lost thoughts of dinner

when i awoke your dust outline
had faded to a pale chartreuse
i slithered down the bed post
carrying your conscience
in my cleavage
your mouth falls open
jaw tweaked to the left
leaking out verses
and sonnets and tomorrows
i lick each word
tasting like black coffee
and dry southwestern air
you drag your mandible
into the loom
weaving the hair you
cut from head
into the oriental rug
of promised pasts
my scalp bleeds into
your pant leg
like a long-faced rose
but when the stitches
are cut from the eyelids
the table of cold skinned fins
and the tiniest dress
are in the mirror
facing today

when i was luna

i am the moon
and you didn't mind the craters
you and buffalo women
used cowboy skills
to wrap the rope
round my waist
you would let me pull you
i would lead you
through the tall grasses
and funeral processions
past outstretched children
and broken feathered concrete
you thought things
and felt more
but then you remembered
i was the moon
going dark
and you couldn't stand
the acid reflux
that came with the dark side
and the drugs didn't help
so you let go of the twine
and i am lost in the sky
like the poodle shaped balloon
that the clown made brown
and no one likes brown

and my shadow
was just her size
she slide right into
the silhouette
and so will the next one
but none of their boots
will call your name
on hardwood
like mine

my eyes cry truth
in all lowercase
i catch the t's in a jar
and drop in a light match
they glow
and melt
and roll
like lightening bugs
drowning
in mercury

you read my body like a map
finding the quickest route
to Albuquerque
coconut cookies taste
like your mouth
dripping with blood
my teeth leave tattoos
on your lips
peel the aluminum
from under the dermal
he put it there
for radio signals
he wanted to hear
the opera but he
can't speak italian
but you are gone
and the zipper
won't lock me
in your bag
because your eyes
stuck to the ceiling
blink
disapprovingly

chasing your tread marks

you chase the rooster in circles. clutching tail feathers and coughing out meal worms. i beg you to stop. 'the fire is too tight' i tell you because you told fire he could hold me. my mouth hangs crooked as you chirp at me with squared fingers. i can't make my lips upturn. my jaw is loose at the seams and now the screwdriver is stuck behind my wisdom teeth. when i bite down there is a clicking in my right ear. you used to find it endearing, but now you just want me fixed. the sex has become photographs with coffee stains that you tuck under my books to be forgotten. i never wanted to be missed. i only asked to sleep on your breastbone and to ride in cars and sing together. but the windows wont move and you left me in the garage.

i open my mouth and lift my tongue to hide you inside. you will have to sit to the left of the banjo and my dad's sweater, they were there first. i promise not to cough too hard so not to muss up your pompadour. i ask A to hold the hot sauce. i know how it makes you sneeze. in the mornings i will let you sit against my incisors to watch traffic against the breakfast colored sun. everyone will tell me i need to come to terms, i can't hide you forever, a mouth is not a suitable place to keep you; but their panda faces will blur into the glass of warm milk i drink before i hand you the night quilt. please don't try to crawl out through the gap in my teeth. i would miss that full mouth feeling.

I answered the yellow phone because it was calling out tomorrow. The static sounded like a song about trees that I sang at 5th grade graduation. So T and I decided to go for a picnic. I opened the basket and found a handful of my hair and three slices of pound cake. T smiles to show the tiny shrimp that sleeps in his cheeks and cleans his molars. The orange one is named Raul, but never call him it to his face. The yellow phone used to be black before I discovered T's plan to leave. T loves pound cake. And the color yellow.

the begging is ugly
and you can't stand the look
of ice cream for breakfast
but when sleep is under
light dusted blinds
no one makes you eggs.

