diagnosis (audio originally)

see
the problem with me she says
the problem with me is that i live in a primal state of defensiveness

it's my mind
all the time it thinks we're under attack !
guard up ready to fight

see
she says this when i talk about you
she tells me i have warm energy
she feels it pushing against her palm when she waves her hand in front of mine
we feel each other without touching
she's really starting to know me now

one time i closed my eyes and she imagined a Clydesdale horse kneeling over my body and gently lying it's head upon mine
she whispered
and i could feel the whiskers
i could feel the weight

see
every so often i ask her why are you taking your clothes off?
and she tells me she is not

i am present again

there is a brindle horse standing in the pasture
it looks healthy

beams of light are shooting through my insides
the sounds of bank vaults unlocking
bright gold

see
i thought she was kind of crazy at first
always calling me intelligent so smart
i told everyone she's crazy!
but i still keep coming back

see she might just be on to something, here.

On mandatory drug tests for welfare recipients

we all have our drug of choice,
you have your children.

Feed Us

we buy our collard greens on credit cards
generation deargodpleasehelpus
our beams of light have been dimmed
we can not afford them

our visions are now tunneled
through aluminum tabs of dollar ninety five cent
twenty four ounce cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon

we are fat on American apple pie
thanksgiving leftovers hoarded
in crevices and energy efficient deep freezers

we are drunk on vocabulary meant to oppress us
repeating dreams, dreams, dreams
repeating our dreams to homeless high sad souls on the street

we ask for seconds, our portions, American
our pockets, Indonesian

we buy in bulk
we buy organic
our paper bags are partly recycled materials

masses of young fat
stoned and complaining
we are angry
please Internetgod, Mediagod,
America,
feed us.

with cats or dogs

we all have our definitions,
pronunciations, alliterations,
of perfection

what mine essentially boils down to,
when you black out faces in photographs,
is alone, alone, alone.

i do not need you to hold me tonight, mi masoquista

las chicas locas, cómo las amaba

ellas no me quieren

the white balloons underneath your skin,
medicine
the smell of your armpit i once resented

treat me badly

voy a dormir a tu lado, pero no te amo

fear me

i distrust you
broken needle

no puedes darme lo que necesito

the survival of the fittest

although we both knew
they beat the elephants

we still went to the circus

Laughter Lines

i feel the cigarette smoke settling,
carving into my crow's feet,
the laughing lines, I confessed to you,
have eroded and formed
from years of flash floods

i live alone in hurricane season,
i take pills in my dreams and direct sad movies,
horror scenes project from behind my eyes, outward,
the sad light fills the laughter lines

the symbolism of a crippled pony

i am not
the mare at your bedside
gazing erotically
at the suffering in your sleep

i am not
the transcending white winged horse,
i can not hold the weight of the one who will save you

not Uchchaihshravas,
i have only one sagging skull,
too crippled for a king's crown

my neighing cry lends itself to demons,
these wooden hallowed insides
do not hold warriors

so suited i am a crippled pony,
abandoned by the herd

my bloody knees and hocks
are the stench of weakness and sign of failure

the horse is an animal i have never touched,
a wild thing i dare not discover

so suited i am a crippled pony,
an unwanted mystery lying in the barn dust

i see you are
falling
for me

you must be
crazier than i expected

wallowing and broken things

as a girl she only played with broken toys
as broken as her
dusty dirty in grandma's backyard
chained in fence
and her parents
used their drugs to remind themselves
there are so many ways to not be here

now she only plays with broken hearts
unhemming the last stitches they worked so hard
to keep together
but she knows, nothing stays together

she wants to be the one
to break it to you

she's a cat who only plays with
terminally ill mice
those who let her
play because they know how broken they already are
what's the harm,
those who let her play
remind her
there are so many ways to not be here

i will love you on the seabed

i think
the only way we can love each other
is underwater

me
floating in my diving bell
you
latched on to
the bottom of the ocean

we can suffer quietly
slightly away from one another
touching only floating sediments
of our heavy seabed souls

we can be alone together
we will never hurt each other

Those Additives

you again,
pack of cigarettes,
warning me to stop
taking you in,
but your thumb on my kneecap,
those additives...

