars-- my father used to hold me up by my waist to help me cross each rung-- and there i discovered what it felt like to walk on water from a jungle gym-- you can't blame me for wanting to become a serpent-- i was never a person likely to make much use of my limbs anyway-- spent too many afternoons on my stomach from the candy shop floor waiting for stray root beer barrels and strawberry jelly candies-- unhooked my jaw in anticipation for the consumption of an entire world scrubbed clean in the glare and flicker of linoleum-- elect me in lavender-- in a body fresh as a stove top coil-- i'm only hot as your morning-- warm me under the blaring neon sun of the ice cream parlor-- don't mind me-- i'm just waiting for you to misplace a gummy worm-- sweet tooth sunk deep into my own forgotten limbs-- this licorice rope is my body-- make penance out of a hand full of jawbreakers-- what do you know about the snake who eats their tail?-- or about the human who bites their arms in an attempt to feel remorse for some sin they might have once committed with sweet fangs-- how many pounds of juju bees did you need to lose your teeth? when you're tired take refuge in a fist of taffy-- pythons are easily mistaken for the flavor banana-- i shaved off my hair from the side of sand box where i hid my legs-- there was the ancient ruins of a sand castle but only you and i would have known it was there-- skip rope with the long-hair girls when they sing apples, peaches, pears, and plums tell me when your birthday comes-- so i answer with an unhinged kiss and a mouth three jaw breakers deep-- they never teach you what to do once your mouth is full-- apples peaches pears and plums-- i'm as old as the knee caps tied into a spine of a tree-- older than a spool of taffy or sugar geode-- i became a python to be able to eat jawbreakers-- gulp the long hair girls and their baskets of apples, peaches, pears, and plums-- the apology of a bruise-- the impatient hum of an empty candy shop-- arms still dangling from the monkey bars--
01/18
The fine china tea cups still wrapped in newspaper, my father's hunger vigil, and how i learned to keep the universe from getting lonely at night. my family never intended to use the good china plates-- we ask about them at Christmas out of appreciation-- reverence even-- our table has turned into a carpet-- into a palm to hold mashed potatoes-- a forearm full of asparagus consecrated with a fist of Parmesan-- my father still stands vigil at the counter to eat butterfly-wings of ham-- honey beats us into a moon-- he watches the door like death is still looking for him in the body of a stray cat with patches all over her thighs-- he drinks diet coke there like penance-- stares at the ham out of fear and hunger and hatred-- he doesn't want the cat to see him eating with a fork and knife-- we keep the fine silverware in a used box of gourmet chocolates and spend half the year opening it the hopes that it's been hiding one last peanut butter swirled truffle for us to orbit-- it might be only me who glances at the boxes of tea cups while we finish Christmas dinner i feel like i understand them somehow-- and my father still dares not chew the hem from course skirt on the apple pie-- my mother tells him to eat but he only glares at another cat pawing at the window-- my brothers don't think about utensils-- use two fingers like chopsticks-- navigate a plate as cautious as the handle of a tea cup-- my father stabs a fork in the meat-- our conquistador-- each tea cup on the shelf from the china set is still headline-swaddled-- gold eye brows raised at a sink full of left-sock dishes-- the tea cups judge us for washing pizza crusts in the dish washer-- we're out of soap so we add another punch of shredded cheese-- our knuckles broken into boulders of salt-- we diagnose ourselves with the polka-dots pox of the slumped couch who is almost as tired as my mother-- we are elbow people-- aluminum foil crowned-- gilded of a microwave lightning bolt hurled from the bangles of a god who is weary of my father-- my father only sleeps on his elbows and my mother remarks that the ham is getting cold and the ice cream on the pie has turned to milk again-- for a moment he want to be a china tea cup too-- we all do-- clean and secret like the monotonous history of a newspaper-- i wait for them to sleep-- each melting into the cracks of the sofa-- engulfing my family like a palm of mash potatoes-- our beds chew us with gums and my father falls face-first into the lap of the apple pie-- we check to make sure he's only sleeping before we go outside to scare the stray cats off the porch-- we know they're not coming for my father-- not yet-- but he doesn't know that so he thinks he