first light

12 began something truly erotic
the beginning of fantasy ecstatic
early summer
surrounded by fruit trees
and hallowed fruitless women
sleeping in twin beds
emerging at dawn
i walk barefoot into the gardens
feeling the finial shadow
from high ground
he is there
climbing down from a ladder
his hair is so strange and wonderful
peaked up against the straight wisps on his neck
stretch and stain
the uniform of summer work
into the pear tree i lean
the cut clear
armhole of his shirt
i plunge into this summer longing
watching 16 so hopefully
wondering when all of those things
will ever be for me

venture from the insulate
to town
the pretty curled one
so sparkled among the hoods
folded me into her confidence
in the glazed heat
a place
with disparate things
kites and spoons
things to touch and buy
with dimes and nickels
returning in the armored sun
the slow heaviness
wisconsin summer
high afternoon
water around our stride
pacing past
he sits with a friend
in sympathetic resin
rounding his tongue
fingers angled delicately
cantilevered insect grace
ice pick elegance
up from the tip

mass goes quietly
the malevolence
that this place of women
requires a male
to tell them who to be
walking granite stairs
abrupt Italian
spoken by a woman
who has arrived at 109
only to be delivered
to this outside place
and when the day breaks again
she is so happy today
takes me to meet
with them
whispering softly
in so many languages
then we rush
down the stairs
driving out
where heat flattens the ground
and sharpens the meadow
we pick illicit berries
hiding
backed into thorns
as the work trucks
saunter grudgingly by
on the return
the dry grasses
slice my shins
and knees
now covered in black purple
berry ink

i watch the clock
next to the window
when it hits
he steps across
skinny cuffed jeans
the toes of his work boots
barely swing above the grass tips
i cram three berries into my mouth
i step out of the flat little house
backed up against the gold brick
the chewing burble suck
that berries evoke
i whisper incantations
willing him
to look to me
to give me
another view to dream
biting my juice blackened lip
black skins on my teeth
he won’t notice
he never does
and i fall into my narrow bed
cross overhead
this turning
i want madly
to dream of him
dreams are the only garden
where boys ever seem to like me
i blink upward
at the impact
the soles
of bloodied wooden feet
and so my respite from this painful edge
the thoughts i have
this coarse twin bed
prescribed to deter
any embrace
no will ever join you here
and as much as i love the tune
of the gardens
the companionship
the hum of books and contemplation
these precious slivers of monastic life
no one climbs into your side
it's just you
and your thinly woven blankets
each night
my fantasies too deep
for all of that
thick were the things
that seemed so out of reach
like the boy
pulling apples from the trees
and filling holes
on his elegant knees

as summer waned
he left my present
but never my mind
and i headed west
from franciscans to dominicans
from the soft light of nature love
the catechismic cult of animals and children
to the sharp minds
of foreign manuscripts
journeys to far off places
the marvelous stories
that accompanied
one to the other
so out of translation
as i head to this dark tower
no men at all
the business of scholarly consumption
the only priority
so admirable
and genderless
it is difficult to imagine
something in this place
that resembles sex
no fruit of any kind
unless it's of the mind
everywhere i go
i go alone
the city breaks against me
i buy a cactus with my own money
not knowing this tiny thorn covered being
will live on my windowsill
until i'm 23
past this whole lifetime
that is about to begin
i wander to the lake
the beat that i climb in
she takes the till
lays it in
the battery kicks up and the motor bucks
she is singing lightly
in mandarin
this thing
this moment
it is perfection
i spend my life trying
to climb back
the birds alight long dead trees
the young blonde boy
with dark eyes
he palms tiny leathery beings
turtle eggs
i take a picture
where he is blurred
and the eggs clear
this image travels with me
my whole life
looking down at turtle eggs
for an eternity
i wait to return

eala said

and when we call
she doesn't sound
happy to hear from us at all
angry turns left
into distant
and we speak to it
ignoring what it meant
for so long
never thinking
the price you pay
the price
for leaving her
friends from the past
barely served
until the last
i never thought
that's us
that's our future
this is what happens
when you leave her

wrong to go
hard to stay
the competitive round
of things that would be
breaking up
was never this easy
we should have
recovery meetings
sit around
talk about
what happens
when you
pack up your shit
under her red eyes
and leave
she's standing right there
glaring at strangers
as they pick through
our mislaid plans
you never get loved like this
no being
that breathes on this earth
needs you like this
she tries to spell it out
and when you break
from her heartbroken embrace
you always regret
and you left

standing in her robe
6ft nodding above the storm
shrinks narrow and small
holding up her end
the poignant terror
of this moment
you pull away
leave each other
to separate lives
separate plans
always hearing
the mantra
that strung in her head
please, don't go
don't leave yet

stripes

better than myself
everyone helpfully informing me
better than everyone else
this is the second time
i made a long-term
commitment
to mild and sweet
but she never is what she seems
her saccharine
is poison
to the poisonous
flip a switch
and she puffs
lights up the room
with a lethal gas
you forget who you are
where you've been
or that you were shaking
your rattle
when she walked in

