I Might've SIlenced My Muses

I haven't been able to write anything since a poem I wrote November 24th. I started on anti-depressants November 3rd. Coincidence?

Usually where there is this fount of words and poetry there is nothing. I'm not sure if it has to do with the meds or that I'm just distracted with life in general.

Just trying to be open minded about it and not freak out.

I really hope that mental stability and writing ability aren't mutually exclusive.

clouds
where did you come from
it was just so sunny
and now you threaten
with your evasive gray

i've been casting out demons
voodoo spells on my lips
i've been dancing with devils
and laying down lines

clouds
you're as dark as ever
and hovering at the horizon
pissing on my daybreak
and menacing my mascara

i've been a very good girl
i haven't even cut
this feeling just appeared out of no where
deep, lonely, and screaming in my gut

clouds
scratching my eyes, making me cry
with your dust and corrosive lies
your wet doesn't moisten my skin
just bloats and cakes and ignores
natural rhythm and laws of water

trickery

I'm gonna dig out this love of mine with a rusty spoon. I'll sit with the sore, the blood, the gore. Wait for the infection. Drain the pus. Wait and wait and wait and wait til the fade. Til it passes. Til the sun sets. The twilight, the daybreak. I will force hands and heart. I will twist arms and break ankles. I will stop this somehow, I will slam brakes and grind gears. Fast forward years. Rewind days. I will wring out the meaning of this lesson before I've learned it. Cheat life, the universe, the morals of the unrequited. I will break the surface, gasp for air, and only return to the bottom of the ocean if you take my hand and hold my breath.

could be

perhaps you don't belong
but you are needed and desired
in the hearth, in the house
barefoot and warmed by captured fire
there are arms for you here
and fresh baked bread

this is a place to wait out winter
where the floor grows thick carpet
the windows thicken on their own
northern drafts howl but do not touch
the sink is always empty of dishes
the trash never overflows
soft lamp light and hot cocoa in unchipped mugs

mulled apple cider whiskey on the stove
the world smells of cinnamon and cloves
hot baths in a tub suddenly big enough for two
history channel then cartoons at night
the sun finds us in every corner
where we curl up like cats, circular and unaware

in the center of my belly, slightly higher than my navel
in the root of me, i try to ignore, i try to reason
you don't belong here, you don't crave
my head and my heart argue behind closed doors, undecided
but in the depth and breadth
I feel it, like butterflies, like mother, like destined lover
eventually you will come home
exhausted from sewing seeds and fighting wars

lights are left on and finest linens are laid
your hands touch me from the future, from simple pathetic fantasy, perhaps
the settling, the exhale, the entwining of limbs
i tell myself if not you then perhaps another just like
there are spaces to fill and journeys to end
but only when we are whole and can be two, not one

another just like perhaps
but the original seems most likely
cells of me ache to their core
with the knowing, the conclusions drawn
in the dna, the zodiac weaving
before we were even born

maybe it is not intuition that speaks, that fills my core
but hunger, primitive and not spiritual
maybe i own no chakras or auras and maybe the stars are dead
it could just be misfired synapses and psychiatric diagnoses

or it could be love

it could be love

this i bury in my backyard with bones and tin boxes of buttons
this i tuck away in the back of closets with old board games
with the outgrown shoes, with the fairies and forgotten oil paints
this i pull down when i unsure, this i embrace when scared

perhaps from delusion, perhaps from fate

it could be love
it could be love

unrequited

i can be something you can lose
sand between fingers, under the nail
why do i think only in absence
can i fill a room or mean something
more than cubic space i occupy
and statistics and bank account talleys

do you know the kinda love
when all you think is
i'm in love i'm in love i'm in love i'm in love
over and over?
it renders you retarded and inarticulate
when you think of the person
and all you can think is
i love you i love you i love you i love you

then we get mad because three words
don't equal three thousand
attention spans are short
and the days artificially long

...............

i fell apart
but only for a week
so maybe it doesn't count
maybe i can still be forgiven
and thought of as strong

you and i are at our best
between three and five a.m.
there's no bullshit then
eyes see clearly and wise

someday i may be
the girl you lost
not to cocaine
but brain static

strobe lights behind my eyes
ravers, glow sticks and E

over

I need to squeeze hope out of me
Like the last bits of toothpaste

Flat and empty, I can inhale again
Slowly fill, rebreath, rebirth

Scrub this persistent mold from shower corners
Bleach and scratch at it with my nails

Scoop my heart into my hand, one incision
wring it out, give it a good shake, a good talking to

Getting over you, spring cleaning in the fall
Getting over you, I cry, say I don't know how

Like most things I fail to accomplish, I fail to try
I simply just don't want to do in the first place

i want you

haven't we all felt THIS???


Oh my baby baby I love you more than I can tell
I don't think I can live without you
And I know that I never will
Oh my baby baby I want you so it scares me to death
I can't say anymore than "I love you"
Everything else is a waste of breath

I want you
You've had your fun you don't get well no more
I want you
Your fingernails go dragging down the wall
Be careful darling you might fall

I want you
I woke up and one of us was crying
I want you
You said "Young girl I do believe you're dying"
I want you
If you need a second opinion as you seem to do these days
I want you
You can look in my eyes and you can count the ways

I want you
Did you mean to tell me but seem to forget
I want you
Since when were you so generous and inarticulate
I want you
It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for
It's the way your shoulders shake and what they're shaking for
I want you
It's knowing that she knows you now after only guessing
It's the thought of her undressing you or you undressing

I want you
She tossed some tatty compliment your way
I want you
And you were fool enough to love it when she said
"I want you"

I want you
The truth can't hurt you it's just like the dark
It scares you witless
But in time you see things clear and stark
I want you
Go on and hurt me then we'll let it drop
I want you
I'm afraid I won't know where to stop
I want you
I'm not ashamed to say I cried for you
I want you
I want to know the things you did that we do too
I want you
I want to hear she pleases you more than I do
I want you
I might as well be useless for all it means to you
I want you
Did you call her name out as she held you down
I want you
Oh no my darling not with that clown
I want you
I want you
You've had your fun you don't get well no more
I want you
No-one who wants you could want you more
I want you
I want you
I want you
Every night when I go off to bed and when I wake up
I want you
I'm going to say it once again 'til I instill it
I know I'm going to feel this way until you kill it
I want you
I want you
I want you

turbulence

been begging for a lobotomy
this stiff upper lip thing is bullshit
i'd flood my memories in
whiskey and chemical turbulence
if i could forget you tonight.

I am the darkness
in which you flirt
I am the razor edge
pressed to your skin
But yet, light
But yet, gauze and mend

blood letting

if only i could bleed enough
doctor gimme your leeches
drain me of the blue blood
that thickens the walls of my veins

and in the ho hum
in the thump thump thump
of this crooked heart
in the ho hum
in the thump thump thump
in this crooked heart

inside i am technicolor
from inside it comes out
it comes out
this ever spilled milk
over which i am not to cry
it sours and curdles
amongst kittens, broken tiles
i am a genius he says to me
under a giant plastic apple

and in the ho hum
in the thump thump thump
of this crooked heart
in the ho hum
in the thump thump thump
in this crooked heart

give me your rusty tools
the yellowed hypocratic oath
light me up like vegas
flip on the ECT
rewire the walls, rewire my walls
fry these circuits
til the whole house burns down

and in the ho hum
in the thump thump thump
of this crooked heart
in the ho hum
in the thump thump thump
in this crooked heart

doctor, i've got an empty drawer
waiting for a bottle
right in that bottom drawer
yeah, he says i'm a genius
but when i'm dirt
when i am the ash
it is only a perhaps epiptath

and in the ho hum
in the thump thump thump
of this crooked heart
in the ho hum
in the thump thump thump
in this crooked heart

tonight i struggle with
the thoughts that keep me up
begging for those leaches
grinding my teeth for release
and one more evening
like all those others
i have to forget

and in the ho hum
in the thump thump thump
of this crooked heart
in the ho hum
in the thump thump thump
in this crooked heart

switch

i'm doing it again
i'm doing it again
stumbling in the dark
grasping at corners
feeling the walls
where's that switch
that flip me back
where is the drug
that turns me up
to an acceptable volume
and level of coping
perhaps its at the bottom of this bottle
ashes on the keyboard again
ashes on the keyboard again

billy corgan

i said that i'd dig out the treadmill
i'd do an hour, i'm thirty now, i want to be healthy, i want to be hot
i want to be everything that i'm not
instead i sit in the garish light of out of season christmas lights
chain smoking, binge drinking
chanting incantations and scarring my skin
my heart has become too full
my face has molded into a smile
it's all in vain, it's all in vain

the ice cream man has pulled me into his van
offered me any flavor, any topping i desire
i am five again and somehow skinny
i am fifteen again and lactose tolerant
the ice cream spreads his hands
he's billy corgan
today is the greatest day
and i can have anything i want

the cats won't stop howling
they're talking, conspiring, chortling their love yous
a family formed five feet below me
upon the floor where i will someday fall
just please tell me why my left arm aches
and why when i really want you to you never call

the same dark

two hours ago i was optimistic
i had plans and good intentions
the sunsets and i fall to darkness
never both to turn on the lights
computer screen absorbs my face

somewhere in the shadows
i open a beer, light a cigarette
the phone rings, it's not you
so i don't answer, i never answer
i am locked inside some madness
cage fight to the death
only one soul will exit when it's through

the world is a mean girl, a prom queen to me
carrots are dangled and i run
that damn optimism, that dreaded hope
i declare secrets and write sonnets
my voice fades to whisper, to simple breath
periodic moan, glass slippers slicing off toes

in the dark, in the same dark
i had with you, i slept besides, in the dark
that is not as soft now, is not as friendly now
it is this dark that drags me back
nails in the dark, I am Persephone
it is winter, it is time, it is time
and away i am taken, much more than i flee

the grass seems so far from me now
thousands of feet above and below
i want to read minds, i want to inspect hands
before they touch me
if i keep dirnking, i don't tihnk i'll stop
trying to drain myself, trying to drown myself
trying to soak away all that i hate
marinade in bodega forties
fingers too young to be stained this yellow
but still yet that way

eh... another draft

this bell is for you
i held it, tight and lovingly
as the plane came down
crystal and defined, etched and scarred
it never broke
even thought i did

again

i compose, predisposed to the deep
the wings tore away first
like a fly in a five year's old fist
the plummet, at first like the log ride
back when i was fourteen and at darien lake
the splash not as gentle
and no laughter this time

half assed half asleep draft to finish later

his name is moh
and he's been driving
this cab for fifteen years
since he left Egypt
for a better life.

