ThousandOur silence lasts for miles,tangled around my ankles and throat and stretching down the highway to end at yourcomputer screen. I like the way it tastes,like bitter chamomile and rust.We crawlfrom morning to dusk and drink toomuch coffee and watch the Bruins poundthe Jets and forget that once upon a time,we said we'd get married.Sometimes our fingertips remember the tapping of keyson late nights, our poetry and faith streaming betweenour eyes in rivers of need, and wecave inside. Just a little, though.Mostly we sleep beneath the fluorescent lightsof God and sex and grocery shopping,and we pretend we don't seet
Bostoni.we meet in a unremarkablespace, a breath ofcaffeine-induced insomnia and wintercyber-poeticsii.you cut away a chink ofargent armor, a piece ofnormality, a slice ofBoston skyand my heart decided I wasn't so smart anywayiii.I twirl around carousels with the closestbody, closest touch, a hybridof addiction and disgust while youride the bench behind me,eyes glazed and paintchippingiv.you watch throughdictionary lens, see me flying through blueand grey, bones skimming ocean, poetry breathingin place of collapsed lungsI tie you into knots and hide so you can't be undone, can'tquite forgive, and I wa
hello even from herei can hear the crunch of your brittle ribcages as your bones sunder.they're all entranced by your lithe body,dark beauty.you haunt;silhouette teetering on the blurred edges of our memories.we see your phoenix eyes from behind ember hair. perhaps you're a static soul, with spirits resting on the trivial skyward curve of your lips,but i know you make nightly trips down to hell. has no one noticed: you're not breathing?you're afraid to lose your lows;(life sprouts)but there's a clinquant world out there.believe:the earth doesn't have to b
4pmtired from counting all my stolen stars, tremble love, hardto be branded skinny when your scale keeps jumpin' murderthunder like sweet hot tea, raining down inside my ribsbeating like hard bass, vibrations through my sneakers,tastes like Wednesday night full of pretend, treadmills untilI taste size zero, icing on top (buttercream)pink lotion that smells like raspberry waste, soak into my skinso I feel like pretty, enough to stand out inthe sugary sun and gleam like vintage fog, scarlet-letter phantom,prozac tainted girl, baked with allspice and clovesginger-bread ideasif we all shared my concept of beauty,the streets w
MagpieI am crazy jealous.I am raining down inside a soft leather journal,splashing gold-edged pages with weathered ideas fromfarther places.I am pretending to be porcelain,smooth and fragile, eggshell strength.Inside, my wings have yet to grow,and I stare at all the beautiful thingsand hope that my mirrors lie,because nobody wants to be the bluebird left behind.I knit patterns of glory and suspicionaround and around your wrists--bound, you are mine, andif I can't be that pretty thing withfeathered love, then I'll be the ugly thing with stolen heartsin a box.
admitif I can go the whole worldwithout melting down, turning inside outover strawberry short-cake (you can't guess the crazinessof an anorexic walking down grocery aisles)something stops me short of pullingmy wallet out, like metal bars swinging downover my ribs. if I can't let me out,nothing can get inand then when I go home and crawl into bed, lips sealedbecause if I lie one more time my stitches will rip,I fall into love with a thousand boysbecause I can't keep my heart to myselfand you still believe in me, truth buried beneathshared poetry and bad lighting, whispered commands wheneveryou decide you really need me
HeirloomI was bornbeautiful as a potato.Grandfather grew heirloom tomatoeswhen he still had the energyto love the arrival of earthworms in spring.He sliced the juicy tomato insides openand I ate them rawwith ground sea-salt.Grandfather left one of his tomatoes in my hands,one of his tomatoes like the saints he sought in church,saints who stood over him when he becamenaught but a candlethat Grandmother lit with the match boughtby the rattling of a quarterat the bottom of a little tin box,the rattling like the lid of a mason jar.I hate the prickling fear-sound of my spinal chordwhen I twist my neck too sharplyt
Mirrorsartificial modesty, dusted up in powder blanche,a skyward taste of infinityanorexia breathing over tealight bones, turning theminto negative needand all I ever wanted was a mirror to lie to me,tell me I reflect a little je ne sais passo I steal your societal imagestrip until all I'm wearing is pride and 5am workouts,pretending I like the way fake sugar tastesand the way needy eyes penetratetaping stars beneath our eyelids toreplace dessert and coffee,we slip heaven over our shoulders and march towards ouradoring fans (being pretty is killing us worth the effort)you may have daddy issues, but I'm just vain.
SawdustI need purgatory, to sendscalpels and butterflies sliding down my spine.I need a blanket so I cancrawl over my best friend's grave, keep us warm andward the ghosts away.If you could taste mania, it'd be fresh strawberriesand cream, vanilla andsawdust. The flavors of morning and newly-bought coffins,the fresh-car scent included for only two-fifty.I need to be sliced open, given newveins and a new heart, because when I promised to eatthree square meals a day and never ever remember my dead best friend,I forgot that I can't reset my eyes.