still has to keep watch-- and the dishes fidget and try to wash themselves in the sink-- like the tea cups i'm the one who doesn't sleep here-- i shush a tea kettle and sit on the counter beside where my father sleeps from his elbows-- someone has to keep the universe company when everyone else has forgotten about the fine china-- it's just our little secret-- i open the window and the room turns into a plate of stars stolen from the boulders of salt we rolled like dice into mashed potatoes-- the universe sits there with me and together we unravel the tea cups-- squint to watch them under the glare of the moon gazing in at us like a stray cat from the window-- have you ever seen the moon get down on her knees? she does so only for a beautiful tea cup or a spoon of sugar chai-- i tell the universe about our family while i pet my father's hair-- i tell her that we don't remember where the dinner table went-- i tell her about the china we're drinking from and the clamor of dishes in the sink-- i tell her about my brothers and their small chop stick fingers-- i laugh about the stains on my dress and yawning of the sofa-- she thinks it's marvelous and cries because she's lonely without a table to approximate from a carpet-- she spends must nights alone on a gold haloed plate quietly munching a forest of asparagus-- she keeps herself clean for astronomers-- i pet her hair too and tell her that's what our counter top is for-- so she comes back each Christmas-- helps me wash the two tea cups and put them back-- brushes the night sky out of the living room-- our little secret-- i wake up early to tell my father to wipe the pie off his nose and eat-- only then is he too tired to refuse--
01/17
in remembrance of the disposable love poetry of white boys-- when was the last time you eloped with yourself? boys love so much like a snicker doodle-- laugh your hair covered in cinnamon and sugar-- dissolve in the glass of milk-- take a thumb full of butter over your lips and promise you that this time they learned LOVE in the curve of your wrists-- the way you hold spoons like balance beams and the nightlights you ignite by turning a loop of Orion's belt into a tea light-- put the batteries back into my neck-- i'm a moon shadow-- melt me in the glass of milk and somehow boys always turn into chocolate-- find a way to melt into freckles-- i left myself a love poem this morning in remembrance of all the times boys have mistaken me for sugar or for the twisted stem of a plum-- i wrote it on a pink sticky note-- creased on the forehead of my old blue locker-- in the eighth grade when i was convinced i was neither the cookie nor the glass of milk i poured love letters to myself in measuring cups of grapes and cheerios-- loved this body a whole 1/4 cup full-- dream and bake me a brownie pan-- i was meant for squares-- i was a corner piece-- i was the puckered lips of a cinnamon raisin bagel-- i'm trying to learn how to run away without boy poems-- because boy poems bleed milk like the fountain they made of Saint Catherine's neck how dare she write love poems with someone else's tongue-- a oven full of books-- she spun as bobbin-- i ran away to the ledge of a window to use the glass as a mirror and count the stars leaving chocolate in my freckles-- wrote the constellations into poetry-- i undress here and i know you could watch if you wanted to but this isn't a naked picture for you to frame in a glass of milk-- this isn't disposable like the love poems you birthed in sugar and cinnamon-- this isn't a spoon this is my balance beam-- this is a love poem written to the girl-body who collects nightlights out of fear of the dark and being drown in another glass of milk before bed-- i love you and iris raisins-- locker combination to my mouth-- full me with loose paper-- fragments 'i love you written' in the margins of a blue spiral bound notebook-- swallow yourself quicker than a staircase but as patient as the 1/4 measuring cup dumped into the bowl-- it's morning now and time to empty the back porch of love poems written on rye bread with margarine-- disposable sentences of stale popcorn another boy pulled from the puckered bagel mouth of a dead poet-- stop writing me words i've already said and start leaving love on my locker door-- twist my neck until it opens into milk-- i'm not naked by a window mirror to prove something to a love poem boy who tastes like a rice crispy treat-- quick and measured in squares-- i'm not naked by a window mirror to remind you of something you could of had or could have wanted if you had the patience to pour me into a bowl instead of dunk my lungs deep in milk i'm not naked to become another wilted love poem you decide to melt in chocolate-- i'm naked to the window to prove there's still places to elope with myself-- still corners of this body left for me to leave sticky notes-- i love the creature who is bold enough attempt to fit the stars in a 1/4 of a cup-- build nightlights-- marry the milk glass-- laugh still balanced on a spoon--