There he was a lawyer
and he attended the mosque
regularly and there he laughs
he was never tempted by bacon

and now
now he can't sleep

whenever he picks me up
he laughs, he chain smokes
weaving through screeching traffic
along the bqe, moh laughs
but he says, he always says
"if only i could
just get some sleep."

i suggest tylenol pm, a doctor
some melatonin but he changes
the subject as he swerves
into the right lane
the metropolitan ave exit
he says he wants to work in movies

his dreams to me, are those of
someone twnety years younger
and they are dreams that were once mine
and they are dreams that i no longer
give a shit about anymore

he says
you're lucky
you work with the stars
i shake my head
"I work with the stars money"
moh says
no you're lucky
you can go home
and get some sleep

dance card

lady lazarus
back from the dead
from under houses
torn from crawl spaces
pumped of poison
we rise and stories we tell

i do not claim to know death well
have only waltzed with him in the garden
he possessed a skilled step
and an even temper
he fills my dance card and slaps my ass

he never calls the next day.

Z

you lack an awareness
of the space you fill
and over nicotine embers
i consider your light
the tilt of your chin
and consider

how you looked
eyes closed to peace
lips silent and still
the depth of you
reconvenes in cracks
and fissures

how easily you skate
between dark and light
how softly you step
amongst the debris of the world
you i consider

at various angles
a myriad of poses
from a far with smile
your ease, elegance
your embrace of your whole self

all possible
because perhaps
you just don't know
and who am i to tell you

til dusk

i rub pomegranates
between my breasts
every morning
hoping to be the scent
that lingers in your nose
til dusk finds its way
into your bed
where i long to sleep
just as mist-like
just as dark
simply as ripe
and as slowly intertwining

it's on the edge of my lip
like a piece of chapped skin
it's on the edge of my lip
the corner of my mouth
then gone

eyes wander and fall to the ground
embers lit, inches from tongue
stranded on street corners
i miss my days of dancing
beneath the orange pool of light

padding

perhaps the thick fat
is to compensate for the thin skin
and tender heart
perhaps more in need of padding
and insulation than the normal girl.

perhaps i dangle dangerously
legs over the roof edge
but when my balance is lost
back to the center i race, i cling

i just don't know who i am
what'll find when i start
stripping away the layers
revealing skin and bone and blood
i just don't know who i am
when it's all said and done
when i am alone with just my breath
and my overwhelming being

fire proof

you reach to touch
but you don't understand
there are stars under my skin

me,
you have never read
you have never pressed your
ear to the inner of my thigh
you

are denied access
in the swish of skirt
a handful of air

perfume
then nothing

I have learned
from the back of cereal boxes
heart no longer on my sleeve

but behind the fish sticks
and the lime green popsicles
in the back of the freezer

with my cash and my composure
fire-proof, far from flame
and the last place anyone who'd
care to find
would ever look

draft

this is the sign
that you later wish you
had seen earlier

it's all there
prophecies and promises
self-absorbed
selfish
desperate

ain't no anger
barely any tears
just the surrendering
to the final year

girl anachorism by dresden dolls

girl anachronism

you can tell
from the scars on my arms
and cracks in my hips
and the dents in my car
and the blisters on my lips
that i'm not the carefullest of girls

you can tell
from the glass on the floor
and the strings that're breaking
and i keep on breaking more
and it looks like i am shaking
but it's just the temperature
and then again
if it were any colder i could disengage
if i were any older i could act my age
but i dont think that youd believe me
it's
not
the
way
i'm
meant
to
be
it's just the way the operation made me

and you can tell
from the state of my room
that they let me out too soon
and the pills that i ate
came a couple years too late
and ive got some issues to work through
there i go again
pretending to be you
make-believing
that i have a soul beneath the surface
trying to convince you
it was accidentally on purpose

i am not so serious
this passion is a plagiarism
i might join your century
but only on a rare occasion
i was taken out
before the labor pains set in and now
behold the world's worst accident
i am the girl anachronism

and you can tell
by the red in my eyes
and the bruises on my thighs
and the knots in my hair
and the bathtub full of flies
that i'm not right now at all
there i go again
pretending that i'll fall
don't call the doctors
cause they've seen it all before
they'll say just
let
her
crash
and
burn
she'll learn
the attention just encourages her

and you can tell
from the full-body cast
that i'm sorry that i asked
though you did everything you could
(like any decent person would)
but i might be catching so don't touch
you'll start believeing youre immune to gravity and stuff
don't get me wet
because the bandages will all come off

and you can tell
from the smoke at the stake
that the current state is critical
well it is the little things, for instance:
in the time it takes to break it she can make up ten excuses:
please excuse her for the day, its just the way the medication makes her...

i dont necessarily believe there is a cure for this
so i might join your century but only as a doubtful guest
i was too precarious removed as a caesarian
behold the worlds worst accident
I AM THE GIRL ANACHRONISM

draft, they're all drafts, just rambled blobs of poetic goo

is there anybody out there
voices echos
empty stadium
empty apartment
reverb, still unheard
and still i speak

radio chatter
beyond sleep and reason
still i can't stop
this driven need
to connect, to connect

restless
insatiable
reaching for reasons
to stay

heimlich

this is the way things like this end ya know
a hiccup then a deeper breath
to realign the diaphragm
a swallow
then again again again

it ends

like choking in a diner
no one knows the maneuver
and the chemistry rests in your chest
the blue spreads
dirty tile to slab

it's a good weekend for a suicide
he says, reading a brochure
i am chest-armed-crossed
thinner in my mind than my body
and lara croft in my pout

i'm supposed to find irony
perhaps even find it funny
but i'm so numb from this machine
and desperate for a stab, a bite, a kiss
to remind me i'm a miracle

wrestling darwin

been revelling in my irrelevance
letting the typos flow
spell checked slayed
perhaps i just need to get laid
sleep in on sunday and pretend i'm in love

is that what others do
i mean they can't all be luckier than me
is it in the lies they tell themselves
the complacency they down like pills

they can't all be happy
then what's that say about me?
about us? about the others
I see downcast eyes and thrusted chests
mating season in williamsburg
but yet all ephemeral
dancing but no music
raining without drops

dry
and
empty

consider this
are we moving away from nature
away from what is natural
the evolution or god-slated purpose
of nooks and crannies
are we wrestling darwin himself
knocking atoms til we
big bang ourselves
are we godless or plastic surgerying
genetically engineering ourselves
to take the place
when the sky goes dead
the stars go black
and the vaccum is explained
as tinnitus?

it's there
in that crease
between shoulder blades
it's there in the
center of your chest

sepia stains
i am an owner of nothing
my antiquity is neither
black nor white nor gray
orange baby pictures
early photo shop
faded polaroids
crystalized flash
smoke
light

but it's there
some sort of reciprocity
a physical geography
a math equation, a spot
on your hand me down shirt
it's there
like a scab, a crust of skin
dangling by a hair
it's gonna fall anyway
so scratch

it's just a bonus
if you also bleed

last night
i watched the
street lights
illuminate
one by one
up and down
union avenue

daylight
fell away and
sun disappeared
behind the condo
across the street
i pondered my age
and the crook
of my elbow

silently

it is not as simple
as you may make it out to be
but the twist is that
i think you might be able
to see what i'm getting at
and thus the intoxication

but as pedestaled as you are
i sit across the room
more recessed than you are raised
i have been to this gallery before
and weary i am of modern art

Sparks (draft in progress)

i want to know you
with your clothes off
not to say
i don't love you with

but sometimes
the need to experience
how soft that
patch of skin is

that tiny square above
your waist
how warm the flesh
oh yes sometimes i wonder
for hours and

it's not about sex
fluids spill but the soul
remains, yes it's the remainder
that pulls me
into nooks and crannies
that mesmerizes me with
shards and shatters

it's when i close my eyes
i see you, unnervingly comfortable
wherever you go
so intact and confident and
i've never met anyone so
whole and up and down to
earth and i crave
being the causation
the magician
behind your smile

i want to you know when your clothes off
to discover freckles uncharted
weights and measures
five senses enthralled
not to say i want to possess
or simply caress
but experience
lighted finger
sparks

sparks and burning butterflies
we're a chemistry set on fire
spilled beakers, lost intentions
we lost the directions
acid burning my lips
i have swallowed my share of poison
you exhale me, we laugh
we are the type to love broken glass
the innocence of the trying
the simplicity of electrons
attraction, improper fraction
rubber gloves weren't made for love
and your hands always seem
too damn far away

My greatest fear is to die without anyone ever hearing all that I had to say. Or worse, never have anyone listening craving more. You should always leave them craving more. I want to be the key lime pie of the soul. I no longer want to be mourned or worshipped, mostly at the end of the day, I just want to compel.