RiskyI'm being a good girl, siphoningoff my rotten limbs andsanding down my edges.I am taking a hiatus from being the stolen loverin millionaire backseats; folding myself into neat little squares somy harsh colors can't offend.I am ambiguous--arbitrary--running in rivulets down scraps of paper, napkins,ridged cardboard coffee-holders. I am turning inside outso that by tomorrow, I will be clean and pink,a newborn waiting for the right words.I am taking bites of normalcy,forcing my newly-found size zero to transform into some godly representation ofwhat's right and real and safe.I am walking, eating,breathing in
strawberryi need to get to that point where the paint is crawling in flecks up my arms and my hands are coated,where tree branches scratching fade to antiseptic hum,where you are nothing but a face in the background.i need a smock i don't care about,a trowel,a clump of cold dirt,a seedchrist,i need a seed.
postmarked:Dear God: Here is a picture of us conquering Rome. That's me in the white hat, I know you haven't seen me in about eight years since that time you got mad and didn't listen since that time that you showed me and my brothers your back I've aged and this smile you gave me and my knees (for bowing) are slinking toward the ground. Those
beautiful things never come easy.when i was youngi'd have this dreamwhere i'd wake upa girl with normal traitsdoing normal things and being as normal as could be.i'd only wake againand cry myself back to sleep,a true poet that does not writebut keep all her words underher tongue and her feelings inlumps in the back of her throat,choking on dusk, hands, the asinine voicesthat tickle the back of her neck.now sometimes, i choke on fire,with nightmares of bony knuckles and lips.there is a pink serpent tongue,pink, cracked nails with mine,and flowers for eyes,and a book for a mouth.and the pages are blank.but with me, unlike they, she
Hummingbirdsi took the whole whiskey bottleand some dark-colored winethen changed clothes &put up the christmas lightsthough it was almost spring.i switched off the other lightsand looked at the colorbetween one room and the nextin those christmas lights.i put some food in the microwaveas if nothing were happening.i waited the way a piano waitsfor its own hammers to fall.i emptied that bottle,i thought.then, in the midst of a few thousand hummingbirdsi walked through the doorwayonto the linoleum.something should happen now,something final,because it's this deep into the night,when things are at their m
wokei wokeand ate fruit.went down to the river,watched things brighten.spent the day.wokeand woke andwoke.
Precisedrop off the face of my planet.I have no words,no details,only a finite spectrum ofegoism. you do notembody self,and altruism is mostunattractive.falter;we cannot break the bindsgrowing, slowly and tenderly,around our veins. this ismy bucket list,a worried tabloid ofshame and sugar. you,the broader range of free and plastic, mark downin felted pen the encyclopediaentry of Beautiful. I don't liketo think about the rules you created forsuch a thing.They do not define me.
LaundryI fold my shadows,tucked in with neat seams and presses. I lay themdown as I go on, shoelacesdragging behind,becausesomebody else might need a dream.I like to think I'm theFairy Godmotherof those less fortunate.
Skyscrapers and GodI guess I wouldn't mindif you slipped past,brushed fingertip to rib,skimmed my lips with a parting shadow.I would think, for once,you had chosen God over me,and I could imagine you wereHoward Roark or some such love,and I'd be okay.It would only hurtdown to a certain point.Onlythat you exist, somewhere,as my savior or my taxi driver,it doesn't matter.That is my freedom,my redemption in your eyes.You told me to stop being afraid.
Linoleumwe are ponderingsilence,needle/thimble/tremble. i stitchus a home in awkward conversations.this is the great city,dim lights to give ussidewalk halos. we are inconveniencestores, bubble gum kleptos,and that's how we knownone of this is a dream.it burns too real, leaves fingerprintson our sight. this is dustyand stale.this is life,magnified.
IsI have found that I amanything but helpful in the most awfulofsituations.I do not run, but rather standstill, letting my shadows whispercondolences I fail to give. Mygod does not believe in prayer, and I can senda wish to the cosmos, but a still frameof grief is easier to paint.I don't believe in meaningsand paths, and I haven't cried since I realized religion isnot a drug. I amstoic.Bearing andburyingthese tragedies in myrigid back. I am straight lines at funerals Iwill never attend. I amstony-eyed over lost loversthat never meant a damn thing.I am still,because motion meansgiving up.
shoelacesToday, I am the long-awaitedfootsteps on weary stone. I am the hushhush ofsneakers trudging through the dirt. I am the returnof childhood upon grey slabs of cement.I am done with being hungry.
Thanks.
It just feels right.
yay!