There’s something very special
In the way you speak to me,
And something rather charming
In the countenance I see.
There’s something so domestic
In the way I’d like to live;
The hand you put surely in mine,
The heart you freely give.
Untitled II
Why is April Sad?
Is it the petals everywhere?
Because the air smells like the skin
of every person I tasted this year?
Is it the weight of the air at dusk?
I drive to the grocery store every day
to buy fruit. I want to cut into something.
I brandish my pocket knife at nobody
and eat snow peas like candy.
April fifteenth, and there are bruises above the trees. Still, it’s not the sky’s fault that the sunlight slipped away all of a sudden. It’s nobody’s fault.
I keep a list of all the people I’ve ever loved. Which one smeared my body with clay? Even with my eyes closed, I can tell I have fingerprints all over my stomach.
jealousy is my most reliable dance partner
I’m not a jealous person.
But sometimes that gross little monster
comes into my body without asking first.
He eats me alive but saves the skin for last.
He starts in my stomach and he fills up my lungs.
He’s brutal and he hurts me. I kind of like it.
I met him again at this party.
It’s funny because I remember coming here with our friends,
but now I’m standing all alone.
He corners me and tells me to look at you.
With her. I didn’t want to come here.
I go to the middle of the room and I dance with my jealousy.
It’s your favorite song. I know all the words.
I used to listen to it on repeat.
For you, but then for me. It’s a good song.
It makes me think of you, but I don’t want to.
So I sing louder. I dance faster.
I let my jealousy take me.
Someone get me another drink.
Turn this music up.
I wake up early and alone. I don’t get hungover.
I check my phone and listen to your favorite song.
Not for you. It’s just a good song.
Mad Girl’s Dream No. 1: Forest Spirit
Every morning when she wakes up,
She finds herself yearning
For the emerald leaves
That rustled with the gentlest of summer winds
For the glimmering tourmaline pools
That rippled with the softest touch.
They ripped the vines from her hair
The moment she stepped out of the forest
His whispers of love and worship
Turned to ash and
Locked her away.
Her tears are cherry blossom petals
And her agony sprouts stinging nettles.
She discovers belladonna in her veins
And oleander in her lungs.
Her dreams of gems and luxury
Have been discarded.
All she wishes for now is home.
So, she bides her time
Lets the seeds of resentment
Germinate in her throat
Until the day comes
For nature to overtake man.
Why do lovers…
Why do lovers love better
in Paris? Isn’t every city
a city of love when you’re in love?
I’m not. In love.
Instead I’m in Springfield,
in wool socks (in June),
in a Monday, in a malaise,
in the bathroom, yuck,
because I ate dairy.
My petty ailments occupy
too much space in my body
for it to be in love.
I refuse to wake up early
so anyone can watch my drool
glimmer in the early dawn light. No way.
I wake up early to confirm
that by three a.m.
all the couples
all across this love-struck city
have rolled away
from each other in the
catastrophe of sleep.
Their bodies are done
being puzzle pieces,
are just being puzzles again,
as my body has always been.
mary
I see her and she sees me:
Scantily dressed, shivering cold.
Exhausted, terrified.
As Gabriel stood before her,
now she stands before me—
Her longing eyes looking upward,
Her beautiful fingers pointed upward
to the walls of heavenly Jerusalem.
I stare; my shorts too short, neckline too low.
I fall and let my knees touch the stone floor;
its cold and I can’t help but shake.
The chapel is full of tourists,
but suddenly I don’t know—
It’s only me and the organ and the virgin.
