never say goodbye.

              burning rose petals into candle wax

13 year old girls become 36 year old women

                love continues to take on new forms
i'm drinking out that cup you gave me

you now have cheekbones of an angel

i can still hear how sharp

and high you sounded

never high a day in your life

but for next to me.

you kind girls!

I like a low-stakes love

like how you lead me on 

by a split hair

one-hit-wonder timeline

balanced on the edge

of imaginary nostalgia 

(I fill in the blank with what I want)

and the littlest crumbs

you sprinkle as 

you walk

I will obsess

Untill .....?

under blond baby bunny's favorite hosta plant

i slip my hand under 

blond baby bunny's

favorite hosta plant

from which he runs

as i approach

i want to know 

what secrets it holds like

if he were a person

would his bedroom 

have posters?

if he had a daughter

and named her after a flower

which flower would it be?

daisy or iris?

if he wasn't so scared

could we be friends?

blond baby bunny and i

this my favorite hosta plant too.

one 16-year-old oversized notorious b.i.g. long tee when I asked for snoop dogg (or at least west coast rapper)

Funny this shirt should give up

through an armpit hole reaching 

                                        my hip

        a week after you marry

    this shirt you gifted me

            a birthday gift

        I wore and we drank

said it was a party for my birthday

    but we partied almost everyday.

I'm not sad you've married

        -I've done it twice and 

    twice as eccentric, each time

so I know what it's about.

But the girl I tried to be for you,

    inside me, she rots

like a popular sitcom character

        played by a child actor

        but decades down the line

when the familiarity no longer

            hides the stunted pang

    leaves a hunger in the gut

    my biome gets fucked

   i am fucked (you didn't like)

but more likely you didn't like me,

a jersey waded up in mildew

                    pile on the floor

Spray me down with Axe, then

       Old Spice, those ads really got to 

you, the boy you tried to be for me

     inside you, he rots too.

This shirt is cloth strips

       won't last a wash

    put it in the compost

        with leaves and menstrual blood,

            egg shells and food scraps.

In weeks it will be be rich and black

        and feed my garden veggies

    I'll eat up these objects 'du toi'

        in salad and dinner sides

delight that everything stays something

        there is no nothing,

                     no gone,

just new forms, 

                        if you look hard

a birthday gift is sauteed and served

            with an evening meal

eaten with second husband.

while the shirt wasn't even what I asked for that birthday,

it is 100% cotton and compostable

    -ce qui me détruit me nourrit.

sonnet #3

In the spring when we caught foxes on film

I got so plump I rolled between fingers

and overseas they chopped off a boy's limb

while college kids became prisoners,

It's now I got so sick of acting grown.

-I always liked 'befores' more than 'afters'

runaway and burn everything I own

Just Kidding! Hang that thought from the rafters.

News talks with a hidden dog in the fight

While I can't help but plan to lighten my hair 

everyone else thinks they know what is right

I'm the fat child, this I am aware.

Excuse me while I cry my cartoon tears

like there aren't real kids living real war fears.

alpha beta

as always ashen angel ace

booming buxom brandy bows,

cryptic cagey cunning cats,

a deeper dozen double date

in an eerie empty eagle echo

fairer framing frantic foe

gifts golden goddess grimace gone

how happy, handsome home

is icky and icy imps

jumping jaded jagged June Jeeps

kept kind kite kitten kin

loving leaping little lizard lungs

minimal minion motion moving

near not now, nipple and navel

of open olive oil ocean once

patient person purpose poised

quite a quitting query queue

runs red rat's roses, remote rain

she strangely says "Same, sister." 

times truly tame and tangential

unlike an ugly uncle upside-down

very vacant vault vent vibe

while whales wince water 

XXX

yet young yellow yarrow yokes

zero zip and zest zones.

scorpio rising, scorpio falling

on the porch in the dark

    only the moonlight

so sad

i'm gonna touch myself

        the only person who will

cry those slow rolling 

            golden honey tears

which been building
    in my eyes

        in my throat

    all day

to resist telling you my 

        real thoughts like

i could chew panties like bubblegum

i'm an only child

i want to know your knees

in the backyard there's blueberries

    and i'd probably cry more

        if we were alone

then i'd stretch open my lips

            petal pink

    to wrap you up safe in them

bundled for winter

    for storms

        snoodled and swaddled.

i'd give you everything i don't have.

forgive me-

i am a waterhole

    a warm bath

        a salty turn

        always wet

with tears.

but i'll keep it to myself instead

just eat half a cookie

        go to bed on time.

always a good girl.

mama,

i ate all my lunch

                and i didn't complain.

  i'll always be a good girl.

i won't cry

            i'll work hard

and i'll never be loud

even when I'm scared

mama,

i won't ask for much,

be sweet

     be sweeter

be sugar floss sweet.

