Built in so many ways you could

almost see the hand of God among them, their

faces, their shapes and their sounds:

the facts of their bodies, as real in death as life,

a proof of the wrong that’s been done. 

i wind you up like so much challah, warm
and fat and heavy i twine you on the kitchen
counters in practiced hands. tonight
your limbs are perfect clockwork, the beat of me
a gravity we both lay ourselves down in.
rise like a girl from her deathbed and dance:
in a desert there is plenty of heat where
we could bake for years. rise like
this is the first beckoning you have followed,
the first you have heard, rise like your blood
does not pace in your veins waiting for
the shepherd to come and find you here.

you should know that in between
that rough voice saying "what you got" and
the growl in your stomach
there is space for more of you
if you climb out and find it i will
show you
in the valley between my deserted
hearts i hold space for you
a battleground i rent out monthly to
young men with bears who don't know
it is yours, it is an artifact
i groom for the liberty that is penance

The world is brighter in firelight, the lines

on your forehead not quite so pronounced, 

I choose to imagine this table

is perfect in this candlelight, that we are

exactly what we seem to be and nothing more or less inflamed.

Later you will refuse to touch me.

When the wax slides, hot and smooth, up

between the creases in my flesh,

a prayer for the graceless mounds of body you can't 

control, any more, leave the residue

and the sweet burns that surround.

Remind me I am alive. Remind me of my pain, and culpability.

Are you thirsty, love? Tired? Bored?

I can be a better toy, I can 

be a helpmeet and a maker and a lover and a keeper,

till the inevitable moment and I'll burn this house down

like the cask of kindling it is. The fire

will hold me closer and sweeter than ever you did.

Listen. 

I can be comfortable in free fall.

I have my own equilibrium.

I understand the mechanics of landing on your feet.

I know who and what I am.

I make decisions with both hands and a mouth full of booze.

But when I land--on both feet--then, what I want to feel is land.

I would like, someday, to stand still.

I would like, someday, to learn to hold on instead of learning to loosen everything that holds me.

I would like to experience the solidity of gravity and concrete and hard brown dirt before I feel the sand slide around beneath me again.

things I would like to say to you in this moment 

hello how are you are you

busy would you like to get a drink

what time do you get off how

is it going are you well do you think

a night out would help at all

and then

in that moment 

I would say hello it's so nice

to see you, I am glad you took the time

you look good tonight, let's get

a drink let's stay awhile

tell me stories, tell me secrets, tell me

anything at all, stay awhile 

here with me and

let's pretend that I'm not leaving,

let's pretend this is a fling

Breughel

There is no place that does not see you -- Rilke 

for I have known those dark eyes, know them all--

when they refuse to see me I resort to geography 

the penitent lost in the landscape, the slight silhouette 

of the artist inserted among the trees:

heartland, I breathe your sunset, exhale your night.

the pylons along the shore, barely visible in storm,

are my haunt in the pink calm of dawns.

to feel safe along the waters edge, because I am not safe on land:

who could wrest me from your gaze? from the crawling 

sniveling whining of your lust? only here

I am a gull, I am alight in the blank space of my own heart.

the winds will whip me low and long, the crests and my wings

a blur of cold wet.

a magic in the meeting 

of your graceless expectations: I am hungry too, 

and I will feed you from my hoarding up of blood.

alone in the fields, stalks higher than I, and the 

gainless fruits of wandering: a tall flat sky to hem me in,

a dark brown bed for making. I dig a pot, a bowl,

a hole for the remnants of my flesh.

seen, I am carrion among the crows, dissected 

and refracted in a thousand beady eyes.

I hear your discontent, and am afraid.

we crawl from branch to branch, tiny coordinated limbs 

gross in the great, scheming abandon of the world.

I rub myself along the soft of the lavender:

a show for you, directionality, so that you can feel control.

somewhere along the sunflower stalks

I've lost you, your face in a yellow frame.

I think I am free but it's one moment, one leg over,

until I am at home again.

your dance, distinct among the rest, tells 

of your journey and weary desires:

still you chase among the blossoms.

still you gather, and make your honey.

you catch me splayed among the buds, wide open

and willing the sky to take a bride. 

you mistake my intention and I become

full of a need, a scent, a sap.

take these pages, and call my name forever -- RA

he sets the mug down careful, ceramic on glass, 

pushes it an inch across the counter to me.

I could make a joke about liking my coffee the color of

skin, your skin, dark skin, weathered skin,

but your eyes are tired so I don't.

in another hour they will be here, and our peace

and the slow climb of my lust will be interrupted.

we will start again another day, with another mug.

I do not want the secondhand respect that comes

with being attached to the name and body of a man.

for acknowledging ownership to the world, for

publicly admitting that we fuck 

as couples ought to do (oh I bet she can suck it good,

have you seen that ass, she probably get real wild)

I am seen, at last: accoutrement, accompaniment, 

the subtitle in this sequence of events.

take my name, and write these pages of yourself:

do you like how I look, and speak, and act?

it can all be modified for the sake of your senses.

I try to ignore the groveling desperation 

that crawls inside my guts: let me learn, I can 

do better, be more, speak less. I can paint this up

or stress it down, what would you like? show me 

and I will only be seen as what you desire.

you can bet when icarus fell, a woman at a well or
a girl with her herd stood, hand on hip, and watched
till his slight form slipped into the waves, and then
turned back to her work, muttering at the hobbies
(not the follies-- these we accept) of men.

somewhere in my dreaming there is
the sound of an aircraft descending, that long
wolf howl of mechanized air, and the screech
of rubber on cement. it leaves a little
of itself behind, latent, languorous, splayed out
like limbs of whores, an invitation
to some specific type of dusk. here in this
god-shaped hole we reach to each other,
you refuse touch, fingertips to pulse.
a messianic tide pushes up against the rocks:
the gaping of the crowd, when they see
the destruction, it will all be worth it
for the noise of that strong, dark wave.
the weight of you bends me over, bears me
over the kilns and the ovens and the fires
that make our bread and cups and life:
this is no rescue craft, there is no safe rooftop
to perch upon now. when the ravens leave
and the vultures come, your body will break
to the suck of gritty, receding shorelines.
the tide will fall, inch by inch, back to me.

And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again,
and said, Go and take the little book
which is open
in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.

In these revelatory times I cling to my mothers skirts,
tied to immaturity with tight tendrils of fear.
The wind whips around us on the hilltop and I see
tall thunderheads, green and grey, their billows and beards
threatening to waste all that we have built.
They menace on the horizon and I drag her hand
down after me, please come, please hurry,
the sharpness of my anxiety digging into her ribs and mine.
I drag her too quickly; she stumbles, small shoes
on a steep climb, and before I can latch on she's gone.
She does not even make a sound. In the true
selfish nature of childhood I do not look back,
but keep scurrying down the gravel path.
I will reach the safety; she will not.
The rains the storm will bring might find her,
limbs at odd angles, pale skin, little blood,
and push her helpless corpse down the river
till it beaches at my doorstep.
I will not grieve until it does, as I demand
this proof before accepting a fate so dumb.

Sylvia Plath was not a martyr.
Nina Simone could not speak her truth.
Simone de Beauvoir did not know our times.
There are no warriors now
but us.

Sylvia and her husband
(whose name is too common to even remember
next to the glory that was his wife's
furious articulation) Sylvia and
her husband did not find recourse in each other.

Nina, whose job it was to speak
(our songbird, our falcon, our peacock,
whose plumage barely hid the damage done)
found herself so unheard
that she uprooted herself, and evicted her voice.

Simone had the audacity
to couch womanhood in scientific terms
(the physiology of us becomes inglamorous,
our sociology too humane)
could only publish, and defend, and defend.

