sunshine girl

but when i ask
has anyone’s love
saved another stopped another
sure ok it happens
this is why humans keep dogs
it’s their whole skill set

what’s your greatest strength
and your biggest weakness
well i am really good at loving
i can love you so much
you’ll forget (momentarily)
that the world is cold and mean
i will love you until you cry laughing
you’ll be moved to hold me
& kiss my face repeatedly
on the flip side
i do eat my own shit

you know what
you’re hired

same product line as havana cunt

it’s self-flagellation season
the cards are saying
it’s a great time to fall in love
& use it as a whip
as a preventative measure
against uglier forms of pain

the stars predict grief
the stars predict numbness & anhedonia
the stars predict trauma fallout
but i can cross them,
i’m a scorpio

i’m growing out my hair
so someone can pull it
& i’m keeping my nails long
to dig them into skin
& i bought whitening toothpaste
the better to bite you with my dear
& i’m wearing red lipstick out
so i can leave a mark to fade

shit yeah baby
the name of this perfume
is Desperation
come over here &
huff my neck
i bet you
get at least a little
high

your hymnal looks infected

let us join hands and pray
for the winter
to end
it’s freezing in this cell
& our cells are freezing
pray that we will get married
to books that will treat us well
pray for death
to come
slow and painful
so you’ll get one more chance
let us pray for mother earth
& world peace
let us pray to find
twenty bucks on the ground
bow your heads with me
and whisper it
dear whatever
please provide
me with all the good shit.
amen.

we could be mirrors

you know what it is
to starve on a full stomach
to walk in cold rain
like you can wash the words loose
like your sore feet will write for you
& you know what it is to implode

tonight only the dirt’s visible
there are condoms & needles in my driveway
both used and i used to laugh
there’s another —
another sad symbol
tonight i just wanna kill that guy
the one across the alley
who leaves his dogs caged outside

see it’s cold & i know you know
& i’m sorry but some nights
this music just makes me
just makes me want to bleed
as melodramatically as possible

from the mouth, maybe,
from the stomach
because I can’t — won’t stop eating
hey, maybe you don’t know.
but the words are out there,
somewhere. gimme.

sometimes the painkillers make the pain worse

it is tempting but incorrect
to think of yourself
in this way

(you are not the oyster,
you are the pearl)

and this hollow is nothing
unless you shine a torch
lighting empty depths
still: it seems full
at least in the dark

(you cannot live there,
your body still holds you)

building the ground you stand on
building hands to grasp you
digging dirt with foraged tools
building a star to orbit

(you do not see this coming,
you prepare for the siege)

it is tempting but incorrect
to think of yourself
in this way
take the dirt & fill the hollow
take the light & leave the hands

(you will not fail,
you never have)

multiverse

once i was a tree & you were a bird
who lived in me. they cut me down
to build a fire & you were the flame.
once we were two flowers grown
from the same seed. you were a fox;
i was the water you drank.

you moved next to
and through & in me
and I breathed you
and you spoke me

once you were a canvas & i sketched
the stars on your body, where you said
they belonged. & you were the mountains
my rain washed in rivers. you were a wheel
and i was your road. we were the winds
meeting in a hurricane of warm & cold

i moved into
and with & as one with you
and you wept me
and I ate you

once i was the prison that held your bones
once you were the banner i carried to war
once i was your lipstick, carefully applied
once you were my shoes & i wore you out
once i was a moon who orbited you
once you were a bench when i needed to sit.

book of light, pt ii

How do you describe a triangle? 

How do you describe a cube?

How do you describe a sphere?

How to describe the shape of a pattern so grand that even the hidden meteor shower is only a small part of it? How to describe the shape of a connect-the-dots design where there are countless dots and you haven’t finished connecting them and never will? How to describe the shape of a face so terrifying you don’t dare open your eyes when it’s in front of you?

How to describe these things to someone who doesn’t want to listen? Or someone who will use this knowledge to hurt you? Or someone who will reject the shape of the pattern and tell you that you’re seeing things that aren’t there? Or someone who will come away from the conversation believing that there is something inside you that is deeply evil?
How to present all the contents of your mind to every person you know, and many who will never know you beyond the words you choose? How to handle when you hear a sentence leave your lips and think wait, shit, that’s not what I meant to say. How to do all this when you can’t write even a single page in longhand without your hand cramping, and when you are a technophobe to an extreme that has made you turn off your phone in the midst of important conversations so that the things you say are not monitored and used against you? How, when the first person to understand these things is long dead, and the second will end up taken by the same thing that took the first? How, when to even express the deepest pain, you have to take part in a system that is broken beyond fixing?

There is no way but forward. 

The only way out is through.

one voice that whispers to itself

you know i think i know
something about that deep-down
thing of which you’ve never spoken
in daylight under cigarette haze

if this makes you uncomfortable
then i won’t say it out loud
after this many bad shapes
i’m questioning my fit
settling and ambition
let’s take it
and fake what we can get
it’s all the same, no?

so then why the despair
god is that what love is
just humiliation & bleeding
say it ain’t so baby
let us all just be friends
it’s either that or
we trauma bond over tequila
and the songs
that don’t make anyone else cry

& breathe
yes i could breathe
your name in every exhalation

i mailed my old copy of infinite jest to italy because i couldn’t stand to look at it anymore

if you love something,
never get paid for it.

i’m a postage amateur
finally best to my best
swelling this blue box
and this one
heavy as my lungs

he’s been out a long time
unseen as ever
& spotted in an unclear sky
shaking leaf to root
violent splendor/violent love

i can’t change my bones
or dodge this perfume
fresh money, baby
smells good enough to eat
the chase is reluctant, thrilling
and what a salad we’ve made

the jar is empty

but you’ll be a blood donor, kid
someday
just you wait and see