an ode to mystery

The girls were full of you.

They wore you on their cheeks
like rouge, dotted on the inside
of their tights, at the top of their
thighs, right on the apple of
their bones, to keep you close
enough to count.

They spent too long learning
the way that you taste
to be able to watch you
speak to someone else the
way you used to speak
to them.

Painted in your touch, their
fingertips left lines of shivers
in their wake; the stars of
wet dreams and moans when
their dreamers couldn't sleep.
They let you linger long
enough to count.

Your words hit them like
breaking the sound barrier
even after all this time.
Even after all this time
you took their cigarette
scented breaths away.

They know they'll find you
stuck on that old black dress
that doesn't impress like it
did. They'll find you in the
corner of that dark room,
smelling like whiskey just
enough to count.

Windows open in the
dead of winter, they let their
smoke curl out to signal
-- a desert island in the middle
of the desert city --
for your return.

They've lost your charm,
the perfume that
people once wondered about
when they left in a whirlwind
of exodus.

To get you back.

They'll drain their wine
alone, sitting alone in the bed
they share with someone who
fell in love with you on their
cheeks. Fell in love with you
enough to count.

When your lipstick fades
and the morning reveals
humanity under the selling of
the single night's soul, they'll
wonder if you wouldn't mind
taking a little longer next time
to disappear in the daylight.
Leave them just enough time
to escape with you on their trail.
Leave them just
enough time to count.

rhizomatic

i leave our
bed as the tomb
of an unforgettable day--
wake up quiet enough
to leave you as the statued
relic of meteors.
you grow horizontally
and encompass everything
i can see.
tiptoeing down the stairs,
picking up parts of clocks,
collecting lost time
like the gleaners of stardust.
i lost a button
i missed it
i wonder who picked it up
and where it's sewn now,
fastening bits together
fastening bits
just waiting to be undone
to be dropped off
and fastened to
someone else.

h(e)ard

laying on the bed with
your hand on my neck
I'm thrusting the way you
whisper all those
pretty tiny things
into the
tight wet spot
right above my chin
right below your hips
kissing lip to lips

harder than you could've
made 17 minutes pass
with nothing to say

i burned the table
when you lit the match
with your cigarette and
the flames hopped
hot

keep your hand at your cheek
hold the string taut
close your eye
the target
pounds between
the tits


bullseye

drinking

It beaded before it broke
blushing, her slave to cheek,
the heat took in before it spoke
says more than trying to speak.

let the push back
pull the town
another drink
before you drown

in the night's black,
lesser than the sin
when ethics cannot
quite squeeze in.

what would the savior do
(to you) to them to
free the blessed
from all the rest

seventy-eighty stairs
to climb
in time
to slink into her rhyme.

trying to charm her
with your wit
she's charmed, old harm
you don't get it.

the water's sliding down
the glass
taxis through the town
too fast

she's dizzy and hot
face pressed to the frame,
praying not to loose
you again.

cloves

she had only just become
secure when the door locked
and she remembered
the key was inside.
she walks quickly from the cold.

he's saving his pennies for
the cheap drink she likes in the
bar by the tower,
tastes like christmas and
smokes like black.

she guts the garnishes without
realizing that green is her only
color and that there are
more players than her.

he eats dinner without salt
he takes his coffee without cream
he fucks with his eyes shut
& dreams.

she is smoking while she shivers.
he is shivering while he smokes.

they're too busy staring and wondering to remember that they're not alone.

pillows

You feel the left side of your face
get hot a second before the right;

If action defines what you own,

then your words are my laws
and I am yours.

If emotion defines what you own,

then your tears are my blood and
you are mine.

Yet I am the agent of your question marks,

and you bury me in the back with your hardened
paint brushes

like a given. 

You sleep soundly on me
until the sheets feel tight,
and the nighttime incites readiness.
I see her all behind your eyes.

You think that since I've been here before

that I should feel nothing.

I've slept on both sides of the pillow
and I certainly don't feel cool;

I'm burning up with a fever
until I remember
I'm silent.

I see through the blank stares at the phone
I'm awake and it's
morning where I lay
sun rising behind clouds
and you dream about her
but can't bring yourself to tell me.

I know you tell her but can't bear
to tell me. 

So quiet now, so very closed it seems
she changed the locks.

You're guilty for the feelings but
they sink into my atlantic -- colder
than you imagined because I
try to understand and
can't see anything but the kaleidoscope
of confusion in your words.

And you think I don't know because you're smiling but
I know everything

I know everything because you're smiling

I play your sentences on repeat
but I can't understand what you're saying
seeing as you can't understand it yourself.

idolatry

it got cold this morning 

after you shut the door;

the breeze was rain

and i cursed under

the quiet you left with

goodbyes,

wishing you had rolled

me a cigarette. 

my impropriety is sung

through drops hitting

curtains, dotting white

to push for

a clarity.

the rain comes, as it always

does, as i am staring at the 

crosswalk, thinking

<<green means go>>

i ripped apart the roof 

of my mouth biting back 

lithographs of summer 

fruits i notice on your

walls -- your walls

my chair

your bed

my pillow.

i am tonguing the sore spots

alternating salt water on 

my cheeks -- lacking the

audacity to laugh. 

berating the breakdown of little 

talks and papers

of her everywhere

and papers of me

on the 

shelf.

you cried after we finished

your mouth quivered in the shower

alternating your hard streams

boyz bring chairs under the 

cover of hard plastic

girls smoke cigarettes

like women and glance

to seem elegant.

i look at you and you

are far away.

humming to kill your quiet, i 

wonder if i am still

shower

you've got fireflies in your
eyes when thinking about
yesterday

younger, you yanked back
broken bolts, bold and trying
to twist thunder into
music just so you could
sing silently, serving only
your single-sided records

knocked twice
knock again

watch the window while
you wait, will the light to
switch

outdoors, there is a meteor
shower and i am bursting
with wishes

knock twice
knock again

watching the wrong window
it points directly west and
i am standing south

the missing
meteors slipping shooters past
blinking notes,
i cry

you are missing it
like i am missing you
and i would wish for you

but i haven't a clue

what you

could

want.

violets in an ace

put me up on top
of the world

i am afraid
to ask
in case it
ruins everything:

could you take
me to church with
you
and let

the quiet quiet you
down

because you are
screaming
silence
& & pushing
me like laughter

on the wrong day
of the week

& & is there
something that i
could do
to be less wrong

blonde or
something
or maybe tan a
bit less
or maybe stop
loving you so much so you can think

morning

sunset fades like wanting

hold our -- breaths

'til morning

& make conversation 'round

my curves and 

our -- secrets. 