1:38 St. James Cathedral, Seattle

saints walk misled pathways of forgotten gods
the silver ring taken from me and given back
i leeward bend so easily
the dappled color of a tempered embrace
i take this road with reluctant passengers
we go, we race
the atrophied umbilical tethers us to this place
one of many under
he finds use here and tells us what it meant
when did jesus become
so many sad things to weave around hollow lives?
when did he stop short of all things love and forgiveness?
we never look under our seats to see the hidden stage
but when the lights go on we recognize this gate
heaven under us
so much water at the bottom of a well
treading i look up and see your face and i know it is the last
the heavy knell of worship and its distracted rhythm
pulling back like a rainstorm unwilling to make us wet
my tread personified the trouble of sex
the violence
how we escape the things that keep us human
the things that keep us from being human
seeing through doesn't make it so
wander to the tight-edged roof of things to come
knowing doesn't mean i know
thinking doesn't untie the knot we willingly hang from this
hanging like so much unchallenged artifice we lean into it
our art carved out of us with tight scalpels
sent to alter the illusion
i reclaim the mystery
i take its breath
i pull it under me
i still remember where it fits
and the plagued membrane that stretched over it
forgiveness
forgiveness

criss cross

the slow moving bird i took out of the sky
i would have saved a feather but it wasn't worth my time
told the retriever 'leave it in pieces'
now it's done i can't even feel satisfied
your final fight so weak
your last gasp unsurprising
i only came for you after you came for me
you see, i never passed up the chance
to extract payment for unnecessary humiliation
i may not look like much but now you look back
you can hear the distant thunder
the grey sky turned black

he spends his time trying to put our hearts back
you ransack the place to see what you can get
our connection platonic, your removal surgical
you think your sex gives you the upper step
look into my eyes
in matters like these there is no higher aspect
step up to the console
you are deep blue's newest opponent
regret the day you fell into this moment

for a year i watch every move
i take back the nicotine
a little misdirection to indicate frustration
hand me the ashtray
this slow build
suits me fine
and every time you turn your back
i set a new charge
a new truth for you to fall on
every time you go down
no dwelling on success
i know what this is
i move on to what's next

we play like we're such good friends
standing around his hospital bed
your impulse so affected
cheeky champagne humor
about cum in your ass
looking at me like you have the upper hand
like i don't know about that
please girl, my life choices
are all about experience
jesus, i had to explain to you
what 'ms.' meant
what kaleidoscope of worn out hooch
do you offer these forlorn gentlemen
you are less than interesting
an amateur pro at best
but we'll get back to that

progeny
your subsistence yield
the eighteen year debt
and as we near the final curve
i can feel you looking for it
an obstacle i can't stop
a way to make the synch
permanent
i get sloppy
throw down some emotional manipulation
to accelerate this mission
messing with someone's karma like this
is nothing good or new for me
my poison dart reflex
compels me to excess

suddenly the oxygen pumped
into your vacuum
don't ask me to print out the stats
this judgement is final
pack your thongs, don't forget your bible
down your cheeks mascara and acid rain
no sierra leone
to tiffany cut your pain
the only blood stone is the one
you'll be drinking from
at the end of this sunny day
all debts now due
my sense of justice perpetually on loan
my sense of betrayal always first
and i pay for this childish impulse
that i wield so dangerously as an adult
mark me once, forever grudgeful
the feather i do keep

iris burn

ran a red light
shining heads
sun ignited chrome
dazzling cholos
inky neck sprawl
tribal mores
here alone
among prickly things
the lonely road
sunset exits taos
i am replete
no expectation of who
i mean to be
i curl up in the ancient hollow
listening to the distant drum
smoke to stars
from long extinguished fires
the ladders fall
hundreds of feet away
my life tears
in this breath
of who i thought i'd be
this was someone's life
their entire journey
above the red stone
the pits below
erosion honey comb
halcyon friction
the desert alone
she lived here
she did this
she came here
alone

