sunday the student

on the verge of dying for poetry

again, the boring exorcism of hiatus 

looking back at the word bank

all shy

B said some poems just

walk away! 

like children

*

J died 7 years ago, today

a dark autumn night in NY

the hill we climbed 

with the news

*

today is a triangle

with an exclamation point inside

J says

we can't ever do what we want to do

anymore, that's the new secret club

today I go, 

what is a 7 years

a bouquet?

some off lights

reflecting the sun

the triangle with 

the exclamation point

extends,

encrypted

*

last Yom Kippur

I went to services in SF

where I met an old friend 

and her young dad

it was early morning

and the city was

bright gold

later we wrote

what we didn't need

on scraps of paper and

put them in a clear vase of 

tap water

for atonement, 

I brainstorm some pools in the area

*

the blood thing

is really more 

about draining

 

I fainted in the 

process of 

playing cool

they pushed a Kiss 

into my mouth and

squeezed me and

low key 

reprimanded me

the bad quiz on loop 

I can't see my own eyes!

or bite my own teeth

Dear P

I've been so out of touch with myself,

like forgotten how to be curious about my mind...

but last night I slept long and dreamed about a place with cabins:

many divided, yet thematic households on the property

I was performing there, maybe some type of festival

I had some romance with a blank man who was hard to love, because he was blank

a big group of us went for a walk into the dark forest/mountains, on a sort of ridge

beneath us was a rushing river, it got darker and darker as we walked

I wondered if it was fire smoke but it was so easy to breath (mist)

shadowy figures (boys) effortlessly jumping off rocks into the river 

the sight of big, moving water almost brought me to tears

gay

habits are

           bad

           this week

I’m backhanding 
my forehead 

and 
thickening plots 

spying 

  on the
    plume’s return

carrying 

the annual 
    haunting of home

the sad memory
of water &
when she told me
to be like it 
[water]

we’re on the couch 
at the airport hotel
she’s soft, high

she saw heaven

and isn’t scared

for the living

acquired taste 

to the point 

of   no return 

you just

lay there by the juniper

deep 

in the practice of surrender/

while the moon

eclipses

lowercase fear

just like

Together

"we" cuz 

I'm getting bigger

*

if Longing

would shed itself 

like a snake and 

surprise me

...

a long river city 

whose architecture 

reps desire 

and at once 

resolve

her knee highs

her healthcare

...

ʎpɐǝʇs ʞɔoɹ

today the kids made tissue swords 

exerting themselves in the ash

the 3 of them, literary

windswept

the dust bowl

the cul de sac

the boudarylessness of
blessings, curses

talking fences/feeling

nothing       moderate, mega 

in lieu of     stretch in lieu of

cutting

the train assembles

poems slipping and 

sliding the dead friend

with the past tense name

just wanna be at the club

with the mosh pit the

mash up where 

at 3 am 

dystopia 

checks out

skywriting by jane pauley

I cry looking at photos of great grandma Sally

because she's got the eyes

the eyes that are 3000 years old

sitting on the deck with Dad

swarm of crows flying in synch 

vanishes into the fog

Grandma tells me about a time 

Mom painted herself green, put tinfoil 

on her head, and went to the bar

open field with a window

open field with a window

open field with no child

don't call it an episode 

I'm not your TV

my heart isn't actually inside me

it's where they all are

ambrette pipette

cool blue + tie dye = soft sky

looking up from the open box of Kayla's backyard

I see power lines and think sheet music

base + heart + head = the symphony of a perfume

the white planks of that balcony's railing are piano keys

dancing + apples = dappled

the bamboo is the wind section

the sun is soprano

soft sky + full = skull

the clean flat cement might be mezzo

and the wind chime is implied

alphabet soup

the night I sat on the balcony 

watching the moon cross the sky

Jamie’s ghost touched everything in the apartment

turned my pairs of shoes at perpendicular angles

propped up the sheep brain dissection kit

scooted out my desk chair

it was so subtle

I could have done it myself

what's the difference between 

hallucination and metaphor

seeing the story over the story

the world behind the world

I don't want to say too much

but something I can tell you now;