fall asleep with lights

on -- the past 

at bay, wheels

turn like they

always have, like 

they did yesterday -- and

keep it dirty. 

never brave enough

to ask -- can you

desire that which 

you already 

have?  shivering cold

like -- their hearts and

winter sunrise. 

makeup

the lady behind the

counter at the corner

store told her it was

rude to eat bananas

in public.

stacked checks 

and cigarettes 

like dominos—learning to

taste the same, 

learning

to play the game. 

why wasn’t it rude to

eat cherries in public? 

the homeless boy

by the street lamp told her

she would look better

if she wore less

make up. 

out of tea bags, she hummed

through a mouth full of warm 

water and remembered

she wasn’t wearing makeup

actually. 

the tall man with the 

suit and the shoes that shined

in the stop light

asked her how much

for the night. 

she didn’t understand 

his question and asked

him for a cigarette. 

he smiled with 

his eyebrows as

she dropped the banana peel

lit up

turned away 

with implied thanks. 

rollers

walked aforementioned
walk forwardly—
indicate
the questionable 
epiphanies of

heroes without 
skill whose
Achilles heel lost 
broken ephemeral 

niceties, pushing manners
and hard pressed for 
the art of 
walking forward. 

You, dear love,
effortlessly got the twists out of 
your tight braids and
straightened your 

hair until you 
look like the kids 
and your jeers made
sneers look kind. 

Pressed lips for
the young like you’ve lost
it fast enough, lost 
it faster than

walking forward, 
aforementioned, 
pressed and clouded
above the broken 

glass. 

pocket change

What was a quarter then?
a nickel and a couple of dimes
             a heavy hand full of pennies
         hitting together to sound
  like double
            bubble rolling
down a glassy
                       grimey chute.


What was a dollar then?
 four quarters or the
                               paper prince
            flag of royalty
                               handed over on my own
with sticky fingers
for the double scoop of chocolate
                               and rainbow sherbet.


a quarter is 12 minutes on the meter
across from the 7/11 where
six dollars will buy a
pack of cigarettes and
the free packet of
cardboard matches.


a block down, coffee with soy
is
four
        seventy
                      five.
drink it because
it tastes expensive
drink it because
it is expensive


Pocket change wanted
                            the potential of bright
                                                      wide eyes
two-hands to hold it all, all
the coins, all
itty bitty promises the
clinking made while
I walked.


Pocket change sounds
           cheap now
 takes up space in my twenty-thousand penny purse.


Sticky fingers hand over dollars
aren't sticky from candy anymore-
sticky fingers and single dollars
                       mean so much more.
                      
I find a five on the floor and it is a single shot of the cheap stuff at the dive bar on my way home from work.
Lincoln holds no glamour to the dulled
                                                          swollen eyes
drop him in my twenty-thousand penny purse
and wonder if the
                       corner-girl, sparkle heels and
                                             greying teeth,
                      takes plastic.

Sailor's Sunday

short autumn sunlight
leaves time before night
only long enough
to tell a single drink
with the saddest story
on the rocks –
The garden beneath her windows is dying.
The flowers beneath her willow are dying.
Above her small house, an old flag is flying.

 left, west, sunset—when it’s red
puts sailors to bed
good dreams,
of wives’ lives, always
all ways white
in light
yellowed sunrise;

when the quiet hits the deck
when the quiet hits the men
when there is just the deck
and the men
and the sky
and the sea

they hit the quiet and
make up
memories
to pass time until sunset,
sunrise,
sunset,
sunrise.


That land is
the wrong land.


Ladies ashore—at
home, dream at the silky
black
bring him back
 and the children in their
waiting room sheets,
sleep nicely
concisely
precisely, and
make up
bad dreams
to pass time until sunrise,
sunset,
sunrise,
sunset.




Papa smoked nice cigars and whistled
while he worked.

No heroes.
No villains.
Just the deck and the
men and the sky
and the
sea.

Always the sink
and the sorrow
and the crash at that
time-passaged dawn
of tomorrow,
far out at waves
was nighttime storm
grown to be
a morning glory—
the kind that washes away story
and song.


No heroes.
No villains.
Just a wife at home
and a child and nightmares
and the sky
and the
sea.

Wives’ lives at home, baking
last of the bread
last of the milk to
soften last of the bread –

 dear husband’s dead.

She’s whistling while
she works, can't
remember his
old tunes and
making up
melodies
to pass time until –

Royal

Ruminating beside
the torches, walling
darkest corners,
leaving orange where
before
was nothing
but secrets and age.

King passes slowly
when he passes
breathes deeply
to remember
when orange
was brighter under
the gaze of
dimming
eyes.

Queen takes
detour to walk solely
in rays of
sun---
the sun Queen, she
once was---
and, when night swallows
blue, she
settles for the hues of
moon.

Prince drinks red wine,
tucked privately with
ladies in
always
waiting
who smell like spring
and are soft like the pillows
he rests his Princely thoughts
on at sunset,
breasts like pillows
of resting for Princely
thoughts. 

Princess has bags
beneath her baby eyes
and sickly skin
and ruminates beside
the torches, walling darkest
corners,
leaving orange
on her face where
before
was nothing.

King passes slowly
when he passes
and touches Princess
hand, peach and
soft, and Prince
quiets lady when the
King breathes deeply--orange
on his purple robe--King
knows what Queen
cannot see
by the bright sun and
white hues
of moon.

Princess prays to be
a vicar when she's aged,
but orange
and torches and
ladies do not find
God when they are
meant to find
throne.

give it a year

Clarity came shining through like
the middle of July,

telling me -- just what to do -- just who
to do -- 'just June?' you say.  

That faded day she turned away
and I laughed like May--all day

until April showers woke me
up and flowers from the

March-ing band at the
band-stand, moms with gerber daisies in hand

chanting for the boy whose
Valentine gave up February

for his coked out New Year's
kiss. Hers were

the bruises tainting Christmas
eve, leaving space for

the place at the Thanksgiving table, recycling
--for pies-- the pumpkins from Halloween.

Nothing happened in September.
Nothing ever happens then.

