rose (Vase [alt. take])
There is a flower growing out of my spinal cord, blooming beautifully up and out, forcing itself through my brain and pressing its petals with needy force against the inside
of my skull. The tired tangles of gray matter, delicate arrangements of loops and circuits all, are stressed to the point of malfunction, and so we are left with a mess of
cross talk, short circuits, desynchronization, misfirings, and exposed ground wires. We are left with floaters, snow, burning-throbbing-aching-itching, pressure, a deafening
ringing, nausea, photophobia, hyperacusis—a permanent hangover that can’t be slept off. Everything feels wrong, but still I love myself like I love a downed power line: gently and with reluctant understanding, knowing that it will do its honest work the best it can until it fails completely.
sin título III
filling with its own density
slush soaking sneakers, canvas
waiting to dry out, evaporate
leave behind coastlines of salt:
memories of travel
paint by numbers
the ``only'' way to see—
see something
beautiful
connected dots
stick figures cartoons
trotting down the number line
all real, all of it
but more complex in feel,
sense, emotion
grasp at its straws (coffee cups, tori)
see fingers turn to
tesselation
phasing
step unevenly, unplottably
unaccompaniably
crystalline crunched planar
hoary sky confident in its purpose
giving unto us what it knows
to study, to learn
each flake its own
tracing a singular path
glinting as frost
as wind blows
Vase
a shapeless pain finding
home in the hollow in my chest
filling fully empty air hot cold
a dead weight reaching
its fiery fingers flickering licking
skull shoulders spine
a rose unfurling blooking
supravertebral stem mingling coiling
plant medula pons midbrain
growing forcing forcing up through
cracking the shell exit wound
triumphant victory sparks spilling
champagne soaking skin glistening
unfocused rage
无标题II
face smeared opalescent
in the oil slick
fingertips singed
cracked skin aching
to the wrist
livid sky muffling
sunlight
bruise pulling
sagging skin down
to concrete
thin rays tangling
though remnants of
a broken-into car's
window shards
chance constellations
to be redrawn
with the wind
Endless White
A group of clouds in the sky
Round peaks swelling up
Emergent: something unruly
Jagged knives tearing open flesh
Thousands of liters of blood
Not enough pressure to keep the fortress afloat
A broken body gliding down the river
Following its flow
In Transit
drove all night to
somewhere familiar:
a stop on the way to
somewhere new.
chips and pie and coffee and monster
medications and a megadose iron supplement
churning nauseating.
——————
on the porch
before sunrise
a horribly canoeing joint purchased pre-rolled
smoldering strangely in its legality
panties too small
the ol’ house creaking
my how things have changed.
beyond smoke i can still see my breath
—autumn wandering in warily—CO₂
warm from deep, even, peaceful
respirations
warm from the love i have for myself:
new womanhood, forward motion.
warm from the love of friends, family:
their support all mixture of
clumsy, motivating, whole, un-self-conscious,
embracing, enveloping, amniotic
—known, felt.
the world isn’t so dark
the world isn’t so cold
though my feet are.
the peeking sun bringing out
the red in the front-lawn
tree’s leaves
smoldering.
moments before a leap
a full tank of gas
sugar and fat and yeast on an otherwise
empty stomach
coffee from the donut shop
light and
sweet and
carrying the taste of the plastic lid
moss-slick rocks the lake’s
crooked cracked lower jaw
paper-white shark fins serrating
the horizon
sun gentle
waves calm, slow, carrying
memories lazily back to me
all the time in the world
the wasps can smell
the sugar-sweet sentiment
the chocolate on the corner of my mouth
wide quadratic grin
eyes welling over
a long goodbye for a long tomorrow
Rolling
The cool air tumbling over the lawn in front of the church as we lay
holding the grass and breathing easy
at the end of the night. There’s
nothing to be said
and nothing in me working to say it
Just the traffic on the streets and the blood in my veins and the
lovely waxing gibbous hanging in the sky, so
wonderfully framed by the skyscrapers
& chewing & chewing & chewing & chewing
& chewing & chewing & chewing & chewing
& chewing & chewing & chewing & chewing
I am in awe
I am in love
I am not at war with my body
The car in the parking garage as late night becomes later night becomes early morning
Here in this transitional space it all feels so far away; feels
safe from time and everything. From
tomorrow
Waiting for the whites of our eyes to show themselves again so that we can finally shut them all the way
The sun dragging its wound along
Cirrus eddies in its wake
Awash in my own afterglow
This humming heart unforgettable
Somewhere Along I-80
The wind turbines turning, rolling
Almost as slow as these hills
Sky's orange smile spreading across the horizon languid
Your fingers plucking softly
Ambling between E and A
Guitar warbling sweet with compression
As it floats over satellite
fills
the car, my ears, my heart
Your laugh full
Of warmth, glowing through the windows
Like the late-July heat
Embracing
Face flushed warm wet
A complete release
Forwards
Maintenance
walking back from Walgreen’s with the high sun
and the tree branches tricking
shadows into dancing
across this corpse—
MY corpse
hair tangled
humming pushing air straight from my diaphragm
gas exchange
magnesium
for the throbbing
aches and
shoes a brown mottle from silty rain puddles
nothing can steal this song from my lips
Untitled I
Listening to the rimegepant dissolve
on my tongue
Laying on my back
Watching the sunrise—
the kitchen light warm up
Slowly brighter
'til it engulfs me
I have no one to be
I have nothing to say
I have nothing to do
I have nowhere to run
Not that I'd go there anyways:
It's too late
I'm cornered
A prey animal
A resigned sigh
Finally something good is happening