no linebreaks; i'm so bored

the fog descends like shooting stars to isolate me from the end of the world. i tore out my eyes and tossed them as far as i could through the mist but the only thing i could see was dirt. water molecules were clinging to the air and i wished i could be that important to someone. the distant sun cast rainbows through the air; i couldn't catch sight of them as my eyes were focused on the earth. it kept spinning and i got dizzy. the air is too afraid of commitment so when the fog cleared it was because all the water had fallen to the ground. at first the earth offers stability but then it sucks you up. all the water droplets figured that out pretty soon. the air was clear but i didn't know where i'd put my eyes so i gave up, which i should have done in the first place but it took some isolation for me to develop that sort of wisdom.

revisions

an expedition to rediscover cycles OR how seashells are born

I. roses condensed on the head of a pin
and i tried to stuff my ears full of orchids,
but they dried up and died so quickly.
i can’t press them between the pages of books
or embalm them like dead kings. they are trapped
in a basket of evanescence, scattered easily
by wind, like wind, past any rapidly blooming fingers
that try to catch them but don’t.
my liver swelled up and split
when the seeds were discovered to be sterile;
no new blossoms of baby’s breath to brush against cheeks,
no frigid blue forget-me-nots to reassure.

II. i plucked roses out of stoplights
and crammed them into my pockets,
hoping they would prevent everyone from going
and leaving me. but my green eyes
gave them permission.
i tried to follow,
but the light turned yellow
and trapped me at the intersection.

III. we sailed across an ocean in a canoe,
throwing flower petals at the sharks
that haunted our wake like the ghosts
we were. each crest was a fight
for our lives
and each trough a celebration.
and every storm we battled was on a calm sea.

IV. i filled a dish with sugar and water
and set it out for the butterflies.
of course it attracted moths.
i couldn’t distract the butterflies from their flowers,
and maybe i didn’t want to.

V. everyone brought orchids to the wake
in their hands, and orchids spilled
from everyone’s mouths.
they never realized i was in the middle of an ocean,
still sailing, and they never realized
that their flowers were worthless, but eventually
i did.

VI. our canoe capsized
and i sank to the ocean floor.
i discovered that coral doesn’t betray
or hate or rot or drive off.
there were fish down there and we talked at length,
and their eyes were always wide and attentive.

VII. at the wake there were tears
and plastic forget-me-nots and condolence cards.
but tears are made of water
and salt, not sugar,
so i never came back.

VIII. i held garden parties underwater,
with moths and bright lonely anglerfish.
with every flap of their wings,
the moths left a trail of shimmering dust
until they had all fully disintegrated
into surreality.
the anglerfish and i
shed no tears, as the ocean was saline enough.
but where the dust had settled,
we planted coral in memoriam.
the anglerfish flickered on and off
like streetlights.

IX. i swam to the surface
and found that the canoe had been righted.
we resumed our expedition, now accompanied
by seagulls. they showed us land, like noah’s dove,
and flew off once we reached safe harbor.
and from our ark they stole the desiccated husks
of flowers, but we would have offered
if they’d chosen to ask.

X. the wake carried on
until it mutated into a funeral,
and they buried me under their orchids.

XI. we left our canoe behind
and entered the land of the lotus eaters.
they gave us apathy and flowers
and our dreams were softer.
but the spirit of odysseus drove us onward,
to a lonely restless life of wandering,
to the fulfillment of soft dreams.

XII. crushed under the weight of soil
and well-meaning orchids,
i discovered a use for tears.
wrapped up in salt, i never decayed
and my memory was preserved,
although i was forgotten.

XIII. we tore out my eye
and buried it under the beach.
it was the first fertile seed we ever found
and it blossomed into an epiphany.
i sent you back across the ocean
to leave it at my grave
while i stood on the beach
and disintegrated into shimmering dust.

an expedition to rediscover cycles OR how seashells are born

I. roses condensed on the head of a pin
and i tried to stuff my ears full of orchids,
but they dried up and died so quickly.
i can't press them between the pages of books
or embalm them like dead kings. they are trapped
in a basket of evanescence, scattered easily
by wind, like wind, past any rapidly blooming fingers
that try to catch them but don't.
my liver swelled up and split
when the seeds were discovered to be sterile;
no new blossoms of baby's breath to brush against cheeks,
no frigid blue forget-me-nots to reassure.

II. we sailed across an ocean in a canoe,
throwing flowers petals at the sharks
that haunted our wake like the ghosts we were.
each crest was a fight for our lives, and each trough
a celebration. and every storm we battled
was on a calm sea.

