at night.

trying to reassure yourself
your food won't disappear

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.