The sun burned and kept on
burning like August thirty-first

on freckled skin and a dimpled
chin, lobster pink and

shimmering like we're back
to the fourth of the July.

dishes

she has to walk into the kitchen
               barefoot in the kitchen
to find the cup of coffee you left yesterday
                                                                  that she never thought to wash
                                                                                                                                                   cracking

 pots of alfredo sauce -  your favorite dish - stacked in the sink

she used to think

if she could get it right (or just alright) 

that

when you would stop by 

at night

you might stay

the night

all through

til light

when she could make you another cup of coffee 

that she would 

                        conveniently 

                                             not think to wash

for a while

trying to write the light
all night
            trying to get it
            right.

memorizing the way your shadows
shaded something that seemed
already to be
so dark--
too dark to see.

and your voice
and your laughter
pushing against and after
the falling lids

as breathing hardens into
softness and relaxes
into the right
night light
can't seem to write.

whisper:
keep finding bits of you
in pockets
in spaces between my shirts
                                    sheets
in drawers
where you hid before

needle point
stop and start
give it a shot
give up your heart--

Juvenile

Life is an endeavor of love, mess, and opportunity

so cheer up and make worse choices. 

i found my words

Your water glass hasn't moved--couldn't 

move it after 

you left. Sitting where you sat,

trying to make stills in my still-less head

trying to see myself without my glasses

I drank every drop of tea 

after it had gone cold

& thought of the taste 

of it you might have tasted

in my mouth. 

Luckily I'll be there--in your mouth--

for months. 

He, she, it, we are dancing 

in between each of 

our teeths. 

Patronizing and saint-like 

as you promised something 

like I didn't already know the way it burns

when I watch you leave. I've been here. 

I'll always have the note 

and the noose on my throat 

because a circular part of my 

unclassified structure of actualizing 

believes in destiny

& I wonder when I see you 

if maybe mine is 

a one-way street 

that dead ends at the 

highway of you

without an on ramp. 

The phone call I will always be waiting for

is ringing like a bell 

against the click of your turn signals

and the burnt out tail light 

and the smell of cigarettes

you always managed 

to leave on 

my hands. 

It cannot get much better 

when you leave me with 

my thoughts 

and they are all that 

has ever kept me 

from you 

tomorrow night

Tell me something quickly —
I am unable to stop thinking
about the dream that night
where your hands pushed




PLAY on the video camera
while we pushed PLAY on
each other in the room behind
the class.

Falling apart as my nativity

asks you 'why?'
while our naiveté should have pushed
you toward ‘why not?’


I would like to be your season
— reasons
behind reckoning
when you're thinking about

the stupidity of saying ‘okay fine’
and thinking ‘about time’
like you are an alienist
in Russia, since we are nothing but

nonsense around town.
Tell me something good —
dress me down
and slather me up.

Your piano fingers got me
quivering and I
just can’t get

enough.

wherin

we were drunk when
you remembered we were meant
to write something a bit
sweeter than words--

"don't forget you need a future
without the bruise of the past"

i broke my elbow
praying for you. you're
welcome.

I want a mattress on the floor with you 

where I'll do everything you ask me to 

every stupid thing you ask, I'll do 

to track cracks on the glass with you 

blazing night times to the black for who?

Classically represented me 

like the beauty queen you hoped to see 

so hard broken like hard breaks will be 

after making eyes at the holy three 

and asking what could become of me. 

amsterdam

racing to see who can
switch off the light
             we never learned how to fight
                      busy always fitting right

being young hurt my pride

nearing in on the song

being yours was my drive

i always choose wrong

 you feel long ago

i shouldn't be left so 

alone with my thoughts

the ice is too hot

don't point out the bags

shiners from sleep

the bruises on my shins

shiners can weep

i'm really fucking sorry

i didn't mean to quit

hermeticism suits you

fine but i never could keep it

one day

Today, I will cross through your life again.



You feel me all morning. You tossed and turned in your sleep last night, juggling back nightmares where I lied to your lips and you liked it. When you wake up next to the pretty girl who is sharing your bed, you—for a minute—forget her name. She sleeps on the side you used to sleep on. You can’t let her lay where my body used to be.



She makes you coffee, which doesn’t taste like mine, and you mumble a quiet thanks. In the shower, trying to scrub me from your skin like a callous, she asks if she can join you, her muddle tone like whispers through the steam. For the first time, you say no. You brush your teeth for minutes, struggling to remove the taste of me from your mouth. It’s been years, and you can still taste me perfectly.



You dress and undress and redress, finally putting on my favorite shirt. It’s blue, and buttons up, and hugs you perfectly. The color makes your eyes so bright. You remember me telling you that once. You haven’t worn it since that summer, too vivid are the memories of me unbuttoning it as you stood above me on my bed, the sunlight behind me, falling onto your tan, warm skin. You’re much paler now. You look very French. She asks you if that is a new shirt, she says she likes it very much. You tell her that it is, thank you.



You skip breakfast. She wants to come with you, to have breakfast together at the coffee shop on the square. Her big, baby eyes like saucers, shining underneath her confusion—you’re cold today—you’ve never been like this to her. Her cheeks like a child, like yours were when you were mine, make you say yes. She smiles and you remember how lovely it is to be loved by someone lovely. She’s lovely. I’m not lovely. I never was.



On the subway, she tells you about her students. Her voice falls into the crowd of voices, the sound of the metro cracking through her tone. She’s a teacher, or something, because she cares about everyone. When she asks you a question, you’ve stopped listening completely and she falls into quiet. You don’t like the subway as much as you liked the passenger seat of my car, the windows down, the music loud, the wind hitting our skin like a riot and my voice even louder than the radio, singing out warnings which you never could understand.



It is springtime and your sleeves are rolled up. She comments on the tulips. They’re her favorite flower.



She holds your hand, even though you like her holding your arm. She’s a hand holder, that one. You don’t feel the need to hide her hands in your pockets like you used to do with mine. People don’t call to her the same way they did to me. Even when they do, you don’t get mad.



You walk toward the coffee shop on the square, half way between your work and hers. You met her there. She was new in town and she had stopped in to go to the restroom. She spilled her coffee on your shoe and when she dropped to her knees to dab it off, you thought that she had a beautiful sense of propriety. She offered to buy you a coffee because she was so sorry. You didn’t accept, but you thought about it. Instead, you told her to take a seat and you offered her company in exchange for the converse I had bought you so many years before. You believed in signs. You still do.



She isn’t speaking anymore, because your lack of responses have made her uncomfortable. She whistles under her breath because silence bothers her. I always liked silence. You are indifferent to it.