it's a lie 

that nothing rhymes with orange

the buddha quality

of a stuffed animal

how two dots and a line 

make a gracious face

I was sure he was in my bathroom

staring at that tum on the tile floor

and I realized how trauma 

is like schrodinger's cat

the keloided narratives that stay fucked up

for as long as the door is closed

I keep seeing a soft sky full of tiny letters 

like alphabet soup

and the afterimage of a cool blue fairy

pepper's ghost

and there's something extra 

we're elaborating on now

about washer women

gossips and yentas

about twins, togetherness

about the tree and the stone

being damned

the dry lightning storm 
to the north

the moon drama, up

the cold sand, cum
every August
at once

*

AIM apparition--

if it were,
the watering hole

The Wednesday

raised by 
ON, the TV
the basement 

*

rolling on the floor
after hours
for reasons 
the sidewalk
the gum spots
the moon

*

partial to the merch
of my coast
perennials 
garbage 

*

eating around the spinal chords

boundaries embodied 

or

synthetic fences

baguette-me-not

us Three Women 

stopped at the crosswalk

feeding each other bread 

as we walk home from the store

I do our laundry 

hang it up on the porch

it stays a little damp cos it rains all night

when folding I love guessing

who is whose

I note that 

C has always had powerful socks

and K has lots of bleachy items

but I also get some smaller items wrong 

which I also love

when I close my eyes

theres [enough!] looped beats

    I’m doing flips 

at those Philadelphia 

gas stations

round and

    round wall of virus

full body/august

when I close my eyes

theres love, reasons

Coffee 

Drama

drank a cup of 

pre-covid, filled with 

The Cafe

a bottle of wine

history up thru 

my feet

poetry 

    propped

my phone 

redeemed

Home (the feeling)

in my blood like 

the s's 

in east coast

counting our exclusive

evenings of

the shortest summer ever 

if summer means together

the garden flowers on our dinner

beep eyes

how to keep mapping

all the very relative 
and slippery truths in this world

with a mind/heart like a ball

that rolls down certain slopes

no matter where I set it

bouncing off into the negative space
of conversations
and getting stuck there

in a dream smoking a fake cigarette
on a beach with punks
the roiling waves throw
huge green catfish onto the shore
some just missing us
slamming down dramatically

then a restaurant with radios on every table
that announce how close the holy spirit is
by degrees of latitude and longitude
when it gets within a certain range
everyone scrambles to reign in their sinful behavior

I’ve lost my appetite for complexity
as well as for breakfast
feels like there’s no time for theories
despite tomorrow
tomorrow
tomorrow
and tomorrow

who has acid

tomorrow is unclean

and I’m overcome

by “chance” by was 

by with

this week’s desire 

for alt punctuation

a sloppy/bold shape or

deep negative space 

or

one of these summer nights

unhinged

w/ touch

*********

I consider addiction

I dream of jail support

the vibe now is 

dead flowers

something has happened 

to dreaming 

like a blackout curtain

my hair grays in 2 streaks

I waste today in the shape 

      of a        dramatic bridge

approach addicted 

like dreams

drain 

my own bad balloon

its happy

hot air

drunk p

resort to play 

in L shapes 

towards      night love

full bottle and shirt bib the war 

on sub sis tence

the L as min imum

in lieu of 

the unfolding palace

sick of, hell

incomplete 

for fun

prompt

the way tomorrows stay clean

this inside trick 

a clean bone over and—

when my heart clicked

with the rest of me

a big dance hole

a rare deja-vu

the rest of me 

in assembly 

knowing

weakly

possessing Know

tomorrow, our virgin 

an essential skeleton

I'll translate

rounding the corner

under a gray sky

as/if

no one cares

about my excitement

pinning the tail 

on the decoy

the "rest of me"

rehearsing

the end

** ***********

scab

following Stanley’s trail of ripped newspaper

the first scrap I see says “dissecting” 

and the next one “Searching” 