and no one will take
you west to build
bungalows of bone
and forgotten teeth
where sand blows
over the welcome mat
and the sun dies
behind stones named
after watermelon

and no one will open
your throat too wide
to teach you to scream
to let out all of the ugly
creatures that are digging
burrows into your throat
like hairless badgers
and mohawked mud-puppies

and no one will read
or reread words
written by your cigarette
stained hands of old
and used up
dried and withered
but full of juice
it is worth the squeeze

and no one will watch
to see you spit out
a rhombus or isosceles
when it is that night
that you've shoved a match
in your ear and can't stop
creating and mating
licking his wounds yellow
until bye bye bird eyes
like my swallowed raven
dead behind bars
irreplaceable

because no one will catch
3 singing lovebirds
from the christmas eye spy
to place in the aorta
because the pumping
is irrelevant to you now
and mostly because you
is me

and i cannot write letters
with no surname
expecting them to be recieved

and i cannot bruise kneecaps
by atoning for hours
on interstates

and i cannot take the drive
for future years
down yellow dotted black
because there is now room
next to the bronze tea kettle
to keep me warm
but the burner is not my home
i cannot simmer alone

and though i cannot,
i would make speech bubbles
filled with tiny dreams
and force them in ears
lifting the gray matter
like a helium garden
until the parade is escaped
and you and me and i and
his and hers and she and
him and us and we and them
are having tea under sheets
with four legs like tentacles
crawling and entangled to two hips

but you won't ask
and are already gone
my feet are chained
to this circumstance
and i cannot reach
the revolving door
that you are now erasing

only leaving a mail box
and a small library
with a collection of fines
and my shattered fingernails

meet me on the steps. bring your army, joe, and barbie. i'll bring baby jenny, raphael, and teddy. we will sail with the cat and the owl to an island where peter lived. bath time happens when the world is muddiest and we will have tea served out of leaves and sticks. mulberries will be dinner forever. we will be married to trees who sing sweet songs like every god we ever thought we loved. we will buried our lost under stones marked by sidewalk chalk. rain will never be feared. years will never pass. we will have found the past and nustled into its breast bone.



(post 100)

pumping my blood

catch a lovebird and place it under my ribs. the bones of the ravens rattle too loudly. my chest cracked open and waiting for the flutter of wings. I will fall asleep waiting, because you cannot close your hands over his tiny beak and you will never come.

step on my face
i beg of you
your lips were
the closest call
then you hung up
the cord curled
over the interstate
through drowning fields
and here i stand
begging for your claws
but you shake your fur
and pass on by
high standards
for prey or mate
i curl up with
stoned birds
and yellow plastic
praying the eyelids swell
until the leakage ends
and you won't redial
fingers too messy
wineprints on the phonebook
but she looks closers
you'll take her to bed.
and i sleep in the sky
empty ribs

i don't smile enough.
i talk too much.
i contradict myself.
my face is too round.
i cry too much.
my legs are too big.
i am dark.
i get too nervous.
i am anti-social.
i am too motivated, but don't follow my dreams.
i am too doubtful.
i am paranoid.
i am ocd.
i am too self-conscious, but am a self-righteous bitch.
my skin is too pale.
i am too smart, and a total idiot.
i am hateful, and i care too much.
i walk with a limp.
i don't give a fuck, but i try too hard.
i don't party enough, but i'm too drunk.

did i forget something..please let me know.
tell me which one was it, which one sent you running?

little black letters
crammed into my mouth
choking and spitting
coughing up lies
and excuses
burning silk
inhaling the fumes
until i pass out
naked under
raining ceilings
dust into swollen
eyes and blood
dried lip lock
blue glow fallacies
that breaks everything
step on your teeth
till they are powdered
and bottled
sold to the next love lost
girl whose thoughts
too honest for safety
don't send electric whispers
stop fulfilling your needs
the shellfish is disgraced

and the pygmy creatures
scurry over the severed
fingers held tightly
on a first date night
where the broom stands on end
hounddogs eating the brains
of the girl next door
playing double dutch
with the hoses from gas pumps
and the headlines reread
from what is never ending

a mouse crept across my foot like a furry palm. And then nights fell and four feet with toes stuck to peanut poison plastic. And it cried out loud to jesus to his mother to his lover like me. And your worker hand like a catcher mitt forced my mouth wide fondling my intestines and raising them. 'Til they met your steel toed boots. and i cried for his big eared cries. i ached for Fievel never making it west and Ratatouille's dusty spoon and for Tom's empty chase. Jerry is fly paper glued to my linoleum. cancel saturday morning cartoons.

i hate when i am stupid. when i check out my brain to tequila like a lost library book and don't expect it to come back. i don't even realize its gone until i am choking on intoxicated tears that burn worse than a lost lover. a fight with your face breaks bones more than when he walked away. birthed then separation of cryogenic proportion for three years and now anger hurts like fractured femurs.