III. i plucked roses out of stoplights
and stuffed them into my pockets,
hoping they would prevent everyone from going
and leaving me. but my green eyes
gave them permission.
i tried to follow,
but the light turned yellow
and trapped me at the intersection.

IV. i filled a dish with sugar and water
and set it out for the butterflies.
of course it attracted moths.

V. everyone brought orchids in their hands
to the wake, and orchids spilled
from everyone's mouths.
they didn't realize i was in the middle of an ocean,
still sailing. and they never realized that their flowers
were worthless, but eventually
i did.

VI. our canoe capsized
and i sank to the ocean floor.
i discovered that coral doesn't betray
or hate or rot or drive away.
there were fish down there and we talked at length,
and their eyes were always wide and attentive.

VII. at the wake there were tears
and plastic forget-me-nots and condolence cards.
but tears are made of water
and salt, not sugar,
so i never came back.

VIII. i held garden parties underwater,
with moths and bright lonely anglerfish.
with every flap of their wings,
the moths left a trail of shimmering dust
until they had all fully disintegrated
into surreality. the anglerfish and i
shed no tears, as the ocean was saline enough.
but where the dust had settled,
we planted coral in memoriam.
the anglerfish flickered on and off
like streetlights.

IX. i swam to the surface
and found that the canoe had been righted.
we resumed our expedition, now accompanied
by seagulls. they showed us land, like noah's dove,
and flew off once we reached safe harbor.

X. the wake carried on
until it mutated into a funeral,
and they buried me with orchids.

XI. we left our canoe behind
and entered the land of the lotus eaters.
they gave us apathy and flowers
and our dreams were softer.
but the spirit of odysseus drove us onward,
to a lonely restless life of wandering,
to the fulfillment of soft dreams.

XII. crushed under the weight of soil
and well-meaning orchids,
i discovered a use for tears.
wrapped up in salt, i never decayed
and my memory was preserved.
but i was forgotten.

XIII. we plucked out my eye
and buried it under the beach.
it was the first fertile seed we ever found
and it blossomed into an epiphany.
i sent you back across the ocean
to leave it at my grave
while i stood on the beach
and disintegrated into shimmering dust.

o

night recedes like an end and then
crashes. beneath its waves a lightbulb
blinks, flickers out. gravity pulls the ocean
back, pushes it to collapse
over my head. i'm a satellite
orbiting a flickering moon, a lightbulb
buried beneath the waves, a planet's lapdog.
i'm an astronomer with a cracked telescope,
and the universe is fragmented
and the apocalypse is coming.
and the moon i orbit is revolving
around a planet whose only focus is its core;
it is always rotating
into itself. the waves recede
and crash like a beginning.
the stars are infinitely fragmented.
i crumbled them all into the sea and slept
when the sun came up. the satellite signal
went dead, a mechanical laika. and beneath the waves,
the pressure of the water broke a flickering lightbulb.

SONG AGAINST SEX

and the first one tore a picture of a dead and hanging man
who was kissing foreign fishes that flew right out from his hands
and when i put my arms around him, felt the blushing blood run through my cheeks,
and an eeriness surrounded when his tongue began to speak.
and he said, "boy you are so pretty,
enough to wrap tight in rice-paper string."
and when i finally kissed him, the whole world began to ring,
much like a bell that's tipping over with two cracks along both sides,
and i knew the world was over, so i took a look outside
and watched the fires that were reaching
up to the weather vanes and the tops of trees
and the waiting scene and the sunday dream,
they're all waiting here for me!!!

deli markets with their flower stands,
their pretty girls and their burning men,
hanging out on the hooks in the window display
and i took out my tongue twice-removed from my face.
across a bridge and across the mountains,
threw a nickel in the fountain
to save my soul from all these troubled times
and all the drugs that i don't have the guts to take to soothe my mind.
i'm always sober, always aching, always headed towards
mass suicide, occult figurines,
and wasted gas station attendants, attending to their jobs,
and a nice drive in the country
finds a nice cliff to drop off.
oh, when this life just gets so grating,
all the grittiness of life,
but don't take those pills your boyfriend gave you,
you're too wonderful to die!!!

and the last one tore a picture from the pornographic page,
and all the pleasure points attacking, all the looks of love
were staged, and it's a lie that you've been given,
that just hurts you every day. so why should i lay here naked
when it's just too far away
from anything we could call loving, any life
worth living for? so i'll sleep out in the gutter,
you can sleep here on the floor.
and when i wake up in the morning i won't forget to lock the door,
cause with a match that's mean and some gasoline
you won't see me anymore~!!!