On the days when they draw
the noose a bit too close, let them tug
a little longer, let them cinch it in tight.
I heard the orgasm is better
for the men who like to watch.

in this little house the dirt floor
stays warm, the fire does not go out, its light
our own branding of misery: in this house
where blindness is our bravery,
we keep time with open palms on the body
of the guitar, bare feet and old frets.
in this little house we corral
unruly love, the wild flight of our egos and
our so-mutual discontent, for
what pleasure comes at nighttime:
I will dance, and you will play, and we'll spend
the dark hours grating, wet, against
each other. can I breathe that deep ocean, drown
in this moonlight? in this firelight, where
hell is real, can I melt with fury, can I burn?
in this little house I sweat for the
grind of erosion, worn from angry tides,
cast me as coarse as salt with your cold kiss.
you move through me, douse me, embalm me:
you and my blood, grit in the flow.
I crave nothing, create nothing, quiet and leaving
only this little house of tinder behind.

let me tell you what it is like to be alone,
she whispers, a hiss in the dark
like the slide of your zipper in the dank grey dawn.
let me tell you what alone is,
and the oil of it slips up into your hands
from the old carpet, 70s shag,
drips forward into your mouth, clogs your eyes.
let me tell you what it is to come unmoored.

she is bare-chested and smoking, her
knuckles yellow against the pale rises, sharp roses.
the free hand taps at her collarbone,
anxious, death rattles to sound out the possibilities,
her cancer not yet diagnosed
though you have cum in her enough times,
the tired womb of her.

so tell. you shrug.

she pulls a long drag, splashes ash into
the glass, two hands up into the mat of brown hair,
spine rotates as she rises, lithe, too young.
the dimples of her back, so impossible.
let me tell you what it is to be forgotten.

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the only flaw in her detailed plan
is where she wins back the love of the man
everyone knows that he's never coming back

there are no motel receipts between you and I
no other scent, no lipstick stain
there are no inexplicable late nights without me
when you leave it will not be for her
it will not be for long hours of skin-to-skin lust
you will not leave me with the taste of her
still fresh on your mouth and your hands
you will leave because I am wrong
because in my faithfulness I have been faithless
because my sincerity is sour, my words rancid
with disappointment and fear
you will leave because I lost beauty to cynicism
because I lost charm to righteous anger
because I gave up peace in order to be heard
you leave because I am hard, heartless, cold
and you are not

A woman is always an island, 2

at night the clouds, lit from below by reflection
from the icy concrete, take on tinges of winter:
looming and grey, they preside over a cityscape
that has allowed you to leave me again.
I pack on winter weight like it will protect me
from more than your loss: each pound a talisman
to fend off the wind, errant lovers, stray nightmares.
this last time, like so many other last times,
has a high price tag: when my hibernation
does not abate, when I let myself slide down
that silvered slope of cool, calm isolation,
you who have found me so unneeded will not
be surprised at how easy I find the letting go.

she shakes something loose in me, it's why
I put up with her, thousands of nights all the same:
she calls beforehand, a loud bar in the back
and asks what I'm doing, remember winter?
remember Kansas? oh sugar has it really been so long?
I know she'll be over in an hour, tipped
over the neckline of that black dress she wears,
spilling into the territory of midnight and candy:
she tries to flirt, cannot see that I am bored,
settles down on my couch cross-legged.
the up is in one hand, the down in the other,
and the pulse of her heart can't decide
which would be the better way to die. (we always
meet like this, in the twilight of our lesser
selves.) what if you could run forever, would you?
but what if they could never catch up, then?
you could go for miles, you and the sky
and that wholesome American sense of free.
what if you could just wind down, feel
complete and simple in that after-sex way,
just lay there with his yoke still on
and sleep? but what if they never found you,
couldn't pass post-mortem judgment, then?
I say, I know they tire you but the burden is not
your body or your presence. we cannot sacrifice
any more for their comfort. she ignores me,
goes to the back bedroom and curls up,
hem hefted over the curves, the curves.
it is not an offering and she knows in the morning
I will kiss her mouth, touch her face, let her go.

I met you in the rain on the last day of summer
the sun was lying, it would be cold that night
autumn had already blustered in, bright and rude

I met you in the rain on the last day of my childhood
we stood in the dusk, face to face, locked adversaries
and promised to keep each other's secrets

I met you in the rain on the last day of the year
stepped out for cigarettes, you were carrying
beer instead of champagne, I lit you up

i will never match you story for story.
i will never be natural in the world you made.
you and i are two different animals climbing
up the same mountain: we find solidarity
in the facts of genetics, in how articulate we can be
with footsteps in uncharted landscapes.
we speak in hoofprints, stark in the red mud
of this valley: where are you? i am here.
this is mine. you and i stake out our realms, but
both refuse to circle them, refuse the
anxiety of maintaining control. i give over
to the beat of the seasons: i will meet
you in the deep deciduous trees, green and brown and
smelling of decomposition, full of shadows,
and i will kiss you there like you are my only.
i will touch you there in the earthy damp,
among the roots, with my knees in the peat:
i will seek you as though the world ends in us.

where the mountains are drawn imperfectly
against the sky, retched up into the skyline like
little boys bullying, flushed with triumph
in the morning glow, where the steep slopes meet
in sharp limestone valleys, this is where
I will, coming and going, meet myself

in this safe, sharp place I put hands
on the layered shale, the bright lime, the crests
of valley floor that shoulder their way up
toward the heights, left behind in their
seismic attempts; some of us are not meant
to flirt with that blue expanse, my love

deep in the valleys the water runs
slow and sluggish through paths carved
millennia ago, winding among tall pines and
deep golden beds of scattered needles; this
is where I will lay myself, tired of travel,
aching from lack of oxygen on the peaks.

I like my coffee like I like my men, black as hell and hot
I like my coffee like I like my men, quiet and with a cigarette
I like my coffee like I like my men, any time all day or night
I like my coffee like I like my men, ground up and burned and bitter

if I am a part of you that
needs to be removed, I accept my fate.
go and pick your tree, out back,
touch its trunk and look up at its leaves--
what is the view like? and dig
a hole, long and deep. go and gather
at the creek a pocket full
of pebbles, grey and white, in secret
shapes only you and I will know,
little specials we will hunch over
together. if I am just
a story from your childhood
that needs to be exorcised, then
go and get the gun while I am still docile,
it will all be over soon.

what I want most of all is the weight of your fingers
on my neck, right where the blood pounds hardest,
where you and I both know how alive you make me come.
we've had so many late nights together but the paths
we walk diverged: I look for you across the chasm,
taking my own tentative steps forward and wishing
we could still balance against each other. now
alone in my sunrises, adrift in my early mornings,
I lean into the wind and wait to hear echoes from
the night before-- did she make you moan? did she
drag her nails down you just right? I gather my gravel
in both pockets, sifting it through anxious hands,
a counterweight to the way my stomach drops out
when I hear you call my name. you and I and these
heights, we will never be safe, we will never be still.

I worry about how I will know when I am dead.
Is it when the skin of other people
becomes unbearably hot? Against my own?
Will I lose color vision and see only
black and white, stark and gradient, the faces
no longer flushed with anger or lust or shame?
I worry about how I will know
when I am dead in case it happens and I
don't notice. If it is not a choice that I make
for myself, then what if I am not
cognizant of it? What if I die and there is still
the specter of you hanging over me,
how could I tell the difference? What if I die and
memories of you, branded on my body,
remain brighter than the afterlife?
What if I die and am still haunted, how
can I be freed?

such an ineloquent metaphor but
remember that time you put your dick in me
and it didn't even matter because
I was already pregnant with the pounds
of expectations you laid on me?

remember that time you could only hear
me say things you wanted or that
you liked, remember how I had learned to
deep throat and you said oh, you didn't
learn to push any farther than that?

remember the time when you went
home to your skinny wife after
cheating on her with me and then asking
me if I was going to the gym, if I was
doing enough cardio, if I was dieting?

remember that time when I was
working so hard to stand still and strong
inside of myself, to believe that I have
worth or beauty or value, remember that
time when I invited you in?

what comes of not knowing you well enough yet--
stumbling right into the rough parts of you, you are not
ready to share and I can only apologize for the invasion--
always slightly off balance-- and really all I want
is to make you smile and your impulse to do the same
for me is so heartening-- I just wish that
I could land easier in your life, without the weight of
my body, my history, my reflexes pounding down all at once--
like if I could actually be gentle or modest or any
of those traits I ought to have, I wish I had-- and while
I trust your lack of judgment, I am aiming
past acauaintanceship-- the impatience of me,
how deeply I desire the next several steps with you--
I propel myself backward with the force of my blood.

peace comes after we stop
giving up so much of ourselves
to purchase love from someone else.
I will be no less myself now
than yesterday or tomorrow;
you are welcome to stay or go,
as you please. I will show you
the best and the worst of myself,
all of the joy and the wreckage.
what I am is complex and beautiful
for its complexity, for where
the treasures are buried as well as
where the land mines lurk,
waiting to peel limbs or love from you.
the choice is yours, I will be
no less joyful or wrecked for it.

