5

that redbull and cigarette smell

I probably miss it

making Esther Raushenbush 
Library an alright place to be

like a scary party

our favorite things are there

to push back against our least favorite things

to sneak underneath, above, and around them

like its happenstance that we are where we are

but can you directly base your life

on whiskers on kittens? I'm trying…

like that one night we all played in the dirt

why did we only do that once

no one’s “hey beautiful” will ever

mean the same thing to us.

we’ll be wishing it was around

every corner for the rest of our lives.

ah year

Will I ever be at a dog park at dusk in California?


all I got is the desert
for y'all how many
times I said desert


makes my nose bleed
see


all my love for
silver nitrate face
and crater face
all my love to
the fall of
NY


Why would I ever?


remember emotions
are not obsolete and
everything can still
got to do with


mima
sheba


it's a massage on my
feet the bumps
on the street ramps

3 

shotgun watching

the hills and the

sunset behind 

the Budweiser factory

I’m feeling you

you’re everywhere 

but I can’t see you 

we're listening for you

your voice is echoing

in the car speakers

and the air through

the windows smells

like pennies in a 

fountain

going going going 

going gone gone

gone gone

4

alright children, don’t yell at each other

I’m praying for a resolution between you two

5

this song was 

saying

Don't be afraid

I won't hurt you
I'm just searching

for something  

I'm not sure of
With my net
Chasing the elusive 

butterfly of love

Or something like that

2

walking down the 

street being a girl 

seeing an empty 

bottle of Bombay 

Sapphire

thinking about how 

to draw what exactly 

that means to me

and how to draw a 

baby who is hopeless

*allegorical action shot*

living vicariously 

through that

the Sapphire Stranger

it is a glass bottle 

laying dewy in the 

grass

dewy and I’m just 

walking past it

must have been a 

wild in the grass

living vicariously

through the reflective

tape on a mans coat

flashing in our headlights

as we drive past him in the dark

that is not my life

dropping off my sister 

at a boarded up house

where she slips through 

the chain link 

and disappears along 

side it

there is no light at all 

coming from inside it

it must be exciting 

to be the bad ones

inside it

a friend of hers 

works on old houses 

like that one and his 

boss lets him sleep 

in them

one time in the attic 

of a little victorian

his hand impulsively 

reached up to one

of the rafters and he 

pulled down a red purse 

inside the purse 

was a handful 

of gold jewelry

a gun, and a torn

out newspaper 

article about a 

missing girl with 

a red purse

1

All of the building’s exteriors at high school
had white plaster reliefs of the 
Greek gods and goddesses

some standing two stories tall 
or flying outstretched above windows

This represents knowledge, 
this represents athleticism. 
Over that archway is science. 

The Greeks looking down on fist fights 
and all the different models of sneaker

the white styrofoam takeout containers
gulls swarmed the courtyard at lunch

I was looking at pictures of Shaker houses 
in National Geographic, obsessing over 
the sparse dark feeling of those halls

Hands to work and hearts to God 

Jane always had something 
she would offer me. Tamarind 
seed pods, witchy dense green 
pistachio candy

She was greasy lady luck

We would leave through the back 
of the H building and go to the park 
called Ohlone

Once when we left
she found both a packet of gum 
and a packet of sleeping pills 
on the sidewalk 

I need these. I keep finding exactly what I need 

She wanted the gum but 
needed to use the pills on 
someone else

woof

Heaven and Earth are not humane: To them all things are as straw-dogs.

I didn’t remember 
seeing a lunar eclipse 
in my dream until he 
yelled at you: What will 
it take for you to be 
ready?? What are you 
waiting for?? A lunar 
eclipse?? Then it rode 
up to me like a black 
horse a black horse on 
horseback. Imagining 
the arching. Like how 
the moon she laying down

crescent on her side

sweating; I can’t make 
up my mind. Heaven 
and earth are not 
humane 

no where

no where

I dream about you all night long

the more I acknowledge it the more I dream
Juicywet aloe
fatty pink camellia
Rolling past my high school

the field where I played soccer for p.e. credit
That is something
That is a plus

I miss the way your eyes could be like saucers of that color for me

I could look in them and see you at twelve years old

The Afghan Girl from National Geographic