But is there anything about me that is that compelling?

Lately I feel like I have so much to say that if anyone were to let me speak unfettered, my tongue would roll out of my mouth and strangle the world with swallowed then regurgitated poetry. I fear I will peel paint off walls and talk off ears. Dogs and cats will rain down and daylight would break and I'd still not be able to rid myself of this constant desperation to touch another soul, to matter, to make a difference.

To be indelible. Delicious. And welcomed in.

home by sheryl crow

(I'm not in a loveless marriage, but still some of this is ringing true to me tonight)


I woke up this morning
Now I understand
What it means to give your life
To just one man
Afraid of feeling nothing
No bees or butterflies
My head is full of voices
And my house is full of lies

[chorus]
This is home, home
And this is home, home
This is home

I found your standing there
When I was seventeen
Now I'm thirty-two
And I can't remember what I'd seen in you
I made a promise
Said it everyday
Now I'm reading romance novels
And I'm dreaming of yesterday

Chorus

I'd like to see the Riviera
And slowdance underneath the stars
I'd like to watch the sun come up
In a stranger's arms

Chorus

I'm going crazy
A little at a time
And everything I wanted
Is now driving me away
I woke this morning
To the sound of beating hearts
Mine is full of questions
And it's tearing yours apart...

wrist
overhead
out stretched
bound and inked
skin breathes
i am heat
meat and bone
caging 21 grams
8 balls of self
your teeth
slide along
paths once
razor-bound
tongue touch
exploring rivets
ditches and ravines
long white stretches
of pale, poor girl skin
to that spot
in the center of my arm
crook of my elbow
puddle i become.

and onward
christian soldier
to the shoulder
more ink
seered into the
nerve neighborhood
reds and taste similar
and strange along
mountain ranges
down backs
cool and expansive
and enraptured
your arms
free and hungry
make a meal
out of me

i am not your sister
in pretention

i am not the other side
of your bed nor the cool
side of your pillow

i lie in ditches and
occasionally need to
be pulled to my feet
and i write verse
free and ridiculous

i make up words
and skin my knees
an illusion-chaser
a drug of choice pusher

i am not half of anything
and certainly not a whole

blue eyed
insecticide
you catch me
offsides
render the poet
speechless

then scramble
mumble
recover
stumble
i can miss no step
when speaking
with you

roachlike
i scurry
with me i am constantly
sweeping up my insides
i leave bread crumbs
wherever I go
I forget to lock my doors
and I crave life to happen
to me in all its horrors
and concrete seductions

i am not one to be
locked up in small boxes
in padded rooms
in halcyon haldol nightmares

drinking the windex
i discover i can do back flips
and with you i do not contort
but japanese fan dance
consider which color
stimulates your gaze
and i wonder if i could ever
speak til i spoke myself to sleep
and at what point you might stop listening

there is this groove
above my hip
your hand would fit
and you could lift me
with two fingers
when pressed and exhaled
properly

light as a feather
stiff as a board
i rise
and if perchance
you can speak my
tongue
i will whisper

only to you

the guy at that party i kinda know

even when you're quiet
you're intense
how is it like when
a girl like you dreams?

the comment strikes me
as a pick up line a
string of cheese an attempt
at intimacy unearned

my tongue presses against
the roof of my mouth which tastes
like raspberried champagne
stars caught in my teeth

he's just another one
who mis-sees, who mistakes
who masturbates to the zelda-ic
who paints himself deep, important
and able to decipher my mystery

I hate myself
for smiling coyly
and walking away
words fail me
and I have forgotten
how it is
I would like to
sculpt myself

Lost track of my lies
I find myself truthful
present and authentic
too tired to manipulate

I am just living
and no prick staring at my tits
has the right to call me
intense and pry my poetics
as he sips free beer
and threatens my
unsolicited and natural
chill

pedicured and pretend
toes peek beyond jean hems
only love can break your heart
acoustic, close to the skin
like morning razor
or dawning dew

i miss the damp on my ankles
tickling and soft
i miss the before time, the
pre-traffic and non-working
time when the sky is blue
and only mine

i want to show you
to drink coffee in the grass
and i'll tell you stories
of my childhood
and the night we saw the bats

not brooklyn

a creature like no other
be a creature like no other
the book says

and i can't help but laugh
as i have spent 30 years trying
to be just like everyone
else
but this creature
i am

neil young and marlboro reds
i close my eyes and dream
of dusty midwestern
porches
barren and crop less
flat and desolate prairie
cowboyless
and fading into the fade

not microfiber
not brooklyn
if i'm to be alone
i want to be really alone
chicken hawks circling
and the dawn
chasing after the
dusk like
teenagers
in lust

weekend

the scars of skin
and lips burned

lid-less
now
sight-less
and deemed
tasteless

congested
along highways
my poor soul
another ten car pile up
rubber necking
the drunken driver

she looks like me

scorched to the point
of twice shy

i only wonder why
hands shake
too hard

to hold

and escape seems
so easier
and hiri kari
sweet and secular

scented and capsulated

when will
my gears go back on track
when will i spit out the
right words and
sway the way i am
to be intended
and pushed

this drive
this swish
this hell-bent
hell-bound
pretty lady
with the deepest damselled
curtsey

the green-tinted
iris and spotted pupil
the gaze seeking assistance
then looking away

when will she land
this BQE-BBQ of flesh
so pre-determined

she glances over shoulders
and invites you so close

follow

to the devastation
this difference
could all the world make

and reclusive spiders
intent on spinning
and the fly
snare and snicker
as the night
sneaks up on
us all

i am still
not the girl
i was meant to be
molecularly
and to the touch
i always bend
falter
and fall prey

the cup is full
of ferocious ale
you have fallen to the floor
before the excuse of drink

tingled
the right finger of rejection
papal papers full of instructions
and no absolution
burn to tindered embers

you have every right
to live this way
even if you probably
should not

x

tangled and tortured
limbs are not meant to
curve the way ours do
and legs are not meant to
rotate in their joints
pointed at axes that
throw off the farthest
constellations

this is what we are to be
out of nature
anomalies, mutants
supernatural and extreme
we break human records
and cause the squarest jaws
to drop.

if only i could convince
you to practice the unravel
more than the undress
and to acclimate to the
seduction and not the chase.

bile

like wax lips
i gum, i mouth at you
i resist the urge to taste
tongue inside and i roll back and forth
and ride, and wave and
promise things and
ask for things
that i have no right

i have not felt so
strongly this urge
to destroy
to palm and swat
to be the cat to your mouse
if only for some sort of
dervish elegance

i turn my head
down my back lies
it shoots
a pain
and i know
that i am aging before my time
and i am drowning in bile
so vile
and self-manufactured

summer

your roar is dull and lifeless
i imagine you blonde and boring
i once was called brooding
if only for my dark hair.

I am clawing at my insides
trying to find a foot-hold
to pull myself back out
the raging, the rampant
curse of a girl

every night i slaughter
the voices in my mind
that say lay down and die
and every night i whisper
myself to sleep and i say
'oh sweet girl,
we'll be back to our
regularly scheduled program
right after this commercial break'

i think of you
there's not much else
my mind the halls of school
mid-july
janitors pry open lockers
mop my brain-floors
and throw away
old forgotten sandwiches

yes, i need a foothold
my arms have grown fleshy and weak
more wings than thick branches
and as always i fall too fast
and shatter with a crash

a calling.

i have long written myself off
as chewed nails and split ends
but maybe there is beauty beyond
faded seventeen
and cosmo will be proclaimed
a bible of lies

somewhere between that girl
you know and that girl you
jerk off to and that girl
who serves you your dinner
sexlessly, her power to enrapture
out of touch, concealed
and healed and only released
only allowed to lash
with precise consideration
and no longer youthful
plunder, asunder
to that age-wizened
spread

she contours

to the shape
and the angles
of your bed

but not in your head
you are too young
to know which way
the shadows should lay
and how to caress
and seduce
the slightest, subtlest
most authentic
moan

between them all
that viper's strike
a flattened spring
waiting
the fall
the saunter
of her prey
between miss homecoming queen
and mrs. robinson

yes between her
and the playboy centerfolds
and the teenage fumblings
between the Maxim count downs
and the crust on your thumb
yes between them all
between fantasy and school marm

lies me
waiting for you.

mesh

whipporwill
this coquette girl
is wondering
why you don't crow

summertime
jingling clothes line
change in the pocket
of forgotten sun-dried
osh kosh b'gosh
of yeserday

wave, flap,
rat a tat
woodpecker
this blatant homewrecker
is calling
you out to play

the chess set
gleams
polished
by sweat
and pride
silver upon
worn, gnawed
city park wood

if we were to talk
bearded billy goat
would you tell me what
i was like as a kid
(no pun intended)
or would you just daze,
fall to the simmer summer sun blaze
and eye my auburn hair
considering the taste
and risk

I'd really like to go to the ocean
Do you think you would take me?
Do you think I could buy you a snow cone?
And we can talk about all things other?

I'd like to go to the ocean
Not ride the Wonder Wheel but just watch
Footprints on the sand and the bloated bodies
Browning in the Brooklyn Basted Waste
Land.

