The Onions Were Fine.

Why are people always telling us how good we look in colors we hate or how tired we look after a full nights sleep?  Why can’t they just let us pass them in the hallways or stand behind them in line at the bookstore without feeling like they owe it to us to share their impromptu opinion of us?  

I drove to the farm stand on the edge of town and I parked in the dirt lot.  My shoes gathered dust.  My hands gathered beets, onions, red peppers, dark chocolate (shipped in from the city, $1.09).  My tongue was covered in the thick fuzz that comes with a hangover.  

Why aren’t I as skinny as the teenage hippie working the old-fashioned cash register?  Why doesn’t she have to wear make-up?  Why do I care?

I set my purchase on the wooden, beaten counter top.  She picks up the chocolate first.  

How did that get in there?  I say.  I try to look perplexed.  I can feel the crows feet at the corners of my eyes.  They’re scratching and clawing me raw.

I try to buff the dirt off of my shoes with the back of my legs.  I am sweating and now there is mud.  One red pepper has a soft-spot near the bottom that I hadn’t seen before.  I say nothing and let her place it into the re-usable shopping bag with the rest.  With the chocolate.  

Why do we always assume we’re hated immediately by strangers simply based on how we look?  Why can’t I buy $10.73 worth of farm stand goodies and why can’t she just ring them up and why isn’t that just the end?

I try to walk backwards to my car so that she doesn’t see the muddy sweat streaks on the backs of my calves.  I try to smile sweetly at her while I’m doing this.  She is reading a magazine.  

How to get the perfect summer body.

Why can’t I tear the paper from a bar of chocolate before the car is even on the road?

Why can’t I have the perfect summer body?

My pain
is personal
and wet.
It leaves stains
on all the walls
and before they’ve dried
you draw faces
into them
with the tips
of your fingers.
Your fingers too,
are stained now.
My pain
is an electrical outlet
and the wiring
behind the plate
is faulty
and dangerous.
You put your fingers
in the socket
and wiggled
until the shock
set in.
My pain
is a paper cup
and it’s empty
on a windy day
and I’m tumbling
across the park green
collecting pollen
and bug teeth,
wings.
There was once in me,
wine
and the lovers
finished drinking
and were left with red
on their lips
and their tongues
which made it easier
for them
to set me free.

Here’s how I’ll do it,
here’s how I’ll attach myself
to you.
My hair
through the eye of a needle,
the needle
through your skin,
a firm twist
of my head
will tighten our bond
and I’ll rest it finally
against your arm,
watching blood-drop
constellations form
like a light show
just for us.

Sitcoms

This whole place
smells like strawberries
and lemon
and chemical cleaners.
It sounds like sirens
and laugh tracks.
It looks like Bukowski
stuck drunk inside a fairy tale.
This place needs a shave
and a haircut
and a deep conditioning
of its soul
(which is crusted into the spaces
between the hardwood floor boards).
The flies ate the plants,
the spiders ate the flies,
and I’m sorry my love,
but I ate our dinner
all by myself.  The yams
and the cloves of garlic (whole).
There’s a sitcom
on the television and
she doesn’t love him anymore
which is as good a reason as any
to cry for a while.
Put the kettle on
while I take this shot of tequila.
Maybe the hot water
and tea
will burn away the mistakes
(and the dinner)
still sitting in my throat
to make room for something
sweeter.
If you were sugar
I can’t promise
that I wouldn’t swallow you
whole.

Dirty.

