Another Walking Poem Buckle Up

maybe being a writer is just being or

or deciding 

to be like a snake

being a shedder I’m thinking something slimy

a layer that needs to come off some layer

that absorbs

and they all just slither into situations that they think

will make for an interesting shed?

all I’ve got right now is the weather

the exhilaration of California in January

it’s like cheating, honestly, like hokey

the waiting rain here, the polar vortex there

it’s really something

and it’s bigger every time, the sidewalks, the sky,

everything grows when I go and I always forget

how far you can see

the light sheet of clouds

the room temp breeze

my most comfortable clothes

plus Tyler’s earth shirt

-

is today a sensitive day?

I feel every pore has grown an inch

someone’s birthday balloon out the window

banging weightlessly

small grandma in Burberry pants

I smile at her for real, nearly followed by

a dance move

package delivery boy

singing Rihanna

I sing quietly too

both our songs

--

if only I didn’t resent my notepad so much

aka my phone, can I practice gratitude 

towards my phone?

man walking his two teeny dogs like

he’s carrying two heavy buckets

his elbows high

maybe church got to me last time

I’m seeing…god…everywhere

in my earth shirt

I could flop on the clear mountain

and blend right in

---

does aging feel like a song slowed down?

I try to track it

in the smallest possible increments, aging,

checking my song does it feel

slower or lower as I crest the

familiar hill

----

I love feeling like a boy on a clear day

baggy clothes flapping pleasantly

against invisible form

is it the synesthesia that flares up

with the pore expansion, the being

in step with the scene

feeding myself the sound amount

the light that matches my…

and I’m afraid to say soul

because then what else

the music in my ears is just melted

no expectations moving forward

just trust in the next beat,

trust in this walk for every car

is a piece of my mind and therefore

harmless

-----

one day I’ll look back on this gush and feel

sickened by the delusion of synthesis

I gotta slither into something other than

weather-walking, gotta shed off some crazier shit

than this pretty album ending, the street lights

blooming with the hymns

dead bird or…flower?

the dog-sized wild cat that crossed my path

makes me think life is crazy and that there’s

good luck

don't wanna take my eyes off the mountain but

I need to write it

down

flower

but dead squirrel later

Bedding

Wide dragging bell bottoms made out of languid black water and very big wet eyes

The excitement I feel when I think about  

the sky blue jersey bedsheets I just ordered

the maturity of my 2018 duvet cover choice

will get me through the week 

I even got the matching pillow shams

Pillow Shams

presenting a fundraiser where the incentives 

were parts 1-12 of a butterfly 

An ancient red stone house

With perfect ventilation 

15 degrees and frags x 3

1
I can't remember when people started
shutting their shades on airplanes
since when are they dark places?
The flight attendant even made
an announcement suggesting
we shut them

we have collectively agreed to
prioritize screens over the sky
and everything else

the sunlight makes glares
so we shift into
dark flight

landing in Newark is like
rolling into my mom's bed

2
for the first time I like
saying Merry Chrissssmas to people
something wells up

3
feeling mushy like I'll frown if poked
with a stick but my eyes will be sweet
still cuz the December sun is tender
I'm happy to be the mush pile in a
temporary way

the cloud of dust sparkling
before the bathrobe it's Christmas
the dust is the snow
in our freezing cardboard house

4
today I am miserable
hormonally miserable
the softness has melted into misery
and this truth never saves me
I did the money wrong at work
and forgot about the sandwich board
it was stolen by frat boys and
I cut two boys in line and
they didn't forgive me

5
the seasons in our house are stronger
outside a year in LA is a blur
hot or hotter, fire or green for a week
but when again? the circle itself
seems to be spinning, the lazy river...
was I sitting by the AC or
the space heater? did we have
rats or ants?