I put my hand out the car window

palm facing up
in the side mirror I’m holding fireworks
and straight ahead
the full moon

this second covid world

is a shattered mirror
I point the sharp edges at myself 

and the letting go never stops

Stanley’s scraps aren’t a sign
those aren’t my fireworks
it’s not my moon
I flip my palm

santa cruz this time

wait but
the longing
is actually fresh

the clash of
configuring fantasies
on their respective tiers

the deserted island for instance

an uplifting,
flat-bed type of fun

the charred logs were
heels for a second
good for my dizzy eyes
to watch two birds fly

so close to
the water

the chill teen
pumps her fists

together, we
watch the surfers
one came
to kiss her

I envy everyone else's
beach experience
mine being laborious
mythologized
insecure and
precious

too gay
to pretend
the boy is mine

one beer
and I'm pissed
or auto-corrected, loaded
title, straight notes 
all these blonds in
relationships I'm gonna
head "home"

one tile in the stucco
one fried egg flower
strung like beads
behind me

two dead aliens
one was a bird and
one was pregnant
both insides out

password written
in shit

walked far with
my shirt full of fruit
the sign said "help"

more fried egg flowers

infrastructure

at the bbq talking about trains
looking at an earwig

pepper's ghost

measuring days by the strip of sunlight
sliding across the balcony

looking forward to the church bells
at noon and then six

how summer melts time down
into one thick blurry memory

hot skull radiating
under the cold shower

I admire our friend
who volunteers at the test site all day

then swims in the schuylkill
smokes and drinks all night

online anatomy class is like a computer game
with satisfying green checkmarks

but I feel faint honestly
just looking at an x-ray of a spiral fracture

being a hologram is not unique
not negative, not positive

we are all that - shifting
reborn constantly

even a tattoo is only
as permanent as a person is

heavy cartoon 2

vivid dreams
of wet flowers
and hamburgers
woke up sick
from the game

scrolling thru for
who's into
soft moods

how hang ups
need company
singing, the hook 
on which everything hangs

the broken heart
in my recents,
easy

forgot a pen
big despair!
big rot
veins of mold
throughout

too open to truth
24/7

the other beach earlier

the birds in a slow v

   a few slow v's

loving the curve of this

the curse of his

long 

long long

sunspot

to be in [it]

love

he put in my head

that I could be 

falling out

a solid, old shell

draw on my legs

with this pen and 

imagine you watching

while I run through everything

how later we say

I was going there all the time

karens

3rd person dream
where many karens
in big dumb sunglasses
are on 5th avenue
looking at their reflections
in shop windows
and screeching
when they find just
floating sunglasses
and track suits
no faces, no bodies
classic vampire style

heavy cartoon 1

the tragedy of love's
specificity 

    addresses: written
    perfectly

I miss him and

knew this valley would come

the view from before, 

playing, high

no cool place for this mood,

the back of a truck

humbled by what clouds

share with fog

and 

by going

room to room

forgetting waiting

just moving

they found this big egg

to study, like they say

in your own backyard

a sort of preconfiguration

to retrieve pleasure from bs

longing from fossils

we haven't even

turned the corner

never look back

losing and finding
my mind
reading about
the brain's tender mother
tree of life
and spider silk
losing and finding
myself stoned like
a cortical homunculus
that must explain
the feeling of very big
very far away
hands you could drive to
Mom said she
rolled her car
concussed
covered in oil
2 broken fingers
a somersault
in San Felipe
her dog jumped out
one of the open windows
and ran until she died
in the desert
crows circling
losing and finding
my mind she says
it's not madness
I was chosen 
for an interesting life
and so were you
I can't actually
feel anything
about it
lost and found
reading about the mountain
that eats men
the first city of capital
Potosi birthplace
of the dollar sign
what if I melt
my silver bracelets
and pour them back
into the earth
I don't know what's
most important
how to hold it all
my "brown" grandma
is the most racist
Mom says now it's 
just adding zeros 
in computers at least 
in the days of silver
and gold you could 
get the old coinage
stamped with the insignia 
of the new regime
I'm not brave
thinking only in
the radical present
because what if
there is no later
fearing a long
empty life or
a death without 
meaning stuck
outside &
in between