I'd really like to go to the ocean
you don't even need to hold my hand
I'll even pay for the gas
if you would just drive me to the ocean

please

i lost my thought today
mid-sentence
and i paused, for a split second
just looking in your eyes
and realized that you were
listening to me
really fucking listening to me
intently and with interest
and i fumbled and blushed
because there is nothing of
any consequence that I have to say
lately and I don't know what to do
anymore
when my voice rises above the din
and someone decides i am worth more
than what i am paid hourly
or how long i will work for free

i want to crawl up
in the nook of your arm
and listen
and remember what life is like
outside these four office walls
that feel more and more
like a tomb
where i am encased in paper

limit

everything below my waist swells
I've gotten used to ankles
the size of softballs
and have stopped complaining
that it hurts to walk.

i thought i'd hit rock bottom
at 250
at 300
then at 325 I fell
I dropped
I shrunk to 260
then five years
up fifty
down fifty
til age 30 I
cry in a doctor's office
and say
"that scale is wrong."

and she believed me
she said there's no way
you weigh that much
and i felt hope

i waddled after her
to another exam room
but there it was
the only thing broken
is me

she says my blood pressure is up
i say it's from the shock
she talks about endochrine disease
and I reach for faith
but it's hidden behind the cracker box

in a month she says
return and we'll check things again

i eat pizza watching
intervention and other addict shows
other happy fat shows
biggest loser and more to love
i want to save your life, he says

i don't think there's any hope or help
or any sort of chance for me
i'm sorry, but it's true
i watched sylvia
and felt haunted
walking room to room
summer storm outside
carlos called me to come out and play
it seemed better than dying
at least for today

i thought my limit would be thirty
i thought my limit would be immobility
i think my limit is diabetes
perhaps my limit is when they say cancer
or maybe it'll never come
and i'll just die
unlike a human
so far from a woman
more of a piece of heavy equipment
hauled and managed
not loved and cherished

i thought i'd be better
than this

tumult

i am welcome to your nuzzle
to the fallen scent of your muzzle
it fades to red

but the palest
the slowest
the slinkiest nightmare demon

who wanders
and wonders
in wait

if you'd just say
stay
it'd become

and we'd free fall and fade
and persist and re-exist
and and and and and

a tumult, a gray hair
i can be the pull
the loose thread of your sweater
caught in the breeze
as you rush down the stairs
to catch your silly train

Update

Hey everyone.

So I'm sure a lot of you have seen the updates on Facebook and stuff. Things have been pretty rough for me as of late. There are so AWESOME things going on - five agents have requested to see my book and I'm back to work. But I'm also really struggling with the fact that my beloved group of friends has dissolved and I'm a bit lonely and depressed. For four years I've had this wonderful group of friends in my neighborhood that I spent almost all of my fun time with. We'd go to our fave bar down the street and I felt like a part of a community, of a family. In the past six months, that family has gone its separate ways and I somehow ended up the only remaining person in Williamsburg.

Couple that with a new job that keeps me chained to my desk in my office for 10-11 hrs a day and it's just a lot. I'm very depressed and very lonely.

I also had a negative experience at a poetry reading that has just made me not want to deal with that aspect of my life anymore. I'm sure I"ll once again want to perform, want to organize shows, want to publish people's work, but right now I just don't want to. It's not fun anymore.

I will put out the second Stain anthology and I will publish Persephonous Blue, but that's it. At least for now. I don't have the time or energy.

I am trying to focus on my health. I've decided that I'm probably going to leave NYC as soon as the show I'm on now wraps, or sooner if the level of stress I'm experiencing now doesn't level off. No show, no pay check is worth that sort of stress.

I'm applying to grad schools, studying for the GRE, spending time with my cats, trying to see my remaining friends when I can, and hopefully returning to some semblance of a real life complete with having fun, relaxing, and smiling.

I really appreciate everyone's support and cheer and smiles and encouragement. I won't lie - I'm pretty stressed and depressed adn horribly lonely. Please don't stop asking me to hang out. Drag me out by the hair of my head if you need to. Please. I'm self-isolating again and hair-dragging is appreciated. Hugs and drinks and laughs are needed!

I've seen to have lost my "spark" and my passion. I can't think of really anything that makes me happy right now. Funny how depression does that to you. Not only takes away your present happiness but erases the past and any hope for the future. It's such a soul-sucking disease.

aimee

how can i read poetry
when i want to cut out my own tongue

how can i stand before you
when i want to never be seen again

i simply want to be left alone
away from your dissections and half-nods
i need nurture and my inner chambers
i need proximity to gas-less ovens
and bladeless baths

aimee mann over and over
i think of magnolia
the line i was always so quick to quote
"i have so much love but
no where to put it."

these days i have no love
nothing to give
and i want it all to myself

when i speak i can be mistaken
or i can be bared and examined
i don't think i will stand
up to sane standards of common man
and even your poetic heart
will push aside or dismiss
as pretty words meaning nothing

no subtlety of suicide note
detected

can you hold my hand
but promise not to look
at my face


for a little while?

two

I hate you, crazy girl
You whisper in my ear when I try to sleep
You keep me up all night and
If I don't watch you close
You take razors to my skin.

You scare away everyone who tries to love me
You remind me of my fears
and poke at my insides
with dull, rusty tines.
I hate you, crazy girl.

I decided yesterday on the way to work yesterday that I'm depressed. I've just been too busy to notice. I'm going to see if having more time to myself and time to organize my life will make me feel better. But yeah, I'm miserable. I thought the job would help but all it does is make me exhausted and distract me for 10-11 hrs a day. I get home to my empty apartment and I sit on my couch watching tv talking to no one until I crawl to bed. I crawl to bed and I lie there awake for 5 min every night thinking "holy shit how did this become my life?"

I feel no spark. I thought at first that it was because I've been shying from dating but it's way deeper. All of my friends essentially moved away. These streets feel haunted. Just a couple months ago everyone was here, in WIlliamsburg, and we did things together. WE went to the bar on Saturday nights knowing that everyone else would be there. We had a community, a family, we had fun. We had each other. And everyone's gone and its just me all alone just going through the motions.

I have a handful of other friends who still live here but we're no ways as close or see each other as often. They're scattered, Carebear Cousins to the main group. I guess I need to try harder. When I can find some time.

I hate my life. Fucking hate it. Get up early in the morning, rush to work, spend 10-11 hrs there everyday with a majority of my day thinking I'm going to get fired. I sit in my office - all alone. I work my ass off and I leave, exhausted. I come home to an empty apartment. The pattern repeats.

When people come in my office to talk to me - like TALK, and not ask me work-stuff, I wonder why they'd ever want to talk to ME. I feel like shit about myself. I've had no time to do my hair, I look awful. I need a hair cut, my eyebrows waxed, a mani/pedi, and some new clothes. Because I just feel wretched. I feel ugly and fat and more and more like I have nothing to contribute to society.

I"m lonely as fuck. I hate New York City. Every night I come home and haul my fat ass up those 4 flights and think I really hate it here. I'm here just til this job ends then I'm going to pack up everything I own and move back upstate and see where I'm going from there.

Everything is just so fucking hard and without my friends, New York feels like it just wants to crush me. In the past month, I fell down stairs and fucked up my leg and ankle and got a black eye. Life is just SUCKING. On the bus yesterday I was thinking "I don't want this anymore." And I'm worried that I'm stuck and it ain't gonna get better.

I feel myself growing into this person I never thoguht I'd become. This asexual, sparkless, auto pilot of a woman. I'm THISCLOSE to giving up.

New York City feels so cold and cruel. I'm sick of it. I was full of youthful energy and dreams and I was SO in love when I first came here. It was years ago. I've accoplished so much but this isn't where I want to be anymore.

So this job is the only thing holding me here right now. I know I need the money for the next adventure. But I have no idea where or when. I hate this uncertainty. I REALLY hate this lack of passion and excitement. I guess I'll clean my house, throw myself into studying for the GRE and hope grad school is the answer.

I sound pathetic I know :/ I feel pathetic.

Just a bit down. Kicking around this apartment feeling lonely and down. It'll pass.

my michael poem

joey, do you remember
us so young and giggling
in your grandparents' rv

inside, the ceiling fan circled
low and guillotine-like
over the kitchen table filled
with cards and pizza

outside
you slid 'bad' into the
cassette player and we sang
dir-ty di-ana oh

ejected the tape
delighted
michael also on the fm
we kept singing
we kept singing on

soon

To count your eyelashes
the risings and collapsings
of your molded chest
I'd set myself asunder
fall to the thunder
and make myself your home

To fall, to drift
I dream of you
partial silhouettes
rotating faces of lovers
and friends and crushes I have known

Will you be frightened
or elated
at the mounds of poetry
I wrote of you
before we even met?

PRE-ORDER THE BEST OF STAIN ANTHOLOGY, VOLUME 2

so lonesome

I remember when I was at my lowest
I took the hand of my lover
and asked him to let me kill myself.

A broken heart earns no euthanasia
He said and held my hand, held me to life
As I waited to go

I quoted Fonda, I said
"they shoot horses don't they?"
reference lost to him, he hid

the knives and the pills
the cleaning supplies the
ropes the razors the means of escape
and I lay prisoner in his home

Hank sings he's so lonesome he could cry
but what about so lonesome I could die?
Isn't suffering just suffering
no matter lesion or lack of love?

But I'll go to bed instead of a grave
I never was any good at being cold
I wouldn't say I'm hanging on because of hope
Just because I was told

Circling Sylvia

Sylvia Plath took her life
when she was only thirty years old.

Her son took his own life
on my thirtieth birthday.

Sometimes it feels like
all I'm doing is circling Sylvia

slowly down the drain.

New York

You may love New York
but New York does not love you.

