Out-Wandered

The stars are unaware of our meager existence 
Here in this plane  
In this realm 
All at once lying in a bed of soft, cushioned comfort
It does not matter if we, plural, you and I
Last a day, a month, a year

We teeter-totter on the edge of existing in this sweet manner
The children of rapture engulfed in bitter knowing-
Bitter joy that if all else fails
Our downfalls together will make for a few poems-
A few glimpses of art photographed into the pages

But for this hour in waking
Within the womb of sheets
Staring breathless, back tired against the wall
I will let you rest between the silent strokes of my pencil
For a chance to follow the meandering universe
Wasted and out-wandered
Amongst the myriad of arm-reaching stars

window dreaming

glaring stiff
out the window
away from the raincoats
deceiving

dangling my legs over 
contemplating jumping
but no one wants to see
my dress above my knees

lightning never 
struck me down-
pretty good at that
myself

not enough rods 
to feel safe
from this morbid persona

humiliate and mutate me
human words are all the same
existing in forms
fit like water
in various-shaped
containers 

light-bulb 
blinking overhead
trust falls mean
less than 
nothing

without breasts and 
smooth legs
I would just be a
brain 
in a puddle of unattractive
body fluid

flooding no one with 
lust
but my own twisted 
perception

and without human
nature
not one of us
would be climbing out of
sticky placenta 
so it should not 
pester me 

yet I walk away
balloons floating me
down 
in tangles
from the haze-inflicted
morning-after sky

catcher in the rye

you may grow up 
with a father who
beats 
right and wrong 
into 
your brain

you may think 
you understand 
the paths you deter upon

the paths unwind you
grind into your feet

but no one will tell you
that you are a whore
lusting on the people
the men and women
who feed all the same

the bottom of the stack
near
what are we 
looking for

too far down
to see the light

middle school morning

though we have not
traced the walls
in or out
we have been

and we consume 
air 
that no one else breathes

sitting on a bench
outside
the school yard
wondering where 
the headlights
are turning

stealing
like thieves in the 
night
an all-access
communication system
between bodies 

terrified of this
understanding
losing our sense of
night
and morning

HERE

finding fingers interwoven 
and monsters between the
sheets

paper fools
cut out in the shape
of our form
like nothing else

sickly sweet carbonated
water 
on your tongue
hiding in the darkness
away from mine

the heat of sleep
slipping 
down
down
black

blue transmittance 
of light that 
rested 
with the shaking world
and us
awake all the same
the sun 
with a new day
different

here as always
for comfort and meaning
within and without 
your personal reality

I am here
without you seeing

pink clouds not from a dream

I tell myself to stay
put
no, don't move your feet
don't become so
restless

they swirl

undaunted

around my naked figure

my feeble mind to be

reborn

soft luxury 

in sweeping motions

turning over

next to you

HA-HA-laughing 

in the face of sleep 

cotton-candy-pink skin 

preconception 

the crayons never 

colored my hands

quite right

here-

another kind of 

art

not fit for ink

lipstick sick

clown face in the
bathroom mirror
seven years old
and kissing my best friend
in her bathtub
mother in the guest bedroom
half-asleep

dressing up
dressing out
of sparkling purple
and gold
necklaces out-running
our bodies

photography
behind a locked door
and after years of
repressing

I know
often
where my words are
going

back around the streets
in squares
because no one really
goes
in circles

my friend in her

soft black skin
and bare lips

my lips

red and sparkling
with younger
wonder
too old for
"the right time"

years later
talking decently deep
on the telephone
with Summer

finding those circles
more capable than
pornography

but good-reads never really
write
in circles-
do they?

a cinematic beauty

it was late
glistening reflections
of cinematic beauties
on my black
high-heel 
shoes
reeling

he was waiting
an hour away by 
automobile
in that country community
of broken metal yards and
trash can houses

in a dark 
dog-hair living room

I stumbled on the exit 
route
midnight behind me
hands on my lower back
curves and 
wondering

what I see in these
black high-heel
shoes-

towers of never
with those old-fashioned
windows
where you can see 
through 
the glass

see
their lives
living 
writing out
scripts for the same 
blatant movie

a woman
washing rags
blood and stains
in the kitchen sink

a man 
tying
leather laces 
next to a
newspaper briefcase- 

on the ground 
looking up
it got late

I felt
tall
but not 
tall
enough 

to surpass 
that black, glistening 
never
of my lover's  
window-screen

gear shift lady in black

she motioned towards the fruit
and the strawberries
ripe in form 
skinny and bones
protruding 

