s: 08.28.01

scanned the headlights for a name for a song for something to write on for your tears and angers and i couldn't find what i thought i was looking for when i went around your lives i found pieces of harbours that had collapsed i wrote a song for your ashes your sweet fair hair and i couldn't imagine where i had left you

p: 08.24.01

waspnest

their mandibles buried in my ankle
i screamed,
thought thorns, then horseflies
before i saw their yellowbacks

all heads and flies
through socks and shirts
could tear into me with venom

a scene from candyman.
we ran.

p: 08.10.01

I

I envy men their facial hair.

If I had a beard,
I could stroke it;
men would think me wise.

But I'm not so lucky.
I don't have a y,
I've been double-crossed,

and well, I'm downright cross
about the whole thing,
actually.

Most of my heroes have dicks.

Femininity still doesn't
quite stick to the ribs, for me.
I sorely wear skirts,

mostly ironic, for tree climbing.
And sure, I'd scrub out
all those walls between me and boys,

those toyful laws that govern how and when;
to merely be friends,
without having to pay dividends.


II

I envy these men their crooked smiles,

taking from ripe buds
of slowformed flowers the sweetest kisses,
leaving them nectar-naked in the sun,

running gracefully from ruined gardens.
I imagine their own bodies wilting in me,
as I'm sure they see too, with those watery eyes

and tentacle hands. I'm not sure that I always
understand the appeal of my soggy tits,
my thorny lips, my trunky thighs.

Most of them do,

and with eyes wide open they devour me,
suck me whole through pupils for the swallow.
Watch my mouth move hollowly over,

and believe I would, or should be in love
if only that means coax their snakes
out of grass, or offer pieces of ass

for perusal. Where do I go for a friend?
They have mouths like hedgeclippers, and I'm
just a slippery bush that needs pruning.


III

I envy men's bodies, rising to the occasion.

Mine only flutters breezily
while I stutter pleasure in flat, flattered tones
and low moans. I don't have

the dense, thrusting intensity
that's necessary for strict attention to the act;
instead, I study their mapped faces,

running my fingers over unfamiliar trails.
Flesh like woods, or tundra, or stone;
all tell tales. I feel alone in the landscape,

Most of them do not share

my love of geography. Their eyes hood,
blank and blinked, walls of awkward
fingers painting question marks

on my breasts. I'd be a damn oak
if I could, grow large and unchanged
and impervious; unfortunately, I'm not

so oblivious, my continued
watch makes them nervous, so I
stop thinking about it, for a moment.

s: 08.02.16

besides, i believe in my own resilience
(like a fool)

s: 08.02.15

badass rolls in with bitches, spit!
an exclamation point for the phrase
I AM A BADASS, PAY ATTENTION!

p: 08.02.14

wanna scrape the silence of my tongue off against
the velvet soft inside of your ears

p: 08.02.13

So much potential smokes out in the colds,
with the moon and a low morose melody

for lost souls and haunted hollows where I
could perhaps slip my tongue between your lips?

That's a slippery melody already traversed,
but I'd gladly try again!

p: 08.02.12

a demolished bed of hay you'll be
cigarette kissed snicker simper to the last
when your tired old skin remembers softer years
makes minor jazz melodies in your ear

p: 08.02.11

am i just a character?

what am i now, a girl who puts on voices
when she's passing a cigarette along?

a toy actress,
a posturer for smoky kisses
in grasscoloured sprinklers

p: 08.02.10

men and not boys
not images etched

stone patterns of memory
now dire and intense

were three foot shorter
with no snarling look

watch wary and tired
like carrion eaters

slim starving lions
this land is in famine

this valley has made you
feed on our flesh

s: 08.02.09

will i leave my bones here
for others to build coral on?

p: 08.02.08

gangly and awkward
in the form of a girl,

i am what i am, after all:
still an actor
still a kid
but growing up to bursting forth
through the top of my skull,
taking stillframes with my camera
and my eyes

s: 08.02.07

So today while walking under the mezzanine in the South Building, I start to sing 80s pop like it's going out of style. Past the too-cool hipsters and their pink back pocket bandanas. Past the sullen pierced-lip punks with their fresh-from-smoking pitchfork glares. Past the security guard who probably had a billion other places he wanted to be. Out the doors and into the ether.

I don't have a style. I have a mandate, and it works for me.

s: 08.02.06

february

One February morning, haste-flowers died in a late frost; these were early whispers of a dead spring. That was the day you first asked me to marry you, an ironic and pathetically phallic gesture you made without really thinking through or over a wall of blind affection. I smitly ignored; in the cold sunshine of pines I squeezed your hand yes.

p: 08.02.05

clubkids

pound of heavy bass finds
children in dark corners,
busted seedpods mouths
spilling ungrown lust

palm-eyed and
groping for alcohol
full of stories and
jeering laughter

p: 08.02.04

writing outside

under bruised clouds and rusted trees
by the twin moons of lamps my fingers purple

p: 08.02.03

god damn you

your heart's sabbath:
a stick and a stone
intensity, propensity
cast-iron scale

stick out your tongue:
your temperature in
degrees calvinist

p: 08.02.02

busmother

the sound of metal creaking
the low gurgle of the engine beneath
the hissbreath sigh of too many mornings
spitting flesh and blood into the world

p: 08.02.01

afterward

i traced your name in silvering strangers
in rooms with doors that locked
alone i kept your created vigil
watched these worlds crumble all over

hoped for heaviness
hated for health