For him you will learn guilt, shame,
find yourself prevaricating for the first time
on subjects you thought you knew--
is this right? is this pain? is this real?--
and you will stumble. He will teach you
loss and lust, and how to feel both
simultaneously. What of yourself
do you lose for that unabashed desire?
(You cannot name it but you
sense its exodus, smell the burning off
of that sap from your blood.)
For him you will relearn how to speak
and be spoken to, how to run
as though you aren't practiced at escape,
how to make innocent eyes
from below him on the mattress.
You will hand over something more
entrenched than anything you've given away
before; the wrench of it will stretch
from your mouth to your cunt,
your gut will ache for its return--
is it love? is it trust? is it youth?--
and you will never be able to assess
its value. He will throw you
like shadows on the wall, the embers of you
will light up the space between
your mouths like summertime. For him
you will flush like a child, rebuked
by his silence for your faith,
but you will follow him to worship
every time, eyes wide, mouth shut.

in the third house we walked
to school, down the hill and through
the cemetery-- small limestone
bricks, no elaborate status, most of the names
long gone like their owners--
and across the creek, or through it,
depending on the weather.
(we had to be able to trust that the sun
would dry us by the time we were home.)
are these the secrets i didn't tell you?
are these the invisible soldiers
that stood between us, shoulder to shoulder,
while you and i peered over their helmets
at each others' wary faces? is this
what i could not share? you with your
invincible sense of place, your iron, salt,
cement and firmness: the hospital where your mom
suffered ten hours for you, her first; her
next apartment, blonde squatty cement
and you remember the pink of her bedroom
(she would only have been 21); the first house,
too far from the lake for a view but
close enough for the wind; and all of your
schools in a row, red brick, green grass, perfect
little football fields and playgrounds.
these are your touchstones, your environment
and the memories that swirl when you
walk into a room, or out on your mom.
what moves when i strain? dust?
i cannot remember, i have never revisited.
are these the separations which, inch by inch,
kept me from the heat of your love?
even if i knew, i could never reciprocate.
i have never desired the retracing of this path.

Your currency is more than skin, woman:

your pride is deeper than shape, your worth 

is more holy than the relics we wall up

to save from time and touch. 

You are upset that it cannot be photographed?

You wish you had something to show,

something to send that might serve his needs?

His fingerprints mark the patina of 

your bright and precious soul; do not

give in, woman, do not forgive.

Do not ever forget your own honor.

Do not let him forget that he is a guest

in a world of your making.

Without you, where are the children?

Without you, who kneads the bread?

Without you, who will set their soul aside

to cater to his whims? You may find goodness

in serving, you may find a sense of

what is best or least in you. It does not matter.

You are whole, and wholly your own.

Rescind the invitation when you must.

Your value is heavier than gold,

your hands hold more than the world.

Sister, you are mine, and I am yours, and we

can own all that we need, together.

cigarettes for breakfast, bare legs in yellow light.
I'll make the coffee, wake you slowly,
let the day trickle in as it will.
you do not have to touch me so gently.
whiskey for lunch, porn in the afternoon.
wrap my hair around your fist, pull on me hard,
leave bruises, tracks on the inside of my thigh.
high in the sunset, take everything from me.
press me up against the wall, bare skin,
we'll show them all.
wine for dinner, fuck all night.
use my mouth like a miracle, the quiet that comes:
smoke on the ceiling, gin at midnight.
the drug of possession, intemperate lust,
long hours, cold touch under a quiet sky.

shouldn't there be a sunrise,
shouldn't there be singing birds?
there should be sky peeking through the foliage,
there should be flowers among the ferns.
at the end of this journey i am
struck most by the emptiness, i thought there
would be songs, i thought the rhymes
would arrange themselves in quatrains,
in neat stanzas all spelling out your name.
shouldn't your name be important,
shouldn't your face be close to mine?
there should be wind between the elm trees,
there should be peace between our tongues.

have i wasted my words? i have sent them,
dear little packages, all aligned and tied up with blood
to your doorstep, penitent, obedient.
still no unification of soul.
express, express, lack of conversation, a sense
that satisfaction can never be homed here:
there's no place like a home that doesn't exist.
how many more times do i have to say it,
home is where you are,
my heart is where you are.

have i wasted my words? i have let you
dictate them, direct them, march them single-file
down to the firing squad of your discontent:
i have let you consume entire ideas,
sentence by sentence, the
heart of me, the blood, the flesh, the words.
dear little parasites, still trying to sting their way
into your heart.

love song

seven spitting heads on the dragon:
seven lines laid out, you're hungry, we cannot abstain.
four horsemen, a chiming clock:
a razor and a mirror, dreams like white dew
that drip down the backs of our throats like water,
like rain, like floods. are you
a portent to the apocalypse, or are you divine?
you shine like the reflection of the moon in the bay:
white lines on blue ridges, crests
in the water, the smell of dead fish.
tea leaves, strange things. patterns on the wall.
slicing into nothing, the methodology of your hands
is magic to me, surely a sign of the end.
pillars of salt, cloudy and waiting for rain to
slice striations into the sodium, women
who cry blackened tears but slide sweetly
onto neighbors' sofas to partake in this repast.
cut the loaves, the fishes coming in
off the lines like a feast for the empty.

that all of my words should secretly scream

your name, your name, or is it yours? 

is a waste of syllables and stress. i am too young

to be so sad, she says, brushing ochre

into the lines of my eyes. she means well. 

tonight we will go downtown and find

the club, the dj, maybe even respite from you.

they will congratulate me on my birthday,

i will cringe at the reminder. once a year i feel less

present, more deadly, more full of illness. 

when the retch of gin spins me out

into the wet street, the glare of streetlights

brings pallor to the skin i wouldn't let her bronze,

i will stumble to the train alone. you left

a bruise along my hip bone from your grip. 

i make too much noise in the hallway, the neighbors'

shih tzu will wake anyone i haven't. when i 

close the door behind me, i will 

turn two deadbolts, the knob lock, draw the

chain, like any of that will keep me safe. 

if exhaustion is beauty i can be feminine enough

there is in fact something beautiful in what it does
for me: i can be
a quiet pool of depth, cold and smooth like water, but also
bright with fire, sharper eyes, longer claws.
which me do you prefer?
when you refuse to stay with me-- and
you do-- we will all
find out together, in the dark.

i wake 3am with nightmares that
make my skin crawl, or sometimes, wake
to the sound of my own voice saying no;
i do not need a key to unlock
what i was dreaming of that time, but i wish
you were here to cinch it tight again.

if exhaustion makes me beautiful then touch me

i may in this moment be worth
the weight of your gaze; how do you
judge me now? in deep purple, blessed obelisks,
spin me hand-in-hand on the deck
in the lunar spotlight, hushed by bright moths
and the heat of your skin,
so that i will land blushing at your feet.
no one will blame you for my imbalance.

Fill me with the old words, let the old neighborhood
make me pulse with the past:
Cardozo, where are you now? Are you
still a dark fantasy, still saxophones on streetcorners,
basement bars and all those beautiful men
who wanted to sell me on crack, sell me on x, sell me on molly?
Sell me myself back, Brentwood.
Once there was a time when I stood on concrete balconies
and knew who I was.
And all of you-- my East African dealers, my
2Ls at GW and the sociologists from Howard and the
kids from Northwest who just wanted to be on the hill and
my men of the acronyms, take your pick, who just wanted to fuck
in the bar bathroom, tile to knees, hands shaking--
are so far from me now.
Once there was a time when I stood on federal land
and felt some sense of ownership
over myself, and my body, and my future.
I stand on a different riverfront now, though the same
polluted smells rise from dirty water
and I wonder whether Mayfair remembers me at all.

you unsettle me, disrupt me, your words

like little teeth leave me pockmarked, harassed,

and I wish I could slip backwards

back to my comfortable haze of powder and syrup

and all the ways we learn to manage trauma

without words: since words leave us exhausted

and I am already tired of the bright lights

and the way they point to you and your microphone

things I will not apologize for any more

dont you fucking look at me like I'm not speaking your language
when I am using words to describe you that you don't like
we stand in my kitchen, shoulders squared off
but you won't meet my eyes
and I could claw your face off but I bit my nails down
so I'm reduced to words, motherfucking misogynistic liar 
standing in my kitchen like your body has a right to the space
like somehow this whole city is yours, from the lake
to the Motel 6 in Brecksville where you took her
I know you fucked her
I know you fucked her
I like that you had to drive that far south to feel safe