Dear St. John's College pt. 1

You are the most unnerving being I have ever met. I am finding it hard to contain my shock and keep my expression locked. This whole discussion is making me more than nervous. All the trivia I can throw out might as well go out into the desert behind me. I won't have the easy upper hand, no quick draw charisma can save me. A complete about face in my experience. My wit won't get me anywhere in this place and that is such a relief. The soft spoken students break ground here in such a satisfying manner. You got something to say you must speak directly to the text and nothing else. No trivia. No context. No one's scholarship is going to help you accelerate over the bumps that occur in the process of this journey. It's the most vulnerable moment I have ever witnessed in a classroom and it's totally killing me. I finally see how all that false acceleration makes us think we have arrived at a true accomplishment. So often the finish line is our only motive. But in calling it an acceleration we misname its effect. We jump past the precious stones that create a true evolution of thought and a more authentic understanding of each concept. My pulse is thudding hard against my neck. Already I'm swimming at the back of the pack. Whether I am up to it, I desire this.

first pulse

at night when the frogs sing
they tell us of lost kings
many came
but one began
under so many clouds
a faith was struck
and to this day
deep under the muck
they breathe a beat
feeding the unseen
when the vines
ringed their heads
we knew it was survival
taking peace from what they did
planning her arrival
the gardener tends
and as he dies
the puzzled ebb
a beginning
married to an end
they can hear her running
across the snow
she can taste the slipping
in the rivers below
coming home
to her sideways equal
not knowing what remains
a crumbling chateau
the strange white rain
and one of language
master of
the apocryphal music
keeping time for no one
down in the belly
of the black
the thrilling loss
shifting shifting
under feet
jeweled eyes
opening

"I can't see you as somebody's girlfriend."

Senior year. Some weird english class we were in together. We weren't close yet but it was already clear to me that you were overly perceptive and it was super irritating. Regarding myself as acutely unfanciable added a rawness to moments like these. The obsession that would lead to a lengthy passionless relationship was already well under way and the sentiment torqued me. In the first days after you dropped the quote I was dented but reflective and the idea continued to unroll in my life in the most startling way.  Right after you said it you saw my face and looked shocked. It was clear you never thought I'd take your statement as a gut punch. You corrected your coordinates immediately. "I meant I can't see you tolerating all of the crap. I just figured you'd be like 'fuck this I'm out of here.'"

Later when I reviewed it more closely I realized it was all true in the strangest way. It was a compliment because I did in fact represent myself as someone who wasn't very interested in anything conventional and that certainly is my  true nature. Yet I tolerated convention and the basis of an ordinary relationship more than I thought I ever could. Meanwhile I was doing other things in my head. Needing to fit in was the basis of so many errors on my path.  The one shot I had in that time period to have something outside of it and I parsed it like a curious cat with a mouse until I killed it. I guess I didn't know how to find the exit from the fire engulfed warehouse filled with so much sameness. But I never wanted to be anybody's girlfriend or anybody's wife. Most of the the partnerships I was exposed to that carried these labels needed the label to exist and how the hell is that worth having at all? I never saw real possession or passion working out very well in that frame. At the heart of it I wanted things that were never what they looked like. But it is disheartening to see how I still embraced so much substance-free bullshit.

As a girl when my Barbies played out my innermost fantasies it seemed like playing house should have more freedom to it. The only time I put myself in a typical situation in my life I felt like I needed a lot of pointless accoutrement. The accessories of false happiness can even outweigh the pile of crap Barbie had. Stupid gifts. A gold ring. Materialism that masquerades as sentimentalism. The position of some women and men: Find yourself in a scenario that is deeply sexually and personally unsatisfying and fill it up with a lot of stuff.

The expectations and their dangling associations just swell like that fish you never thought could get that big. Suddenly it's looking into you and fuck. Careers that account for nothing but the amount of money they return so that we can push around babies in prams and send them to discussion colleges. Soulless decorative accents like leather framed mirrors and resin fruit from Bed Bath & Beyond (replacing the presence of our own creative accomplishments with the dingy emotional energy of things mass produced on the other side of the world). Margaritas with annoying friends whose only commonality is that they are in the same situation. Weight gain and depression. The constant need to never admit reluctance about the house of cards you've built because "I love my family more than anything else." As if neglecting the lessons of the larger mandala that is "anything else" doesn't favor a type of starvation for any sort of family. Blind acceptance of societal mores is hardly a substitute for being conscious of who you are and what you are doing.