New York is a mangy dog
that does its damndest
to shake all of us fleas off.

three weeks of rain (draft)

(notes)

I don't walk the streets
When it pours
I don't want the streets
when it shines
and these three weeks of rain
are going to be the death of me

"Stormy weather" in the dark
Etta's gray cloud, a rocking chair, an ark
on the BQE, Queens-bound
We'll all float off into Long Island Sound
drinks in hand
paper umbrellas in our wet hair

I am vertical and expecting
Eye to the sky
for any hint of blue
"Can't have any rainbows without rain"
the Nextel commercial chirps

Don't touch the drops, they may burn
Puddles form to be destroyed by tires
And I'm tired of the constant splashing swoosh
The damp that settles on skin like spider webs
Never quite wet, never quite seen or felt

No, you can't have any rainbows
without any rain

former (draft)

I am too bitter to taste
Crystallized, like old honey
Dried to powder, to dust away
my sweet has molded, faded

I have closed up shop
ignored the demand
the window shoppers peer through grates
I huddle on the floor
Chin to knees hopping they'll go away

leaving new york (draft 2)

"I'm leaving New York
and I'm not coming back."

I feel adult and important as I say this
As if somehow in my depression and haught
I could claim that the scene is over, that it matters to no one
Then I don't have to admit it kicked my ass
that my tail is between my legs

"New York is for the rich and the young."

We're in my Brooklyn living room
my former Cook Street friends, here by way of
Portland, by Seattle, by a Minnesota MFA program
It's gray outside, I say they brought the storm
that kept us up all night
as I waited for the fire escape by my head to spark

Joey says doors just kept shutting
He had no choice to go
It was a sign
Becca agrees, but they have interlocked hands
and five years of love between them

I always thought I'd leave New York
I just never thought I'd do it alone
I never thought any of this would happen
and I whine and lament the shift in paradigm
in these empty arms of my mine --

I stop and smile
say
"I just can't seem to meet anyone."

We joke and reminise of the days I had four dates a week
when I wore the same black dress, rinsed in the bathroom sink
and how I had perfected the first kiss and first sway
I always was good at finding them
so damn bad at making them stay

It's been raining for two weeks
My cat ran away again
Through the drizzle I peer past fences
I hang posters, I pray for a glimpse of black
in the trees, in the bushes
I don't think she's coming home
this time, I refuse to cry
to think of Audrey Hepburn
in alley, in New York, in heels, in rain
"cat cat cat cat oh cat!"

The useless feeling lives in my hands
Paralyzes my arms, locks my elbows
My eyes glaze and my memory is faulty
"It's for shit, my memory is for shit!"
I slam my hand on the table then remember to smile
Pretend it's ok that being drunk for a year is funny
That climbing out of one bed and into another is fine
that I don't miss 2005, who needs it anyway
And that I'm perfectly ok with this solitude
that hangs from my skin like dew, like spider webs,
like lipstick dried and powdered and crushed in purse bottoms

Like lipstick
I prufrock my way, party to party
chairs bruise thighs
Words tumble from my lips, meaningless
I cover up breasts I used to bare
I should want to be here,
I tell myself over bar room bathroom sink
I should want to care,
Hand to reflection,
how the fuck did I get so old?

meaningless
i don't want meaningless
i don't want the man who calls
in love only with my spread
meaningless
i don't want meaningless
time is running out
meaningless
for god's sake, i don't want
meaningless

So yes
I'm leaving New York
Leaving it to the rich
Leaving it for the coupled, united
Leaving it for the young and foolish
Leaving it for the dreamers
Leaving it for those who buy the postcards

Sinatra said
if you can make it here
you can make it anywhere
but he never sang about how long
you had to stay

And I don't know
If I'm moving on
Or if I'm running away

clock and glock

I wanna buy a bottle
head for tracks, any tracks
and walk and find moonlight
I wanna buy a bottle
and I wanna forget your face
and slaughter all hope tonight

I don't wanna care no more
I don't want to feel the oceans in my belly
Can't I reject all my desires and complete myself in
selfish and half-assed ways?
Can't I buy a gun and grease it up in a frying pan?
Trade it for a plot of land and more silent womb?

I'm going back to bed
I'm going back to bed
Or I'm not going to like
how this ends

My Book is On Sale $5!

Universe, Disturbed on Sale! $5.00!!!!!!

snarky

I think I may be too snarky for poetry
Evolved and matured beyond giggling and rude
I am polite and patient but sometimes
oh my fucking god
sometimes I am balled over by pretentiousness
and the narcissism and the delusions of grandeur

I draw broad conclusions but perhaps in sand
the ocean breathes, reclaims my perceived brilliance
the particles realign, shift, a shaken etch-a-sketch
without the supposed permanence of ink and page

I too want relevance and admiration and legacy
and I wander into self-importance and warm too much
and glitter too much when under the spot, at the mic
but at night i return with bags full of unsold books
and wonder if I am too much of a coward for poetry
too soft hearted and crazy, too suddenly shy and lazy

Snarky feels safer

joy division

I paint today with rain
Between strokes I gasp for relevance
Where I used to ask for meaning

I'm listening to Joy Division
Love will tear us apart
emo anthem, brushes dropped

I am on the wrong
side of the river
Of the pond
or maybe just
upside down and wandering
on overpopulated southern
city plains

I face North
wish for magnets in my heart
and some sort of passion
direction
a guiding or yanking hand
I am godless seeking a sign
I return to neutral
to Brooklyn
with open yet scarred heart

I hit "repeat"

Natasha

We call her Natasha, jokingly
She's the girl who wants to
"fuck you away from your girl"
I say without slur but perhaps some slander
He likes Natasha, says she'd probably succeed.

Now that he knows that she exists he calls to her
I stand guard with my morals and my self respect
He says he's going to leave his girl, anyday now
and I hate that he's so handsome, that he's so into me
I hate that he knows about Natasha

My last love left me for another
I swore I'd never be that kind of girl
Natasha doesn't give a fuck
says "wouldn't it be nice to be on the winning team
for once?"

betwixt and between

Between broken hearts
I wander Grand Street
From one drink to another
From one bar to the next
I can't find my home

Up in the air, up in the humid atmosphere
I live above clouds and without a ladder
Forty-eight steps to my elevated hell
I retreat to inner chambers, to Bukowski, to dry, spilled tea

Between lips, between his teeth
A string of mango, a strand of black dyed hair
A sore, a bleeding thing to tongue
Perhaps a memory, perhaps that last letter I wrote

I must exist in 2007 somewhere in him
and I must project a projectile, an emotion
A stir-stick, a confusion, a lowering of guards
I must be there somewhere in pack-ratted piles
I must slither and I must stick to the bottom of his shoe

I know I must, I have, I will, I be, I've been
there before, crushed and snorted, drank and spilled
or perhaps just crusty mayonaise on dirty counters
I've been, he's tasted, I've screamed and wallowed
and I know on some level, on some mental plain
with the rocks and falls and scratched knees
I am somewhere there in his mind
a bump, a marker, the slightest hint of dna
a ghost, a scent, a forgotten toothbrush, a book inscription
in his mind, in his box of me, there i must be

but for now i wander

Between broken hearts
I wander Grand Street
From one drink to another
From one bar to the next
I can't find my home

leaving williamsburg

The bathtub drain has been pulled
I bent down with chipped nails, a girl
and raggled, bedroom-ravaged hair
Yanked the chain and consumed the swirl

things just ain't gonna be the way they used to be

All things considered
I'm doing better than if I were a man
I've learned how to apply mascara
And can balance in fuck me heels, look ma' no hands

things just ain't gonna be the way they used to be

We spent years wrestling this great city
It's calm, it's sedated, a breathing heaving mass
beneath our drunk and bruised bodies
We're grown up now, we're tired, graying fast

things just ain't gonna be the way they used to be

We're leaving Williamsburg, we're surrendering to hipsters
White flags to the yuppies, our backs to Bushwick Ave
The bar on the corner, our regular status, we're grifters
Last call, it's time to go home now, it's time to grow old now

things just ain't gonna be the way they used to be

like in mighy ducks

Well it's not a DWI but it feels kinda the same. Ending up becoming a teacher/counselor/coach because you're a fuck up and you're forced to give back and then discover you're not as much of a fuck up as you thought?

Spend most of my day looking at teaching programs. Filled out the FAFSA. We'll see. Yes, we'll see.

Ick

I can't seem to stop crying. Just sitting here zoning out watching tv and tears keep falling unchecked down my cheeks.

I know I'll be fine. I know that it's probably just stress and PMS.

If it's not better in a couple days I'll go see the shrink I used to see.

Just sitting here trying to desperately think of ways to make some stupid money.

My Chest

....because a blog is cheaper than therapy.

Well, I was thinking for awhile (ok, several months) that I was hot shit. It's kinda embarrassing now to admit. But I mean I worked REALLY hard to get what I had. I have? I just really was absolutely 100% sure that my star was on the rise. Then I kinda hit the wall because of a lot of mistakes I was making. And then I lost the venue for my shows. I don't know -- I had so much support from people for my writing and performing and then at my last show I got this panicked feeling, this awful, awful thought:

What if they're all just being nice?

So since then I haven't been able to write and I've been kinda hiding my head. I'm sure I probably don't have that much to feel stupid about. But I just got this wash of self-consciousness. I was at the point where I felt perfectly comfortable standing on stage and saying ANYTHING. I thought I was in a groove. And now - the butterflies, the stage fright is back. I think it's my agoraphobia kicking back in. With at tad of narcissism thrown in my for good measure.

I was supposed to do a gig last night - not like a big feature or anything - but a set at an open and I just couldn't do it. Agoraphobia kicked in. And also I knew that none of my friends were going. I know I need to be more professional but there's just no motivation for me to go to a venue where I don't know anyone (as wonderful and supportive as they may be!). My social anxiety kicks in and I find myself tongue-tied and scared. I had one friend who always was available to go with me to shows when no one else would and now they're less than interested/available and it sucks. And I'm pissed off. I feel abandoned. I thought we were friends and this person just pretty much disappears. We never talk anymore and when we do I'm just so pissed off. But anyway, I digress.