She likes her coffee creamy and sweet, the way that I used to. I drink my coffee black now, but you don’t know that. You bite your chocolate croissant, which they warm for you, and she laughs at the chocolate which is smeared on your upper lip. She kisses it off, and for the first time today, you really see her. You see her again, the way that you usually do, her effortless awe like sunrise. I was always much more of a sunset. She is home now. I am a single photo from a vacation years before, tucked into your dresser drawer, which you look at when you’re feeling lost.



You sit together at the same table where you met. She finishes her coffee, you finish your croissant.



For no apparent reason, your heart starts to race. Your hands start to warm. When you stand and she touches your skin. It is too hot and she worries. She doesn’t recognize the look on your face. She’s never seen it before. I have. You feel the same knots and pulsing I could always activate in your chest. Your pretty little girl can’t stop staring at your eyes, so hot, so intense. You are scanning the crowd because you know that I am there. You push open the front door and step outside into the sunlight.



You feel me.



You smell me.



There I am.



I am sitting at the very table where you always imagined I would be sitting. You knew it would be here where you would see me. My hair looks the same from the back, just a bit longer. My eyes look the same when I turn and see you over my shoulder. I felt you too. You recognize my tattoos, even the ones you’ve never seen before, because they look like my thoughts, which you knew so well for so long. I am the nightmare, but you still cannot swallow when I smile. I am sitting at a table, my legs bare, and my dress tight, my cigarette quivering as I flick the ash, staring. You cannot rip your eyes from my existence. You don’t know what to say. I bring the cigarette to my lips—your lips, once—and you notice the person across from me. Some nobody to you, nobody who matters, just exactly what you would’ve expected. Some nobody who is watching my body the same way that you used to. You are enraged. I can see it.



I look at her now, that pretty little slice of kindness, with ballet flats and a summer dress. She’s holding your hand so tightly. I wonder if you like hand holding now, or if you just like her. Her skin looks like smiles and I bet that her eyes dance when she listens to you laugh—you’re a laugher. I made you laugh. She doesn’t make you laugh, but you can make her blush and smile, so innocent and milky. Her kisses taste like candy in the same way mine tasted like wine. I can see it all just looking at her, and I am so happy for you.



You can’t help but smile back, a small laugh falling from your lips, because you’ve thought about this moment for years, and it is here, and you don’t care. I shake my head, laughing too, because knowing someone like I knew you—like you knew me—is laughable. Your hair is the same, maybe shorter than before. You look older, but still so young. I look older still, I never looked young. My eyelids are heavier and my shoulders are sharper. I’ve lost weight—you liked my curves. You wouldn’t like my body so much now, I’m not as soft. She’s so soft—even her elbows and knees can’t leave a mark on you. Nothing about her is hard. I’m a hard sell. She’s sold on you.



Our silent conversation. You nod—yes, you are happy, thanks for asking. I shrug. You look across the table and I shake my head. I look down your arm to the little pink hand and you nod. We both lose our smiles for a minute. You want to walk to me. I want to stand. Neither of us move.



She asks you who I am. Your silence tells her everything. She knows my stories, my name, the scars I left you with. She healed you, day by day, until your heart was sewn enough to love her back. She loved you so immensely that you had no choice but to reciprocate. She fixed you into loving her back and you’ll never stop. She deserves you in a way that I never did.



Her face is harder now when she looks at me, and I smile at her to apologize, to tell her that I never meant to do those things to you, to tell her that it seems I had to break you so that she could fix you. She doesn’t understand my silent looks, but you do. You want to turn to her and shield her eyes. You wish you could tell her to go, just for a minute, so you can feel me to yourself, just for a minute, or so you can tell me all things you have left to say.



You realize then—with her silence and my laughter and your smile—that you have nothing left to say to me. We are but impressions on each other. I am the bruise that never fades on the inside of your wrist. You are the freckle on my cheek that you always loved so much. I am the memory of kisses on your dimples when you woke, always too early, always too bright. You are the feeling of an arm under my neck, holding me close, despite the heat. We are memories, so intangible, that if she wasn’t there, you might have wondered if I was real. I am, but not to you. Even sitting there before you, smoking and smiling, I am translucent. You, on the other hand, are the realest thing I have ever known. I couldn’t dream you up if I tried. You dream me up every night, still, even now.



She cannot bring herself to break the line between us, and she wonders if you will ever look at her the way that you look at me. What she does not understand, though, is that a look like that can’t sustain. When your eyes hold her in their subtle embrace, you have promised her forever. She wants your children and your kittens. You are kind to her. You respect her. You kiss her softly on the pillow, even on the nights when you think of me to finish. You wanted me for a passionate daydream and you need her for life.



Her hand squeezes yours three times. You squeeze back twice. I can see it from my table and I know that I am gone. Finally, you leave first. You blink to break our bond and turn to watch her. She follows your lead, her gaze lingering on me even as you walk away. You do not look back. Neither do I.



You do not speak of me after, except for when she tells you that I am beautiful. You say nothing.



That night, you love her like a honeymoon, and she gasps into the pillow, much quieter than I ever was. You think of her the entire time, your sunshine in the middle of the night. She tells you that she loves you when she finishes. You tell her that you love her too as she falls asleep on your shoulder, for the first time, on my side of the bed.

tab

When she had awoken that morning, she resisted the light and smiled at the left-over scents of her dream in the back of her throat. She felt his arms like a roaming giant, pressing like an argumentative neighbor, heralding. She licked the taste of him off of her lips and let her eyes fold open like closing a book. The words of his silence marked along the backs of her teeth and she willed him to come back.

Like espresso on the rocks, her comportment was irregularly cold—she hastened past the memories in order to concentrate on anything at all. Commandeering the outside of the marketplace, the park of sorts, selling off the opportunity to the highest bidder, the lines in front of her blurred gently until she could only hear his name. But the beer tasted odd when she tried to induce his undressing down like deja vu.

She couldn’t play.

He was the coach.

Here

Bombing hair salons because they come here 

every Friday night, boxing tribal beats 

zealously--fucking take the hint. 

Verile and presupposing your kill-bill wish list,

realizing addiction is closer than she thought 

as she sucks another yaeger like it's Capri sun

in the summer before fourth grade, 

braces and sunscreen giving baby skin 

a sexy sheen. X-Ray scanners sound 

like marathon runners on the bank of the river,

holding their stomachs like flowers until 

the funeral party has passed, too upset 

to try to convince them otherwise. I suck 

the yaeger and say 'suck' with my eyes 

shut, try to convince them otherwise. 