6
starring in a dream is just
front-manning the emotional
riff-raff and dealing with the
various shapes

7
it's a dark sleep with my jacket on backwards
I seen my eyelids meeting sideways
and feels like a fluffy duster
resting on my face

8
the'res a wooden reindeer running towards me
his limbs are flat and old school
on hinges, like a set
screwed on so they'd swing if
he was suspended
the clean wooden shapes gallop digitally
across a freeway
there's one tissue on the street

9
he appears larger when he arrives
as if teleported or animated and I think
of UFO's

10
I listened to Tyler's arch of reaction to
the space x launch, he was sure it
was aliens, I was excited and pleased
he pulled over and said excuse me, sir
do you know what that is in the sky?
I imagine an old man, a Mexican cowboy
pumping gas, no, he says

I am sewing and my phone is on the table
I listen to the high energy rustling
the car beeping noises

11
to be kind, one has to swerve regularly
from their path

12
crying about
everybody's children
notions of generosity
Quest on fresh air
gifts that give back

13
we need different words to describe our experience
(gratitude)

14
sleeping with your period
to make yourself at home
I see a dark blue skirt printed
with black forks and blood
is getting on it
I don't know how to sleep
with my period anymore
when did this happen
every month with no answer
I bleed so much I can't keep up
like my organs are being wrung

15
dream I was at Erin Pillsbury's wedding
there were cakes being shown,
one looked really good with
powdered sugar almost like
more was appearing before my eyes
or I was willing it to

boats on the water with glass windows
the wedding boats

16
mini wheat world
letting everyone have a piece of me
in the frost
sometimes I wanna be
a winter loaf alone
buttered with the guilt I can't control

17
do we all take our lyft drivers for oracles?

18
he says 8 has to be better than 7
you can't times 7 by 2 and I think
he means divide and I think I know
what he means

Veux

A sudden sense memory of how he chewed gum 

and I would steal it from him when we kissed

What else have I blotted out of my mind

Sometimes I wish we had a second language to speak in

The simplified approximation of that  

Emboldened to say what you might not in your native language

Since trying it on is like a game















Another kind of trying on
Things unexpextedly practical 
Fitting a need not a fantasy 
Am I one

how to be a boss

grandma sends me toys for Christmas
despite my age she can’t help herself
Walt Disney handwriting scrawled crazedly
on a reused gift bag
a rainbow twirler
oil slick tape ribbon topping a delicate blue plastic stick
it turns into a flower a bubble a Glenda wand
all the to do’s are useless
I want to spend my weekend twirling

december sun

charge my phone with the jump rope
coils at the bottom of everything

to do lists basically engraved into
my bedside
and the paper sleeps
at the bottom of everything
pen, and pencil tickets

and anyway I try to keep it
all in my memory
to be free

to move about like someone
with one pair of yard shoes
and one pair of slippers
snug and pointing forward

give the fear some space

what would happen if the earth quaked 

at the same time as the wildfires?

I can't imagine the look of it

can't sleep because of it

for one moment the bed vibrates

and I find myself in the center

of our room's incomplete darkness

looking like a gecko I imagine

posing like a cobra in socks 

hands flat and sinking, eyes

can't

turning over into a different kind

of sleep, a different version

that's brighter

like if it were a job

I'd be paid differently

and this time I have memory

of the thin layer, the veil

I can see all of its colors

mind routes physicalized 

why do I spend so much 

time here

being awake is just

not being there

but rather upright

in yellow and orange clothes

I dream about a

girl's pregnancy 

of course

it was no big thing

like another weekend event

light and boring even

but I don't remember 

a bottom half on any

of our body's

all these frags® repeat and

make circles somehow

the chorus of the veil

the bright, dirty screen song

the chorus of limbs missing

organs melting, bottom halves

roller skating off 

the trance of fear

stuffs me like a dolly 

the woman with the celestial name

tells me to sit next to it

next to the fear, on a park bench

hear the birds, feel the sun

feel the whole world around

year in frags

January
again the same day
I went for walks
I played guitar
I saw koi fish frozen in a pond
a tshirt hanging on a branch
I pick at my face


Are we on the same page?
I'm so remote
I don't feel like talking to anyone
Not even myself






February 
mudslides and earthquakes
I was wearing pointy kitten heels with gold details
they clicked and sank into the mud












March
the graphic on the cardboard fruit box
the bird chasing the cat
chasing the dog chasing the rabbit
a blue and white box















April
tree sap in the air
smiling dogs and dust glittering in the sun
God is a dog dancing
the houses come from the quarry
my slippers come from China
frozen blackberries come from the store
snowdrops come from the ground
I feel my skin come back to life like a bouquet withering in reverse
we drive to Rolling Hill to see the firehouse dalmatian
we roll the windows all the way down
I see my spots in the side mirror
and get bitter silently
silver white winters that melt into spring
elegant trappings for this sapling
I drink that resin burning smell













May
pale green food and friends I don't have
I like keeping a tidy home
scouring in the right order
I like knowing where everything is
I like being over prepared