I have no home to take you to.
I nest in a small corner of an ill-lit manse;
the hallways are dusty with unuse, the kitchen
overrun by pests and smells.
I could bring you here, up the dark stairs,
and your hand in mine might steady me.
But the bed I might offer is bloodied,
stiff with memory. We might
flip the mattress, and the sight of
your back bent to the weight
would make me wet for the work of you;
but the old blood would seep through
and we would both be stained.
The transaction would be faulty;
the salt of your body would taste of violence
and not of lush, heated joy.
Where can I be but here? There is no Zion,
and I am content to be silent in the place
where all my secrets are housed.
Your body may be my Mecca but
I cannot lay down to pray.

from the first whisper

of your breath on my skin, from the first

instance of intimacy the whole of me

has responded to you, for you,

at the urging of you. 

you and your complexity:

dark and darkly articulate, the words of you

drape themselves like so much sex,

the scent in the room, the sweat

of my body, laid out wet. 

in this moment we are not competitors

and i do not judge myself against you;

instead against memories,

yours and mine, of years of lust:

how do i compare, my dear? how do i

measure up? 

acknowledge my deceit: i have come here

looking for safe passage, while telling you

that danger will suffice. but

the risk of you, quiet and intense, 

is what brought me in. 

if you don't pretend you are here for love,

then i won't pretend you make me feel safe,

and we will both climax harder for it. 

for my married lover

in this dim room you are sinless.

your skin, dark against the white bedding,

glows with your purity: i am drawn

and quartered with desire. 

your mouth opens in a slow oh

for the parting of my hands, i touch you,

oh you have missed my heat. 

he doesn't do this? he won't? i will

and i will numb you with the pleasure of it. 

i will keep you hot and restless

in a way that he cannot. you and i

and the craving of each other,

this is sacred, your skin on mine. 

for the parting of your legs i would commit

greater sins, but you, here, in

this dim room: you are blameless,

perfect, and silhouetted in sweat. 

what texting with me is like

Hey
(does this mean you're thinking of me does this mean you like me what are we gonna talk about why don't we ever talk on the phone any more) hi what's up
Not much, how are you?
(so you're not sharing anything so I shouldn't share anything that's even keeled right or is it vindictive I should share something small and unemotional) I'm good! Did you have a good weekend
Yup. What did you get up to
(I finished your book I had a panic attack I indulged in being a damaged little girl I went to church and told Jesus that I deserve you and then I drank too much) not too much, church, the usual.
Nice. How's your day going
(I wrote a poem about you I decided I hate you I decided I love you I lectured myself for thinking about you too much I decided the poem was shit) good enough. You?
Busy. I wish I had some time to relax
(Does that mean like less time working like more time with me or like I am just another demand on your time or I should leave you be more do you even like me) soon you can hopefully!
Yeah.

surviving

in my stronger moments i like to think
about what i would do if i saw him again:
that in that moment of recognition,
i might feel the strength of rage, the heavy ice
of hatred that enables me to do anything,
that i could be capable
of returning hurt for hurt.
in my stronger moments i feel the weight
of that cold hate coursing through my body,
my veins shrink around it, my heart
throbs painfully in the shock.
what it has taken me four years to realize
is that these are my weakest moments:
that my desire to recognize his gait on the sidewalk
or see the turn of his jaw as he rounds a corner
and the immediate, whole-body reaction
of anger or hate or anything--
is still a gift of control that i make to him.
the beat of my heart is mine to own.
the pace of my blood is mine to temper.
how dearly i would love to rake
claws down his face, to bite and pull away
with his heat, with his blood, with his pulse
caught hot and meaty in my mouth--
these fantasies are not germane to me, they do not
belong inside my mind or my body.
but when someone has forced their way in
to your mind and your body it is hard
to evict them, even years later, even when you are
feeling control, feeling capable, feeling strong.

I learned to swim years ago, in a pond
wreathed in cattails, crayfish, leeches.
We jumped in together, wincing at
the wet mud squeezing between our toes,
trying to ignore the immediacy
of our bodies in suddenly-sheer cotton.
I learned to swim with you,
skin to slick skin, there under the moon
with pale green waves lapping us
in circles under the stars. When we exited
we picked leeches off each other,
quick before they latched, throwing them
out into the woods, hoping they'd die.
I learned to swim bright and pale
with legs around your waist, pressed
close for physical heat, for the purity
of teenagers discovering each other.
In a wild sea now I try to keep pace
with the crests as they roll in,
foam over foam, pulling me out and away
from the squalid safety of the mud.
Here the leeches are too slow for me,
but the tide too quick; I will be
a beautiful blue-green corpse, unblemished
and frozen, motionless in my cold skin.

Hatred so palpable even my
secret-keeping mouth, iron-clad
and concrete walls, trenches
dug in steep against the external war,
cannot hold the front line--
even my tongue betrays
me, slick and hissing your name.
And what can
you say for yourself, that would
pacify me? That you were honest or
open or did what you
thought ought to have been right?
I coil hard against you,
unfairly weighted with stones neglected
and piled up from other battles,
other men, older nights.
Latent heat.
The heart of me twists tighter
and tighter, a copper spring conducting
all of the impulses of my body:
oh, how I am wet for you,
how I lust for the taste of you.
I learned hate the
same way you did, a gift unwanted,
bestowed forcibly when we were
both too young.
You find no commonality with me;
I find no sanctuary with you.

for what i feel tonight, here, i
will never forgive you.
this grudge
will be polished, carefully
stored up in the cement of my mouth,
tucked away behind my larynx
where it will feast on words
and oxygen.
for how you have made me feel
i will crush you
down to molecules, down to atoms,
between my knuckles
like so much stardust
till the carbon of you separates
from the nitrogen from
the arsenic and lead:
me and you and the elements,
poisons and all.
for your love of attention,
for your honesty in naming what it is:
this grudge will be
coal in my arteries, sedimentary,
compressed and chewing up my throat
till diamonds pour out of my mouth,
sharp and hard.

get tangled up with me,
be a physical presence-- i
want to smell, to taste--
the cigarettes on your fingers and
lips, the brush of you on
my skin, the hush of inhaling when
your tongue presses mine--
i predict the rush
of my body toward yours, of yours
toward mine.

if you want me, I will hold you up as the story you are:
complex, perverse, emotional, all kinds of greed--
as men are. I will hold you fast and know you
and make a present of my body. I will give you grounding
and make gravity for your soul. I will give you vinegar and wine,
I will lay you down at night and taste the journey of you
in my mouth, chin wiped clean. for you I would:
a small mixed baby, fingers clenched around my ribs, for him
too I agree to be broken. I will shed
skin like an old rind, my fire an unending burn
to slough off the pale in place of red.
I will give you my body as a trophy, mounted,
stuffed and burned clean, bright green eyes caught cold
(marbles in your palm, my eyes and my breasts)
that you can keep me-- I assume I am a prize, hubris!-- but
you will win me, either way. my blood is my charm
and I press it on you for answers, for solidarity.

I revolve lately around
the growing pile of things I
can give you: tokens, moments,
honey, salt, sex.
And what I might glean,
among your rushes in your field--
words upon words, tumbling sentences,
bright thoughts and slight verbs.
For this chance, I can
be Ruth, I can be docile or pretty
or patient, but I wonder
if maybe here, at last, the old rules
do not apply.

although I have never had you
in any way, and am not owed anything
by you, I circle around continually to
how I desire to come back to you.

you with your words and your line
breaks, do we make sense? do I?
I fear you will search me for love and,
finding so much disquiet, think me unlovely.

you with your definition and mind
and expansive thoughts, your activism,
your powerful way of walking thru the world--
how can I compete for you, or compare?

I cling mostly to ideas of beauty, of
interest or complexity, I string together
all of the depth that I can in hope that
it will differentiate my self for you.

because I am not beautiful-- because I
am more likely covered in ink and scars
and paint and poison ivy than not-- I think
I am obligated to provide veneer

except that in our moments together,
your honesty is so clear-eyed, so open-mouthed,
what can I do but be bare? to trust that
you could learn to think me lovely

for all the mistakes and missteps
that are an integral part of my directionality.
you are your own compass, and mine
points north, to home, and peace.

expecting myself to defy expectations, I am
rarely content with the effort it takes
to polish this skin, tighten the silhouette, push
and pull my features into beauty--
in my natural state, covered in dye and ink
and mosquito bites and scars-- I cannot content myself
with solely an improved appearance.
I aim higher than your skin, higher than
your dick or your heart or your mouth.
bring me that mind, let me perch on the edge
of your reflecting pool, singing
and preening, let me find myself in
the quiet hours in this copse of trees.
when I find myself in your thoughts and have not
put myself there through art or artifice,
I may choose to be content at last.

someday you and I are safe together
some afternoon in sunshine we are full
of words and love and comfort,
you and I, paired to wild flowers
climbing up between the sidewalk squares.

