i've learned that a body can function
without bones to hold it in place
but it does feel weak sometimes
to not have the boundaries of a frame.

i am stronger when i become your wall.

the truth, but not the whole truth.

memories of meat, refleshed.

the journal has been let go, another man
in a series of childhood forgetfulness
unraveling the cotton candy that melts
and glues to the shiny horse's stiffened mane:
sticky on the hand that is too warm, refusing
to bear the cold in the winter but, it eats all
the snow in the kitchen at night
when no one is looking. born stubborn,
they all say about her and the things,
she knows, are truer than her mother's
nipples...though she has never seen
the breasts that fed her infancy, so,
maybe she was never fed
when she cried for someone,
and if that were true, then this hunger is
well explained--blank as ever
as words go, but smeared clear
with fingerprints of those who had
the courage to stay a night or three
before she let go and ate them all.

lead me to bulimia

he lets the hunger gorge on me
no cross on my mind
and none on my head
give us this day our daily bread
unholy with the weight of grounded flesh
no prickling of the skin i feel
only on me the abscess shaking
heavier and heavier as others ascend
is it too late to repent said the child
yes i answered
he gave me this day
and i asked for another

you fell out of my hole and into another
a seashell lost tumbles along the shoreline

the sea is big today
a mother forgives

when the love has retreated
the moon settles its light on us dimly.

i have had two friends. i've known them for a long time. i think we met when i was very little, but i can't remember.

there was this one morning that i think happened, and maybe this was the day i met them.

one got in bed next to me while i was still asleep, and i woke up with him beside me under the covers.
i threw the covers off immediately.

i ran around the apartment. then i ran out of it.

i might have tripped over the other running down the stairs to find the landlady that morning.
i went and demanded to know why i was left alone with a stranger, but i couldn't talk. my mouth was angrily bent, so crammed full of angry questions, angry sounds, and it tore right through my throat and pounded down on that space behind my face.

she looked at me with compassion, i guess. she took me in. she spoke to me, but i don't remember what she said. words, i guess, meant to soften me.

i cried into the bowl of cooling steamed milk as her cat jumped up on the table, her cat tail solitary and distant.

baby sees the road

he knows he's going to leave

had i been raised a boy
i would have left too

taking time
rearranging the blocks
to make memories and bodies fit in a line

we labeled them this way: the pictures,
the names, the words that day,
and the people who said them

who had already forgotten then
their own intentions
breaking like dust.

the doctor has not been honest
and the town is trying to kill us


honey your insides are melting and sliding like liquid gold
what have you done to your body of pure

let's talk about; not important

lies: we fuck
and we feel fine

don't wake the head
just use the hand

slap it
and it forgets


tell me what you want
tell me what you know



i don't feel myself
so i can't say myself

show me my options:
where's the menu?

:-o = so , 0 ?

a man walks into his own birthday surprise party and feels the emptiness of the world; he wonders what would change if everything became nothing?

it's all blood here.

all the pine needles
pinching my eyes
even the clouds are
too rough a day today

become a scavenger of lurid
words in the dark muffled scenes

i'm afraid i'll have to eat this now

mom once said
it changes
the way you move

the rag on his chest:

i clean the aftermath,

i wash him fresh,

i calm him down.

i am a good mother.

today i woke up

and did the dishes

and kept my quiet.

i have words,

i do not say them.

i have thoughts.

i keep them warm.

i bring them to my bed.
i lay their heads soft,
water their mouths,
cover them with arms.

for them i am available.
for my children i am
awake as they sleep
until morning. i remain.

departure time.

my child is getting ready to leave today. he walks around
the room in the afternoon, the sun is bare, the clouds now vapors,
the city is walked on.

the woman in the morning has died by eveningtime, the luggage unclaimed feeling
the winter's embrace sitting besides the bench,
the bus is late again.

the bridge stands waiting, the metal winds straining. the cars
honk, then crash. the pedestrians cradle wilted
groceries in their crisscrossed arms.

the stoplights are red and yellow and green at once,
and everyone goes in the cold,
everyone goes all at once.