song of the summer

when longing
calcifies

silence vs.
learning (in vogue)

the big cloud
from earlier
shattered
in rare patterns

spelling something

ripe
my middle
sliced, I lay back
in the shade

seduced

a certain solidarity

the blue sunrise
the broomstick


but what I thought
we could share
is astray

the windy park
last tuesday

how morning
slips into the sum

to change my mind
I look left, right

with neck and hips

the psoas, the buoy
our song

lying's link
to levitation

not a single solid

reflection-ing

the dip in us
from behind

for now, ahead

the lapping urgency

as a piece of puzzle
the answer,
or
she calls it cake

the mountain that eats men

atoms & evening 2

we humans have an amazing 
ability not only to perceive 
different sensory stimuli but 
also to assemble multiple 
sensory stimuli into a single 
mental picture or idea. for 
example, the sound of a snake
moving through leaves is processed 
in one part of the brain, the sight 
of the moving snake is processed 
by another, the color of the snake 
by another, the feel of the snake’s 
scales by another, and the smell 
of the snake’s musk by yet another

my daughter

she was beautiful and appeared

between may 30 and 31

I was eager to show her off

my life was exactly as is

mundane corners, skin
raging, stuck here

she had blue eyes (?)

for a moment but

mostly, she belonged to no one

she shape shifted 

and I could only 

think of her

at a thrift store 

I bought her tiny doc martens

with bells, for Christmas

shopping for my daughter

just me in my body

I hoped that when she grew up

she would never feel the need

to lie about what I gave her

or did for her

I woke with her around, real

our broken hearts

being our own 

daughters

hold her close

in the streets

bzzz

my stomach turns
a question soup
how to drive off the tyrant
who lives in there

how to understand
size / scale
the sun bleached dollhouses
around the neighborhood

giants gripping
magnifying glasses overhead
and the streets have finally
burst into flames

how to really
stay with each other
drive off the tyrants
in all of us

young summer

the day cleared up too fast
rain's permission gone
for god knows

at a loss with desire
drunk with loud birds again/still

didn't set up the day
for release

casually possessed,
I turn on the piano from
the beginning
of this mess

I think of him when
scooping the chocolate chips
and when I shout at the squirrel
climbing up through
the bottom of my car

unearthing interest/
intrigue

made it all the way
to the beach on
one feeling
scootering on the grass
pretending

the trees are all purple
please love me

doing the washing
to be with cool water

,,pleurer,,pleuvoir,,

the old destinations
in the neighborhood
the shut down restaurant
where we all worked
seem silly, dramatic like
ancient ruins
the sleeping windows
summer humidity
rounding off the edges
quiet streets
lights changing for no one
crossing diagonal
soft warm rain
the way the air feels
on my thin dress
bare legs
thin shoes on the sidewalk
pregnant with nostalgia
for something that wasn't
I laugh about
feeling so motherly
towards the nothing

Lakeside Park

when we had supervised visits with mom
we would meet at this depressing daycare
on Grand Ave
we would all sit on the floor together
one of those rugs with roads and street signs
it smelled like old french fries
I don’t remember what we talked about
we would play Mario Kart
there were other sad kids and parents
sticky beanbag chairs
after a certain number of visits
we were allowed to go for walks
we would go to Coffee with a Beat
I always got a poppyseed bagel with butter
I don’t remember what we talked about

square 1a

slowly drawing diamonds
(and their shadows)
coming to something like
a clearing, or at least believing
there will be one, eventually

traveling with the big song that cuts

when love can be the glint again
always right here
on my table

I observe with narrowed eyes
this glint, or whatever
the birds/sun

shoulders slumped
over love
the hot potato
swallow sharing
even
hide from god

still down to
change your mind
while I revisit
what I make
as love

fluid mosaic model

wonder if the bathroom mirror
stores these bad vibes in it

my laptop's weird pulse
pretty church bells for noon

I read only 1% of our genetic material is unique
and think fuck the 1%

I miss the 57 bus
(longingly not literally)