if I got close 
smoke 
and pot
would swivel like
a sad chair 
empty 

I only pretend to be
this lady-
black
lace bra
black 
silk panties-
rubbing against infinities 

from assholes to
angels
and waiting
to be the psycho I usually 
turn into

dresses are pointless
when girls get you
wet
and you sport 
suspenders
and short hair-
dos 

dresses,
however,
make it all-night
easy-access 
when human nature gives 
into you

not clean enough for the cleanly

I may not be a towel-boy
but
I sure as hell am a towel

Satan has no washing machine
no river to clean his rags in
no extra v-cards
he lusts for them greedily 

you probably think you understand 
what I am getting at
but really 
that is only a passing fancy

cynicism 
does not know when 
to let me go

signing my signature
not clean enough
for the cleanly 

here's to not looking at you

arms around your neck
never thought 
anything 
went both ways
waist 
and arms
and back

never stopping
walking past the two
blinking red lights
halfway between 
your bedroom and

mine

abdicated
apart from the humor,
the shy-
we are not you

you probably do not
under-
stand
that

towering but meseley 
months 
above youthful sarcasm- 
oh my curious 
heart

the cat was held
tied in a bag
-I let it roam free-
what little space 
left off the map

the cat didn't come
home
one night
swallowed into
purple-veined
thoughts 

I think what makes us
alone 
is the compilation of time 
spent knowing
there is never 
good 
to expect 

REM 5:20am

two drafts I have 

typed briefly

the same oil 

from my skin

sticking on the words

from five

in the morning 

yelling through a screen

at a used-to-be

stranger

to 

fucking date me

you 

fucking asshole

American pop

null 

inspiration 

Dutch political rap

null 

inspiration

Indian musicals 

null 

inspiration

folk Greek

null 

inspiration 

industrial German

null 

inspiration

results are in

every shock wave

reports the same

I physically cannot make

this pitiful 

what is not 

pity-stenched 

I cannot gather enough

oil

to type

so I stay rotting

prettily 

in bed 

afternoon sun

somewhere not here

smiling like a minstrel

fool

to the tune of 

Men Without Hats'

SAFETY DANCE 

ate my heart

convulsing on the side of the road
sitting 
sad ass on the thin white
line
like the thin white
line
will walk away with another
girl
if I walk back home

every time you become
that other girl
another one
walks away with your 
thin white line

so I sat for an
hour or so
that one Thursday 
wishing that asshole
Andrew would want to sit 
with me

I can't handle 
you
wanting to see me
all the time

so, unfaithful to
his promise
to give 'us' back 
to me
he ate my heart
slowly and unbalanced 

a cannibal doesn't 
know
they are a cannibal 
and I suppose
like an addiction 
they can't resist 
the meat

the sun was hot
finally
walking back

in my room I 
stood in front of 
my medium-sized
oval mirror

I slipped my prom 
dress
over my head 

red and black
dead flowers

the furniture polish 
burned my nostrils
but down my throat 
it slit the black
with numbing 
light

passed out on my bed
mind swimming
literally

if I moved my feet 
I realized I had feet
and they felt
odd
as if I was spinning
or walking
or running
in circles 

in and out
of this state
like an illegal
immigrant 
I made myself
believe 
I was paralyzed 

sleep arrested me
the law caught up
with the rancid
taste 
under my tongue

but I never died
I never did anything
but shit furniture polish

I was a walking
unstable 
laxative

even then I would
go on for another 
month 
smothering
Andrew with what I 
forced into us
as love

and then I found
it was me who
ate my heart

refugee

I didn't exactly

stop

to consider the fact

that he would 

turn

me towards home

the frightening part

is when I stop considering

home

to be

home

I do that often-

quickly-

it is the first move

but I never have 

won

at chess

I tell myself to stay

put

no, don't move your feet

don't become so 

restless

but for so long

(which is a lie

because it hasn't been that

long

and maybe that makes me 

a liar 

to myself and 

to others)

sitting on my

toes

my limbs 

they fall

asleep 

my life-

a mishap

or is it?