I've been irritable and pissed off a LOT the past month or so. Times are really tough for me, for sure. I have these moments of sheer desperation and then I remember my pride and then I feel like an asshole. I'm completely disenchanted with every aspect of my life. I'm becoming a bigger shut-in then I used to be. I'm depressed. I'm lonely and frustrated about my life and all I keep doing is pulling away from life. I'm in the heaviest I've ever been. I'm in the worst shape of my life. And the one thing I felt confident about - my writing, my performing - I just feel like shit about.

So yeah. I'm sick of living in NYC but don't know where else to go. Nor do I have the money to go. I'm sick of being single but I know I'm in no position to be in a relationship. And every man I meet is -- well. I'm just gonna say it. I mean FREAKS. I mean the biggest assholes. Like... it's staggering. It really is. I talk to my other friends and they don't have nearly the amount of bullshit in their lives like I do. Because I keep meeting such awful people I am even more convinced that I'm never going to do better. So I'm getting to the point where I'm pretty sure I'm never goign to fall in love again. I'm wondering at what point I should just settle. And it makes me bitter and pissed off more.

I don't have money for anything. I've been out of to work for 5 months (except a week or so on a movie that dried up) and I'm pissed off at my union for being useless. I'm pissed off because I am late paying them two quarters of my dues. I am going to lose my health insurance the end of this year. I've worked in this indsutry for 8 years and I'm just sick of banging my head against the wall. But I don't know what else to do. I can't afford to go back to school nor do I want to.

So I essentially am completely, 100% lost. I'm broke, I'm depressed, I'm single, and I have no idea what or where I want to be. I spend 99% of my time in my apartment watching shows from my DVR and sitting at this computer. This is no exaggeration. Everyday blends into the next. wake up around 10. Sometimes 11. Then I'm online until like 1 or 2 am. Literally. I have no life. And the time I did spend focusing on my poetry and events -- well, I've lost my confidence.

I have no money so I don't go out. I have social anxiety so I hate to go into the city or really anywhere that's not in a 4 block radius. It's just getting REALLY REALLY old.

My mom is coming today. I want to take her to do fun things but we have no money and I feel bad because I OWE her money that I can't repay.

I feel so pathetic and pissed off. And it's been this way for MONTHS.

I am just so very very very unhappy with the way my life is right now. I really have no idea how to fix it. I'm going to go to some open mics and try to make some new connections. I'm goign to try to force myself to move more. I called a center in the city for food addiction. Food rehab. And as for work. I really just don't know. I'm lost.

New Pieces for Persephonous Blue

"How Was Your Weekend?" by Angel Thompson Georges
"For the L Sisters" by Lori Williams
"A Soft-Ass Mother Fucker" by Erek Smith
"Prophet" by Paul Christian Stevens

the game

Was thinking I wish I had someone to curl with up with and watch "the game." I don't care about "the game" but I like cute boys who do.

I wrote an email to my ex to see how he was doing. He ignored it. I wish it didn't matter.

Wish I could kill hope. Not about him. I just mean hope in general.

Sweet God I've Been Miserable Lately

I'm not going to get into all the crap I've been going through lately. I'm getting kinda sick of being locked inside my own head. So fucking self-absorbed. When I'm freaking out about things and/or feeling depressed I just sorta shrink into this miserable little woman scared and and pissed off about everything. I've been doing a lot more existing than living lately. But life is freaking gorgeous and today is a perfect day in NYC. It's warm but cool, beachy but breezy. And the best? We're supposed to get a big storm tonight. So I'm happy. I'm also happy that the book is coming along well. Not so happy that I still haven't done my dishes. But I will. Happy because my mom is coming down to see my last show at Stain. Pissed off because I'm still not working. Happy because I just read that gold fish love oranges. Kinda looking forward to seeing mine pick away at one -- I'm so weird.

My stomach is bitchy today. Going to go feed the fish and do one more pass through Chapter 5. I'd really like to get the first 100 pages squared away by the end of the weekend. I'm about half way through.

Muah's!

Goodbye, Stain Bar

Love You Til Then: A Celebration of Stain Bar
Friday, June 12th 7:00 pm $5 Cover Charge
Stain Bar, 766 Grand Street Williamsburg Brooklyn

After five years of supporting the arts of New York City, Williamsburg landmark Stain Bar is closing its doors. Many performers, including yours truly, got their start on their modest stage and without this bar, An Echo, A Stain and Stained Glass Confessional would not exist. Tonight we say thank you to owners Craig and Caroline and celebrate the spirit of Stain with music and poetry.

All performers are allowed 5-7 minutes.



"An Echo A Stain" by Bjork

She touched
My arm
And smiled

One of these days
Soon
Very soon
Love you 'til then
Love you 'til then

Feel my breath
On your neck
And your heart
Will race

Don't say no to me
You can't say no to me
I won't see you
Denied

I'm sorry you saw that
I'm sorry he did it
An echo
A stain
A stain

I can't say no to you
I can't say no to you
Say nothing

Free falling
Complete

taboo

Perhaps some things should not be said
But they should always be written

I am one who will bleed on your stage
I will dissolve into the wood, taking grains
with me as if I were acid, not flesh

Perhaps some things should not be said
But they should always be written

I Need Money - Buy My Stuff!!!

Tonight I learned that the movie I'm working on is kaput so after less than 2 weeks of work, I'm back on the dole.

In an effort to make money and to also de-clutter my life, I'm going to be selling a ton of my stuff. Hey, it's just stuff right? And maybe you need some of this stuff. Help a girl out. I'll add pics and descriptions tomorrow.

- PS2 w/controllers & wires, guitar hero guitar (corded) and FOUR guitar hero games - 1-3 & 80's. $100

- Misc. DVD's. Will post later. I have the first two seasons of Lost if you're interested.

- A small silver DVD player with remote. $15

- Large green coffee table. $50

- Collection of green vases $20 for all - 3 little ones, 1 large one, 1 extra large

- Cat toy/scratch post $10

- Black and Decker Food Processor. Used once. $25

- Glass pasta canister. $5

- Brand new wide-slot toaster. $7

- Collection of recipe books, some nice hard covers. $10

- Unused plastic kiddie pool. $5

- Hair straightener. $5

- Blowdryer $5

- Small curling iron $2

- Electric kettle. $10

- Large, metal, collapsible, bi-level animal crate $20 obo

- Ikea Desk $5

- Black wooden Ikea chair $10 (never used)

- Misc. cookie sheets, baking pans, & roaster rack $15

- HP Multi-Use Printer, Copier, Scanner in 1. With extra ink cartridges. Works perfectly. $60

- Misc. books. List to come

- Large black grocery cart. $15

- Treadmill. Gym-quality. Works perfectly except the incline is off. Paid 800 dollars two years ago. More details to come. $500

- Collection of Jem & The Holograms Collectibles, circa 1985. $75 (paid way, way more.) Details to come.

- Full length mirror, brown frame. $7

- Professional headphones. $20

- Set of red mugs. $5

- Glass dip & chip server $10

- Decorative wooden incense holder $5

- White gravy boat. Never used. $5

- Pink and purple stripped afghan throw. $10

- Thick Ikea cream colored curtains. Floor-length. 2 sets. $25

- Black high heel knee boots. Size 9. $15

- Lid holder that goes on your wall. $5 Ikea

- Proctor Silex Blender. Great for margaritas. $10

- Bar set with measuring glass, strainer, and shaker $10

- Small fondue set $10

- Small Proctor Silex 4-6? cup coffee maker. Used less than 10 times. $15

- Set of Brooklyn Brewery Oktoberfest beer steins with handles. $10

- Magnetic paper towel holder $5

- USB 3.5 Floppy Reader $10

- Wrought-iron floor candleabra, holds 5 pillar candles. $20

- Gorgeous wooden antique magazine rack. $20

- 3 black shadow box shelves $15

- Cute picnic basket from Target. It's wicker with white gingham. Paid $20. Will sell for $15. Used once.

- George Foreman Grill, small $15

- Metal dishstrainer with red base and black utensil bin $15

- Electric mixer $15

- Crockpot $20

- Painting - woman in red $20

- Small space heater/fan $15

- Blue yankees cap, barely worn $12

- Black pinstripe cap $5

- Small black formalish purse $5

- Yoga DVD w/ mat & strap $18

- Small white shelf $5

Latest Janice Brabaw News

An Echo, A Stain is being re-invented.

For the past four shows - and the upcoming show on Monday - we've had a bunch of featured readers and then a small open. In order to separate AEAS from Stained Glass Confessional, I'm going to make it more of an open mic with only a couple featured readers.

It might fall on its face but hey, it's worth trying.

In other news, fellow SLU alum (and author) Mark R. Brand and I are putting together a book event at our alma mater for this fall. We're thinking a book fair, some readings, a panel. It'll also be to promote his new anthology, Thank You, Death Robot, Bridgette's Gallagher's Reading Leaves, and my new collection, The Grape Jelly Conspiracy. Exciting!!!

I'm also pushing back the release date of my memoir, And Again to Spring 2010.

annoyances of the day

I hate preachy Christians. You don't hear me trying to convert others to atheism.
I hate preachy vegetarians. You don't hear me trying to convert to baconism.

That's all. Just had to say.