Dearly beloved,

When the fight got harder than the prize, built up on the pedestal, painted like a setting sun, wrapped up in your sweater on the near-seventh of may; Taking all the good bits and hiding the emotion, you tell the girl in purple that you've figured out the potion. It's balanced, flowing lightly, like the window you are working, playing all her songs on shuffle, on the sabbath, like you're churching. Summer wind storms quieted on permanent vacations, when you've signed up for a riot but you're questioning  summation. You left me drinking down remover, trying to remove the cause. I left you sitting with a sharpener, filing up and down your claws. The church bells woke me yesterday and I watched the hallowed sky, but you couldn't tell me anything, so I gave you the wings I built you to fly.

Give yourself another shot to find a target worth the chase, and pick the flowers that I planted because the texture matched your face. Despite the colors of their petals, spring can't save their grace and what a waste of innocence to let them wither in a vase. Their season ended while the world was twisting round about, and though you think you smell them still, their scent is all worn out.

If you burn the pages of the book and keep the dusty ash, you can plant them in the garden or throw them in the trash. You can let them give into the earth and grow as something else, so that you can go and I can go and we can be ourselves.

You are crying.
                                               hafta know
did it to               yourself;
prize tastes                        like hell.
waiting           for show


start
black
                and melt.


princess fantasy
  [princess dancing queen]
gave up
  Christmas list
with you 
           situated
                            on top.


always have been nothing
else                                                                  losing                  wouldn't              work
so well
oh well


                                           justice fell.
young
                kid play chalk on
                                                         chalk           board
draw whores
glory
pretty princess fantasy
   pole-dancing queen
with Christmas list
     situated
               on top
<<please stop>>

mad air

soldiers stealing so slaves can save
& tell half of the creator that you can still behave.

pay attention: large print on large tit
shouting at the boys across the street;
"baby if you can't take the heat"
get to the kitchen, savor, and whet it.

too young to not have messy hair,
kicking pebbles--trying to get mad air.

flag down the taxi because walking that stoned
in this city can give you a head ache.
back seat, sticking leather on thighs, break
from all the smoke in my mouth tasting like home.

soldiers scrapping journals so wives can praise
their work. i'm busy trying to recall
the exact address of that 'home' hall
while the driver is bitching about wanting a raise. 

'take a left just past here.'
he can't hear.
i'm probably unclear.
'pull over, we're pretty near.'

tossing twenties for a seven ninety fare,
dying diva on the corner of the charts
whose library SAT prep is covered in doodle hearts.
i'm not kicking pebbles--still such mad air.

amuse bouche

Fall asleep mulling 

mussels on ivory plates--

Finger fucking on 

thanksgiving

palms full of 

hunger to tide 

the ride home. 

Do you take your gravy on the side? 

grandfather passing

cranberry sauce to the 

pretty one 

quiet with 

/her very good friend's/

fingers pressed 

up her skirt.

 

When she came during 

grace, they all said amen. 

That night, when I was 

giving thanks, 

she spread pie on my thighs 

and called me her 

dessert. 

breaking point

you can destroy someone and still get a 4.0 because you're fuckingsuper woman

nearly there
nearly everywhere —
you're calling action
on the shots of your past.

three point turning down the
highway and you're
flying like seven, seven, seven,
just a block from your heaven.

baking all your peach pies —
much sweeter than the girl who
doesn't know what questions to ask—
contact here for the job next year.

you picked you over me
so i'm going to go pick me
over me
because nobody else did.
now. huh. 

knocking down your years;
four, three, two, here
turning cogs on your turnstile,
trying to see how life works out.

good luck with all your future
actions too. you really fucked up
and i don't know how to forgive
you because it doesn't go
away.  

lessons learned in a beer garden

she told me about the kind of love to make your head spin;
the kind that wraps itself around every one of your fingers
like the hug from a child's tiny hands;
the kind that pushes itself into your cornea and swells
your pupils so that it's always too bright outside;
the kind that hits you like a shot--straight to the blood--straight
to your thoughts--making the balcony seem like an easy jump.

she told me about the kind of sex to make your head spin;
the kind that pushes your teeth back and stifles your screams
with the knowledge that mom is right outside;
the kind that markets itself as a night-long fuck with a fuck-star
when you end up making love like you are;
the kind that makes your lips bleed the next morning and tastes
like you've spent your adolescence kissing in cop-cars lying about lying at all.

she told me about the kind of death to make your head spin;
the kind that gives you one more second of realizing you can't
pull back your finish line any longer;
the kind which pushes your eyes closed with it's cool tongue and
forges a riot through the breaks in your lungs;
the kind which leaves a note on your bedside table, in the shower, written
about an hour before you decided to do it at all, so you're toted off
with your bottle in your pocket, with your noose/knife/gun to take the
life off your hands, which had gotten so heavy, which had run by
so heavy, so fast, and linked itself with your name so that you felt
like you couldn't be free.

she began about the kind of morning to make your head spin;
but she dropped her amber ale and it spilled all over her silk dress before
she could tell me and she
disappeared into the bathroom and by the time she came back, I had left
for my cigarette in the rain.

You

And it will always 

come back to you 

offing that street 

lamp in your sunshine 

summertime smile, 

not a care left to 

care on your lips. 

And it will always 

come back to your 

fingers pressed 

hard and my tongue 

biting rocket 

flight as you licked 

me below the hips. 

And it will always 

come back to my 

promise and 

promise the 

promise to 

promise to tape 

it together again. 

And it will always 

come back

I will always 

come back 

to you. 

crouching

Underline your vacation
and try to get the tan
before the clouds roll in.

Catch that tan before
the man rolls in--
taught in shadows, read:

"You got turquoise nails
in all the right places"
like

"your turquoise nails
fill all my tight places"
but it's public outside.

an audience
--gnarled and enraged--
standing, waiting, in line

to take a short glance
at the President who can't
help but hug the kids

"Mr. President please,
big fan, but quick question
about your State of the Union"

with the swat up and
behind the Sir who has an
oblong office space.

re-spond

don't fly
so fast
because i'm
waiting to
be the last

so high
so rash
i'm trying
too hard to
be the last

not here
you're mad
while you're
telling me you won't
be the last

i want you to care
i want it to crash
i want you to need
to be my last

the subway club

you square the inches between us.
(square tiles
square miles)
squared inches that you

toss away
sunday morning with a
paper.
(stolen)
from the stand
when the coffee man
turned away to toast
your bagel. i watched
you smile at the news

in the laundry mat
waiting for your load of
whites.

later, when you admitted
you stole my
fishnets
like you stole his
paper,
i thought it was a
funny way to
introduce yourself.

you dropped my
dirty fishnets
(very dirty)
into your load of
boxer briefs.

later, i blushed when you
handed them to me.
later, i blushed when you
pushed back my hair,
my skirt,
my (now clean) fishnets.
later, i blushed when you
were panting on me

and i told you that
i thought it was a
funny way to
introduce yourself.