let me tell you the story about Rodney

let me get drunk
and tell you the same story
again and again
about Rodney
who died on his bicycle
and though i didn't know him
i thought of him as a mystic
foreign tongued shaman
sitting at the corner store

we can have our laughs
but i never feel safe
it's easier to blame the scar beneath my navel
on teen angst
it's hard to be a good friend
yawning while you speak with them
repeating key words
to calm your demons
listen, listen

let me tell you the story
of how i will forget everything
again and again
as not to offend you
it is much easier
than to tell you
how as a child
i became a crippled pony
crawling on my knees for weeks

do not trust a word i am saying
it is easier
to stay strangers
as not to hurt you
when i ask your name for the fourth time
or you can come home
and wrap gauze around my knees
listen as i tell you the story about Rodney

mindset

when you grow up
thinking dead flies in
the butter boat
are the beautiful butterflies
you've heard about
you react differently
to cars hitting cats
gnats and kids dying
when you can't read,
what's an obituary
mean anyway

What does a breakdown look like?

what does a breakdown look like

teddy bear stuffing strewn across the bathroom floor

bits of blood or Malbec beneath your fingernails

your son's decapitated head sitting in the driveway

green, like money

smears on the wall of your bedroom, of every room

a child's body shaking with madness

blurred, similar to oxidized glass, similar to the wine bottle bottom

jumping three stories and taking the stairs back up

no reason

no memory

that is what a breakdown looks like

we are pointing fingers but you wouldn't know because New Orleans is filled with smoke.

the marshes are burning
blame the heat blame the heat
don't take it personally
if we die in our sleep

the next best thing

miles of napkins and loose change stretching
through dusty comic book dens
snake holes
and smoke-filled Pontiac's on the highway
the land is waiting for an earthquake
we've hit cruise control and checked out
settled in and we are quite happy
with our remote control garage door openers
the prosthetic limbs we used to refuse
are now trendy accessories

i've been thinking lately
about hyenas dying
and ants dying
and people

decades of
sitcoms our parent's loved
highly evolved worker ants and queens and those who drink beer
fags and queers and those who make children

To die on repeat
is very mundane
and the next best thing.

you
bottom of the bag
potato chip
big breast curved hip
beautiful bold semi colon
comic strip
tease

pity gone

there is a stigma
about pulling off a Band-Aid

we cringe
as though the adhesive
may rip off the flesh

but the truth is
disappointment
of a healed wound
and pity gone

we are making a mess

this morning
we were drinking coffee
i was maybe a little high
and you
well your breasts were showing
and i asked you
what we are doing here again

you replied,
"making a mess"

we both know
my emotions are a tornado

which is okay
when i am alone
a tornado is only as destructive
as the debris in it's path

you are naked in my bed
you are the debris

Proof

This morning,
while driving to the airport,
I imagined, for just a second,
the semi
crashing into me.

I thought of my mother
while a white dove flew above the interstate.
This is the truth and I wonder why.

I have so many things to say and I do not know how to say them anymore.

I watched a building burning,
and I, too, burned.
I watched two cars collide,
and I felt myself colliding
with this city that is not mine.

What can I say, but the truth,
that I am medium?

What can I say, but the truth,
the drunk man from New Iberia who wouldn't put his shirt back on died right there on Bourbon Street.

I'm searching the dictionary,
trying to define "Okay"
but we all have our ideas.

Here is the proof,
I thought I was

and you didn't.

sticky note

a sticky note
on the bathroom floor
i could not love you
anymore

I slept next to you and dreamt of a sinking ship.

bad handwriting

my bad handwriting
says a lot about me
we both flail about
uncontrollably
we both have
the need
be set free
we're so tired, so lazy
a couple strays
staining our sheets
with selfish history
i like my flat feet
how i can convince you
of damn near anything
i'll give you the bones
but not the meat
i'll give you almost all of me
for a little while
i'll be yr love story
so sloppy so sweet
but so hard to read
i like my long fingers
the scars they leave
and how they
can convince us of damn near anything

Remind yourself you are alive.