Latest Bio

Janice Brabaw is the critically acclaimed author of Universe, Disturbed, a collection of poetry that has been hailed as "Prozac Nation in verse." She is a passionate advocate for childhood mental health awareness and has lectured on the warning signs of suicide and depression in young adults. She is also the author of And Again: A Memoir of a Life Disordered and the editor of The Best of Stain anthology series and Persephonous Blue Quaterly. Born and raised in rural New York, she now lives in Brooklyn where she runs Stained Glass Confessional and An Echo, A Stain reading series. Janice has performed through New York City and beyond in such legendary venues as The Bowery Poetry Club, Otto's Shrunken Head, and the Library Lounge. Her work has appeared in Poesis, smoke, Violent Femininity - A Journal of Female Poets, The Toronto Quarterly, Ophelia Street, The Record, and The Cartier Street Review. www.JaniceBrabaw.com.

Violent Femininity - Volume 1

Just got word that three of my poems are included in the first edition of Violent Femininity Volume 1.

They include:

Photosynthesis
If
Tongue For Folie.

Sweet!

old maid (drafty draft draft of a draft)

My first boyfriend
was in fifth grade
and he'd tell me I was
oh so pretty and call me
every night despite
the mean things kids would
say he'd call, he'd always call
we had a song, it was by Winger
and everything was awesome
until he cheated on me
with that slutty little
foster girl who used to
ride in the church van
with me in the summer

I read romance books the kind I bought from Kmart with the pretty teen girl on the cover the ones about the nerdy, quiet girl on vacation who met the cute lifeguard who she at first thought was way out of her league but he saw something in her and then they'd end up kissing by the water and her life would change, her life would change for the better and they always had the best of happiest endings.

My second boyfriend was
in the seventh grade
but he made me pretend he
didn't know me because they
picked on us so bad. he'd never
even kissed me on my cheek
but they said I'd crush him
if we had sex and I'd cry
he'd call me everything night yes
despite pretending he hated me during
the day he'd call me at night until
he decided to date my cousin instead.
he didn't call her fatass in study
hall then sweetheart on the phone
I bite my lips red.

I used to read those YA horror novels where the girl in question was pretty but unsupposing and you spend one hundred and twenty pages wondering if she chose the right brother maybe the nice one who says he loves her is really the one who strangled Jennie on the pier and perhaps it's his mysterious dark-eyed brother that appears in shadows at odd times who is the one who wants to save her. She always makes it out alive. And with the right guy. Crying and wrapped up in his arms, safe and secure.

I watched the girls in junior
high get asked to dance in the
cafeteria and I always sat in the
corner or took the time to get
a soda from the machine or blot
my thick black eyeshadow in the
bathroom in preparation for the tears
I'd cry while locked in the stall
at the end of the night when
just like in gym class twice a week
just like in schoolyard kickball games
I am the last girl left sitting
the last girl picked for the team.

I wrote a book about a girl who left her highschool sweetheart but he still carries a torch for her despite the bad decisions she's made in her life including dating the bad boy who hits her and then falling in love with a vampire. He loves her and even sacrifices his life for her and she always takes him for granted. What a luxury to have love to spare, to wipe your ass with, to cast aside like soiled paper towels.

I'm on the committee that chose
the blue and green crepe paper
to decorate the gym with and I spent
hours blowing up balloons and crafting the
river of dreams across the half court line
I sold candy bars and magazine subscriptions
the day past to buy tickets to the prom
I never expected to be queen
but I never thought I wouldn't be asked to go
I watch the pairs form and realize that
even my guy friends don't want to ask me
in hopes they can do better and on the night
I leave my dress in my closet and cut
myself to sleep.

I wrote a movie about a girl that is so desperate for love that she does anything she can to manipulate her boyfriend not to leave. She threatens to kill herself she pretends to be a whole other person she dyes her hair and bends and contorts to fit in his human tetris grooves but still it's not enough and he leaves and she falls apart. She always falls apart. No one loves girls that fall apart. Too many pieces to pick up. Too much work. So not worth it.

Other girls in my dorm go on dates
with real-life men and i sit in Vickie's
room typing and pretending on Yahoo chat
and when i do meet him in real life he says
I'm too fat but takes my virginity
even thought he says I'm ugly because
after all it is my birthday and I deserve a gift
he leaves me to rot, to bleed
he returns to ether
A soiled paper towel, i throw myself away.

I wrote a short story about a girl that decides to take charge of her life and shrug off this society-imposed misconception that she is anything without a man. She falls in and out of love easily and finds meaning in everything and never loses perspective and never had to take medication to be normal and she is bright and cheery and independent and never worries she will die depressed and alone in an empty house with only cats to claim and clean her bones.

I turn thirty in the bathroom of a french restaurant
My ovaries celebrate twenty-two years of failed
attempts to make me a mother
I consider the returned engagement ring of my early 20's
and the endless tampax thoughtlessly flushed
but I return to my red wine and good friends
and try not to say my fears out loud
for fear that the men will hear and run and hide
forever

I write this blog that no one knows about where I bitch about all the things I can't talk to people about in real life like this sick, dark feeling I get whenever someone breathlessly announces they're engaged/pregnant/closing on their fabulous brand new house. It's a dark green and black sensation much like gangrene or cancer that seeps into my pores and I can't tell anyone that I've lost the ability to be happy for anyone else with their brand new loves, rings, and fetuses.

I've always been years ahead
or years behind
I've always been the wrong
size the wrong chemical composition
the wrong color the wrong shape
the wrong girl the damaged one
the watcher, the waiter, the fear
of the hesitator.

A thirty year screech
a thirty year ravine
filled with thirty years of tears
and sweat and blood
that spills and careens
and just won't go in the right
direction I am alien and outside
and I don't think another
thirty years is going to
fix a goddamn thing.

This is what it is
to run out of time.

breaking the hip (draft)

i'm too settled in my ways
these youngins on my lawn
in my bar, on my streets
annoy me with their skinny jeans
their shoegazing bullshit
you post-emo wanna be hipster bastards
you're getting younger every year
and I'm still here
I'm still here
fucking a, why am i still here?

park slope is where
williamsburg transplants
go to breed
if you can't or don't succeed
if you are not selected for your genes
your high cheekbones your perfect ass
your trust fund your je ne sais quoi
we are shifted to the south side
to rot on kent avenue
in the old folks home of billyburg
waiting for the return
of the williamsburg strangler
drinking at the rock star bar
bitching about the rising price of things
and dying the black back in our hair
or to the top of fourth floor buildings
stretched between the Ricans and the Guineas
you'll be doing the Grand Street shake
past the Bushwick Country Club
breaking a hip to music
you're even too young for, old man.
Joe Strummer you are not
and you hipsterettes
will fade to popsicle sticks
because even in the East Village
no one stayed forever

cue the fade
begin the yuppie parade
even rosemary's will sell out
to a pink berry
and yes it's better to burn out
then fade away
but what happens to the
fifty-year old hipsters
when they're the last ones
picked in gym class
again?

even if you dress like you're a
fifteen year old from 1983
until 2023
you're can't keep this shit up forever
and eventually the casual encounters
on Craigslist won't be enough
and those who are left in the Burg
won't be cool anymore

what then?

what

THEN?

you are not a rockstar
barista
bartender
bike messenger

what

NOW?

emily post

My nails have grown too long
They are good for nothing
But getting snagged on loose strings
And leaving blood trails when I scratch.
In New York I don't even have to go outside
for the soot to seep into my nailbeds
I clean them constantly with
folded edges of post-its, pen caps,
my teeth.

Perhaps these are not the ways
of the marrying kind.
Perhaps that is what I"m missing
this gene to keep clean
and to maintain a tidy house
and pristine hygiene.

I don't always wear clean clothes
I pick my nose on a daily basis
and would choose a cigarette
over food, over your sex
if given the options
on side by side plates

I forget to change my sheets
the litter
the trash
I forget to wash the dishes
the toilet
my panties
I forget to shave my legs
my armpits
my toes
I am not good at pretending I am perfect
I do not stand in front of many mirrors
I forget to wax, to watch my weight, to
suck in my gut, to turn down chocolate,
to speak like a lady, to not want to fuck you,
to iron my shirts, to wish you happy birthday
I forget so many things on purpose
but do I always have to be so bothered?

Can't clean hair
some perfume
a good heart
and best intentions
be enough?

Stuff I Wish I Wrote

I just read "Narcoleptica" by fellow SLU alum, Mark R. Brand and loved it so much I wanna recommend that all of you do the same:

http://www.silverthought.com/brand09.html

It's really great, check it out.

Three New Pieces Selected!

"Circadian Soul Prison" by William Bryant
"Persephone Meets Pluto on the Web" by Richard Marx Weinraub
"Under The Olive Branch" by Ron D'Alena

Janice in Fourth Coast Entertainment Magazine

March 21st 2009 - Janice Brabaw, a Hermon
native who’s been living for the past seven years
in Brooklyn, was in town for a quick road show.
This performance took place at the Partridge
Café in downtown Canton. Brabaw read only one
poem from her successful debut book, Universe,
Disturbed, concentrating instead on more recent
material, some of which had been written in only
the past few days. Brabaw is an excellent reader—
her delivery radiates passion, humor, and a sharp
eye for detail. A 2001 graduate from SLU, she
has several new books coming out, including her
prose memoir, And Again: A Life Disordered. Jan-
ice was supported by the poetry of a few members
of SLAP (St. Lawrence Area Poets): John Berbrich,
Nancy Berbrich, and Valerie Harrington. Check out
her website at www.janicebrabaw.com for more
information.

a dollar a pack at the rez by Janice Brabaw

in my mother's house
even the once lily lampshades
are nicotine yellow
the delicate lace of doilies past
crocheted, now curled, lung-like
tumorless but strained
smushed under plaster owl lamps
the ash collects in thread webs

my father is on the floor
prone, pillow-propped
chainsmoking and watching Jeopardy
my mother pops corn in the kitchen
I am afghan-wrapped on the
hand me down Marlboro-red couch
the butter scent drifts through
but after eighteen years of
breathing second-hand
I have lost my sense of smell
Heightened due to compensation, I hear
rogue kernels slapping the bowl
refusing to be Redenbachered, proper

mother settles into cushions next to me
I finger the pack of generic Indian cigarettes
Natives, they read, that she tosses to the table
A dollar a pack at the rez, she says
Handful of grease and sacrificed maise
I watch her gray skin puff and exhale
I weighed five pounds when I was born
Cord around my neck, blue but feisty
But it was the seventies, she'd say
And at least she didn't drink.