it's so embarrassing to need someone like i do you

out of a crowd of people as thick
as the sun's breath, out of the elevator shafts
that cities hide in, out of hearts
that are not empty but whose contents are instead
transparent,
nothing spilled over the edges.
and the crowd of people calls itself
a crowd of persons because it won't ask
for what it needs and, in not receiving what it won't
ask for, it calls itself cruel.
just ask,
and i will give us all everything.
and the elevator shafts don't collapse
into hell, only into places where there's no
air conditioning, where the lights speak like flames.
the cities aren't burning; they are screaming
with the illusion of burning, and when they have screamed
enough to forget that the world outside is pulsing,
they will sleep.
and each heart
reflects in upon itself, sees its own invisibility,
and believes it sees into the hearts of all.
and it hypothesizes that the hearts of all
are empty, but it only sees. it never reaches in
to realize that its own heart is full, never directs its sight
outwards to find that the hearts of all are ready
to spill over.

and a single drop out of the sky,
the sun's inhalation that cools the elevator shafts,
it falls into a heart and everything
spills over and sleeps and smiles,
and then asks,
and i give us all everything
at last.

there's no snow laying out its hard breath
against the ground, but the bones of statues
are shivering in their sheathes. the statues ache
like stones, constantly sinking
into the earth. their empathy
is knotted around gravity, and they groan in orbit.
but the earth is always pushing back,
and constant rejection blunts their features.

they had hoped that carving themselves
from granite would grant them protection.
but their hard limbs are brittle,
and each year cripples them a little more.
until the day comes that they are piles
of dust in the dry grass,
their bones keep on shivering feverishly.

happy birthday to me (nov. 7)

my mouth is a sobbing violin with a story to tell.
a whirlpool starts up in my calves and the strings
in my throat draw tight as my muscles stretch
and snap. the corners of my mouth
split and my teeth rot out to make more room
for words. my pregnant tongue gives birth
to a thousand starving children.

my audience collects around a campfire
lit in a forest of lost trees. there are scavengers
masquerading as rusting leaves, barely
clinging to their branches.
my eyes catch the glint of the vultures' beaks,
the feathers of the seagulls' wings.
a whirlpool starts up in my lungs,
emptying my chest cavity.
when my tongue is sucked in,
that's when the scavengers will alight from their perches,
and start to consume what's left.

you said that you did but you didn't understand

the earth is turning faster than i can stand
and i can't feel it. your pupils are voids
from which seagulls fly. into a land of snow
i fell and i've always been a flake
but never unique. i'm using up my body heat
to get all of you to thaw. by the time you melt,
i'll freeze. to death,
a seagull is human. don't close your eyes.
my head is spinning faster than i can stand
and i can't feel it.

iceclouds

with a hammer made of sunlight and fishhooks
i shattered every cloud. they drifted apart like ice.
with a fishing line made of icepicks and acid grins
i caught the white whale. i kept it in an aquarium
in my room. i fattened it on cubes of clouds
and fed it to my neighbors on their july 4th barbequeue.
they were too busy setting off fireworks
to take note of my sacrifice. i fattened myself
on splinters of clouds and waited for thanksgiving.

du og meg

I. i learned to smuggle contraband
in my lungs. i learned not to give a fuck.
your teeth are eyes. your body is empty.

II. i don't want your hands near me
until you clean out the monsters
from under your fingernails. i don't want you
to come near me until you clean out the monster
that's hollowing out your throat.
your mouth catches and magnifies the echoes of its growls
into words i don't want to hear.

III. don't show me what's in your pockets.
don't show me your blind teeth. your claws
in my skin and your monsters in my blood.
cut the mirrors out of your eyes
and the monster out of your neck.
i learned not to give a fuck
but i've just forgotten. baptize yourself
in the middle of the pacific.
find a thousand god damn priests
to bless it into holy water.

IV. your body is full: you're gonna sink.
(i learned not to give a fuck.
that doesn't mean i won't care
if you drown. i'll find you a life-jacket.)

but we don't

the sun kept melting,
omniscient, against the end of the world
until the edge soaked it up
and began the process of digesting it.
a young woman with a dog stops
and writes down directions on a napkin
for us. the car falls off a bridge;
the water soaks it up
and begins the process of dissolving us.
the sun gets spit out on the other side
every time.