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.