Kayla said the days feel long with all my longing
I never acknowledged the length in that word

feel wrung out
like after swimming

I miss the overpass walkway
with the spiral ramps

walking over 580
the sound of the ocean

it curves behind Lakeview elementary
always felt like a cool secret

I miss Morcom rose garden
a random pocket in the neighborhood

the long fountain with low stair step pools
laying on the strip of grass

4:36 am is the Tuesday of my 5-day sentence

in my juvie dream we ate busted versions
of summer foods
charred newspaper and
vanilla ice cream
in the shapes of cherries

the items were distributed
unequally

Mary was there for one day

would I get phone privileges

to keep up communication

*

a reproduction of our scene
spread like butter on the inside
of my forehead

it could seep out, or
it's a drive in movie

*

headlines,
on a rare cloudy cloudy morning

atoms & evening

as an analogy, think 
of a football stadium:
the entire stadium is 
the atom, a marble at 
its center is its nucleus, 
and the specks of pollen 
floating around in the 
stadium are its electrons-
everything except the 
marble and the pollen 
grains is just empty 
space

remember that we are not descended from fearful men

the textbook describes
  serous membranes
    as similar to
beanbag chairs
and shows the heart
      sitting comfortably
  truly, like
we're just full
    of packing materials
I remember how
      the ancient Egyptians
preparing a mummy
     would put all the organs
   in separate jars
except the heart
      which Anubis weighed
against a feather
   to calculate
    the price of postage
for the long
    journey
to the underworld
    I bottle mine
send it
    downstream
a correspondence
   a tiny boat pulled
towards Nut's mouth
   as she swallows the sun
to be reborn
   tomorrow

many many suns

to immerse myself in the natural world
I don't even know, just
got emo re: ancestors

never even thought of how
I go back through others
because I don't believe it

today I don't believe
one single thing
that has ever happened

*

woke up from a jail about dream

I went to pick out my cell
the staff was pretty nice
with their keys

I saw the corners
where they stash
the tragedy

a gymnasium
a means to an end

*

watching the mess grow back, defeated

*

the moon out the window behind me
I guess summer feels like life which
I love

I'll do what? until the moon's out of sight

the motorcycle on the grass is
sleeping cat

*

finally slept those extra minutes
on my stomach, the blood
pooling I could
taste it in my mouth

*

the interpretation police
subjective blackmail
this insane fantasy

*

full moon is actually today
and I don't want to choose
anything over party

resist attention but
xoxo

tomorrow I'm post
anything

*

dream at big dining table

*

we assembled his grill
and made ribs

I'm breaking out

the bamboo makes a sound

*

watching the nightfall
with puffy clouds
one like a dick
brief neighbor fantasy

I can hardly see the page

I love picking the mint

more $ than work
where was it before

*

ride bike to dry
mothers day tears

L called me with
the neon crests

the ferris wheel is so us

*

something like the sound
of horse hooves outside

spent the night together
in my dreams, was scifi
and easy

*

thought about meeting people in PCH traffic

invigorating to see some water damage

*

how psychic am I
in the dream I knew
we were on the same side

*

those nights when
morning feels like
one minute ago
the bed unmade,
just a sharp
arrow to drunk

*

fantasy as main event
tired for fruit
woke with weird hair
lawn mower
strong gin
cucumber as
puppet

*

beach dream with
big hurricane

the cat eats cat grass

my heart races in
review

I eat papaya
the enzymes on my mom's counter

*

the urgency of dusk has me
skipping steps
puzzled by my own drafts

a certain safety in waiting (a circle)

*

bleach sky
grows dark
while I'm looking down
just feel like
publishing

*

a stray pokeball
in the shade of a cactus