September 2011
1 post
1 tag
Starbuck when you paint you paint eyes on the wall of your apartment. The wall comes apart. Now there is no more worry. The hurricanes have stopped attacking. The coast is not a coast. The coast is a destination. It costs so much heat to get there. You cover your own coat with more paint. There are no eyes watching me when I am alone with you. There is one eye, a piece of the eye stuck to your...
June 2011
5 posts
1 tag
The test results say YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON. The test results are never wrong, the tester says WE WEREN’T EVEN TESTING FOR THIS, she says this with a voice made of strings of llama hide, the strings are drawn into a cord, the cord is wrapped around each of my fingers, each of my fingers are made of pieces of my heart. I’ve already told you that my heart is contained on two pages...
1 tag
When we make plans it’s always the same thing. The dog needs to go outside. The neighbors need to be put away in cages. The neighbors need to be told to shut the fuck up. Once I open my mouth to say YOU ARE THE NASTIEST PILE OF CLOTHING but instead I say DO YOU LIKE YOUR NEW TRUCK. Once I open my mouth to say THE BOTH OF YOU ARE A MISERABLE TELEVISION DRAMADIE but instead I say I LIKE THE...
1 tag
We are busy making plans all weekend, your fingers stuck in the hide of an animal, your fingers aching, busy, moving through each hair with precision, moving through each hair perfectly the way I’ve tried to move around you but you know how terrible dancing makes me feel, the green lights, the church-high ceilings. You know how each room has it’s own syntax, how each room’s walls...
1 tag
You see cabinets filled and dripping, you see the ice trays I bury like toys, you see the ice trays filling all our cabinet space, our ziplocs and tupperwares, our water UV clean. You know we don’t have to do anything special, you know there isn’t anything more special than a water filter, a garbage disposal full of lemon wedge and garlic skin. My own skin stuck to yours, melted and...
1 tag
We go to Ikea again and buy another custom cabinet. How many things do we have to put away and hide. How many custom cabinet combinations are there. No one knows, no one knows anything and the computer screen is humming, the computer screen is whispering and saying YOU ARE FOLLOWING THE DIRECTIONS SO WELL and I say THANK GOD FOR THIS because, you know, without the arrows on the floor I would be so...
May 2011
6 posts
1 tag
Oh disregard these things, disregard me, oh the sun, oh the sun is my friend, oh my friend disregard me and see how I take these pieces apart and oh see how I put these pieces back together. Your face faces east, your face is so easy to look at and I see everything in your face and sometimes in your face I want to curl up like a dog and lap at puddles of air conditioner water. Oh you see madness,...
1 tag
And I’m not strong but I will carry you over my shoulder between the cars and I will scrape the lines of poems in paint across the panel of your car and I will cut my wrists but not like suicide. You know the cuts will heal and bruise. You know my arms will be yellowed for at least a few weeks. You know I will always remember, how I still remember hours spent in the attic, in the smoke and...
1 tag
And when you see me in the night you don’t see me because I am a shade colored with your sister’s hardest pencil. My eyes sharp in the dark, her pencils sharpened, too, tightened with my broken knife as I slip it between things, as I slip it between you and pry the doors apart and on the other side a whine, an animal, a whine that sleeps inside your head, a dumbness I can cut and eat...
1 tag
And even if I make the Tetris bricks into a smile with the shape of your teeth all bright and perfect I still think about the dreams we’ve had where our teeth are falling apart in clumps of hair and silk, where my calloused hands were holding bags of them while I cried and woke and stared up into the ceiling which we both knew would quake apart. Would tire apart. Our games still running, red...
1 tag
And the Tetris bricks when rubbed together make an awful sound. You know how I practice these like toothaches, you know how I slide under fences with my magic limbs. I rub the bricks together and make the sound of two plastic bricks rubbing together. You know how I yearn to reach to seem. You know how I seem to always know just about how many more minutes there will be in our lives before the next...
1 tag
When I wake you are a broken toy. I told you something smart. I was a pirate ship. I was not as clean as you but I tried. I swear I tried to hold you too, the trap door smiling, the string of hard line behind us. Like a mistake I tried to tie knots to hold us together, the knots I know to keep the walls together. But how can I hold so many toys, how can I break so many toys, how can I toy so many...