August
The little frown I make when looking down at my body in a bathing suit
do all women know how that feels
a bit of anguish that it looks the same

the Lolita at the lunch spot
with bikini top and cut off shorts
soft brown skin and pillow curves dappled by sun through a tree
hair french braided and wispy
light blue eyes
sitting at a red picnic table looking so bored
into her phone and yet so perfect
I see him throwing quick looks at her
and get jealous

the abundance of beautiful women in the world
that men get to look at
vs. how often I compare him to other men
which is frankly never

a dragonfly lands at my table
green and robotic gem creature

A furry black and white caterpillar
rests on a thought
of I need to do better

should
need

an opening present

on thursday there's cake everywhere i go 
today i'm so tired that i'm "i"
the way i have been
eating and sleeping is
lower 
       
             x__x


on Thursday it's "Melanie's" birthday 
at the baby doctor
the Santa Monica office is bright 
and clean feeling, the window cut from the wall 
you could put a hand through
sets the stage 
of Front Desk
and I am the only one waiting

all the office ladies gather in the glassless
window holding the flourless 
chocolate cake

they begin to sing to Melanie
when she emerges from a doorway
the sun's pouring in
one woman offers me a slice because
I'm watching
they photograph Melanie
in front of the color-coordinated files
beautiful, rare shades of manilla folder

Melanie says her ears 
are sticking out from her glasses
and wants a re-do
she brings her flourless prop
to a more sun-filled corner
of the stage-
"I'm 59, I wanna look good"

she drops the cake on the floor
and the sound it makes confuses me
I did actually want a slice
but there seemed to be so many
ladies to feed

all of them are beside themselves 
can't answer the ringing phones
I'm giggling along but feeling
boyish in comparison 
finally one of them invites me
to look at the halo 
of powdered sugar on the floor

--

on Thursday at the Underground 
it's also Justin's birthday

in the back room there are four beautiful 
tiny cakes, arranged symetrically 
with causal bites missing
like someone slowly walked by
with a spoon

the birthday boy shakes my hand 
with both of his
I remind him that we've met
"but never in the daytime"
I learn he's only 23

--

on Thursday I also go to Roxie's 
birthday party at HMS Bounty 
which is a bar with red booths
it's better than I remember it being
maybe because I feel better now
I remember feeling lower then
we have french fries and 4 dollar
cocktails which is 
unbelievable 

the birthday girl and i talk about
instagram as i get tired and
drunk and i think it makes us want
to stick together because 
we agree it's not casual

--

thinking of romance
minus everything that
diminishes it

I walk by a stained glass window
that's a cake
outlined with the
sticky black

--

the woman's voice 
on NPR talking about
A Christmas Carol
with lots of edible
adjectives
her s's hissing
her blue eyes
welling I'm sure

--

speaking of ROMANCE
I feel the veil between dream and
awake as thinner than before
with colors and patterns and
options for mind routes

--

I had the premonition for 
Marisa Takal's fame 
when her name in vinyl was stuck
on the window in Baltimore
it was freezing and the street lamp
cast a shadow of her name on
the white wall of the small gallery 

I contemplate good options
for her opening present

it's tuesday all day today

a clock a wheel a sun a day 
try every color every day of the week 
workdays are race car wheels 
rolling into wildflowers & ufos 
through all four seasons 
obsessively mapping personal figments 
figures forests 4 wheelers 
rolling someplace that isn’t here 
everyone is working 
to make Tuesday a treat 

Circus Around Us

if a pastel drawing could be tall 

it'd be Santa Cruz- tall like thick

on the paper but soft and just

tall enough to fit me and

Livy- the body temp 

bliss envelopes

the circus around us

stays, we cruise 

through the landscape 

I think the west coast

looks imagined

and she says it's the garden

of earthly delights 

lol, clothes, bacon, 

tea and silver

these sharp jokes

for us alone

spill a 

feeling

that ends

at our fingers

drag in the sand

darken our eyebrows

it's a playground

I buy the things

that the people here

wear so that maybe

I'll have to stay?

