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