even in our secrets,
we lie: even in the statements we make
to ourselves, condemnations, promises, assurances,
in our innermost monologues
we must lie.
(if i said to you all of the millions of words
that die, now, in my heart or my mouth
unspoken:
they may also die unassured,
unpromised, uncondemned, unburdened
by the weight which hearing them
necessarily provides.)

i found a path, the last moonlit night, and wandered, and
thought maybe if i held that course--
if i held, stem and stern, onto the steering wheel--
i could chart that smooth, paved track. but you laughed at me and
said i could never be anything i am not.
it doesn't sting any more.
often the harshest words are the truest, and our trust is
enough to make me true to you.
it means less than it should; some nights, though, i
would move heaven, shift mountains, say anything,
be pretty or quiet or tame if only my dreams would come
true.

a bedroom table covered in
makeup and bits of jewelry, hoop earrings,
just the wrong shade of pink lipstick.
shoes that don't quite fit,
an awkward walk as a result;
hair she has actively had to stop twirling,
a voice that ends in question marks?
fingernails that alternate
between bright colors and bitten off,
ink-stained sheets from midnight poetry.
when will you realize, precious, precocious girl,
that men loving you
is a happy side effect of you loving yourself?

how many of our habits are our own? before we begin to bite our nails or reapply lipstick or clear our throats before we speak, have we watched someone else perform these things habitually? do we select our favorite things (foods, vacation spots, sex positions even) because someone we admire told us about how wonderful that thing was? how did you learn to like dark, heavy coffee? why have you chosen to wear neutrals instead of colors? where did you learn to smoke a cigarette after sex, why that brand, why do you inhale like that?

alone, perhaps, boiled down into selfness by expansive periods of loneliness, we are closer to becoming individuals; but even then, we will be so afflicted by memories (of faces, of habits, of favorite things) that we will still enact and embrace others' desires and actions.

liesl

do you think there are places in the world
that are still perfect?
where maybe the trees are very old,
or the species are very new,
and the weather is always what it should be?
i think sometimes that
every beach in the world has been polluted,
you know?
that every jungle is half-corroded
with our desires for coconuts and diamonds.
i just want one perfect place
left for us, where
we could take a vacation, you know?
go someplace quiet, out-of-the-way, isolated,
maybe there's a beach but
definitely a porch or a balcony or a widow's walk
where we can curl up and be lonely.
do places like that still exist?

the sincerity of natural violence:
honesty in danger, the visual rhetoric
of the stormclouds, the wind opaque with debris,
trees bent backwards and rain
gusting like ocean tides, atlantic crashers
pouring over the sides of our window frames.
all the different colors that can be incorporated!
green sky, black clouds, white rain,
and the red and yellow leaves ripped off trees
to whirl in the winds, frothy,
and cheer on the storm.
in witnessing, face and hands iced to glass,
i am reluctant to stay inside or away from windows;
i hesitate to avoid, to protect, to not see.
without the record of violence in action,
who will believe the damage?

living alone in a hurricane

my neighbor pacing upstairs--
rhythmic creaking-- probably, as i am,
walking between the bedroom
and the kitchen and the front door and the windows
checking for something else to check.
i should have taken a 'before' picture.
maybe in the inches and feet of rain we are predicted
to get-- or the miles and miles
of wind we expect to be buffeted with--
my car will wash away; my windows will burst
in the low pressure system
(i am high enough up, my whole building
swaying in the oceanic winds).
the cats are nervous. they cry at my feet,
begging for something, i'm not sure what to give them.
(who will find me if i--
no, of course i don't have those thoughts,
no one has those thoughts)

changeable and strange,
full and vibrant and evolving,
choked with action and reaction--
all things love, all things go!
if tomorrow i were gone,
would you miss me or the possibility
of future love and sex?
oh but tonight, tonight let's dance slow
and climb mountains, forge rivers:
changeable and strange,
wild and stoked with inertia,
let me wind myself up in you
and find the will to let go.

how much ice does it take
to make your bones freeze,
how much steam
till your blood will boil?
how many insults till you're worthless,
how many blows until you're numb?
how many stories
do you have to tell
of pain, of sorrow, of slight,
of hatred or ignorance or inequity
till you are transparent, withered, ineffectual?

how many until you are mad?

exactly how many quotations do you need
to accept that he believes what he says?
how much publicity till you understand
that he will practice what he preaches?
how many more moments
until you are done?

your words crawl like tiny fingertips
up the length of my skin:
whispers, promises, affectionate, disconsolate.
your heat, your need, your desire
pricks my skin, moves past my knees,
searching, seeking, finding.
in tabulating your verbal kisses and motions,
i find emotion, attachment, intensity.
you are a long list of actions and adjectives.

at night your breath fell peaceably
and you agreed to walk with me
in dew-dropped wheat, and far afield
i lost your name in the flaxen sea.
miles and miles from here i'll seek
to find the pulse your heart should beat.