I’ve seen a lot of boys with dirt under their fingernails.  Dirt made of grease and shit and flaky skin.  Dirt made of blood and gravel and the wetness of some girl. 
I never much liked those boys.  I didn’t want those fingernails anywhere near me.  I feared I’d catch something, or worse, that the dirt would end up smeared across my skirt.  I didn’t dare think about the state of their beards, their hair.  What was crawling there (surely), was bound to have several legs and bodies you could see straight through.  Just thinking about it, I can see their insides, the milky white of their bellies and the coffee with cream shade of their brains.  Intelligent little things that could very easily see the benefit of jumping ship from this dirty boy onto me where my perfume smells slightly of lilacs and my teeth are filled with fruit.
So I would keep my distance from these boys.  Keep my glance down and my hands in my pockets.  Be sure to cover any small razor nicks on my knees. 
Until I saw you sitting on a sidewalk, that is.  In the city all alone, you sat back against a pile of books outside of a bookstore.  There were tattoos on your arms and there, of course, was the dirt under your fingernails.
I began to turn my head but something pulled me back to you.  I paused and began scanning (not truly looking, not registering) the titles lined up on the concrete.  I pick a large hardcover.  It’s Whitman and I flip to page 104.  I read a line on the page and then the ones on your face.  They’re similarly interesting and poetic so I say hello, ask if you like Whitman, because he’s pressed against my chest now.
Days later, you are running your hands along the curves of my spine and I grab your wrists, kiss them, and then plant my lips against the pad of each of your fingertips.  You run them through my hair and I feel the rough brush of your beard on my neck so I know your ear must be close to my mouth now.  My eyes are closed when I whisper that I love a man who knows how to use his hands.
And you do.  With them, you plant us a garden and chop garlic.  You wipe my hair from my face in bed and you pull my hips closer to you.  You squeeze lemons and limes into my liquor, you pull weeds. 
Suddenly there are callouses on on your palms that look like diamonds to me, mined from hard work, and they shine brighter from knowing where they’ve come from, and from thinking of all the places they’ve yet to leave their mark.

Dear Future Me, (as requested by: blankspage)

I hope it’s Autumn where you are.  Always.
And I hope that your hair
is a shade of silver that sparkles.  I hope it’s still long.
Do chandelier earrings peek out and shimmer
against that backdrop of grey
when you shake your head vigorously “no”?
You’re saying “no” more, now.  Your neck is sore
from saying it so much.  So much twisting
and it’s beginning to wear on your old spine
(it was never much good anyway)
but after so many years of playing the pleaser,
I’m happy to hear the crack of your bones
and to see the spiders legs at the corners of your mouth.
You’ve been smiling more.  You’re still wearing braids
now and then.  There’s a ring on your finger.
I have to say, I didn’t see that coming.  It’s silver,
at least.
The stone, imperfect.  It hardly shines.
It’s polished oyster shell, at best.  Pink in places.
You’ve married a man who actually cares for you.
He likes your poetry.  He likes your short stories
but he has a hard time seeing himself in them, though
he’s always there. 
The children in the leaves, the dark eyed ones,
they’re yours.  They have your play-ethic.  They’re jumping
and crunching earth.
Take your glasses down from your nose and look at them,
really take them in, covered in bits of ground.  When the rain comes,
don’t drag them indoors.  Let them become soaked through
with the sky.
Write your poems, your books, condition your hair,
kiss your husband good morning and kiss him, always,
good night.

All around me now
are trees and children
and the still-frozen
(but thawing)
skeletons of birds
and all of them
are suddenly
such brilliant poets,
writing magic little
choppy stories
that sound like songs,
with the sharp edges
of their bones
and their teeth
and their branches,
and I am here
reading, breathing,
pounding stones
against the back
of my own neck
to see if anything interesting
might spill out of me.
All around me
are field mice
and grandmothers
with glass eyes
telling us how colors feel
when you touch them
and I could cry
if I hadn’t wasted all of my emotion
on shitty one-way poetry.
There’s a den at the end of the path
where the foxes sleep
and that’s where I’m headed
now.
If you need me, send up a signal
made of the smoke
of my burning pages.
I’ll recognize it by the scent
it leaves in the air,
of cheap perfume
and shallow intent.

Alone In Space

Floating
in a beautiful landscape
of light and color,
against a backdrop
of eternity,
floating peacefully
in outer-space,
no helmet, no sound.  
She picks stars
out of the black curtain
of atmosphere
and pins them in her hair.  
She sees a girl sitting on the ring of Saturn,
kicking her feet
in their big black boots,
looking up into nothingness.  
She tries calling out to her
but no voice would come.  
She grabs two stars
and waves them above her head
as quickly as no gravity
will allow.  
The stars create ribbons
of glittering light
in a rainbow arch
over her head.
The girl looks over finally,
seeing the flares.  
She smiles shyly
and raises her hand to wave
but then stops suddenly,
drops her hand
and her smile.  
She looks back up into the black.