1. dance every day
2. ride in a boat
3. cut your own hair
4. take the stairs
5. move away from home
6. show your teeth when you smile
7. smile often
8. always own a kite
9. go camping by yourself
10. love your body
11. spend a little money
12. respect yourself
13. call your mother
14. draw a map
15. send a package
16. paint your face
17. get sweaty
18. express yourself
19. help someone
20. always ride in that boat, if given the chance.

audio of "it was a lovely boat ride until we hit an iceberg"

paint my face

paint my face
show the monster
you see in me

We rose, too.

The day that Jesus rose,
we rose, too,
forgotten she-gods,
our journey unmentioned,
following the female footsteps before us,
breaking bread and bleeding into the Earth.
Our rods and staffs do not part oceans,
but we carry the weight of living and dying
between our legs.
We carry the soul of our sister gods,
the ebb and the flow in our bodies are known,
whispered secrets of the sister kin.
We are mystics,
our splintered hands guide the cloth that covers,
We are mothers,
our pilgrimage never ends,
we rose and we will rise again.

your heart pitter-patters, my heart plunges

we tap along
to the same songs,
smile and think and dream
all these songs belong to me
but when i turn to you,
from the passenger seat
and profess,
"yes, forgivemeology,
it moves me"
and you say,
"yes, porcupineology
it speaks to me,"
we sing our differences
so proudly
and so out of tune
we know it's true
we are a fun song to sing
but we make
no sense

i am a dark cave

You, my love,
are the puppeteer,
i am nothing
but a pissed on pillowcase,
i fall limp in your hands
and hold the stench
of worthlessness

i cannot move
without you
i am quicksand,
wanting nothing more
than to cradle
your hand
cup yr face
i am only here to embrace
you
suck the life
right out of you

i am a dark cave
filled with crawling creature things
i have no meaning
until you discover me

We've become such great actors, we've started fooling ourselves!

When did our naked bodies
become costumes
we prance around in?

it was a lovely boat ride until we hit an iceberg

i'm in between
that prickly feeling
and a numb
nothingatall,
like blue blood toes
on the bathtub floor,
i sting

like a cold morning shower,
a car crash dream,
you'll never
see me coming
but i go on
and on
and on

i'm as hollow
as my red eyes look,
empty and unreflected
i'm just as sad as you expected
but we can fuck and call it something
even though we don't feel anything

i won't ask you where yr love is
pretend i won't think 'nothing of it
i can cry like it's a habit
sink the ship like there's no end to it
i am here to bring you down
i'm the frozen lake that you will drown in
and you'll never know what happened

you can change the scenery but it won't unload yr baggage

we moved out
of that little green house
but we could never
unpack our bags

Rest Yr Chin

paint my face
like hers
let me
sleep on it,
the side of the bed,
that belonged to her
let me toss and turn
and see where you rest yr chin

tell me who has the softer skin,
the better hands,
the better touch,
who is a better fuck?

who do you dream of while you sleep,
who do you see when you wake up?
do you imagine
her
for just a second
a reminder, a dream you once had,
was it
this good?
was it
this bad?

like you

would you sleep better
if i told you
that those secrets
you think i keep
are just iloveyous
aching in my gut

how sweet but so painful
to hear again and again
"i like you"
"i like you so much"

We are a mixed drink that doesn't mix.

you and i
are a sloppy mixed drink,
we're tipsy,
tip-toeing around the subject

our tongues
swirl in
and out
of conversation,
stirring consonants and vowels

i ignore sounds,
words that won't come out,
words we can't mix
together
yet

i let my dense, sweet honey words
water down,
sink and settle
at the bottom
of my cup

all i can do
is drink up
yr floating sugared words
and ask again
for you to fill me up

Where everything went wrong.

oh how i wish i would have died
right there at the Taco Bell!

The Tragedy of Opened Mail and Tile Floors.