Wish you were her*e

Yearly and herely 

so nearly it's time 

for your dark eyes 

and just a splash 

of corona with lime 

"I'll marry you someday" 

Heather scented: you're mine

bAmbi.

knighted for prosody
for the art of texting
vocally
for the ability to make a
fool
out of all the kids she
thought were cool.

knighted for embarrassment
for charges of sexual
harassment
for graffiti on the bathroom stall
to match graffiti
on the courtroom wall.

they call her 'sir'
because she's a knight
and she likes it better
than dame.
they all wanted her
at the party that night
but she flipped them the bird
and drove off
all the same. 

knighted for intellectuals
for a talent worth
dollar bills
for shooting up to feel
alright
and pretending her needle
will make her a knight.

coo

stirring dreams, moving
mania; our eyes are closed
as the clock rings through.

fingers become sheets
washed so well. last night we made
the bed, all naked.

today its unmade.
time is singing out, but we
pretend it's silent.

with eyes still shut you
touch the fragile morning with
'five more minutes, love.'

tonight we will drink
wine from the bottle, or box,
music on the tongue--

water down the red,
before, just un café
et une cigarette

and why should we not?
wake up to the tangled wind
because we are here.

five minutes have passed.
still fast asleep. still asleep.
we can't say goodbye

if you refuse to
wake up. we both know you're here
to pull my stitches

out one by one. but
you do not see that it's done.
i have ripped them out.

wake up now to say
goodbye. 'five more minutes, love'
have passed. it is time.

Couldn't say whether your
fight was worth the scar?
Needle point a pillow about
the time you handled your liquor;
get back to me later. I've
got a date with the girl of
your
dreams.

dress me down

I built my aspirations
cramped up in a trunk
while you drove me through
the suburbs to your house.

They were snoring out their prayers
while we were sneaking upstairs.
When we fucked, I was as
quiet as a mouse.

Oh yeah?

Pretending that we're surfing
on the covers of your bed,
while the raindrops are stuck
crying down the glass.

My cheeks are pink from blushing
while the blood in me is rushing
to regain my element
of unfound class.

Oh yeah.

The sun has started rising
while we're driving to the beach,
chasing visions like the
pattern's gonna end.

You have stardust in your eyes
from all your staring at the skies,
like painted lightning bolts,
there's nothing to pretend.

Oh.

Yeah.

first day of spring

give me a suicide tea--
over easy
        easy like a sunday morning
         hangover sunday/
 when we have to compare
 manhattan to sashimi
 because you either hate it or you
                               love it.

practicing sultan business technology,
even though i wanted to be a
house wife. when's the album dropping?
it was a joke purported to
mean when are you
due to give birth?

he just snapped, the schizophrenic,
because he knew too ma-
ny people who get
naked and climb up mountains
all the time. Tweakers, they prefer.

Jesus, who was
the greatest changeling of
them all, really liked his party
liquor, the way i like my suicide
tea, and so he was
probably disappointed
that he was so bundled up.

<<don't think so much>> you told
me when you wanted me to
settled down and sexualize.
when you drank your milk, ate
your veggies, grew up so tall and
fine
resting before you're
strong enough to breathe me in
strong enough to take me.

read me aloud

and i had to admit
to her the extent of it. say
my name to her and
explain to her that

yes, i am ingesting red today;
           at midnight i cut my finger
           sewing together newspapers
           that i wanted to wrap your present
           in with twine.  i wanted to
           put a poem on the inside of the
           comic strip, but i couldn't write
           over the colors on the pages so
           i wrote it on the obituaries.
           i don't find death very creative
           so it started with 'roses' and ended with 'blue'
           and everything in between felt like
           a prepositional phrase. then i wrapped
           the present wrong so the poem
           wasn't even hidden. i picked it
           up and threw it
           out of my car window on the
           eight east and told myself
           that someday i'll be good enough.
           i cut my finger and i licked off the blood.
         
           that was when i started swallowing my rouge.
                      They put hot sauce on my burrito
                      even though I ordered a taco and
                      asked for guacamole
                      they gave me a burrito with salsa
                      and i thought that a scene at
                      the taco shop seemed unnecessary
                      so I told my mom that we should
                      probably just go.

                       my parents have been married for twenty-five years
                                          so they got an edible bouquet which i
                                          picked through for the chocolate-covered
                                          strawberries as i poured myself a bottle of
                                          merlot and sat in front of a blank sheet
                                          of paper and wondered if i will still be able
                                          to manage to love you more every day than
                                          the day before in twenty-five years.
                                          probability says that i will have died.
                                          but the breeze in my bedroom just smelled
                                          like you.

                                          isn't it funny how it seems like my bed is
                                                               just my size--crimson and sized just right--
                                                               and then i remember how nice you looked
                                                               lying by my side and i turn off the
                                                               light and i let you become an almost-tangible
                                                               almost-figure in my almost-
                                                               sleepless night.

conversions

Here, velvet, take the left of center
kilo-metric
equivalent of the ways of your
heartfelt commies
back in the 'other' jazz age.
Humming 'murica the beautiful
--with all those space-eous skies/
eggplant colored mountains scraping
up all those space-eous skies--
you got red-blood on your
lips tracing your lips
across my lips &
i've got blue-blood on your
lips tracing my lips
across your lips;
white teeth like a
wreath made with cheats
and less than three-ing your
romantick haiku.
What it do, babby (-meant to be-) boo
i'm just measuring you
& your patriotic to-dos.
"Thank the God for the President and the
President for the God.
Ahmen!"
-- Gesundheit.

77

I'm sleeping with somnambulism 

and fucking with a hunger strike;

gearing up for the battle of the millennium 

has given me day after day of clearing skies. 

jungle juice

You could just tell me what you think.
Touching tips of gold to your
lashes, remnants, falling fast asleep
on the sofa in my living room to
remind me that happy
isn't quite the same for everyone.

My red-wine stained tongue preaches hate
just the same as my cigarette tinted finger tips
taught me how to love you back,
rolling your joints
up and down like
the red carpet,
pushed out for you
every time you take a
breath break.

