West.


Is this the way I should walk
On my toes, the nails
Digging into
This body

Do you claim it?
Do you claim me?
Do you claim these
Legs too thin to think?

Do you kill me
Then put me on the table
Do you wait for me to
Come back to life

Do you wait for
Breaths to
Regurgitate

Like clouds
Rolling out
Overhead
Like steam

Evaporating
Firework gunshots

Teething.

I drank milk out of the powdered factories
Milk of manufactured proteins 
and processed, punctured steel,

Robbed from the animals 
who could not feed 
their own young

She could not feed me 
with her empty breasts

I was too painful for her 
bare nipples

dried up with fear
at this creature

She fed me with a spoon
because she was too afraid 
of me, herself

Her body, her saliva, 
her teeth growing old
would not chew for me--

So I teethed.
I grew them so I could chew
for myself, for her

I grew teeth so I could tear her up

I grew so I could run
like a monster through the woods
fast

Mother,
I hide from you there,
trying to strip you from my skin.
today and yesterday
always slipping on
banana peels

rotten flavor.
rotten smell.

_________________

falling into something with the boy
who explains to you the meaning
of your name, the movement of stars
even on a cloudy night, the moment
of your birth, never mind
the minute, the hour, the day

the days of the year turning
colors of autumn's exhaling,
then peace of cold in our heads,
heavy, and heavier, till
our feet dragging on
in the snow, become weightless
and numb with happiness

(can you smell the cinnamon tea
when i speak)

________________________

he says to write
a poem about the woman
i love

i write
i love this woman
i love this woman

i write
lies

i write
i love
i love

i write
you
i write
you.

remanent of summer.

(what does it mean that it woke me up
when you walked away
when i pushed you
when i said no,
said no, when you said
i love you,
said it twice,
when i thought the same

but this is wrong of me,
and you,
laying one hand on my inner right
thigh, softly
but tightly
you were grabbing for more within me,
with one hand on my shoulder
you locked me in,
your hair quietly nestled
in the space beside my neck,
comfortable like matching puzzle pieces,
like lying in bed together,
morning or evening or
sometime in between,
like the scent of security,
like warm faint vanilla,
wafting through,
even after you were gone,
smelling like a remanent of summer.

this was the first dream that has stayed with me after gaining consciousness in a while.

this will be the candle to snuff before the wind blows it out
towards the field of dried yellow grass, hungry for water.

this is the kind of love i can never tell my mother about.)