April 2011
5 posts
1 tag
ML PRESS SOON
When I wake you are not a ghost and try so hard to dream bowls of clay drying in the daylight but you push me so hard I crack. You see even when I want to be happy I am a trashcan full of muck. I am rotting mostly. The bottoms of my feet are ruined. The bottoms of my feet are not soft but made of nails. I walk on nails but not peacefully. I walk on nails in a rage made of the torn...
1 tag
And when I can’t remember how to tie the knot that started all of this run my fingers like stock cars into wrecks in my hair. I am not afraid of grime but I am so worried when I touch my face. I know my face is not a hospital bed but I can’t sleep well with the smell there. I can’t sleep well anyway. You know I’m not joking with you. You know I will try hard not to break too frequently while you...
1 tag
We go to Ikea and get lost. We follow the arrows. I threaten to pull fire alarms. I threaten to scream and when the blonde tries to cut me off in the parking lot I do scream. I mumble FUCK and CUNT. I mumble UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE, THESE FUCKING PEOPLE. You say STAY CALM LIKE BRUSH, you say THE ARROWS ARE A ROADMAP HOME. And later, when we’re building another bookshelf I imagine myself as a...
1 tag
We go to Ikea on the weekends and purchase bookshelves that line the walls of our small house. Each wall is an emptiness we can’t fill with our words. I want to fill my walls with yours. I pile clothes on my dresser. All the books I own I’ve barely read. My books are fashion statements. I carry one on a strap over my shoulder. I wear the toughest small one on my belt. I try to tell you...
1 tag
PANK SOON
And there are days when I can’t even speak. You see my throat is a second heart. You see my throat is full of cotton balls. My bloody cotton balls on the bathroom floor. My dim heart as a mess of paint. My heart is alive and you say I’M SO TIRED ALL THE TIME. You say I’M SO SORRY THAT MY EYES ARE MADE MOSTLY OF SLEEP. And when all the red veins are tiny lines I follow...
March 2011
13 posts
1 tag
ML PRESS SOON
When I wake you are a wall of flowers. I only want to shower you. I only want to wake and find that you are a wall of bricks. Sometimes you never move and sometimes you are covered with light. Sometimes I try to go back to sleep but mostly I shower alone and think THIS WILL NEVER END. I clean myself alone. I think THIS WILL NEVER END and it does. The damp towel, the broken air.
1 tag
ML PRESS SOON
When I wake you are an alarm. Sometimes you’re outside, around the corner. Sometimes there’s a cop car at the edge of the alley. I do illegal things every day. I cringe when I see them. I see you and cringe but not because you’re beautiful. Sometimes I wake through dreams of children. Sometimes the children are made from bits of scrap metal. Sometimes I can’t...
1 tag
I am always so fucking sexy when I brush my teeth. I spend all day in the bathroom. My gums don’t bleed. The dental hygenist tells me my teeth are great. She’s jealous. Her mask of paper, her paper mask breathing. You see I want to fuck everyone and even with her sharp tools in my mouth, I want her soft in bed.
1 tag
SOMEWHERE ELSE NOW
When I play Tetris, sometimes the blocks fall apart. I put wooden boards on the ground. I have a special net. I try to keep everything together, centralized, a nervous system of colors. A color is all that keeps us sane. When we’re finished, I will hire your sister to paint the windows of the store front. When that’s finished, I will pay a stranger to throw a brick...
1 tag
You don’t even know me. My secret is a bag of things I used to staple to the wall. My secret isn’t growing anymore. The wall is made of all the things that have ever happened. To me, the world is not an empty room. The washing machine sometimes washes clothes all night. I waste water, sometimes and every time I shave I am aware that I am ruining the world for my children. And sometimes...
1 tag
You don’t even know me. I think I WOULD DO THIS FOREVER. I think WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THINGS GET BETTER. You see the world will probably never end. There are so many terrible things in the world. There is a library full of pressed flowers. I keep staring at your ass in maternity pants. One day you might be pregnant. One day I will buy the prettiest ring I can afford. I have so much money and I...
1 tag
Trichotillomania
Rage
Alcoholism
Bipolar
Mania
Depression
1 tag
Sure the hammer is made of magic steel. Sure you’re head is so hard I can’t move through it. Sure I want to spend all night banging on the walls, I want to spend all night banging on the walls. The television like a laugh track in the neighbors bedroom. And sure I want you to yell a knife wound scream. I want to fuck you up, to make you come up and over the hills. You see the grass,...