I told myself
I’d write a poem
while my dinner cooled
and then
I poured a glass full
of tequila,
squeezed limes
into a mason jar,
curled my hair,
sang along
to Ella
and danced.
This place is lived in,
warm
with scuffed floors
and throw blankets
that still hold your shape.
The fruit flies
have learned
to keep a respectful distance
and they spin by the windows,
eating our mint plant
and laughing tiny-little
laughs
at the bigger bugs
on the other side
of the screen
who are gnawing
at the same bland grass.
This place is loved in,
scented 
like the two of us
entwined.
The dust on the floor
is no longer just my skin
when it’s breezed 
into the corners.
I told myself
I’d write a poem
while you were out
and then
this place
sneaked up behind me
the way you do
and wrapped its wooden arms
around my middle,
kissed me gently
on the neck
and it whispered to me
that it misses you too.

Hush now,
it isn’t at all
like what you’re saying.
I don’t ask
anything of you
that you do not wish
to give.
I do not ask
for your love
or your hand
or for every smile
to be directed
toward me.
I only want
the shirt off your back,
and the skin beneath it.
I only want your heart,
not its metaphysical
sweetness,
but the organ itself,
still beating, if you would,
and a rib or two,
or enough
that I can build
my own cage
to grow flowers in.
I only ask
for your teeth
to be plucked
from your gums
and washed clean
so that I may wear them
as jewelry
once they’ve dried.
I’d like the rope
of your intestines
to hang above the mantel
as a conversation piece
at parties.
If you don’t mind
leaving me your lashes
before you go,
I could make a million wishes
and never have to pull
my own.
I don’t ask for much,
you can keep your love
and your lungs,
(what good would they be
to me anyway, down here?)
but leave me the blood
from your veins
in Mason jars
and I promise
to paint something
really beautiful
and name it after you.
Hush now,
keep still,
this won’t hurt a bit,
I just need to decorate
and make this place
feel a little more
like home.

I read Bukowski
and I read
Fante
and I write
immediately after
with some sense of
confidence
that I shouldn’t
even be allowed
to sniff at.
All about the fucking
and the dead-end marriage
and the nights
where as a woman,
my thighs are stuck together
with their own illness.
I read then
Didion
and Plath
and I take a drink,
call it all
sentimental shit
but still find myself crying
for hours
while the dog
laps at my toes
and my Love
rolls the pad of his thumb
over my hipbone.
I read my own work
and I laugh,
finally.  Some relief.
Comic as it may be
there is humor
in my own suffering.
I am sick from drink,
sickened by food
and love-sick
from the way he touched me
without every really
committing
to the story
the touch was telling. 

Find me.
Find my hair
sewn into the throw blanket
sewn into the stitches
of your pocket.
Find me
in your coffee,
the oily, translucent swirl
on the surface.
Find me.
Find me
in every line
of every book
you want to read
but won’t.
Look for me
between the seconds,
that exact moment when
you’re unaware of time
because we haven’t found a way
to keep the clock ticking
to count them.
It feels like a breath.
Find me in that breath.
Find me
behind your ear,
miniaturized and hanging on
to your skin
all day.
Find me there reading to you,
poetry
with floral sounds
and ancient verse.
Find my ring finger
resting on your wrist
and kiss it, bite at it,
in lieu of a ring,
run the tip of your tongue
around it.
Capture me,
marry me,
lock me in the attic
with the dust and the light bulbs
and the trunk,
the scarves.
I’m not hiding,
I wouldn’t hide.
I’m waiting here
inside an otherwise empty painting
for you
to find me.

Little Ideals

I’m going to quit my job,
sell my good clothes
on the internet
and take up an interest
in imported beer.
I’ll sell drops of blood
and bone matter
for cigarettes,
my eggs
for used books.
I’m going to pick poison
over passion.
I’m going to pick flowers
and keep them in vases
until they die.

I’m going to pick flowers
and keep them in vases
until I die.

I could have sworn
that unwinding
meant fucking
and decompressing
meant coming
but I’ve been lied to.
Took for granted
the big picture
with the fine print
and taken out of context
this whole world seems
unappetizing
and discolored.
If It and They
don’t have to own up
to conspiracy
why then do I
spend hours each day
painting over my paleness
and writing notes
to my demons
in poems
and still cry myself to sleep?

Prize Fight

I take everything
so personally.
The snow and
the wind,
the way it disturbs
my breathing
and my hair.
The way you turn
away from me
in your sleep
and the way boys
will say to me
“you look tired today”
when I feel
like I’ve slept my entire life
away.