I want to sing

it's not that I want to join a choir
more that I need you to hear the noise I make
and admire it
I could spend my life happily
as a backup singer, harmonizing deftly
around the steady leadership of your tune
and all I need you to do in return
is acknowledge my use of my own voice
it has been a long time coming

how can she say that what she misses most
is not you and is not even
your hands or your mouth but instead is
her own ephemeral desire, so strict and focused
in proximity to your body and
amorphous in your absence, a teeming squad
of all the noises ever made in the bedroom
which circle the ceiling, tasting the air
and waiting for your invitation.
how can she say that what she misses is
not your action, but her reaction, all the ways
in which she understood herself
in comparison with or next to or while fighting with
you, the comfort of clarification.
to miss your body feels like a confession,
or an omission-- the crucial leaving-out of
secrecy, privacy, honor, in favor
of the brutal openness of absence.
here and now in her aloneness she still
can barely admit to the way she desires you,
would castrate herself for you, since the sex organs
like little bleating lambs can only
wander off and be preyed upon, now.

you and your definition of grace

depress me, repress me, how can I be

anything you would want, with my

cold, crass humor and indefinite moods?

your words and you, thick as thieves,

conspiring amongst the pages and things

while I burrow, chilled, into

the hard wet sand at the lakeside--

the little crabs, their round shells and

sharp toes, they welcome me--

and you climb into the ink,

black on white, with ideals 

as firm as the parchment they rest on:

I wonder if you are soluble.

I curl into my shallow nest

up against the pebbles and glass,

unafraid for the moment, but

knowing I will disappoint you later

when I emerge, damp, winded, and

covered in grit for your judgment.

I sleep with two cats one hardcover book and at least three extra pillows so that when I am struggling up out of a nightmare I am guaranteed at least one thing will be pressing itself awkwardly into my side

i am no ruth, i will not glean
in your tired fields to keep the skin of me
in one piece. i am no bethsheba, i have no pool
and no patience for the quiet
of focusing on the body as art. i am
not esther, i cannot be diplomatic, my charms
will not extend themselves to your ego.

pessimist that i am, i wait for your loss,
expectant and ready to witness
the exodus of you. if ever i could borrow
another woman's story, i would already
be planted, straight spine, long limbs
tall and ghostly as a clouded pillar of salt,
stretching out of the dirt and reaching
for a home i never owned.

press me to the wall, crush me back
against the graffiti and the concrete, let me have
the angle of your forearm against
the give of my throat. i crave your indifference
to my pain. let me cede autonomy:
force me to my knees in this
slick bar bathroom. take my breath
as a prize, take my pride as a ribbon
and wind it under my face,
upturned to yours. i want to see
crass, untempered lust walk across your face.

or else, bring me back to my body
and walk me home, guide me upstairs,
quietly unlock all the locks on my front door.
our footsteps will be loud in the hall,
i will wonder why you are not
roaming me already.
touch me like you treasure me, taste my mouth
and tempt sex out of me inch by inch.
in your coaxing i am gentled, but too quiet.
between these dim walls i find control
handed to me, and wish i was not burdened.

If you had kissed me
There in the afternoon sunshine
I think probably I would have exploded
Into ten thousand new stars
And lit the whole city on fire with my burning

You make something inside of me
Claw its way out of my mouth
With long nails raking tracks out of my throat
It emerges, wet, spoiled, and thinking
It could deserve you

Somehow I am trapped already
In the voluntary cage, trapped by moments:
By the kindness in your eyes
By the way your hands slope down to a cigarette
While you ask me gentle philosophical questions

The next time my heart threatens
To crawl out from between my ribs
I may let it, because I think you might like
This place lit by the burning off of fear
A thousand energies all desiring you

Waking with dreamt memories
Perched on the bridge of your
Nose
Sighing as the birds called, singing
To wake you from the escape you
Leave behind
These days, no one knows what a
Day will bring and what a friend will
Say
This kind of day, this kind of morning is
Leaving us slowly, slipping away into
Other times
Leaving us barren, without the joys of
Sleeping, conquering dreams, finding heat
And happiness
Or else rage, let me tear you open and
Spill your secrets like entrails on my wide
White bed
These mornings see us breathing soft and
Wishing for more, waking to the world and
Its rhythms
These days you never know what news will
Strike in the middle of your sweat and work
Mid-afternoon
To catch you unaware, although few things ever
Have snuck up on you, you are not often
Sleeping, peaceful, as you were this
Morning

this bright corner of my heart
in the shape of your spirit and your words
does not waver; it shines even while
i condition myself to
lose something i have not yet gained.
i feel sluggish, ill-used, but
the blood that does make it up that slope
continues to burnish your image:
you shine like copper in the sun,
warm, metallic, heavy.
i taste metal on my tongue from
the circulation of you in my veins.
when i do not succeed--
when i am too young, too strict,
too demanding or too callous,
when i am not the one you want--
the brightness will burn out, nitrous and fiery,
but the taste of your carbon will remain.

Little transgressor, heart on your sleeve
Out here begging for scraps--
A smile, a touch, an exchange--
Bound to your lesser emotions, I see you
And the slavish way you cower
When the wind howls too loud.
Down here the air turns sharp
Around brick corners, and the dark concrete
Where you lay your bright head
Becomes more weapon than support.
Is this why you turned out?
Their hands can only take; their teeth
Can only tear. And you with
Your small-child eyes, your too-wide mouth
Will be easy fodder for their daydreams.
Someday, sweet one, you will lose your sugar
And forget you were ever anything else.

When I tell you that my therapist and I
Focus on the need to view oneself as complex:
What I am saying is that I need someone to tell me
That it is okay to falter once in awhile
Because I am about to stumble and
I need to know that you will let me catch myself, too.
Some weeks the drug use is too frequent;
The cigarettes go too fast, the wine evaporates
And I need you to hear me when I say that
I am complex, I am many, I am broken
And I can catch myself before I try to fly.
When, in the middle of your story, you
Look over and notice that I am crying, know that
It is because I hear you: because I am
Touched by you: because I feel you, and I am
In it with you, for you, alongside you.
We joke about connections, tenuous and firm,
People known and unknown as though
They are all on the same platform
When we can both name those people who
With one phrase could upset the whole delicate system:
I will joke with you now because I know
We will pick up each others pieces later.
You and I are a pair, a balance, a harmony
That stretches out for years and when I tell you
That I am attempting to embrace complexity,
Know that it is in your example that I attempt to model myself.

the calm of you
the deep blue presence of you
like if I could just breathe in and out in rhythm with you
I could inhabit the same grace--
your calm in the face of absolute, oppressive truth
while I wish only that I could hear more of you--
the greed of newness, of acquisitional lust

There is nothing reasonable about lust.
Irrationally, irascibly, I desire you--
I imagine you-- places, times, positions.
When will I be sated?
At least let me ply my curiosity long enough
(to make you cum) To see if
This is meant to grow into something larger--
I am breathless, reckless, for want of you.
What will it be, when finally I have earned
An hour of your time,
The focus of your bright/dark eyes?
One brief, shining evening
Is the happiest I have been in this place yet
And I will be as not/present as it takes
To be allowed in your space again.
For the chance of your hands--
For a moment stolen from your mouth--
I can be quick, I can be quiet,
The whole of me is not ashamed of groveling
To meet the pounding need of my blood.

That if I could make everything perfect for you I would--
That if I could feel the crush of you-- the need of you--
Just once maybe I could be satisfied-- or else
Never satisfied again, but full of a greedy keening
That keeps me at bay, at heel, at attention--
That if I could keep the taste of you on my tongue I would--
That if I could touch the heart of you-- hear
The blood pulse of you-- moving deep under my hands
Like a prayer on a Sunday morning-- I might
Sing myself content, for the mouthful of soul I could swallow.