1 tag
PANK SOON
We all try to climb the walls. I would propose to you on the roof. I would make you a ring of poems. I already tried this. I keep my poems a secret. I fill the window of the storefront with drafts of my poems. I wrap you in a sentence I keep rewriting. I think you’re sexiest in the shower. I am lying. Come here and trust me like you used to. I think you’re sexiest when...
1 tag
PANK SOON
And sometimes the storefront is nothing. The cold glass keeps me dry but the cold glass is made of rain water, too. I try not to think of my wet pants, I try not to smell the liquor-stink of hydraulic fluid under my fingernails. Sometimes we’re playing Jenga instead of Tetris. I try to walk away but I still hear you say I DON’T LIKE TO TAKE ALL THE PIECES APART ALL AT ONCE....
1 tag
PANK SOON
On the weekends I am a lump of pillows. On the weekends my clothing is made entirely of flannel. You say YOU ARE A WHOLE NEW THING WHEN YOU WALK OUTSIDE. You say THE THINGS YOU OWN ARE BECOMING PIECES OF YOUR HEART and when I fall into a couch made of worry you believe that I am going to be okay for a few days. Back at the storefront the windows are still shining. You say WE COULD BUILD...
1 tag
My favorite things to hold are broken toys. These are like dreams mostly. These are short paragraphs made from contemptuous facial expressions. If you were a wall you would be a wall made of brick work. I hang a poster of myself. My poster-eyes line up perfectly with yours. I am broken though. Can you see through me? Can you see how each piece of my heart is crumbling under the weight of our...
1 tag
I am always good looking while I brush my teeth. Insane. Sometimes my teeth want to bleed. Sometimes my heart hurts. Sometimes my heart feels the things my body can ignore. The cuts on my hand. Everyone says YOU PUNCH TOO MANY WALLS. Everyone says YOUR KNUCKLES ARE MADE OF STRAWS. I go alone around the back of the house, I go alone between the piles of folding chairs and motor parts. There is a...
February 2011
14 posts
1 tag
And when I’m completely ruined I am a blanket my toes broke through all night and I wake so warm you could never make me move. I go to work because that’s what you’re supposed to do. I tell people that my weekend was just fucking wonderful. You know how great couches are, you know I watch Netflix all night because there’s not a single thing I want to do. At the end of the...
1 tag
You know I could spend all day looking through windows with you. The most interesting spaces are empty. The most interesting brickwork is an interior wall. You could spend all day, too, looking at the spaces between each brick. And sometimes your sister paints walls fake, and sometimes I come home with bits of paint beneath my finger nails and sometimes I just want to crush my fingers in every...
1 tag
PANK SOON
And sometimes there’s nothing at all to do and most times actually there’s so much to do and I sit at home on our huge fucking expensive couch in my pajamas and spend the whole weekend thinking about the two beers in the refrigerator that I will never drink and I wear a wife beater that’s yellowed in the arm pits and I imagine myself as a fatass beer-gutted wife beater...
1 tag
And even when we disappear for nights at a time I still think HOW MANY MIRROR MIRRORS ON THIS LITTLE WALL and I still catch myself looking through the aisles of oil stains and bushy rags screaming THIS IS THE LAST TIME I’LL DRAW YOUR FOOTPRINT IN THE SAND and the sane is Absorb-All and the Absorb-All is a dark brown bloody color that makes me sick in the cold morning when my mind is warped...
1 tag
You are so smart, like bacon breakfast, like a breaking-knuckles bumper sticker, a hand grenade made from my bony hands. You see when I am alone. All alone you see. I am at the table eating the most wonderful coq au vin I’ve ever eaten. Sometimes this moment is the best moment so far. Sometimes it is the only moment I’ve ever known and even sitting inside El Pollo Loco I can’t...
1 tag
And then I’m knocking shit down and yelling and carrying on about whatever the fuck and you don’t say a word, and then you don’t say a fucking word because there’s a big empty parking lot between us, there’s a big empty mall parking lot between us and I want the best parking spot of course and it’s not raining but it might and it’s not early enough for me...
1 tag
Sometimes I don’t let it bother me and sometimes I spend the whole night staring at the mirror next to the bed thinking WHEN WILL THIS STOP HAPPENING EVERY EVENING. And in the morning usually I feel alright. It’s a wave, parabolas, math. It’s a cycle still but you know how things work in circles, how circles work but aren’t perfect. And I don’t let it bother me but...