    -so agreeable

even when i'm sad.

a pleasure to have
in class

              in marriage

            in life.

mama,

i will be an ant

  so small

        lift ten times my weight

hold up a world

    of rules.

down,

down into a spiral

         a death spiral

            with my sisters   

 

i'm sorry i forgot to thank you.  

 

eyes forward.

eyes always forward.

don't look around. 

we ant mill in circles,
together,
always a good girl—
until the end, 
until we can’t be heard.

sonnet #2

 

no one eats hope, yet it's what my life needs

i love like what i saw on the t.v.

rabid sadness to which joy still concedes 

a chess game across a lighted marquee

everyone i love would rather be dead

than play another dumb hollywood trope

act big man on campus in my dim head

it's not how real people act - i'm aslope.

i'm too much you're too much it's all too much

feeling a wild fable start to brew

i like you beyond divinity touch
into the dark depths of fictional spew

i will never be a real lover boy;

be my girl though i'm just a cheap decoy.

sonnet #1

Oh, nothing about thou is humble, dear.

Now, I am compelled to write a sonnet

a first for me, but not for thou, I hear.

A dazzling face, my love, my sweet pet.

Feeling too much! Confine me with structure!

fold craving, desire into strict form.

my modern chaos seeks a vintage cure-

Shakespearean focus on my forlorn.

Hark! Classic beauty, tame me, bite thy thumb.

What if we live where you know I'm not slick?

Comedic timing, always saw I'm dumb.

You let me act such a feral lovesick.

Open and close for me, like blooms to light

say you love me in a message tonight.

ON YOUR WEDDING DAY

Happiness to you, on this day you deserve it,

you fucking earned joy

after how I wheel barreled you in triplicate,

        blind occipital orbits in the way each time,

I was an emotional wart, back time and time again.

We slipped into record grooves of a life others lived before. 

        Assigned the roles as kids and

            living with them as emerging adults.

Cops and Robbers. Hide and Seek. I Spy.

Donned our character sheet and became:

Zoo. French Class. Drunken nights.

    I was playing a scene I saw on t.v.

once as a child,
    I thought that was 

boyfriend, girlfriend, 

    dating, life and love.

Thought I could just mimic it true.

I'm sorry. Sorry, so sorry.

See me in those blinding neon pink pants.

chunky white and pink Baby Phat shoes.

   Bedazzled flashes of nights

    I can barely remember. 

I was cruel.

    Not a good girlfriend.

        Not a good friend.

            Not a good girl.

                NO FUCKING GOOD.

      I wanted to be one of the boys.

I wanted to be one of YOUR boys.

Then I'd turn fast with a tipped glass, sloshed

    abandoned you downtown, no ride,

        midnight - buses not running -

ignored your frantic calls. All calls.

    All cause the band played 

the song you wanted, 

        and not the song I wanted.

    Selfish, Wild, Hurtful. Das Moi.

No sorry could fix this. That's just one.

        One Incident. Snapshot.

You endured. Love? I didn't know it.

    But you did in some way. Surely.

        Twirly, hurly, rollercoaster love.

Wish I could say it was an act. 

    As if, I couldn't know better.

Perhaps I wore tough to impress you

                    -But that's another lie.

It was almost always my fault, 

    even if I always

        always blamed you. 

I was ready to fight at birth

    but you knew that.

[Did you ever really believe my lies?]

I was wrong. I was wrong about you.

        You proved me wrong. Catch me humble.
You deserve someone to love

    your polycast ways which print eternal

        three dimensional ways

faint fuzz sensitive and chilled kindness.

there's art in the machine, you said

you were mechanical, but you were all heart

    tender-hearted, delicate. Get love. Get life. 

Snatch it up how 

    I would snatch up your shoulders

and shake and cry and yell.

    Take life by the balls and love 
in your bionic binary ways. 

            Whole again.

                    I hope.

    You should never be second in line again.

