burgeoning yaya
three-year-old
eyes
twinkle with
light &
with
mischief
i am
tempted
to entertain
envy but
alas
I am
way too
adult
for that
three-year-old
eyes
twinkle with
light &
with
mischief
i am
tempted
to entertain
envy but
alas
I am
way too
adult
for that
Not because I’m allergic,
Or because you don’t have the
Space or time
To dedicate to this creature you love.
Dogs complicate things.
Make it harder to hop on a plane,
Drop everything,
Change directions.
Not that I’d ask you to.
Give me the garnet,
Promise me
You won’t let me get in the way
Of anything, but you getting a dog.
I shouldn’t trust myself is becoming my mantra.
I wake past vain alarms, but if I had made myself get up
I would’ve seen the dew, the bruise-purple dawn crying
in sympathy for me as I dream fevered of the past
and the future rotting from beyond my fingertips.
I give myself purpose in trying to kill all my time
until time kills me back. I attempt to hotwire my brain,
stare at my void face melting off my cage of a skull.
I count the side effects of what I’ve done: the dreams,
how tilting my head backwards makes the world glitch apart,
makes me wonder if I already died, how I believe now
in something larger, how I cannot swallow pills anymore.
Three months ago I became a magician. I learned many tricks:
the vanishing act, fire-eating, how to pull strange objects
from hidden places, incredible grip strength, how to live
with a knife rammed in my heart, how to rise from the dead,
and most famously, how to predict the future again and again
and again and again and again and again. It became easy
once I learned that I’ll never change. I am starting to believe
I might be a scientific anomaly. I might be a prophet.
I act almost like a human. In the daylight I feed off of sun,
water my plants and do absolutely nothing productive.
In the night I decline my mother’s proposed movie watching,
I almost convince myself I’d rather run until I cry. I try to bake
and I swallow a whole continent of Splenda-sugar-cookie dough,
politely excuse myself from God’s quaint little dinner table,
disavow responsibility as one of his many beautiful creatures,
and become something ugly, ostentatiously inviting myself
to the bathroom. I return with black tears spidering my eyelashes,
and scars down the sides of my fingers. Later I find myself
shivering by the fireplace in the dead of summer. Blame it
on the rain, the dark forecast for today. That’s why my bones
are packed with ice, it was a little chilly, perhaps, inside, so
maybe I should take a hot shower and burn it off, slip out
of this dress like lizard skin. I keep pretending to be
a real person, and it does not make it go away. I live
walking around the memory, and somehow find myself
creating an image of it out from the negative space.
I do not trust myself, that was my first mistake.
you spotlight the sphere,
and with a closer look
an inclination,
your scales might shine in the right angle.
your organs stay on close display,
your molecular ribcage,
id crush you in my palm if i ever tried to get too close.
one swipe of the thumb and
your blood will wash over your iridescent skin.
i don’t want to poison your image, i just want to feel.
white sheets are stained with sorrow
quiet evenings drifting into lonesome sleep
none but a dappled black and white cat
to comfort the aching heart inhabiting my ribcage
which attempts to unravel the mysteries
of the hearts and attentions of men invading
my psyche in the form of a long-awaited drug
proven unsafe and unregulated by the FDA
as if they were to look out for the interest of citizens
in dire need of some cure or wildly found hope
she had a craving for their laughter
since the first performance for her mom
jokes formed by a mouth never open
and waiting for the right words to come
one day she’d chip her incisor teeth
chewing words like smile and prettier
and counting spare change left on the bar
licking the copper off her thumbs
shed paint her eyelids, prepare for war
drinking sewing kits, sex, and ink pens
carry memory, her cat scarred cheek
how bleeding felt before she’d gone numb
little girl with skin not yet condemned
little girl before the world had her
It helps to have three cats
sharing a window-shaped patch
of sunlight at your feet, one curled
into a cup filled with shine
sparked from his silver fur.
Another turns her round
and tawny belly to the warmth,
rests her chin on the first cat’s foot.
Even the cat who walks by herself
slowly stretches, inching head
and torso into the light
though her tail remains in shadow.
She rests in the bosom of the mountain
Cradling spring in chlorophyll scented waters
Silver shoals of minnows effervesce in her shallows
Calling shore birds to feast
Dogwood petals float on unseen currents
Adrift in wind and water
Ghostly shades of cabin and barn
Shimmer in her depths
Drowned trees, still rooted –
Stand watchfully
We ply her waters quietly
Asking forgiveness, offering thanks
For the benevolent tolerance
From her uneasy depths
Run home to awe no matter how awful a ma she’s been. Don’t ask a musician how to get to Carnegie Hall, a lunatic how to get to an asylum, or a priest how to get laid. Call pest control on your most persistent nightmares, the ones that made you wet the bed and the one about people finding out. Hire a hitman to play on the company softball team. If you’re beside yourself, pat yourself on the back. When you feel like a wild animal, snort or kick or write poems and tack them to the door of the nearest church. If you’re alone, look for someone who needs a loan, but don’t expect or accept payback. If someone tells you to get lost, fine, but don’t let that person find you again. Break the record for the world’s largest vinyl collection and the record for the most detailed journal, and then break your own records.