at dawn your eyes were pricked with light
and you agreed to morning flight
across the lake, where in the sun
i couldn't see you in skies so bright.
miles and miles from here i'll look
to find the tide your wanderings took.

at noon your skin was dry and grey
and you agreed to run away
to seek shade where secrets are safe;
i forgot what burdens weigh.
miles and miles from here i'll quest
to find the place where you can rest.

at dusk your smile slowly grew
and you agreed to show me through
the darkened paths you wander where
i always guessed but never knew.
miles and miles from here i'll search
to find the whispers where they perch.

because maybe there is no weakness in saying—
"please, let me be weak—"
maybe there is a lessening of sorrow in the admittance,
"please, i am sad..."
we build communities for support, for mutuality,
for help in times of trouble but then—
cannot admit to trouble?
please, i am harried, i am worn, i am tired:
i come to you now lacking value
and proving worth.

lethargy, beautiful and pale,
descends on the body;
softer than moonlight, with the calm hurry of sex
between partners who know each other well.
each muscle relaxes as melatonin circulates:
happy, calm, chemical trust
floats through the bloodstream like honey.
awareness of what the body is,
each shape and line and each perfect flaw,
weights the limestone limbs.
what it is to be wanted, what it is to be sought:
peace of knowing, eventually,
release will come.

silas climbs the mountain,

finds his sickle at the top.

judas clings to lonely hills

and sings among the rocks.

ruth is stuck in tired fields

and groans for ample grain, while

mary preens her herds and fields

and cherishes the rain.

paul gets lost on foreign trails

and harasses passers-by.

jonas loses all he loves

and finds peace in the brine.

hagar must obey the law

although the law is wrong.

sarah cleaves her bleeding heart

to hagar's empty song.

jerusalem must have been full

of preachers preaching trust;

bethlehem would crack the glass

and shatter in the dust.

i was supposed to have been counting minutes,
all that time,
i suppose.
i should have been soaking in sunshine,
hurrying for the fullness of love.
and while, perhaps sentient, perhaps subconsciously,
i etched bits and pieces into my body
and my skin, the cells
do insist upon evolution:
i cannot force my body to be stagnant, to be still.
how lucky, how lovely, how lithe:
memories that burnish themselves
in the depths of time,
that rise from the brine of years
all the more golden for their age.

doubt, luscious in lascivious intentions,
slides along the roof of your mouth:
what is it to tease,
how is it that we find ourselves here?
unctuous uncertainty blended with quicksand,
bright silver fear and backlit intentions:
everywhere your gaze is,
there my secrets preen themselves:
where your tongue seeks, my terror
gathers like honeyed wax to the wick.
sexuality built in shadows
flowers in the twilight, shrinks from dawn;
the scaffolding erected, juliet's balcony
is not so removed as once it was.

flames candles warmth, outside wind night sky temperature:
windows, walls, doorway. shadows.

flickering lighting: seeking, finding, enjoying.
avoiding, enticing, pushing, pulling.

in the miasma of derogatory or predatory voices, the one that reaches out and makes you laugh is the one to cling to.

in the inconclusive puzzle of my future you are the only piece i am sure i have collected correctly.

i want a man like the skyline,

peaks and smooth edges and a city of glass,

a man dark like urban nighttime

whose skin smells like condensation and sex.

i want a man who breathes air,

who drinks water and wine and dark coffee,

a limestone, granite man:

a man eroded like a canyon

who echoes from his lips to fingertips

and etches himself into the striations of my skin.

for such a man i could be a river,

my whole self an unending stream,

affectionately curling up in valleys and ponds

and carving my lines at the bottom of his soul.

to allow you, at last,
to be my teacher and mentor
must be some kind of defeat, or else
why do i fight against it so hard?
to finally accept
your words as guidance,
your actions as chastisement,
your emotions as validation:
because if i maintain
that you are none of these things,
then i am still a void of avoidance
and keeping myself whole
and pure for the next round.

in all the magnanimous extrapolation
of street art and repurposing
there has never been a way
to make art out of cigarette butts

i can't tell any more if it is
the control of carcinogens or oxygen
that makes me feel so
undeniably
sad

fishing it out of the box, fingers less sure
than they might otherwise be,
the lighter takes several tries to flame.
the first drag, hard and long,
so you can feel your lungs burn,
so the distemperance can dissipate.
the cawing, crowing success
of brown crawling inside your veins:
smelling of age and seashores,
dark like timber and resin.
midway through the taste is less forest
and more smoke, old carbon,
burning and elemental and acrid;
as the fire creeps toward the filter,
cancer seems more a likelihood
than death by lack ever seemed.
even still, the need is basic and bloodlust,
associated with sidewalks and summer
or windowsills and snow or
driving, walking, drinking, fucking.
the illness floats, an oily residue,
on the surface of my tongue.

tears are such useless catharsis,
the body's physical rejection
of the salty sting of self-abuse.
the primal instinct of need takes over,
crass, hard-boiled, simple;
in these moments i am mammalian
in my desires and attempts,
terrified and waiting for redemption.
there is nothing you can give me
that i have not already refused.