Persephonous Blue, Volume 1 Preview

While we are still reviewing submissions, we are excited to say that we will be featuring the following pieces and authors in our upcoming journal. More to come!

"Garima" by Lara Konesky
"First Aid" by Daniel W.K. Lee
"Like A Wounded Thing" by Colin James
"If" by Stephanie Bryant Anderson
"passport" by leah angstman
"A Species of the Thesaurus" by Ben Nardolli
"Nonni bleeds her penitence" by Kristin Bapst
"Plastic Bag" by Timothy Freeman
"The Hole of the Cockroach" by KJ
"Not Even The Colour of Your Eyes" by JJ Steinfield
"The Road" by Christian Ward
"Cocktail" by Michael Weems
"And Satyrs Shall Dance There" by John Berbrich
"Charley Plays a Tune" by Michael Lee Johnson
"afterhours at the coconut" by puma perl
"Untitled" by Louis M. Watts
"Because It Was Night" by David McLean

do butterflies still erupt
when you fall in love after thirty
or should you learn to
nurse and shelter cocoons
and hope for the best?

I am wondering if love is not
like the first snort of cocaine
that can never be matched


(i'm half asleep as i write this)

Persephonous Blue

Tangled Up In Blue Productions announces the launch of Persephonous Blue Quarterly!

Persephonous Blue is a new literary publication that features confessional poetry and inspired short fiction. Inspired by the myth of Persephone, the Greek goddess of the underworld - a woman bound to darkness a third of her life. Persephonous Blue is raw, frank, and honest. Persephonous Blue is about madness, darkness, revitalization, redemption. It is a literary publication for "she/he who destroys the light."

Persephonous Blue loves Allen Ginsberg, Riot Grrl, Liz Phair, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Fiona Apple, Alanis Morrisette, Dylan Thomas,Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Anne Sexton, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, and Morrissey. Persephonous Blue is edgy, passionate, ugly, beautiful, intense, at-your-throat, and heart-on-your-sleeve.

Learn more or submit HERE!

Update!

Today was a rainy and gray day here in New York City but I was too busy to notice. I started work today on the new film, Family. You'll be here more about it in the next few months for sure. When it comes out in theaters and you go to get your Bow Wow fix (its his vehicle), stick around after film to see moi in the credits as payroll accountant. It's so dorky but even after eight years in "Hollywood" I still giggle when I see my name.

Anywho, the REAL big news today is that the third edition of The Toronto Quarterly was released today and features my poem "Future." You can pick up a copy at Lulu for $6 here!

cult of he

well, it started well

I lingered over ovens and stoves
he brought me chocolates and rose

I'm nearing thirty now, love's lost its surprise
It's all the same, hold my hand, look in my eyes
and eventually the friendship fades to lies

he changed his mind
he doesn't want to be mine
although I've been nothing but kind
he has gone, left me behind

I fall back to patterns, it's hazy
I tried to warn him I was crazy
that I am alarmingly lazy
I guess he thought he could tame me
said oh so naively, that doesn't phase me

I've mourned the loss of butterflies and bees
I joined the other song birds up in the trees
I fall as graciously as a catholic to my knees
I've read your rule books, your methods to be
I've even been so brave as to be blatantly be me
To hell with this pedestal, this cult of he

late night green

It's nights like this
that despite twenty years
and a lush history of lovers
and an otherwise joyous life
I feel once again
like the fat girl in
the cafeteria that no one
wants to slow dance with.

It's musical chairs
and no one wants to be
the last one left standing
the last one picked in
gym class the last one
left sitting on the bleachers

I'm used to grumbles in my belly
but now it's the rumble lower
the root chakra, the depth
and breadth and center of my
soul and my body there is this
warm, vacant holding place
that lies barren and empty
and above I can't help but
feel unnatural with hands at my
side when I am a born mother
without a child to hold
without a family of my own

I can't buy these things
I can't write business plans or
formulate schemes and time-lines
There is nothing I can do, no press
release, no well-thought out attack
there is nothing I can do
no book I can read nor write
no pill I can take nor spit out
no degree to achieve or certificate to earn
that will bring me the things
I want more than anything else
on this Earth

And I wonder
on night's like this
what makes me so unworthy
or so undeserving
to not have the very thing
that I desire above all others
the same thing I see millions
take for granted everyday
loves laid fallow
children shaken, neglected
why is it that I
have not been allowed
these gifts?
This key to the garden?

I don't believe in God
but I take this personally.

By way of washington square *draft*

The Sylvia Plath Easy Bake Oven
The Dylan Thomas Flask and Bar Set
The Virgina Wolff Plastic Arm Swimmies

Narcissis stuck at the river bend
Face down, on his knees
Persephone takes the page, ties her shoe laces
Descends for her four month suntan
Sans the sand

I twirl my hair while sitting at the bar
I try to explain this has nothing to do with any man
In particular
Maybe just an intrinsic need for
the natural implantation and nurturing of the seed.

Spinster aunts in rocking chairs
Too narrow for their ancient expanses
School marms fat on retirement
Pussies unused and dusty, locked away in boxes
With faded love letters and urns of dead cats

The Zelda Fitzgerald Fire Extinguisher
The Ernest Hemingway Rifle Cleaning Kit
The John Berryman Base-Jumping Chute

Oh to be Holly Golightly
instead of Norma Desmond
Oh to fall asleep in the Village
instead of rotting on Sunset Boulevard

Now back to the typewriters
by way of Washington Square.

...(draft)....

I have nothing to do but sweat
and avoid putting away my laundry
It is eighty-eight degrees in N.Y.C.
and this city doesn't want much else to do with me

I am an inner-chambers kind of girl
You've all heard it before, spilled and spanked
It is something I have grown accustomed to
And without the presence of elegant stair
I have abandoned my furs and jewels

Sunset Boulevard stained my brain
Back in two thousand oh two
And when told I was a borderline
A flash to Fatal Attraction
and in perfect Janice fashion
I blushed, realizing I had boiled bunnies, too

So what am I to do
The beast, the magic, the essense of this heart
is that it beats, it maneuvers in erratic-ocity
But the problem is
That I think I'm wonderful
and oh so peachy and lovely to taste

Yes you made yourself plain
Yes you made yourself a savior of rain
And again
And again

I chase you this way
I chase you that
and yet, and yet
I've yet to meet someone
who loves me as much as my cat

I roll up in the corner and I sleep
I am through with me, too, big city
your bright lights blind in their
oh so unkind
oh so sublime
shatterd broken crumbled absbestos sighs

The Man I Will Marry (draft)

i am stealing again
I am wheeling again.
I just might as well fly
Sprout wings and yes I might
as well just fly
There's nothing else to do
paint my desires on strangers
a dollar and a dream
ice cream and torn seams
close my eyes and
in the moment of disclosure
in the face of disclaimers
in the moment of enclosure
I threaten the sturdy gates within
russian nestled dolls
that take all night to lay out
to find them empty by morn

cracker jack, no prize
no 6 am stroll to tiffany's
no crossiant crumbs
no perfect black dress
and I, well, I am no
Audrey Hepburn
in this age of
wham, bam, fuck ya later, ma'am

no symbolic cigarette smoke
can rival the crass
brass, worthless ass
that I have become

everything I pack, they spill
sugar deafens as it falls
and I wonder why I can't be content
in my existence, in my modular
chemistry, in my young and baffled
amazingly surprised sunset-sweetened
mouth
oh so pretty mouth, little girl
dimples and all
oh such a sweet pretty mouth, Jay girl
you look all empty inside
down that deep dark throat
let's fill that void right up

or maybe it's just 1986 again
maybe I'm seven years old and maybe
I can jump the furthest in gym class
just once
yes maybe just once I can jump the furthest
in gym class
yes maybe
I know my place in line
it's right behind
you
just where I want to be
close but out of peripherial vision

I can taste your Suave shampoo
I imagine backflips
your chaplips
in the clubhouse near the cemetary
in that town whose name means
cursed
in that town with the devil's elbow
in that town where I was born

I'll hum for you, boy
I'll patiently descend
I can wrap around your feet
like the warmest of dogs
and again
yes again

I can be seven again
and you can be my first grade crush
only this time
in the tandem present
perhaps you can love me
not kick me off the kick ball team
yes maybe in this re-touched memory
you can be taller and older
and I can be thinner and prettier
and then
then maybe then it can be my love life
redux
and you, him, whomever you are
can love me this time, too

there are nights
and there are cities
where the air gets soft
and the corner gets still
I can imagine being down there
Running, running wild
Yellow double line
Run until I can't breathe
Run until I find grass
Run until I find stars
Run until I throw my arms
around the whole goddamn world
and in these moments
in these Brooklyn fantasies
in the brief moments between green lights
in the lapses of quiet
I want a hand to hold
A smile to help me keep pace
Someone to stop me from being mugged
And pick me up when I trip
Trip, faint, falter, find
but never fall

This is the man I will marry
the man of skinned knees
and bicycle helmets
This is the man i will marry
the man of star-spinning
and midnight pizza

at least maybe this time
at least maybe sometime for real
maybe
just maybe