et spirito santo

[Note: I'm pretty sure the title is several languages mashed together, but I like how it looks and sounds.]

and i
i see you there
breathing, breathing
in that massacre
feeling, feeling
that suffocating
heir of masochism
standing there
tall as anything
and i, and i
all i see is you

broken bones and dreams
shattered panes and
impact sites and scars
of yesterday
and tomorrow
the cycle, the story
keeps on buring through

this is
an open wound
and i, and i
i'm feeding the muse
watching
a growing
christ-shaped bruise

smoke and
two-way mirrors
and all i see is you
all i see is you

bleeding
heart strings
star gazing
post-apocalypse
and an empty, holy sky

and where's the epicenter
where's the starting line

all i see is you
and all i see is you

ate that fury
broke that rage
and all i see is you

all i see is you

A Quiet Suicide

[Note: Mom, you might not want to read this. To everyone else, this was written on the one year anniversary of the death of my uncle Steve. RIP.]

A year is 365 days and too long a time
For it not to have been yesterday
For the earth to still be fresh on the
Beer-watered ashes of a permature addition
To a fatal second stroke in a place
Where the ground drops and flowers break hearts

A year's not long enough for everything to be gone
For a name to slip, a truth and a longing
For a box of old t-shirts to sit there lonely
Silently seeping out stories of a life once loved

A year's just long enough to remember a stale sandwich
A last outreach, a light left on and a door just ajar
A phone call after dinner, a surreal weeping
An anger and a rage and an unfamiliar screaming
From a handful of raveged hearts, raw with the sound of
An uncle, a brother, a son - quietly leaving.

Gerber Daisies

the simple
stabbing of
one needle
same two
spots on my
angry but
no longer
blank skin
over and
over and
how many
times over
is my
woman-
ifesto
my standing
and screaming
fuck you to
potential
infertility
to those
who think
my ovaries
might make me
a push-over
to anyone who
even thinks
that maybe
i can't
these two
perfectly colored
and shaded
and accented
with white ink
flowers
can maybe
cover and open
your eyes
and pave the
road to
my life.

Tuesdays Are My Long Days

everything
and i mean everything
looks so different at night
with the rain and the shadows
the parked cars and the street lights

the blinds that are still open
so i could watch tv with you
see your ugly 80s art
through your un-curtained window

i've been analyzing all day
but it's still nothing like
picking apart all the sounds all around
deceiphering and deciding
from whence they came

is that my sloshing
jeans hem in the mirror pond puddles
or is it a stranger just walking
behind me?

i never noticed those gardens
those bushes or lights

are those red white and blue
lights in the form of a flag
left over from the fourth
or up for the eleventh?

and i come home well past hungry
blood sugars've been dropping and
my brains shutting down
so left-overs it is
but now
i have left-over left-overs
and absolutley no clue
where my jello cups are

A Call for Wallet Silence

i really like
the idea that
i can breathe
all on my own
big, big girl
no assistance needed
but then there's my wallet
screaming obscenities
discouraging and ravaging
great plans for modifications of my skin
and a soft bed to sleep in
but i stop it short
so its yells are choked
shut the
(because i'm not a)
fuck up
let me sleep
let me read
because i'm actually enjoying
plato and his
socratic heresay slash worship
and the ideal city
where the gods are only human
and so should be censored
because sometimes
the high and the holy
set an example
we don't want for our children
and so
i'll live off of hot dogs
(that is, fresh ground-up mysteries)
and locally grown,
and of course organic
eighty-nine tiny cents per pound
paula red apples
and i'll learn about corpses
and rates of decomposition
russian mail-order victims
and the brides of juarez
seven different utopias
and the women within them
political thinking,
st. augustine in a
theoretical fist-fight
with senor rousseau
fractions, equations
high school repeating
and sun salutations
lead by a flexible psycho