You, who dove into dreams of giraffes, remember that,

        and rise up, up, up the ladder.

gifted another blessed day in a life that only grows.

lonely in Alabama's largest city

i can smell myself from a mile away

rubber bands and hot hair, like teen girls

                            straightening their hair

spray me down with your perfume

so tonight i can lick my arm.

to taste how you smell, it's

sweat and janitor cleaner

                        low notes

flowers and powder donuts

                        high notes

savor this rare scent.

everytime i decrease

my antidepressant

    - return to early puberty

i am pre-teen love

want everything

    right now, but get

nothing later.

sniffing the page you touched.

hugging a teddy bear close.

i need to know something you.

what did you eat today?

i am sullen at the thought

you may not have 

        had any fruit at all today.

i ate an orange for you

peeled off this skin

it clings to me still

i am citrus tone

    walking down 

an empty hall

            all alone.

bare nightmare

wrap me up in brown paper

send me far from here
the doula dreamy dredge

last night, i was at a bar,
your ex with an snake arm
round my waist

fingertips concave my skin
plush and no longer hard, i was weak,
he was whispering spittle sweet nothing

he said he craved me
yet i knew he said the same
to you in the same way

ran on fumble legs to your apartment
waiting all night to
    -hold you
        -tell you
            -bond with you
                -our sullen stories

i was dusting
your picture frames
i was keeping busy
there were pet rats
           everywhere
        till morning

you were in your bed
    the bed i made
    in sheets i washed
with a Dr. SomethingSomething
with the face of a serious child
    -a face that never played a game
            till he was an adult

            in
                security.
all this was always nothing

but my head.
    wake up alone.

love me like i love you (slow and small)

 

The pace of mail. So slow. Slow to create. Slow to transmit. Slow to consume. But never a slow open. I rip open the envelopes. I'm feverish and fiending. I slide letters into mailboxes and journals and dreams. Compact communication. Do you have dirt under your fingernails like I do? If so, I want to be so small I am planted in the dirt under your fingernails. Be there as you pick your teeth and bite you nails and move your hands about as your speak. Listen to you yap yap yap chaotic precious words to others, to yourself, to a empty room. Take my little notes and drop them on a box and even be there as you open them up. To be there as you open them up. Open up another piece of me. I don't need a lot, yet it's still too much.

the people's princess

blond baby bunny

run from me

thru the bush

past the a.c.

               unit

would you believe me

tonight

when the owls and bats

fly overhead

and i'm scared

blond baby bunny

                                            can't get away.

 

classic soda fountain egg cream

mix-tape yeeted me into the sun

so i blaze up 

[as the kids say]

the algorithm cannot duet me together

i am just a grown up imaginary friend

in a digital stockade 

[trend on trend on trend]

i am bloodmeal

sacrificed to the flowers' roots

found objects in the shed

animal family coo-ing 

from the tree

jesus-tree, crucified petals,

bunny-nosed kiss,

pistill and stamen,

winnie-the-pooh

on valentine's day.

meet the baby.

within every head is a skull.

naked and afraid [the show]

loud commercial jingles

pause, i shot up hormones

the nouveau medical

do not take if allergic to life.

what if in every pill

      there was a soda shop,

or shoppe,

and we could sock hop in,

sit at the counter,

and split a classic soda egg cream

at the fountain tonight?

[two straws we save in a scrapbook]

grumpy

basketball game chills

            play-by-play

        I am in

    how you tell a story

and I can feel nostalgic

    for a time I was not born

            like I am in house dress

     flour is on my apron

I'm calling the boys in 

                        for dinner.

sometimes

    I forget these todays will be

        flashback to the action hero's

dead girlfriend for whom he

    avenges, 

tomorrows

    a reoccurring dream

        smile over the shoulder

    slow-motion

  will be how I remember

someday.

owe you, 

        I owe you,

so much more than 

    just my public domain time.

nice Midwestern thighs (I am April's Fool)

shaved my legs today

for no special reason

just to feel the smooth

against the sheets

the things I like

are like that

unnecessary

indulgent

but small 

and only

for me

for you

and only you

so great

decadent

ultra-necessary

are like that

the things I like, too

I shaved my legs

but not my pits,

I don't ever

rub my arm pit

on the sheets

screenshots in hell

IRL.

IRL.

what if we a/s/l'ed

in real life

and you saw 

my screenshot

folder

and you couldn't 

look away?

meet me where you left me

plucked from the Nile

    colorful as your eyes

floating among reeds

    water snakes

        sinking sticks

    and floating wood

a sky swallows me whole

pulled me from the fields

    which shimmy seductive

  mice scurry, gleaning

    a harvest for small lives
snuggled in their

        warm biblical holes

whisked from ark stern

        to rough  waves

    drowning in God's Will,

        brutal to not be a chosen

                duo, 

just a sole leaf surface floating,

    single rock skipping

I am at the bottom of the ocean

    been there for centuries,

                get a scuba suit.

roll away the stone

    wake up from your death,

    Lazarus-

         open you eyes, 

see me, see me still here,

always here

        always waiting

always ready for the wake up

open your eyes to the person

            always by you.

among the waving fronds,

    dried leaves swishing,

I am always here, 

                always waiting,

patient as always, 

        never moving,

so when you are ready

                you'll find me.