So delicious when you can fuck
anyone you want
­­ – everyone you've ever wanted –
like they're asking you
to break their bones and
make them
break me
too.

Your sleep eyes
blinking quicker to see if your
bad dreams are going
to fall away;
to see if I'll wake up next to you
in a minute or two;
to see if you can tell me this
was just a
night
mare.

Body double.
She's your
Crown Victoria doing St. Vitus' dance
praying quiet to
the Chaplain for the cure to the throbs
tomorrow morning. Today
technically.

We’re onto moral qualms,
drugs, and remedies now
as they chant something
downstairs and we disappear
on the roof
into the basement of
another
red
so low
cup.

Sleep

Catatonia came sinking in when she sunk out of my periphery. 

Her and him and them together would have an oscar for the impairment of the senses -- too beautiful/can't look. 

It's a spectrum disorder [loving you] and I'm mildly moderately severe in my implications surrounding 

yes ma'am 

no ma'am 

all buttery on your lips and little charming honeybees sound like Mississippi in the summer nights. 

Months are so much shorter than years. 

Years are just long, really long, quiet seconds. 

Read me quietly and help me fall asleep. 

and it's quiet and quaint and soft and faint 
in your car

when you're pushing the pedal to say that we're 
gonna go far. 

it's warmer than you and I found that you're true 
in your car

as if all the washed windows are glasses to watch 
us go far. 

hearing your memories play through the songs 
in your car

full of minutes of nothing that stretch when we're 
going so far.

you are crystalline nature, burn diesel, when you drive 
your car 

as I stand on the off-ramp and watch your tail lights 
go so far. 

passenger seat pushes heat up inside of 
your car

and I hold/hope your hand will hope/home mine as we 
go so far. 

until then

your face at the station
on the train
in the rain
is pushing my hastings
to refrain
from the pain.

jeunesse in your lip-lines
has fallen
still calling
your prints on my hip-lines
while balling--
my heart crawling

down the tracks you
have left
me bereft.
I wanted to do--
but it's theft
and you left.

Idioms are nothing when you speak into my cheeks
and I'll love you until the scent of your breath has poured into my sheets.
Heart beats like drummers on my tongues against the sound of clouds
raining, shining all your promises until the syllabic youth is allowed.

come home

you're delusioning my notions into the clouds;

the junkies on the corners are crying me out on the streets

lithe harnessing your potions are disheartening loud

-er than your name tattooed on the soles of my heat.

 

charting time

10:22

Go hoist the blood that you're

boiling and see if you can get

that gag reflex back 

10:23

I couldn't say I do

You didn't say I don't 

10:24

Champagne pruned my skin while your thin win did me in 

10:25

Hearing about you 

like I never knew our past 

will probably hurt 

10:26

Minutes are long 

until you realize that your

life is done in a few 

minutes. Then 

minutes feel really 

really

short

10:27

Make a wish 

19

peeling sweet tarts and
sour straws from your finger
tips, saving them
for later to eat
with your delusion.

mixing narcotics with
a shot of gin for the
full effect of nothing-
ness and ecstatic
reverential illusion.

words go on and thus
go and continue to go
until they've landed on the
window sill
and started their
diffusion.

ubiquitous forgetting
about the state of your
everlasting and unfortunately
named
orgiastic confusion.

telling all the secrets
we've got kept inside our
lockers waiting
for the biblical announcement
for our physical
infusion.

tell me something though.

if i could tie a rope to the
winds of your tornado and
pull your safe-space into
my place,
would you give me
your entirety as a
monastic conclusion?

time has told me that
i hurt a little,
but you hurt a little
too; i'll do anything for
you, write anything for you
to
be my resolution.

i think it's why i'm not a
painter, see, for all the
youthful wonderings i could
art-ify are too hard to
find within the
skyscrapers of your
highly romantic
allusions.

jaunting

just like everything else,
it twisted up backward
and mistook me
for the martyr
and the lethal
undertaker
it had forgotten
without; or nothing
and no one
to promise the
pages to. I didn't ask

for anything;

they will give me
more and more

and more

like damns built backwards

until your skin becomes 

a sentimental interlude
to whittle
down the love into
you. Your
elegance
is understood
to be —
forever —
unmistakably
free.

Wednesday

I drank until you weren't real

and then I drank some more. 

The eyes of the kryptonite

(nothing like you)

nothing more temporal

nothing more true 

clean

Aflame/
holding out incarceration
fogging
for your reputation''''


|| indefinite ||
star struck for returning;
felicitous--
nearer to it than

you know.


Hydrate
and wash my remnants
away
so you can be clean.

Confessional

I had a confession for the Priest when I met him in the bar.
“Forgive me father, for I have sinned”


I.

Its like the first night when
you were telling me
to kiss you without your words
and your lips were
sooooo close—
— you couldn’t
keep my
breath from loving
yours—
— and you told me
that i could
without saying it
and i did


II.
because
of
the stack of books
that june
afternoon
i thought
that this wasn’t what you
could have
wanted
as haunted as your
crystal eyes
had crystalized
into.


III.
i watch your fingers
and try to decipher
how they could’ve
pushed past my skin
right on in
and grabbed the
pulse
that thumps to
your name


IV.
apparently
when i’m drunk
i tell you what
you already know


V.
there were nighttime clashes
and crashes
where i thought you
might
disappear
without
what you wanted
to say
or i wanted
to hear


VI.
but you called me
like a river
and you held me
like a pause
because
it seemed to be you
might’ve seen
a cause


VII.
juvenile
the flowers rained
on us
while we writhed
soft blanket
singing nothing
of import
because
the ocean is
music enough
and
oh
have you got
a way
without
words.


VIII.
i would situate myself
on your shelf
for
ever
if you were
sub-limely
interested in
pressing
on
and
on

here's to hoping

heaving your
heavy
heavier
nothing left
but
never-er
little children
marking
hop-scotch on your trips

breathing your

breath

breathier 

nothing left

but 

ever-er

little no ones 

marking

nothing on my hips

levying your 

levy

levier 

everything 

yet

together-er

great big daydreams

marking

nightmares on your lips

as the clock hit

now

forever-er

i bit

big

bites on

endeavors or

made your words ecstatic 

and your mind erratic 

erotic enough

to tough out

and flush out

the bruises i've been 

pinching on your 

poker chips

i bet a thousand

on the hand

you'll deal me

when i 

rip 

into your

lips

sweet summer, kid.