1 tag
Even when I am perfectly content I want to drive as hard as I can. Ever since you rolled your truck I’ve wanted to roll my own but everything is so safe. I can’t stand the bell that rings every time I approach some danger. I see the ceiling and I see through the ceiling. I make a game of ceiling mold. I make a game of your death. Every day the same stage. Every day a new piece of your...
1 tag
Each piece of floor is covered with a stain. Each piece of floor is covered with underwear. Dark spots on the moon, dark spots on my palms. The darkness covers you too, not because I’m angry but because I spend all day climbing an old ladder. I try to never look through the files in the attic, I try to pretend I have no idea why you’re disappointed with me. You see, sometimes it hurts...
1 tag
When I play Tetris my bricks cost $70,000 each. Go ahead and try to stop me. I punch horns with diesel strength. I punch horns so the metal plates fuck together and sweat. Sometimes the things I bend together never come apart. It’s a poem about a junkie. It’s a poem about two dogs stuck together fucking. Really it’s not a poem. You see when I’m punching things I forget...
1 tag
I bought I’M WIDE AWAKE IT’S MORNING because you made me so fucking sad.
1 tag
I’d rather punch steering wheels until my poems bruise like dry flowers. I’d rather spend all evening imagining my car driving too fast across a bridge but not off it. I would rather touch the skin of your neck. I’d rather touch any skin that isn’t cold.
1 tag
This morning all I wanted to do was touch the piece of your body just below your breast. I couldn’t stop myself. You were awake but really sleeping. You were not a blanket but I could have stayed warm right there all day. I wouldn’t even need to turn on the lights. I’d keep my face there to breathe. I wouldn’t even need to check my email. I’d keep my hand there and...
1 tag
And as we move through the corn and crush it down like clothing full of dust the corn doesn’t sing between our toes but dries a wishing bridge from our dirty hymnal, the dark spine warped in spring, left to ruin, left useful in the sun. When I go to sleep with this music coming through my head like soft fields of ribbon you say I AM NOT MADE ONLY OF MUSIC SCALES, OF HAIR. And when all the...
January 2011
13 posts
1 tag
Every day is a new breakdown. I can only clean the counter tops, wash the green out of the wash cloths. You sometimes come home and look no where but straight ahead. I make so much noise. I build each disaster to scale. I try to finish, but the glue is made of a dried orange residue. He says THE MODEL HOME IS THE ILLUSION OF THE HOME. He says YOU KNOW EVERYTHING BUT EVERYTHING IS NOT ENOUGH. On...
1 tag
The strains in my chest is the rope of a dream. I wake to his voice. YOU LIFT EVERYTHING WITH THE BACK OF YOUR MIND. Throw me deep into bed, a sheet over my face. He says I PUT MY RADIATION THROUGH YOU LIKE A STEEP WIND but I spend all morning watching my heart fade. Each line of your voice like a expanse of wiring. The weekend a blurry lens. Even when I wake he says YOUR POWER IS THE FEAR OF...
1 tag
I don’t understand things like cloth. He asks me about my behavior. I feel outrun. There is a psychological clothesline on the porch, there is a coffee table made of stone, a miniature lazy chair. I am always choking on shrunken laundry. I dry my clothes on low, I dry my clothes alone at night by screaming through a pillow. He says ABNORMAL BOOKSHELVES SOMETIMES LINE THE ROAD. I look past...
1 tag
His words are made of bricks of our home. He says my ideas do not meet together. His words are coming together around me like sturdy walls the color of power-steering fluid.
I swallow liquid soap and blow halos into your hair, you see I am alone. You see I will be outside through the night, looking through the stars, a blanket covering my shoulders.
Yes I will come. He says I must build a...
1 tag
I want to be so sad I can’t close my eyes to cry as I drive through miles of corn the same color as an east coast autumn when your eyes are also corn fed and when I crush my body into clay and fold my insides into a doughy cloud of myself I will sleep easier on a mattress alive with grains, alive with countless pebbles of your heart that shimmer as you step from the shower and shimmer as I...
1 tag
When it rains there is a blackness between each crease of the skin on my fingers. I ring so many doorbells I am be able to see through the grains of wood. Sometimes I have to hang up the phone and talk like an accident into your ear. You say THE WHEELS MUST ALL TURN TOGETHER. The oil smoke could burn all night. I want to keep this warmth in small jars. I want to save these jars until my...