my then&now.

i'm all for returning

to those

halcyon rolled-up jeans mornings

mingled breath like dew and tea

flooding my feet while birds walk---why walk when you can fly, you're just teasing now----

with freckled eyes

i want to lick you and let the river lick me,

armchairs in icewater

we are languid and blossoming, can you see this in

a month?

2?

try 7.

the newness these old memories stir up,

butterflies! beneath trees sprouting spring branches

like liquid green puzzles distorted through my finger shading

toestoes, and breathy touching

then

to our lessons, in an hour, asleep at the wheel

penniless

with only sand and bedhead to show for our efforts

our mouths

they were jittered ghosts
and sometimes

i miss the prettiness of that

but the now....the now is love-drenched in sun-colors.
you're my big sur.

isn't it? it isn't.

this is barely a bed, just a temporary trap between whisper-thin walls
where we sleep and fuck and i cry and you snore lightly, unaware
fingers limply draped in lonely posession of what
and when i wake up there's always something missing
so i just bury deeper.

the conversation was too dark for my eyes
i'm just placeholding.

the walks were longer today, the air was static
and love was less than all of that
you carve the kindness out of me until i am hollow
and forget to rip the pages off the calendar
and so the rut is born

we kiss and you say you love me
and i shut my eyes and hold my breath
because to know me is to leave me
and then where would i live?

i nurse the baby and shake the piggy bank
there's only pennies for the future.

a-ha

held so tight
there is no distinction between where your breath becomes mine,
the melting of your body gives me a new human shape
i feel my skin take up space when your warmth hits
proof that i am matter
proof that i exist
even while your consciousness explores sleep,
your body knows i'm yours to keep.

and in your bed of arms, i realize
i don't have to write poems about being
nothing
anymore.

wind chill factor.

i feel the snow that isn't there
the biting destruction of my air

i give up i give up i give up


there is no romance anymore
no candleflowerkisses, brides carried through the door
to be laid across the lace, languid lover


the world is cold
and i'm too old
to ever believe it can be warmed up with
wedded bliss and chick-lit.


i'm not alone but that won't last
my bed is warm but that won't last
my bones are frost, my body masked
latticed shrouds and shadows cast


this weather has left me wanting something i can touch
that is realer than myself

i pop a pill and walk the shower-patterned ground
beneath the pillowed blank expanse, lustrous with twilight
making me--go figure--lustful
and i think to myself, i'd kill for the crash and burn of a cigarette
i'm not safe, i'm not sane, i'm not neutral
i want to be responsible for explosions.

none of these thoughts make sense, i know
and none of them have anything to do with you.

bad weather gives me bad habits.

october

hot in my head, my eyes
are flame-licked jellies wiggling escape
to form an inferno
i click the zip and unpeel my skin
for liquidcool relief
and wander the city streets,
prettiest bones to ever hit pavement


under the lights this may not be normal
but in the dark its a nightmare
skeletal sexyness, begging pleading partying
ribs shaking and breaking
in pursuit of night noise
foreign lanuage shaped whispers to
slip through the skull.


i'm blind but it doesn't stop my mind
from kaleidoscope rattling
off blood and lights and FIREFIREFIREFIRE
i see what isn't there better than the beauties
because i don't have an image to protect

bleached bones, i crawl on home
to shake a brass bed on my own
with convulsions/tremors/epiphanies/too much smoke
and when i woke
up
i found my body neatly pressed
and i buttoned the mouth
and i got dressed
drove to my job, sat at my desk
and that was the blankest i've ever been.

grownups.

i said "i'm a city girl now, i miss the trees that found homes on their own, without city planning approval."
and then i wasted paper by writing it down.

i've become a lot of things lately, a whirling of faux-philosophies and female expectations.
i'm putting down paintbrushes and picking up toys, i could be a mama maybe.

we make big promises and we fall to pieces but right now
right
now
i like to sleep naked and surrender singularity and touch my skin
pregnant with possibilty
and let my fingers be the trees
make up the oxygen i need

i'm self-sufficient for as long as you let me be
so let me be
and bury me in blankets and quilts gathered by my grandmother
meant for a wedding bed

i skipped the wedding and went straight to bed
i felt like i was getting a cold
and anyway, i'd miss the people in love on the television.

but you love me right?
i'll make you playdough cookies and care for teddy and the rest
while you're off in space and saving lives
and we can preserve tradition because
maybe that's all we're worth.

and that's ok.

the haunting.

the pillows are flat and stained and are no comfort today.
last night, i saw your arms, freckle-flecked and willow-wristed,
spun around waists, eyes aloof and denim-washed blue nothings,
and i choked on a history of arms too similar
and oracles emanating the same cool palette
and the same fidgeting strangeness and i had to ask,
why do i jump into bed with falsehoods
and let them strip me bare to nothing,
a pile of cold bones, colder trust?

i pick up yesterday's dress off the carpet,
it was so pretty before it touched the floor
and i find that cloth is hollow, like forever,
and without bodies to fill it it's a flimsy rag
and it's just garbage
i'm so sick of garbage
i have too much in common with piles of trash and morning-after dresses
to ever feel worthy of a
throne, or a hanger,
or a body that doesn't exult in another's, soft snow mountain explorer,
when i shut my eyes or turn to river cabins isolated.


i'm placeholder for the fantastic.


in the end, i'll have no name
i'll just be a former distraction
so why not start now.


i wish our mouths could touch without smudging
but i'm still waiting for you to whisper
that i'm nothing.