In some distant future we are in our kitchen
Which is brown-- bricks and old cabinets
And cigarette smoke filtering out through the
Windows with their brown, brown frames--
And Marvin Gaye is asking what's going on, and
I am chopping vegetables, filling the room
With the smell of browned onion, browned garlic.
We are talking about books, or ego, or music,
Or I am lucky enough to be hearing about
Your new idea: a poem, a shop, a program.
In some distant future your eyes are
On my bare legs, your taste is in my mouth,
And my hips remember the greed of your hands.
You tilt me, tint me, toward monogamy,
Toward the possibilities of your skin and dark eyes.

If I am young then let me be pliable,
Willing to learn, open
To the world and its rhythms
And your pain. If I am young then
Let me be conscious,
Seeing with open eyes the long inclines
(Toward justice, toward peace).
And let me be hard working,
Broad shouldered, a twist of sinew
So strong that the works of my hands
Will further our journey, a bit.
If I am young then let me
In, show me your scars, tell me
Why they walk your skin,
And why mine too are beautiful.
If I am young let me be heat
And motion and transformation and
Combustion for a tired movement,
Energy for a worn-out beat. If
I must be young then
Let me come to you, coquette
Or pet, sex or sadness, and be
Lithe with unused anger in your hands.
If I am young let me be quick
To close the gap, to state my intentions,
To make decisions with my body
And to trust you with my mind.

She is silent in his arms as he tells her
His day, his troubles, his triumphs.
The heart of him drums under her ear,
And her pulses latches on, little mimicker.
His words crawl inside her skin like maggots
And feast on the emptiness they find:
Where are her stories? Why is her blood
Cold, and flush with carbon? Like rivers
The blue slices down her bones, and she
Tucked up underneath him like a pet,
Traces the bits she can see: her wrist,
The crook of her arm. But when she looks
To him, no rivers at all can be found; he
Is a mountain, a monolith, bloodless, stone.

The string theory of you and I:
You yank, I trip.
You spin, I stumble gracelessly
Just to land at your feet
Seeking asylum, not understanding
Why my world turns so violently.

Even now
As I work to unravel the webs
That stretch between us,
I hesitate to make the silks tremble,
To alert you to the motions that I make.
You will descend,
All hands and mouth and desire,
And wrap me again in your sturdy cocoon.

So quietly I grasp the strands
And unweave, untangle, reverse
The patterns of years
Till coils of sex, heat, and anger
Loop around my ankles like snakes.
They entreat me, entice me:
Remember? The memories?
And you flood me, honey and water,
As I am pressed to experience all that you are again
And again, weaving old scenes
Back into place,
Captured, filled, complacent.

I wait for the day I can be comfortable with you,
Safe in my own skin, approved and appraised by you:
In that moment I will be peaceable, fulfilled.
For now I retain my anxieties, my fears,
The million ways I know I will fail you.
I wait for bare legs, open beers, the familiarity
Of your arm on my shoulders, my hand on your thigh.
For that moment I will swallow my fear,
Cover up the things you'll hate as best I can,
Impersonate a sweet, simple, nice girl
And hope the disguise gets us through to authenticity.

You have always had a sense of heaven.
I have perfect faith
That the firmament and you are in perfect accord:
Of what is needed, and when;
Of when to reappear, of when to refocus
On the orbit, the ellipsis that carries you
Closer to me again, after so long gone.

You were so many firsts for me, the rising
Of a time when I was ready to learn
That fear can be good, that
Anxiety could bring me greater joy, better hunger
Than the calm of a full stomach.
You and me and a little alcohol, we went
A long way from sunrise together.

To reawaken to you, so much older and
So very different, is disconcerting; you remain celestial,
The movements of time and light and heat are yours,
And at best I am a borrower,
I am thunderstorms, tornadic,
The darkness that blots out the view.
It is how I know that no matter what is said,
Your path will carry you away from me again.

I wait on your shelf, two feet flat to the wood,
Tossed up here by careless, distracted hands.
You come and go; the lights turn on and off.
Dust gathers on the bridge of my nose. But still
They insist: you have your own worth, sense of
Purpose, you should be better at living in the moment.
Look at the sunshine, the trees that grow-- you
Should be as thoughtless, as effortlessly vibrant,
You should grow your own soul as natural and wise.
And I with my skinned knees and two bare feet
Flat to the old lacquered wood, my curved hands
Clutching grime, dust, time and skin cells,
I can only leave or go, which is to say, stay
Or jump. And what would they say if I did?
I would be reduced to a sadness, an illness, and
The works of your hands would stay invisible.

Someday I will go to a cabin
By the water, by the gulls
And I will watch sunrise
And drink through the afternoon

Someday I will turn my cell off
I will not text you back
I will not need to
Because you will be there

And I will drink constantly
I will chainsmoke at the waves
I will write bad poems with no meter
And the same adjectives in every line

And we will toast the passing hours
With noisy, sweaty sex
And another beer before going
Back to bed, hungry, ravenous

Deep in the swill of booze and sex
I will tell you secrets, and you will hear me
Then, we will sober up, leave, go back
And forget the blood pulse of love

I can hear the crickets already

Where can I be, and also be with you?
Where, when, is the chance for
Your body next to my body
Where I might hear your heart, your breath
When I might touch the reality of you
My daydreams and I coexist
Peacefully enough, holding hands
But squinting in sunlight when subjected
To reason. Where can I be
Except lost, who can I be but yours?
When do we rejoin, colors upon colors,
Noise upon noise, chasing each other
Into ever more secluded chambers
Of heart and hill? I would lay
Dying in the cloudtops, before
Putting one toe onto an earth
That no longer supports your weight.

Take me to winter
And the bare knuckled stress
Of tires slipping in the snow
Rescue me from summer
The same way
Perseverance, focus, and
The twist of your strong shoulders
And hope for future warmth

I want to write a poem that creaks like floorboards
That peels, in long strips, in layers off the walls
Dis colored by years of slatted sunlight through the blinds
And cigarette smoke, yellowed, cancerous.
I want words like age and illness to bend themselves
In content and form to my meaning, to grab imagery
Like the neck of a guitar and pluck noisy discontent
Out of five worn strings: boredom, lust, anxiety, alcohol, loneliness.
Like dust motes idling, hovering in a still room,
The way mildew quietly makes itself known:
I want to weild a sentence in silence, to snake it up your sinuses
And wrench the way you think about me out into the bare daylight.

Why not fall all the way in
Every time?
Why not, with intention, with desire,
Give it all away--
Time, faith, focus, humor, sex, words,
Self explication in all its forms--
Every time, every time it is asked?
What do I gain from holding back?
The more times I
Say myself-- explain myself--
Articulate past, present, future--
The more I think I can change it all

I forgot you are mostly interested in speaking. In being heard,
In making the hearts around you stop.
I have been an engaging playmate, careful, intellectual,
Pleased to bend my body to pleasure you.
Pleased also to bend my will: what would you have me do?
What ought I, in this moment, say or be or want?
I forgot you are distant, hard to read,
In a way that I (stupidly) find incredibly alluring:
Why can't I know you?
I will make assumptions anyway, and these
Will help me guess at what to do or be to best please you.
So it is a cycle, powered by my desire--
Ostensibly, I desire your friendship, your partnership,
But-- what if I am learning that desire can be made to be superficial
While the host remains deep, hot, secure? Can I not
Imagine the taste of your skin, while also
Fastening my heart to the weight in my gut-- weighted
In part because I know that you will leave me?