I never mean to offend but I can't help seeing the world this way. Those who opt out of it are judged just as harshly. I'm not sure a bunch of strangely evolved primates were supposed to strike out this way. Our brains and their mysterious abilities seem a little lost with all this self-induced numbness. We live in a culture where we incessantly need things we don't need at all. It poisons our sex in every possible way. When I can't walk the plausible road or make who I am look more like what is around me I have to remember that I didn't come here to placate just to socialize. I need to have an aspect. I need to be considerate. I need to be kind. But I came to fuck, fight, and write. I came in search of specific things and I kept letting all that other shit distract me along the way. I don't need to explain myself to anybody. Fuck this, I'm out of here.

The Connecting Corridor

After some time spent looking through records we purchase a few things separately. We maintain a comfortable but voluminous silence that washes over me. As we turn out the door onto the sidewalk dusk is setting. There is a new tension around everything in the transition, an expectancy around the dusk... around what we are. I look over and you take my free hand lacing our fingers gently. We walk into the purple gray light like we're wearing old things and new things together. There is sadness and wholeness, a loss and a closeness and the sudden transparency of it revolves around us. I can feel the weight of my high-necked black sweater on my shoulders and the way my jeans brush the tops of my thighs in my stride. I don't want to mar it. I don't want cut into it. I don't want to break open the loveliness of the moment but I want to speak. I feel the beat open up between us and look over slightly.

"You know what I love about this moment?"

"What?"

"We're here in this place. We're going home and I'm so relieved. I know who I am supposed to be. What I need. What's needed of me. I know what's going to happen when we get there and it makes me feel so good. I get to be in this moment. I don't have to make anything or force anything. It's just going to happen the way it's meant to be. We're going to walk in the door and you're going to put on one of the things we bought. I will walk directly to the bedroom and climb into the bed and lean into the backboard, closing my eyes. I know I don't need to go anywhere else or say anything. I can just go right there and what you choose will start echoing down the hallway. And you're going to come in after me and possibly kneel against the edge of the bed with your hands in your  pockets at that weird angle you always do. You'll look at me for a moment. We'll look at each other. You'll lean towards me and pull the sweater over my head and drop it behind you. You'll move over me while I pull off your shirt and you'll start touching me everywhere. There's no space for anything else. No questioning silence while we sit next to each other while you pluck intensely at your guitar. I don't have to fill a pregnant lull with inane thoughts. I don't need to wonder what to do with myself. We know how it began even if we don't know how it ends and that's all that matters in this beat. It's the best I've ever felt in any moment. I know what I want. I know what I feel and I'm not alone in this moment. After everything you need me like I need you."

"Yeah," he says in his sympathetic thoughtful way. Silence. "But couldn't we just say we're going home to screw around?"

I feel laughter and relief arc out of me. He looks over at me grinning but his eyes are the give. What I said was more than effecting and possibly unnerving. His cosmic gift: humor with understanding.

"It felt good to say it but maybe that was too intense for the not-so-casual stroll back to the fuck lair. It's okay, I'll be easier after you fuck it out of me."

He pulls me closer tittering slightly and puts his arm around my waist. I lean into his smell putting my head on his shoulder. I reach up to the top of his neck to finger his dark curls.

The thick is broken and as we approach the apartment door the seriousness descends again but in a different bend. He puts his hand on the door knob and looks back to me with a wide-eyed anticipatory jokey look but, as always, his eyes betray him. We go in and he takes the bag out of my hand and sets it on a table. His embrace comes on so quickly I almost forget who I am. His kiss lifts me out of myself a bit. I pull back to pant a bit "Why is it like this?"

"I don't know. Be quiet," he says. I laugh. He is kissing me and walking me towards the hall. The bed inches closer and he lets me down onto it. I pull him down onto the bed and roll over on top of him. I pull off my top and throw it hard lightly laughing. He pulls me down while I'm starting to work off his shirt and tears start running down my face involuntarily. He treats this reaction with reverence and puts his mouth on the curve of my neck.