01/16
hitch hike with me through a blinding snow to the front door of our house in fleetwood in 1996 i was born in the snow storm-- i guess not actually in the snow storm-- i was born in july there was still snow on the ground in july only it was the soil's remembered feeling of snow-- the dirt dreamed of sensation-- cold hipbones-- laying in bed with the onion grass bulbs and frost each night as the sky only broke more bags of dove pieces-- the earth remembered what it was like to pull snow cones from her throat to snore-- she remembered in april when we were supposed to be throwing up daffodils in the celebration of a LITTLE GIRL to keep pink balloons from bursting into dove pieces --HER cupcake fists and grip of an icicle-- we stuck out our thumbs in scratchy red mittens-- i was born in the house next to the railroad tracks across the street from a factory who felt every shout of wind from the blizzard-- held the snow in her stomach to pretend she was expecting a child-- only to feel herself melting in july-- caught pink balloon in her windows-- we were picked up by a rust fringed blue jeep-- sat on each other laps when we said we were headed to fleetwood we were picked up by our father only he didn't know he was our father i caught the snow in the color of my knuckles-- the frost still crunches in the aluminum crinkling of jaw when i try to kiss people-- i popped the pink balloons so that they could fall in more pieces of doves-- you say CONGRATULATIONS IT'S A GIRL but you were wrong i was a blinding snow-- crawled out of the factory to hitch hike with my father and you to my front door step bleeding with dove limbs-- my father offered us candy spear mint leaves from the glove box-- we had to refuse seeing as we had yet to be born and who were you? i have two brothers and you were neither of them and both of them-- you were the pink balloons bursting into doves-- the body the sun paints in bed to lie with us all summer when the windows are open and the factory building has burned down but her soil still feels alone-- and when we get to the door step knock with your cupcake fists-- coil into a basket so they can float you high as pink balloons-- the train has my voice through the aluminum foil railroad tracks at night-- clatter of a screen door the empty passenger seat of a blue jeep-- our father eating the last pieces of spearmint leaf candy and wanting to share it with the passengers no longer sitting there beside him i was born in a blinding snow-- sleep with the hot body of July-- pop pink balloons with my scratchy red mittens--
01/15
princess trials, canned peas under the mattress
and the irrevocable fate of the potted plants in the window
i know you're the one who was never satisfied with the result--
convinced that my sleepless nights are a self-inflicted
performance art piece-- the sleeping beauty statue who
spends each hour long and hard rummaging for a thought
beneath their eyelids--
this is where we found our
names scarred above the tailbone of the elm tree-- this
is where i removed the dead leaves from your hair--
whispered to you that if you love me you have to accept
two things:
1-- i'm incapable of sustaining life from a ceramic pot
on a windowsill--
2-- i'm on trial as a princess-- No-- not a princess who
eats strawberry shortcakes and crosses her legs beneath
another sea of ruffles-- another lake lapping with eyelids--
no i'm the princess who kisses like the rim of a tea cup--
i'm the princess who sleep like another steady suicide
of the moon-- another ray of light beneath a door frame--
my eyelids have clasps like a change purse
1-- some people buy children to fall in love again-- we bought
a potted violet-- a stout cactus and a woven tree to stand
in sequence on my windowsill--
2-- one pea wasn't enough for you to test me-- you wanted
to see how clattering this girl-body could sleep-- you took
the rations from the bomb shelter-- the cans you shook
like wet maracas and said:
now we can know for sure-- for sure your the princess
your name promised me last night when you were saying
a elegy for the moon
1--i warned you i kill potted plants out of mercy-- who
want to live with their legs coiled under bed sheets--
trying to grow into a can of peas--
2-- my body reject my skin sometimes and i watch myself sleeping
next to you-- and you don't feel the cans of peas under the
mattress--
2-- did i tell you how hard it is to climb back into a body?
