My Town

I had expectations.
A city filled with neighborhoods that felt like
small towns with smiling faces
and people who knew my name.

That was the expectation and the want.
Now all I know is litter
and gun shots
and every kind of hope to be ignored
invisible, and left alone.

That is my town now.
Not a dream in my head or an idea.
But a hard
cold
place.

wxyzab

Carla has crumbs in her pocket
David's a ditz with a secret
Eleanor loves to touch everybody
Frank didn't pay full fare
Giggity ramble, Gaston
Have you seen Hank?
I'm intensely irritated
Just jump already, Joe
Karla cracked up in June
Listilen to lovely Lilily's lililt
Murder Michael's misplaced moping
Nobody knows the nubble I've seen
Or ostriched as have I
Punks
Queers
Retards
Suck it up, stay sober
Trans man on the train to Toronto
Ugly thoughts undercut
Victoria's vivacious charm
What a weird world
Exiled in extant space
You can only do your best
Zap weeds where they sprout
After all, assholes are anchors
and the best bits of us beg to be free.

spilling word-marbles on the floor

is not like

a flagpole used for raising patterns.

an honest charade, 

(portable and rare) is

a gemstone 

on a swollen talker's chest.

I pass on the flowers of 

my years

to you, 

I, wearing car-sized canopy lace. 

Clean

I loved you yesterday
when you called me babe

showing up out of nowhere
not questioning the years in between

caught up in our facebook reunion
and in the possibility of some
romantic social media engineered
happy ending

that when you disappeared again
and I wondered about my friend
and my texts and calls went unanswered
and I wondered some more about why men
pull disappearing acts like rabbits out of hats

I remembered that yesterday you said tomorrow

and today, sorrow
is a bar of soap
I wash myself clean with

spirit

I was told one day
a day spent in a basement
Sunday school to be exact,
that we are all spirits.

Formless,
pushing and pulling at the bodies, screaming, "LET ME OUT!"

I touched my belly,
wondering if stomach pains,
headaches,
eye twitches,
and diarrhea
were all signs of a restless spirit.

My sprint, a form
perhaps an angry one,
is pushing at my hapless body.

Wanting OUT.

Why walk when you can fly!
be invisible!

Be a superhero.

Thigh

Remember when you blamed your wine bottle outburst on the Bangladeshis downstairs?
How unfair that the VISA yielded,
That you got away with it,
That you double-barrelled.

Murphy

sweating, your shirt ripped through and through
one leg shaved and snores from the next room

we sat next to your parents, holding hands
since we have,
they have fallen out of love
and back into it
where barns and buddhas meet

THINGS I GOTTA DO

1. 

Find that missing role - 

relief sunset, record store marquee lit up by 

the mountain light, plus tyedye curtain backdrop, 

forlorn Montana sunday. 

2.

Write back.

3. 

Expose some secrets to the half light.

The city saints are waiting,

patience padding 

eager palms.

vacation flowers, vacation knots of sound or longing for ease

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“My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love.” Søren Kierkegaard 

you can’t be someone you’re not

you can’t be someone you’re not

you can’t be someone you’re not –

this is the trick to not crying at work,

not crying on the airplane,

not crying in your sick bed.

a trick that works

sometimes is better

than no trick at all.

you are someone

who moves towards loneliness.

someone perpetually leaning.

you let tears of solitude stream

down cheeks reaching

for hands to catch them.

you are someone who turns

away from what loves you

towards what you love.

Did she have the robot?
Yes.
We all know what that means

ear
wax

nothing changed

new glasses

i see

through black

circles

looks different

when they come off

they show the truth

but they lie

life is not

just

emotions

MILDEW

I was standing in the bathroom 

in a sea of baking powder

devising the inevitable poem 

for the inevitable day

about being girl-in-world.

Gwen Stefani.

The moldy smell 

that's almost like currants

the way my sweat was in college

how the half wet towel 

smells now.

Basically we were just making each other mad.

I gave you water in a mug

we barked about 

taillights, tolerance,

about speeding down 

Rainer Avenue.

But that's not what I meant at all.