nothing is a mishap

when I was

enamored

with Andrew 

sleeping outside his window

felt like life

and life felt misshapen   

from the other side of the garage door

when I was five I had 

to tiptoe

from the point

where the couch ended

and where the garage door 

began

our new wood floors

my father laid 

(he was so very angry that day

when I asked for a peanut butter

and jelly sandwich)

paid little 

attention

to my need for silence

I was so tiny 

I thought he wouldn't hear me

the guitar amps

high

and Steve's drum

beating me in 

monotone overlays 

Dad was right

they had none of

his

creativity 

but I listened anyway for 

his guitar 

strange strings

plucked and I thought

when I lost the tune

he would lose it too

but the guitar was just going 

other

places

I sat criss-cross 

applesauce

by the pale tan

doorway 

and the lock in gold

shone cleanly 

there was a hole cut in the

wall

near the tile floor

because he used 

to have a cat

and her litter tray 

was 

where his amps took over

and that cat is

gone

I could look 

through the hole

with vibrant

pink

insulation still sticking 

out

and see him playing

but somehow

he knew when I was there

and not in 

bed

and like many 

things

THAT made him angry

risking mind-

bruises 

I listened from the other

side 

of the garage door

anyway

and I still remember

his guitar was

blue

selling ourselves

animals in high heels 
sent through space and
time
no one sees the heels
but everyone 
feels
them

in the side
and in the head

words make enough of 
the picture
but pictures make it
too

fudging our
personalities 
to impress other
avid fuckers

we all feel
just a bit whore-ish
but we embrace this new
day and 
age

but we fudge on that too

I strive to be honest
but being lazy with
so much else-
lazy becomes a pattern

maybe I want to
sell
myself
too

what the grass couldn't do for me

the man on the motor 

outside my window-

black as day

curtain-covered-

is my father

I wonder politely what

the grass did to

him:

nothing he could have

done

to me

nothing he could have done

nothing different

nothing like that night

when I was five

and didn't want to be

tickled

in a dark room

like the one I 

inhabit now as I copy down my

own words

I threatened 

to shoot my own

father

not the one up 

there

no I don't trust

his pointing finger

this father more 

realistic

harsh and unfeeling-

ever wonder where I got the 

idea 

from?-

he left 

and came back with his

rifle 

loaded it

pointed it at me

thrill of a second 

shot spit and anger

I hid under my bed-side

table 

with the little drawer

where I kept all the secrets

I wished I had

to keep my plastic

ponies

company

I was used to hysteria 

by the time I could talk

and realized

sometimes people wouldn't 

talk back

so I talked back for them

but in this moment 

the hysteria 

didn't speak

I cried like a selfish

bitch 

reassured of what I was

then my father handed me

the gun

"I am your father

and you are going to

shoot me-

fucking shoot 

right at my heart."

and he took his pointer finger

and circled the target

coordinate 

a good poet 

would recollect the 

feel of the gun on my knees

and the weight 

and the measurements

perhaps the caliber

but I was five

and this was real

unlike most of 

my new-found realities

one last point

towards the cause 

and the ending-

drilling back through the 

salty shit

moister on my chin

in my cheeks

flooding irises

all I knew

was the afternoon we spent lying

on his bedroom 

floor

me on his chest

pretending not to be pressed

there

for his heartbeat

"no, it's ok

you can listen.

put your head back."

crouched under the

table now

head hanging down

eyes tight

"put your head back

goddammit."

thankfully he

got tired of standing,

took the gun

and took his leave

shit for a penny

I was hibernating in 
a room
I didn't appreciate for a while
and I didn't think moving 
limbs
would cause such sarcastic banter 
in me

but I laid there 
guiding my eyes away from the 
objects they wanted to see
and always watched for

a delivery came through
washing needed to be done

I sarcastically told her
she was needy
being human and hiding human
and inside of human 
and outside

wanting what nature wouldn't
shit
for a penny

nocturnal hibernation
affected when I fell
asleep
with bluntness on my sleeves

wanting what nature wouldn't 
shit
for a penny

for the used and unwanted

mother stops on the road 

by an antique shop

on the square

square spaces for individual 

junk

food makes a human

tired

so i dare to sit on the white

leather rocking chair

across from the view 

headlong of a 

family 

of chairs

half unconscious waves of

pity-stenched music takes

the Summer heat away

and falls the snow 

like blue 

tunes Elvis hummed

is it 1972?

I question 

inherit the past of a sad other

staring down the golden velvet 

arm chairs

what fashion is this?

bloody stool

shit

inflamed in a room of sick pink

no not really there

maybe it is only the

lampshades 

and I know I am a woman

but I feel like a gutted pig

lying in a bed of cigarettes 

to burn a hole through the air

light a gun

light a match 

the baseball teams are on

but I loathe sports

and the booth has no television

my mind wanders back

to the shades