remember the long days

of being babies

and those poems- 

when I pass the flat 

and easy street corners

spider webs on wet, pink paper

now down the long

california road

I wish to make this

as dense as that tall

drawing, as sweet

and marzipan as

that much pastel

it's almost midnight

and I need to touch on 

the ceramic purse-

speech bubbling on the beach

there's no perfect bag

so risky and chic 

and I see a free box 

with nothing in it

we laugh about

bringing one on the plane

so far I've just touched it

and our fingers are full

we fall on the sand

our ovaries burn

you touch all your socks

in the bird feather sand

plain, painted, people who

watch us hold hands

in circles around us the

circus

In The Land Where Black-Eyed-Susans Bloom Through the Winter say it backwards I love all of my sisters by blood and by choice Pepitas Stockings cuteofus My Enduring Memories

not heavy enough

I imagine buffing the East Coast sky with a sander

to make it bigger and softer

it’s so sharp and small compared to the West Coast

in current assessment 

the Tri-State Area is my black yin dot 

to my white yang California teardrop

every other storefront on Mission Street is under construction 

no more Thrift Town no more dollar store no more Goodwill 

peeling painted signs on unlit windows 

defeated shells encasing dusty construction tableaux

still a dirt-caked man sparking an already blackened crack pipe 

half beneath a soiled floral comforter on the threshold of the A.A.

still an ice blue pinpoint eyes woman staring from her throne 

swaddled in too many layers of clothing like a queen

I get on the subway, it rolls east out of sad and pretty painted SF

which is close but not quite my home 

in the moment between the train coming up from underwater 

and into West Oakland station

I see the line of yellow poplar trees, unreal, the Emerald City painted on the backdrop

that marks the apartment on Henry Street where my sister my mom and I lived 

just a flash of the red-brown roof, a flash of dappled sun glinting on green grass 

in the park at the end of our street, the end of the bottom of the Lower Bottoms

this view is the closest I ever get to that figment

I can’t confirm if it’s real

Mom gave me the corner bedroom in the trees after Lucia moved out 

it’s dark wood wainscoting hemmed me in

solitary princess in a twin bed

yellow shimmer-disk leaves in the windows 

towards the end of us living there we were more and more like dolls in a dollhouse

the clean particularity of our possessions

sparseness indicating the death of something

the Three Women dynamic that bound us

we would never exist in that configuration again

Mom and I were increasingly quiet and spacious with one another

cheap comforting smell of Suave shampoo

all of our household essentials came from the big dollar store on 7th street

I took lots of baths in the tiny tub

skipped school often just to draw and make cup after cup of jasmine tea

clear enamel Victorian hand mirror 

iron bust of a clown with a lever arm to slide coins into his mouth

painted Buddha and smiling flamenco doll

the objects that fleshed out our home were suddenly too flimsy

not heavy enough to add up to a permanence

I played guitar in the early morning before school

she listened through the door blocked by a desk that connected the two bedrooms

when I left it would be impossibly quiet

she must have felt the need to put the last of that era out of its misery

to whip up a whirling shit storm 

rather than see me off 

forever retracing the paw prints pinpointing the x marks the historic 

spots on the map of mega chapters  

when God shook out the landscape like a blanket 

She let it fall the first time so wrinkled 

as to make mountains, lakes, oceans, etc.

then She threw us down in the sand

where we like to flop 

I would wear that white dress

if I was Ferrante’s Lila or Lenu and getting married 

of course we are though

each other’s Blue Fairy

tan bums watch us walk

demand a personalized smile in their direction 

Haha fuck you

rag dolls on the beach in all of our clothes 

Not As In Final

One of those boxes is her resting place not as in R.I.P. but like she naps there

Thank YOU

thanks for the gum

women's restroom at the airport 

WOMEN in huge silver capital letters fixed to the marbled wall

like a monument to women

think about WOMEN

Forgetting / Remembering

cold gym scent as I pull the plastic cartoon door handle

I already feel it as an ill-fitting memory

past tense, that winter spent with purple and yellow machinery

in a strip mall

it bothers me for the length of the staircase

that scent being etched forever in place of something more romantic

up the three rises hugging a corner of floor to ceiling windows

black reflective winter darkness

Then I acclimate, I forget to be so careful

I like the gym

trying to feel like the most beautiful ant

I get scared in the winter

I want to be intentional about what I etch

what I chisel out

There is a consignment store and a beer depot in the same strip mall as the gym

a store selling exclusively swimwear year-round

a massage chain, a nail salon

Playboi Carti on the car radio

in New York I milly rock what hide it in my sock oo 

why do I love CVS?

