When you leave me
it will be my fault
entirely.
When you leave me
you will take with you
everything
in the kitchen cabinets
and everything
from under
the bathroom sink.
You’ll leave with
half of the bed,
(the warm half)
and several strands
of my dead hair
stuck to the soles
of your feet.
When you leave me
it will be because of my drinking
and my extreme understanding
of our misunderstandings,
my lack of compassion
my overcompensation
my dirty mouth and dirty mind
my open legs, open ears.
I hear every conversation
you don’t have with her.
When you leave me
you’ll take the steam
from the shower
and carry my morning sickness
under your arm.
This is my fault.
Please, take me with you.
I don’t want to be here
with me anymore either.
I wrote myself
into a poem
just to save you
the clean up
of what’s about
to happen.
I hear ink
leaves less behind
than blood.
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.
flowers on ice.
I’ll be home
after mid-night
so keep the flowers
on ice,
keep your heart
warm
inside the oven,
keep your hands
off the other girls.
I don’t need
to be fucked
I need you
to fuck me,
there’s a difference
in that.
I don’t need
my heart
to work properly,
I need my heart
to explode
inside my chest
and fill my body
with blood
and ooze,
there’s no difference
in that,
it’s all the same
if you think about it.
Acoustic Fuck Fest
start with
slow
snapping
strings,
add
simple-sugar,
shaking
smiles,
cigarette scars
and stir in
solid
stars,
stretched
stories,
slather
over skin
ignoring
the sulfur
scent,
soak
in the sea
and repeat.
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.
A Love Poem You Can Complain About
There are caves
undiscovered
all over the world
with loves poems
on the walls
that were never
finished
because their
authors
were suddenly struck
with
the hearts
of their lovers.
I have seen
so many wonderful things.
I’ve been very lucky
in that way.
New York City
at midnight
is brighter sometimes
than the moon,
and flowers
when they are blooming
right in front of you
are so magnificent
that I’ve been made to feel
tiny and
grey
in their opening shadows.
And so there happens to be
a shadow cast over me
by your form
and in it I am humbled
and small,
but unlike the flowers
or the City
you take my hand
and force me to rise
with you,
stand next to you
and blossom along side of you.
I feel I belong
inside of your skin,
I’ve been very lucky
in that way.
A quick poem
before I run off
to masturbate
to the thought
of the needlepoint
hanging on your mother’s
kitchen wall,
the one just above
the stove that says
There Is Love
In This Home.
It’s covered in dust
which means either
the love has left
or the love
was never there
and I so badly
want it to be hung
in our kitchen
with the window
overlooking the garden
someday.
The thought
of something so ordinary
and so false,
telling our visitors,
this is real, watch us kiss
out back
by the tool shed,
see?
There Is Love
In This Home
and outside of it too.
We can play along
just like anyone else.
Our friends fall for it,
but the garden is laughing
from afar.
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.
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.
I need
your voice,
mixed with
a metric ton
of gasoline,
half smiles,
half moons,
and the whispering
of dying stars.
Ignite the tank.
I need your
flying skin
and bone
and teeth
and particles.
I need your air,
there’s none left here.
You can’t explode now,
I need to you
to clean the ash
from my hair.
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.