I am here for those who will not 'go with the flow'
I am here for those who are not 'chill', who will not
'Wait and see', who cannot 'just hang out'.
I am here for those who stake themselves firm
In a fast-flowing current of judgment and idealism,
Who grab hard to dreams and goals and eke them,
Inch by inch, out of the silt of the future.
I am here for those who will not prevaricate, who will not
Be domesticated, who never got the hang of fitting in.
I am here for the ones who make art that is daring,
Who write words that shock us, who weild music like a tornado.
I am here not those who are not bound by other people's timelines,
Or other people's senses of self or love or pride.
I am here for the ones who guard up their sex
Like the beautiful, precious charm that it is, for safekeeping;
I am here for those whose love is hot, and fierce, and wild,
And demanding of mutuality and admiration.
I am here for the women who mourn in public, whose tears
Make us awkward with accountability.
I am here for those who speak too loud; I am here for those
Who cannot speak at all, whose wills and opinions
Are just as vital as those of us who stand on street corners and yell.
I am here for those who cannot be idle; I am here
For those who find deep strength in stillness, in nature, in reverie.
I am here for the ones who will not accept burdens
That do not belong to them; I am here for those who,
Seeing weight on others, must stop and help shoulder the pain.
I am here for the bright ones, the burning ones,
The scarred and perfect, the serious and laughing.
In all our variations we are each pursuing our own truths,
Standing still in our authenticities, leaning
Into the current, face to the sun.

is it that struggling with issues of self worth keep me humble
or is it that i am humbled by an honest self assessment

and how to define what i need within those parameters
when what i need will be graded by what i am worth?

i just want to go to the art museum
and stand in front of the Monet
and feel simultaneously indelicate, and beautiful
harsh, and feminine
insane, and certain
for what i am in looking at it.
not ever enough to know it-- not sweet enough, educated enough,
docile enough, tempered enough--
but changeable enough to have room to hope.

and then to go sit in the green grass by the reflecting pool and maybe even write something which isn't shit, maybe even something which isn't about you, maybe think calm and approachable thoughts about who i am and what i want my life to be, maybe think thoughts that are not about you

i want someone who objectifies me just enough

there are too many images in my head for them not to explode outwards, a tsunami with several shock waves, words upon words upon texts upon emails upon articles upon poems, an endlessly flowing disaster of words. (i wait for your withdrawal, i wait for your escape.) i would feel better-- cleaner, tighter, controlled-- if i could stop myself from speaking of you, stop myself from texting you, stop myself from seeking out your words like the quick bursts of drug-fueled satisfaction that they are. with endorphins and pheromones chasing each other like packs of abandoned dogs through tide-swept streets-- feral mouths, long teeth, concrete and sharp hunger-- each release is bright and painful in its relief. you are looking forward to it? you are? you are?
but i feel so far beyond this already-- drawn through the haze of questioning and wondering-- pulled straight into acquisitional curiosity, how can i be better suited to you? what can i give that will please you? and working so hard to overcome the most honest part of my emotions: the urgency with which i trace you, ask for you, seek more of you. i apologize, i amend, i edit my words and my emotions in the name of looking more like the woman i imagine you to want. in my gracelessness i seek grace, in my rush for you i seek quiet, sidelined moments, the chance to pause, reflect, and apply innumerable adjectives and dreams to you in hopes of articulating and processing the pressing crowd of feelings inside my blood.

i should be grateful for anything that makes me write, anything that bubbles and froths so forcefully up through my throat that i have to put it on paper. i am struck by memories, a different set of beginnings, the gifts of doctrine and confusion and desire that he gave me. here and now i feel i am choosing a different path-- trying to consciously direct myself away from previous paths, lessons i should have learned-- making decisions on personalities and people and a possibility i might not have allowed previously. whether this is right or wrong, learning or denying, remains to be seen. (i must not let it all hinge on any one other person.) will i still fit into my own skin, at the end of this? is it better if i don't? one of the biggest things i like about you is your understanding of the trials of starting over-- repeatedly-- of migrating, of stationlessness, of distance and solitude and independence. i could never have explained but perhaps, with you, i might try to articulate...
on some level you are on paper what i might have put together as desirable. i don't know what, if anything, this will look like in future weeks but i am glad at the chance of seeing what screening by resume results in. and even, i suppose, the chance of seeing what doing a complete 180 might be like. it feels strange to feel hope. i think-- don't tell, don't breathe, don't move-- i might even have a crush. years, okay year, since i felt this way, and i have not forgotten what i did to slake this thirst last time. i hope i am less awful, this time around.

I have disconnected myself for my community
Not once
Not twice
But three times

For this, I think, there has been an uncountable price paid.

i will never be too tired to search.
i will never be exhausted enough to give up.
i will never be motionsick.

when the mountain is too steep, i will stop and examine the path.
when the night is too dark, i will ask my community for a candle.
when the distance is too great, i will invent new methods of movement.

and i will move, i will walk and carry and lift,
i will dance and sway and swing,
i will feel the flex of the muscles across my shoulders
and love the burn in my thighs as i climb.
and i will be still, i will remember to pause,
i will take stock and account for all the moods of myself,
i will watch the wide world
and catalog all the wonders i am privileged to witness.
and i will speak, i will argue for you and with you,
i will use my words as a sword,
i will examine and analyze and decide and declaim
and build cityscapes out of stories.
and i will listen, i will give you my undivided attention,
i will hear your message and your intonation,
i will take in your words with consciousness
and i will love you for the journey you have taken.

I am teenaged again, awkward and stumbling and
Using all the wrong words,
Overspeaking, oversharing, an onslaught of opinions
And data and questions and why would I even think you would care?
See, I am only covering up teenaged self-doubt with
The slather of words I might hide behind:
Too many stories, too loose and uncovered, to try to show
That I am not afraid of baring myself to you,
That I do not fear rejection because I know myself to be worthy of your
Time, or at least attention.
But these are all lies; I am maybe an adequate match to you sometimes.
It is possible that we might enjoy each other's company.
And I should be grown enough
To leave it at that, to abandon the self deprivation and the fear and stress,
To stand in my sovereignty and maturity, except
Alongside the insecurity comes teenaged desire, curiosity, instinct,
The kind of lust that would meet you after school
Or in a hotel bar bathroom, for the sake of
Touching you, of knowing what it is to taste your mouth.
For these base and basic feelings
I cede adulthood in an instant, give up security or self possession without a thought
To be driven by full-blooded need;
I need to know you better.

In the silence of the morning his long arms stretch up

Towards the grey space, loosening, stretching, 

And I watch the muscles in his shoulders rise and fall.

Something about him seems sanctified--I feel prohibited

From reaching out to touch him--and with a yawn, 

He struggles up out of warmth and soft quiet.

On the edge of the bed, feet flat against the chill floor,

His spine curves out toward me, all tense muscles

And tired stacks of bone. I could press the stress out

But I don't, and after a heartbeat, the length of him is upright,

Breaking the illusion that we might have stayed, here, together.

i can make a world of lillies and wine and home-cooked meals
i can make the whole thing shine, the burnished shine of pride
i can make a quiet place, serene, a single lit candle in the shade
i can make a scene, all dance and drive and sex and seeking
i can make a life in all the alleys and byways of the world,
i can make home be wherever i am or want to be:
but is it worth it, if i am the only inhabitant?

I should know better, I am old enough now
To second guess the way I build up a new person, a new feeling.
I should know better than to imagine futures, imagine houses,
Imagine feelings or hands or late-night contentment or
Any of the thousand ways in which I am lonely

Being fulfilled by you

It is already a questionable proposition, that my heart
Is not my own to fix, that someone else might be depended on--
Much less that I should choose a stranger I should know better

I am old enough now for old dreams and young fears,
Matured desires and a fresh tinge of what-if-I-never.
Still, I am at the long end of the clock (maybe)
And at the very least, there is a possibility here
That I should know better.

i went to manhattan and wrote down a bunch of questions i am pretty sure i will never know the answers to

there among the monoliths and neck-breaking heights i wondered why you didn't love me

on the ramble i wondered, and knew that i was not on your mind

at some point we have to stop doing the things we do to cover up the fact that our hearts are uninvested, that our motives

are less-of instead of more-of

in a hard hotel bed i wished for more of your body and noise and heat

alone in cafes i wished for more knowledge of you and your words and the way you laugh when you tell a joke you like

during the long journey back i wished for more of your time so that we could have adventures together, so that we could share, so that we could

build

while you wished for less of my expectations

less of my pressures, less of my irritability, less of my sarcasm, less of me

and this is what happened, and why i cannot change or affect or even understand any of it

you wished for less of me

while i prayed for more of you

if i could have been enough for you

(little enough, sweet enough, dumb enough, simple enough)
IF I COULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH FOR YOU
MAYBE I MIGHT HAVE BEEN NICE
OR SOMETHING

if i could have cleaned enough or cooked enough
cooked good enough
cooked food like how your mom makes but never as good as how your mom makes it always slightly off or one wrong ingredient or not spiced quite the same way or not as sweet or as savory or as tender or IF I COULD HAVE BEEN GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU
MAYBE I MIGHT HAVE DEMANDED LESS
AND ASKED MORE

there is a bitterness
in emptiness

if i could have been enough for you
i might have been focused, or is it unfocused?,
on seeing only the best, and not criticizing, which is apparently
what i do best anyways only seeing the negative or what should be done better or how you aren't doing the things you promised you would do that a normal human adult male would do that the promise of you being with me is supposed to mean that you will do if i could have been
enough
for you

i run out of words, leak ideas, puke sentences.
i am not enough, i am not good enough.

i am wrong, all wrong.

i am swollen, oversalted, stretched tight
across knuckles that complain, skin reddened
under the weight and congestion of you.
i am loose words, unfinished sentences, clauses
run rampant in destructive freedom-- why
can't you answer, why aren't there answers?
platelets that drag, sluggish, down red corridors
won't respond till thorough irrigation:
water that sluices through amorphous boundaries,
the walls ombre with the gaining hydration.
only then do the joints move smoothly,
only then do the hands lose that blooded tinge.