It has become my crystalline fixation

in this nebulous whirl of a year, nebulous whirl of issues

that capitalism and "masculinity" are scourges on this earth

I want so badly to chisel out something better

Raymundo

mom called us into her bedroom

I was 6 or 7 or 8 

she was laying up in bed on fluffy pillows 

is she sick? is this good or bad I thought

why does she sound so strange

she said she was pregnant, they wanted to name him Ray

we were to celebrate but it felt wrong

the 1950s bed frame painted with powdery roses

her short dyed burgundy hair, sterling Mexican skull earrings, the pillows

she soon after either had a miscarriage or the whole thing was imagined

private prop

the day is a phone

even when the days are fun like baby

blocks 3 fun days big blocks in a row

they’re still big and there’s climbing 

I walk the blocks that are long curves

invisible until I am outside

the mysterious happenings 

of our neighbors

trusting the unconscious mind

to connect the dots

is the creepiness in writing 

this desperation

in trusting as I walk

eyes so wide as to

drink all potential

dots

pine cone garden

pink newspaper sleeve

am I exercising am I

private property

oranges that 

look like limes

at first

one birdhouse

in an empty garage

a blonde bombshell

her pending sale

exploding  

▢

on the block with the liquor store

where the guy thought Tyler said

correctors when he was trying

to say characters

like Mickey Mouse?

I make videos

so color correction?

no like Mickey

lol

this stuck so

this block I see

trees that look

like bony cartoon

correctors, naturally

part me of wants

to be in the know

about what it takes 

to rent-a-fence

to have complete

knowledge of the

neighborhood in

simple lego-like terms

but only the first

part when oranges

are still limes

the first part of

sims when it's 

all naming and 

decorating

what is it about

setting up that's so

thrilling?

a slime patty coated in dirt

draped over an electric box

it shocks me

Hills & Blessings

at 11:11
the alarm reminds me to pet and
all week I've felt so serious about it
so certain that Sunday night was perfect
for me and my sister, this weekend
was rolling hills
a monument of them
and everyone has their own
to cry on but
they roll twisted
and tomorrow just
isn't always so
my mom reminds me
so here I am
I've tinkered with pt 2
I've cooked and
I've cried and
I need a tarot
reading tonight
or
sleep will escape me again and
the mysterious shittiness
of my body in limbo
will keep me up with all its
options
for escape routes
so many options each leaking from
a pore and my jaw
is locked
right where my cheek rings
like an ear aware
of the dead moon gone
a face tat nowhere another
ghost to add to the
list that rings and
stirs and shows up
with the exit signs
that I remember from
a past life feels like a
Sunday night
and I used to think
only some people died
and I wish on my alarm
for a seventh heaven phone chord
to be drawn permanently
between us and for the
ringing to just be you

First Frost Frozen Pink Flowers R.I.P. I Love You Fred Cole

I chase the thought 
lacklusterly walk behind the poemfragment 
I was thinking
I look down for a moment 

flip the pages of my blue memo pad
chores and duties a pragmatic sludge
I look up and the thought is far away
I write the O's in "TO DO" as spirals
spiral of never able to let it rest
the cuteness of discipline

Texts from Mom about her plans for the day
I am uneasy at how similar they are to my own
on Saturdays I water my plants too
my lingering morning cough is hers
three ascending notes chiming mundanely

how she shuffles in her slippers
I can't explain it
resolutely solitary spinster
androgynous shadow shell
looking to me for completion
I don't want to be that

I resent that throughout this year not speaking
our habits have remained so similar
that now we talk competitively about our gardens
crafts and cooking tactics
our need to be solitary
our angst about having to work alone

There still isn't enough room
My brooding hasn't made me a different animal
It just brings me closer to a shade of her

I try to be full of love and patience
I cast straw over the sleeping garlic
pulling the covers over half of my garden bed
throw clover seeds over the other half
I rake them into the dirt

Fred and Toody sing to me
go to my room, lock the door
and plan my escape
run away from myself
I worry that its already too cold for the clover to root
the birdbath is a solid crystal ball full of trapped pink leaves
everything has wilted
thousands of shrugging shoulders

I rake up fig leaves
their deep green smell is comforting
and the slanted sun strong enough
A perfect fig reveals itself beneath the rake
I pick it up and bite into it
pleased to find its center frosted like sorbet

Everything dusty icy pink, pale golden yellow
the middle of the day already tipping into the end
Fred and Toody hovering around
I make the promise to him, another dead friend
that I'll never turn my back on magic
& resourcefulness