Their lips were wet
and it was very
hot on the roof

and they were
not supposed to be there
all alone.

They were stoned
like the songs
said they should be.

And it was summer
and they couldn’t
help the way

their heat headed south.
Migrating for
the winter

time, antiquated and
reminding them
of their grandmother’s

doilies. Sticking
to the undersides of
skimpy skinny things

not quite ready to
make the leap they
were headed to.

Oops. I didn’t mean
to put that there
where it would

hurt you. But you
are being dramatic;
you can stop

screaming now. And
I think I hear your
dad’s door opening

downstairs. Does he
have a gun?
Gotta run.

And he’s gone
quicker than he had
come

which was pretty
fast to begin
with.

Departed

Over the moonshine, the both of us wept

while waves pulled slowly at the wandering shore

and wondered, as the stars our secrets kept,

if we could ask for just a minute more.




We were in the past before you spoke,

the salty air congealing in your lungs;

so when you breathed, your quivering voice broke,

and made your wrinkles smooth, your hair seem young.




Light by light, all the stars bid us ‘depart’

as I, rapt by the ending of your mind,

beheld the empty noise to stop your heart

and leave me with a lock; no key to find.




The sky turned pink before we said farewell,

so sure were we that we’d next meet in hell.

maybe november

Behold it like
French loving in
the summer

afternoon. It
made the weakest
knees of

busy bees in
June. Here, Lucy,
kiss her like

a kid, your
kid held on like
smoker's cough.

You slept through
parting parties,
naked truth

or dare to
bleach your hair
so the boy

in the leather
will notice you
there.

The car alarm
woke up mom
and you couldn't

silence the
breaks, screaming
scram while

you take hits
from the little
bowl peep

making sheep
sing across your
sleepy eyes

and part the
cold December
(can't remember)

maybe November
skies. Losing youth
for the sake

of being young.
Faking love for the
sake of

having fun.
Tell the truth, Lucy
please

spare us the
shit. We want nothing
more than

for you to
pass the bowl
and let us

take a hit.

Her

There was a ring around the ash tray

Held aloft by your desire to stay 

And heralding my love of the way 

You listen. 

In the room I'm drawing out for you, 

Where the space melts and the loud subdues

Into melancholic subtle hues,

We wait. 

Jazzing and boozing all lovely and young,

Hanging on lightly to the sound of your gun

While my padding footsteps keep us awake

And the storm in your nerves has no faltering wake. 

Pardon my trafficking graffitied trash

as I watch your cigarette morph into ash

Noting nothing and everything tucked in your stash 

And say it. 

In between a sheet and a memory, I'll let myself wrap lightly into your skin to fall for you like I've never fallen for anyone before. And the nights I spent then craving more are blown away to empty windows when I make connection with your flesh and our fingertips admit to each other (maybe even before our mouths can quite agree) that freshly laundered sheets feel better when you are holding me in your June dream. 

Patiently, I hold the door for you

And wait until you wander through 

To do what we have come to do

Admit it. 

I know what you’re doing.

 

There was something (sym)pathetic in the way she watched

the shades of the sky keep marking on 

keep harping on 

about yesterday and yesterday and all those great things

yesterday

 like tomorrow had nothing to offer
a girl so remarkably past—passed .

Hearing the forgot-ten

ne’er

re-membered

re-collections

re-called

at about an auctioneer’s pace

stuck in young man’s race

balancing in empty space

and still re-membering her

misbegotten face.

 

she would drink another chandelier and let the champagne clink inside her veins

 

and swear she’ll never love again

not love again

until the

red has burned into any ashy grey

until today

or

yesterday.

 

she cannot see how much the world

has written in her storyline

because she’s all en-compassing

and

trying to exonerate a god-dess

who has forgot-ten her name al-ready.

All ready for tomorrow

while she’s still stuck

on

yesterday. 

the sea caught fire

From above, it might have looked like a painting, the oil on canvas glistening in the sunlight from the windows behind a quizzical face; a face whose crows feet would kiss as she contemplated why he could've thought this splattering of red would make an impact on her mind. It did, and she didn't understand why. 

But it wasn't a painting. And the sunlight underneath the glistening oil was the sound of the sea catching fire. 

It was a gentle whooshing of your breath on her skin and your gestures in the reflections of her eyes. 

Children playing on the shore, with the sand sticking on their skin, watched the way the blue turned to blood and the sky sunk into the clouds. 

Fluorescent lights above the universe made the scene seem oddly serene, surreally naturalistic. Like they had always been so meant to be. Like the sand had been born as a barrier to the destruction of the land. Like the waves were always, always ash. Like the gentle breeze off the beach smelled of smoke for a reason. 

Mother Earth smiled as her children wept for one another. She smiled like a ray of sunshine, her elegance illuminating something just beneath the surface. The animals were just deep enough to relish in the warmth. The sky was just far enough away to love the steam against it's face. 

But the most beautiful space in the midst of the disaster was the lick of air between them; the sliver of space where the flames' batting eyes touched the water's cool skin, and they realized that their miraculousness could never be duplicated. They were a once-in-a-lifetime realization of something otherworldly touching down on humanity for long enough to be noted, then -- as well all expected -- to disappear. 

e v e r y d a y

Alternating a remote understanding of your fucking

sorry, love, I meant feelings                                             

and your heart-pulse-beat-rate

              waiting

                           harting-hearting-hurting-burning
and pushing my way                                                   into your pockets

i'm trying to push you past
                              my past in order to

              learn a 

thing

or 

two

about

your

     m   a    y    b   e 

yes or

yes yes yes 

and 

breathing for                                 the sake                           of wanting to hold you

tighter

than when you fucked me before when my eyes were closed and your hands had closed and i was close and you were closer

and i was choking on your silence the same way that i was swallowing my inhibitions

and realizing

[even though I thought I finished an hour before]

e v e r y d a y 

i love you a little more than i did the day before

and it'll be a masterpiece 

when my tongue 

tastes you 

tasting it

back.

if i could pour candy dreams into your mind and kiss all your longing

i would never stop

finger bells

terrifyingly correct when we finally decided to kick it off
and the sonic
bionic
boom
hit the room
her k-k-kurtly phrased
k-k-klassically portrayed
jaunt across the riverbed
made it just as soon be said
to red
and blue
and black
to back
and true
but lacks
expansionist mentality
on the left/right bank
of reality

young enchantment on her fingertips rests like
magic beans
and tambourines
and
harmonicas
to guarantee she's a good kisser