buckets

hello again, old friend. today
i found myself spinning metaphors
grasping and grasping for your love
which you gave, heedless of fair warning.
my hurt is plasma and platelets
spilling and dropping and crashing
and silent, too. i ache for things i will never understand.

the swift hit of pointer, pinky, thumb and ring
words running down a page
in lieu of other things, messier things, things
i will not let myself do more of. the time
for that is over and i am left
pulling at your shirt sleeves, your breasts, your cheeks
for a look that is only mine. there are very
few people with looks
that are only mine.

i am on your side

you put the blood back in me, i bled it back
bottomless cup, broken mouth, i am
i mean to sigh out life, it comes out smog and tonight
the sun is orange
it is fire, it is wrapping its
tendrils 'round ever street and every view
highline park at night, the flowers, the concrete, the cut-down trees.
you sew me up, i pop a stitch, i tear at seams
my stuff is meant to flow, to spill into storm drains
i dream sometimes of souls pouring from the shower head
mine, particularly
drenching unknowing hairs
skimming unknown heads.

manahatta, what have you done?

laughing, sometimes

we laughed so hard we peed, and it's not
poetic but at least it's true. we
shouted at ladies to look at the moon
and hoped that they'd notice us
just so
for a moment, we could be victorious
i want to give that to you
in return for the stain on my pants
and the fire in my stomach
and the echoes in the midnight air.

selling things

ninth grade pulled me into vibrant green
and i stayed that way (smiling
and green) for longer than perhaps i should
people aren't good
or bad
and pollution happens for no reason
in all sorts of ways, like noise and light and
things i never thought were evil
or angry
or wrong.

and maybe angry isn't evil
because i'm sitting at a table
and i'm angry
and i'm going to do great things.

tea

some days, your nose would
look better broken.

my tendons won't cooperate or i'd
do it myself.

shin splints

lover, please don't cry
i didn't mean it
when i stopped loving.

it
was just a test, the same as
last january, last june
nineteen years are enough
to learn how to be abused.

keeping tabs

at one or two a.m. (we're never sure), little things
stupid, dumb and funny things
they pull at me, the muscles off my bone.
have you ever been a skeleton?
i have. i pulled my mouth back and stared
so hard i saw mandibles, crania, my zygomatic arch
and i knew i'd look good in a lab.
under your microscope, in your latex-hands
i knew i would never stop looking good.
but sometimes i think
that's not all that matters.