I refuse
to clean the dirt
left by her

she lingers

in this house
Lover I want you
but I want out

Honey, it's not you.

how do i explain
that little girl
in the bedroom

i will always
be a mystery
that is
what he did to me

Fear

Fear is
an eggshell wedding dress.

inventing our own language.

my words fall

clumsil
y

into the small of yr back
my sentences

break
and crack

i become
lost in
yr skeleton yr skin

the sinews
that connect you
collect words
that cannot be spoken
yet

broken words soaked in sweat
trail from my pores
my skin
silently begging
to seep in
to yr most vulnerable muscles
yr bed yr sheets

i forget how to speak
i trip
over dream words
over the gentle curves
of yr spine

i'm stalling time
dying to say
lah,
lah,
lah,
i'm losing my language
in the soft of yr skin

my lack of expression
is simply
you

suck-ing

the breath from my lungs
and filling me
with awe
"lah,
lah,
lah"

the sweetest sounds
of our own
secret language

Oh,

you came early,
but you didn't come a day too soon.

did you?

now tell me yr teeth dreams
tell me why i dream sad dreams

is it because
i miss you
while i sleep?

tell me,
what do you see
when you look at me?

am i lucid
a clear-cut mystery?
i see
right through myself
do you?

Can't help it.

i can't help but think
we are reaping the harvest
of our pruned limbs,
months of freezing skin,
now, with the changing seasons
we thaw and tangle together,
and yesterday, in the park,
i repeated to you
the line in the book
about the ebb and the flow,
how each painful cut into the heart
opens hollow space
to hold more joy

i have never understood life
as much as i do right now

fever dreams (let me in)

tell me all yr fever dreams
tell me anything
I like to listen when you
speak
watch the shifting of
yr teeth

give me yr smile
i'd like to stay awhile
longer
soak in
the smell of yr shirt
call in sick from work
lurk, let me creep

lie awhile
let me curl in
yr body yr skin
let me curl in
yr hot fever dreams

Sadness

Sadness is
a gentlemanly
kiss.

My Favorite Things

My favorite things,
lungs half filled with smoke,
windows down,
heat turned high,
the flexing muscles in your legs
as you tip-toe across the kitchen,
feelings of anticipation
for next time, the ticking of the clock
late mornings,
favorite things, touching,
the hair all over my body,
the hair all over your body,
that story i tell
over and over
of when I jumped off the balcony,
the memories
of magazine ink and coffee,
dotting i's and crossing t's,
tracing the map of scars on my belly
firsts, seconds,
beginnings and ends
the magic that surrounds us
the mystery

I, island

yes, you've kissed many strangers,
and me, well,
i've bitten the necks of many passers by

honey, we seem so much alike
but maybe we shouldn't sleep together
tonight
we have too much time
on our hands
we're two different lands
two islands

You
wear your map
on the skin of your hands
while i,
i am a no man's land

A secret hiding place
for buried memories,
reminding me
of how good it can feel
to keep still
and be discovered

Ponies

One time
you set the barn on fire
half out of anger
you did not know
about the dogs

the stench of smoke
after
made me weep
and the ponies
did not walk
for weeks

Reincarnation

Despite all,
I always thought I'd come back
as an oak tree,
or a blade of grass.

But the trees are bare,
and the grass has browned.
I am still alive
while the seasons change.

Now I feel myself
as being here only for you,
less a part of this earth,
rooted only in your movements.

it happened

it happened, then,
the night spent walking the streets
past pyramids
blurry
triangles in our shifting eyes
and we barely touched
we barely talked the entire night

Gemini

You are nothing but a taste in my mouth
a reflection of myself
mirrored versions of me, me, me
mirrored split personality
mysterious I, Gemini,
keep talking to myself
through the shining in your eyes,
Amber, it's no surprise
we are drawn to each other,
child twin brother,
floating through space
we are kids, chameleons
fickle in our ways
we can't be blamed
it's our nature
to see I in You,
and You in I.

Let Down

You're just like Becca,
bad news,
a sad song I sing along to.
Love, you've let me down,
with your pretty face
and your open legs.

untitled

your hair in my mouth
tongue tied
honey, it's cold outside but we could have
walked
See, I am happy, happy, happy with you
the sad stuff sells but it don't matter anymore
things are easier now
pancakes and frozen soups
my crooked teeth are straightening up
our bottles are all full