2-- i open the cans while you sleep still as a
the rock body of the moon-- dip silver spoon and cold peas
at four in the morning when the sun considered feeding the windowsill
1-- i threw their bodies in the yard while you were away-- i warned
you that the death of a potted plant at my hands is irrevocable--
2-- princesses are good a burials
1-- weave goodnight in dead branches
2-- test me test me my sleep warden-- i'm ready to prove
i can feel anything beneath a mattress
2-- why don't we try it the other way around this time? make
a body of peas and i'll sleep under the beds and you
tell me if you can feel me-- feel me leave my body again
2-- this is a performance art piece-- this is what we made of
the bomb shelter--
2- if i don't wake up when you call me peel back the mattresses
like the lids of a can and spoon me out in cold beads
on the blankets-- an interrogation for the passive death
of the stout cactus you thought we could grow into a crown
of thorn--
01/14
appetizer eyes of Saint Lucy and other times i looked up like a cluster of grapes-- we learned well how to look up from a golden plate-- this is where we see from the serving dish-- you tell me it's New Years-- and leave the rest of my body for a furnace-- 1. roll your dollar bills into tumble weeds across a table cloth-- stack me taller sundae spoons -- my eyes have been free for the taking-- i'm the Eiffel tower made of pennies and quarters-- they teach boys to scowl like the men posing on money 2. the supermarket has samples on sundaes and we all get free salsa only onions sting as eyes drops and i don't eat fried fish even though God decided that fish don't count 3. it's friday and the night walks with heavy steps on the lip of another plate of hor d'oeuvres 4. remember me like a mini quiche-- coiled and naked for you as a shrimp cocktail laid in ketchup-- pretend it's ketchup and not blood turned thick with heavy steps around the filo dough 5. learn how to see with a tooth pick through your iris-- the general tso's chicken salesmen-- hand behind his back teaching girls for the first time to say 'no' but only because we bodies don't eat meat anymore-- and yes fish count because they have blank appetizer eyes like ours-- lay in the ice to cool off from the furnace-- we can blink away the ash without eyelids-- 6. i've been free for the taking just to look down your throat like an artificial grape-- soft and delectably dead 7. feed me Greek goddess-- the steady throat of another king who married us into a furnace-- twirl your eyes like spaghetti on forks-- 8. Saint Lucy saw the world from a golden plate where we all want to sit-- so what if our eyes are reverted to jalapeno poppers or mozzarella sticks-- bleed me marinara 9. who told you we could wear a crown of fire 10. it's New Years and i'd rather you hold the golden plate-- if i have to serve my eyes from here 11. i saw the moon from the eyes of a door knob to the brothel-- virginity is best compared to eye balls on a golden plate-- who wouldn't mistaken them for grapes? 12. an apostle of small gatherings and midnights-- me and Saint Lucy and all the girls they teach how to balance fire on our heads-- we all learned to lay naked as cocktail shrimp-- these pink pink pink unborn body flame-- coil and wait for someone to take notice of you from the plate-- 1. what do you pay for in tumble weeds? the expectation of the tooth pick and denial of being by general tso and his tooth pick teeth-- blindness pirouetted from a plate of pasta-- oh there's so many different colors you make us bleed-- the night walks heavy on the ledge of a gold plate-- 1. this is where we see from the serving dish 1. martyr the waitress 1. pay me in a ride through a furnace-- we all know you came here to look down on me-- naked and pale as filo dough-- this plump grape gaze was waiting for a fat hand-- fish don't count in the mortality rate -- and neither do our eyes-- avert your stare-- i'm undressing
