We are ribbons in-between
ribbons,
in between ribbons,
we are ribbons in-between
ribbons,
in between ribbons,
we are tests,
we pull eyelets
together,
we test circles
of steel
circles,
we pull eyelets
together,
we test circles
of steel
circles,
in between ribbons
we are together
in between ribbons,
we are ribbons,
in between
steel.
You will not find
me living in the fragrance
of morning’s last mistake.
(It is lonesome
in this box of pins.)
You will not find me
an apparition of dead
love.
(It was all a dream.)
You will not find me
at all
as I exist where the bees
go after first sting.
It is difficult to
tell the dead from
the living
and I am just beginning
to turn the wind.
seventy's stars still shine
staring at the stars
beauty beyond my grasp
running barefoot on wet grass
blades stuck between my toes
sticking to the top of my feet
the sixties sticking
to my tiny bell bottoms
running until my toes were numb
running until I kicked something hard
bleeding numb and lost
staring at the sky
halos teardrops and stars
I loved running as a kid
dreaming with the night
I still run as a man,
but I do it differently
and for different reasons
some times with long memories.
Here I am, I said. I wanted victory and
received Victory! I needed your
jaws more than crushing defeat. Taste me.
You know how your red toes touch the sky
and I can hardly think of anything else
when I see blood in the sun, painting
clouds rusty and wretched for me. You
know I’d rather be empty than lonely,
and I need to promise you
a thousand times —I promise you with
million words in your native tongue that
that is not the reason I swallow you whole.
The sky lies too much for you to
believe it. Is that why you love it? (do you love me?)
What can I dress it with
that will make that question less earthly. I
am hungry for sea and stars and
you guiding me home. You are
still sick off the pits in my stomach that
neither of us can stop devouring. How could we?
They taste like sweet peaches
and the first morning after we met. 9:55 What time is it
over there?
10:00 Oh. I’m going to spam your inbox like a weirdo.
10:01 I hope you don’t mind.
10:01 I love the thought of
sleeping in your arms.
10:02 I’m sorry.
(you were
all I ever needed and you
were never enough.)
(I was
worse than being empty but
better than being lonely,
sometimes.)
Four
I. I never feel bad that I almost
knocked you down an entire flight of
apartment building stairs because
you grabbed at me first, and
then you told me three very important truths.
First, you hate me.
Second, you’re proud to finally see me
defending my own body.
Lastly, I better never fucking
defend my body from you ever again.
II. Every time you told me to suck your dick
I wanted to tear off your foreskin
with my teeth just to spit it back in your face,
but I always swallowed instead.
III. It was always alright when you’d hold me
at the end of our longest days and
tell me that you’re sorry for hurting me,
that you don’t know how else to love me.
Forgiveness grew from my fingertips
like the poetry I stopped writing so
I had the energy left to touch your face.
IV. I want to carve your name on top of mine
into the bark of an old white ash and
remember the way I swore I never loved you.
I’ll cross us out nine times deep -
eight for every time I heard you
wish out loud that I was worth it,
and once for the realization that you weren’t.
Jump Over the Shadows and Into Your Covers
Night is no more
different
than
day in the way
that shade shelters
trees from sun
streams, but nothing
changes,
nothing leaves,
and yet we are trained
at a young (& undetermined)
age to fear
the floors of what we cannot
see;
we’ve created children
who sync sadness
with darkness/
we’ve created children
who cannot
move beyond this.
Paradise
Strawberry velour bustiers
moonlight, distressed denim
half hearted smiles
and smirks meant to
inflame, to ignite —
nibbling fire and chasing
tangents
men in tuxes and wry expressions
staring down the angels
in patent leather —
saintly in satin underthings —
like innocence —
clearly made
to be removed.
“I can scratch my own back and rub my own feet Zip up my own dress walk myself down the street So For that, I don't need a husband for company (I have a heart sticky like tar I have myself both near and far) But I'll leave my gentle heart hoping. Besides, I have yet to open that pickle jar... 6/24/13”
—“Tar” by TatiannaThere Is No Catcher In The Rye
i want you in your rawest form
let’s exhaust each other
i was an angel-haired girl chasing permanence through rye fields
i kept falling off the other end
there was no one there to catch me
everything and everyone you admire is a lie i promise
you’ll meet them and realize they were so much taller on paper
here’s the problem you’re a superhero
then the person you love is in trouble no it doesnt matter trouble of any kind
they can’t get to work and need a ride they’re locked out of their house they’re
father won’t stop using them as a dartboard to drill his anger towards
but for some pathetic mundane extenuating circumstance
you could not help them;
you’re car was in the shop you were out of town that day you were too fucking scared
and now you’re so
inadaquately
human
every time i’ve ever fallen out of love
and sunken into a sallow bitter cavern where it’s always dark always their face on every wide-staring wall
it’s been because i started relying on them for important things
(my happiness my sustenance a reason to wake up)
but we are machines with all faulty cogs and we’re too stingy to spring for oil
and we all should’a just stayed unexcavated in
the ground.