So what if I wind up used, useless, an aftertaste
Instead of the primacy of sex in your mouth, so what?
So I am aged, serious, empty of the things we prize the most--
Beauty, humor, glamour, affection, seduction--
If at the end I am graceless, then let me be graceless.
Let me be fat and ugly and mean, let me have empty hands.
Maybe then I will learn to be humble, to keep sweet.

I want to be more than the money I make
I want to be more than where I live
I want to be more than the job I have
I want to be more than the car I drive
I want to be bigger than the impact of mentoring
I want to be deeper than the image of motherhood
I want to be better rounded than the labels I fit
I want to be stronger than the sum of my parts
I want to look back and know I was active
I want to look forward and know I am able
I want to see the results of a personal effort
I want to touch the heart of someone else
I want to try everything once and get in trouble
I want to forgive the mistakes I cannot resolve
I want to grasp the glory of the unknown world

Is that ok

she said love the good man, the best man,
the man who fits into all the boxes
on the checklist of shit you should look for:
kind, capable, genuine, adoring...
boring. but she said love this good man or
be lost, be wound up in cycles,
be controlled by the fate of the lesser man.
love the good man or this other man, whose
hands are dark like tea leaves, whose eyes are
darker still: who draws you when you'll come,
lithe and lovely, into the palm of his hands and who
drags you screaming into nightmares when you won't.
with him you feel the density of loneliness when he exits
and the ecstasy of passion when he returns.
for this man who presses his mouth on your skin
you will be lit, glowing with love,
brighter than coal or the diamonds they become.
your heat will burn away memories of hate
till all that you see are his fingertips
tracing a path from your breast to your hip,
till all that you hear is the cadence of his heart
when it speeds under your ear as you wake him
from sleep with your hands, your mouth, your need.
for this lesser man you will become a lighthouse:
a beacon, a guide, a piece of history and geography
who, though motionless, still spins:
on again, off again, black, yellow, day, night.
your motions collide with his, his turbulence
accented by your revolutions, till his stormclouds
and your determination to be seen crash together.
the riptide will carry it all away;
everyone around you will drown.
there will be wrecks at the bottom of the ocean,
dead fish along the shoreline, stinking of rot.
there will be flotsam around your ankles when,
weeks later, you return to see the damage done.
for this lesser man you will learn rage,
you will learn hatred, you will learn pleasures like
lighter fluid and motel matchboxes, purple bruises
that flare and fade, and the sex that comes after:
long, troubled, complicated lovemaking,
his hand clasped around your throat till you see stars
and you think you could die for his orgasm but
then your freedom, your body suspended over him,
his hands on your hips while your lips traverse his,
the marks of his fingers fresh under your chin.
she told you to love the good man so that you would live,
and live a good life, and love a good many years.
but you are a siren, a gull keening towards a different heart,
flashing on and off, heat upon cold, sun upon stars,
wave upon wave crashing up onto the limestone crags.

the signs of you and i, strewn throughout my life,
littered across the years, carelessly planted by thoughtless hands.
detritus of so many beautiful nights and long, sweet moments,
bedding piled up on the floor and two mouths breathing
face to face on the low bed, a shared smile and
the patterns of streetlights through the blinds, orange and dull
on the cheap white walls. text messages, saved and resaved,
copied and pasted, blog posts and emails, hoarded
as best they can be, intangible but loadbearing, heavy, dense.
a shirt here, a lighter on the table, a borrowed dish
that waits to be returned; your presence externalized,
your influence visual, visceral, sensual, and lasting.

(Every song is)
You are young and I am tired
When we talk, we talk around each other
Like we're barriers in each other's paths
You are young and I am tired
When we fuck I don't think you even see me
Or my face, much less my heart,
Stretched thin as I am against the passage of time
I am tired and you are young and set the pace
I am tired but I can still keep up
(About us)

He said take photos for me baby show me
I want to see

So
I took them
A series of images that are
My body, the way I experience the world,
My physicality, the reality of me

He was confused by the veins
In the crook of my elbow (I like where
The red lines run hard against the blue)
He couldn't make sense of my knuckles, ragged
And bony and shoving up into
Such a thin layer of skin
He looked vaguely interested at the pink
Of my mouth but what I saw was
The stem of my tongue deep in my throat,
A deep rooted ability to speak

He said these are cool I didn't know
 You were one of those art type girls
But you know what I want baby why can't
You provide

Cathy

"I always moved with my people, even when they was headed down, or when things for us looked up, we was like a river of honey, flowing slow and steady around evil just tryin to stay."


Rich girl says she hates cooking, won't try,
But comes sweet and simple into my kitchen
And offers to help in this lonely kind of way.
I set her to chopping vegetables.
My two, they are in the other room, little sparrows
Hopping from couch cushion to couch cushion
And word to word, trading vocabulary like her kids trade candy,
Identifying the bright, the attractive, the scent of it,
Hoarding up today's additions: clippers! One shouts,
Kayak! Is the rejoinder.

I set her at the kitchen table with a plate and a knife
And a pile of carrots, peppers, onions.
Half an hour it took me to pick them all out,
Since the pantry gets mostly dry goods anyways and the produce usually comes musty,
Limp with days under the cosmetic mist of the rich people market.
She don't notice; she don't know. I don't mind it that way.

My two, their dreams are big, and I want them to tell her.
She listens with big blue eyes while little pink moths form complex vowel sounds:
Physicist, zoologist, rodeo, opera.
They have never been to a rodeo, or the opera, or a science center, or a zoo, but
They have that kid understanding of what they are missing-
And that they cannot ask why we have never been.
She brought custard to share, and when they ask her how eggs make such a thing,
She leans into them, mimes cracking an egg, her voice rising and falling.
I don't know why she's here but I don't mind, I don't mind.

What you are, what I am not, the litany
Of doubts and whispers and steep, slick slopes
Packed with what I tell myself I cannot earn.
What if you are real? What if I am not? What if
You were only meant to touch me, not love me,
Or love me but not hear me? And how would I know?
You in your sureness, in your right ways and right times,
You lack nothing, nothing I can give you.
I know intimately this pool of melting light,
sliding across a white bedroom wall,
The afternoons daylight slipped in to witness
Obedience from my mouth, obeisance from my hands.
Am I wilder than this? Or is the chaos just escape?
What will happen when you see me clearly? And worse,
What will happen if I see you, and cannot help
But love you for what you are?

centerpiece: small, and deft,
an arrowhead from the creek at the bottom of the yard:
flint, and pockmarked, well-used and weathered.
the asphalt stretches for miles,
yellow directionality, a rough demarcation
and the track of an arrow, shot straight up,
from the hands of a man who doesn't know better.

21 things

are you hard, are you strong, are you
willing to work hard? when you are intimidated
will you identify and conquer your fear?
are you fierce, elemental, and aware
of the heat and spit and clay that made you?
do you feel the hands of god and the world
at work inside your soul?
when you are lost, will you break new ground?
when you are abandoned, will you let the loss
teach you, will you let the pain build you?
when you are cold, will you build a fire
on the bones and the kindling of your past life?
are you careful, are you deliberate, do you watch
the path your hands take across your lovers' bodies
to see the signs and sighs that you create?
do you listen, will you hear, can you compose
a response for the elegies they will write for you?
when it gets bitter, will you swallow?
when it is dark, will you be a lamp? i am oil,
slick and boundless, and viscous in your hands:
for a lamp, i am a wick; for a path i am
a guidepost, and if you are willing
we will go together, hand in hand, light in dark.

Alone again, farther from love and closer to the center of the world
The heat and the churn of it, the soles of my feet grasp for that core
Seeking greater stability there than what I experience on the surface.
Alone because I couldn't tell you, because there wasn't space to say it,
Because even what little you do hear, what I do manage to spit out
Is still less than the weight of what sits on my heart.
Do you misunderstand, do you twist me, I feel so malleable
Wrangled and wrestled and dominated by how you look at me
And what you decide you see. I am tired, so tired.