"Jesus," I exhale.

bob

sounding so surprised
like you're sharing
a personal treatise
you say
you know
he looks so greasy
with all his sailor tattoos
and his tight white yellowing tank
threadbare
like a comic prop
stretched over his
hop filled belly
but
he really is the nicest guy
you'd ever know

instantly i feel so funny
i've never known you
to render such judgements
with any meaning at all
i can't tell
if you're convincing yourself
or if this is directed at me
maybe you just feel
enthusiasm
an excited taste
for things not being
what they appear to be

what a queer sort you were
things you said
your strange actions
always behaving
the like of a father to me
maybe it's a clue
maybe it's a key
everybody saw the best
wished i would grow
into my oversized vest
only problem was
i saw no point
in me

hibernation

a desire
to find meaning
in such an arresting chemistry
turning every stone
wanting to breathe
every permutation of feeling
building crescendos
without ever taking off my clothes
a poisonous abuse of trust
nurtured a fuckless romance
palming precious coins
to fill the gaps
left by the cipher i paired with
i descended below the line
for years i did this
until
i was barely tolerated
and then
you had something
you could taste
a threatening reveal
the frothy hypocrisy
of what i always did
her shoulders
her hair
the thought of you
touching her
your trembling hand unclenched
to drop a flare
into my deepest well
light flashed across the walls
every groove
the water below
the hissing choir
the tearing stutter
as it hit
my class picture arrived
not a face
just a limp
along the base of it all
the incongruity
we were never friends
and when the moment arrived
i never realized
i already lived there 
your last shove
last words on this planet
you could never miss
something so defective
nothing i understood
hurt like this
and everything rose
eyes closed
chin deep
time to go
time to sleep

"on my dying day i might be able to say, where every word explodes in my face, i might be able to say, you know i finally see things all your way."

shangri-la

the second round
of the arduous needy end
to everything
not seen him for months
and this is what we did
this is what i talked into myself
gold seat belts
the jungle room
fabric walls
furry lewis
al green
at the tabernacle
buying stan kenton
my change handed to me
by the guitarist
from the grifters
the eerie sense of things
the emptiness
of every street
jarmusch
was not exaggerating
strummer
wielding a gun
at buscemi
sitting at the Arcade
i blanked my mind
to focus on the nothing
next to me
because you weren't there
you were never coming
standing in sun studios
a supernatural send up
of all my feelings
something to witness
what the fuck
was i doing here 
with him
how did i do this
for so long
we sat on benches
facing the sound booth
listening to reels
musicians talking to each other
laughing
arguing
let's do another take
why did i do this
why did i pick this place

st. vincent

looking around i know i'm done
seeing you here
the dark thing in your chest
was always destined
for a place like this
like the night we swam to adam
and the dragon almost killed us
i don't know how to feel it yet
but parting ways
has always been inevitable
this is where i live
you below sad
and not even feeling it yet
i look into your beautiful blue eyes
and i know i'm done
i won't leave for a year
but i'm already gone
paper slippers
doing their sand paper drag
your choices make you a prisoner
coke dealer boyfriend
brings you the leather bound journal
you always wanted
you show me and say brightly
"isn't that sweet"
your eyes cast down
you hear my unspoken judgement
he cuts his life
in your apartment
and you get sent
to bellevue
i want him to leave
he sits
not speaking
rehab prison
is actually quite sobering
when your mania
engaged
he wrapped his livelihood
and made to leave
he left you
to the straight jacket
and the bitter
schoolyard weave
new york
we need time apart
it's not me
it's you
my oldest friend
just ate her way
to the dark center
of your zoo

Sad Farm

the day you made it happy
bullet shattered windows
time grayed
cheesecloth curtains
the porch twisted away
all you saw was happiness
alone here
you were never alone
they all came for your dumplings
and your mean jokes
your strangely compelling
sense of home

mercedes
with the hole in the floor
the deep deep ravine
where i dreamed of falling
watching the dogs
weaving down below

next to the barn
the model A
the folded truck
your time stands still
moon over the hayloft
i miss the thrill
of touching 300 hundred year old paintings
against peach sunset walls
shrimp cocktails
cradling black preemies
your friends so beautiful
sharp-witted
crackling star souls
authors
painters
vagabonds
saints
and worst of all
the cnn anchor
that led us to your fall

love doesn't care
doesn't care for you at all
you stayed so sad
for so long
living under the lie
nothing mattered in that place

they poisoned
your sweet hounds
she burned your letters
looted the house
and i couldn't forgive her anymore

lousy

see you in the strangest faces
hear you in the weirdest places
bands you would never like
come to smash my face
against the past