You wrote me letters, your tries at songs I’d have to love (they came from you) Always scrawled with that black fountain pen that longs For a man of brighter inks, some hyperion yellow or electric blue. And I, mole-like, kept them all, Crunched them up, hid them in my secret nest Until I had [...]
I have been here before, in this sandpaper place, I have felt my feet airsuck the creaky floorboards. I have stood here, fingers smelling the ridges of the walls, and moved the little refrigerator magnets with my eyes. That time, before, I’d swallowed a bowling ball Carried it like a parasite baby, swelling my blood. [...]
the winding arm is spinning and blazes, blazes, bursts— Bone on bedpost, flashing worlds: collapsing mirrors frightened girls, reds drown blues, scarlet gleaming eyes wide open: eyelids screaming!
She has a horse-face, you know, and she is very bad at faking nice. She thinks she is good at it, but I am a consummate actress, and it is obvious that she is not. But nevertheless, you think she’s one of those Good People, and when she whinnies, there you run, with a bucket [...]
Maybe you think if you sit always inside it, zipped up so the nylon scratches your chin, then you will sweat out your nightmares, and your whole mass will evaporate, squeezed and pushed out through tightly-robed pores. Or maybe you think if you are never without it, (even when heat makes it slick where it [...]
You sit, clean and tall, orange on red, covered in maple leaves, bold against the blue. I carve you from the inside out, pull out the seeds and toast them. I cut a smile (no toothy grin), I make your eyes wide and suspicious. She trails sheets, blue sneakers peek, his hair’s both black and [...]
I think the words were “thrilling” and “beautiful”— which, come to think of it, are not even such impressive gifts: you cannot preen your beaver-fur with oils squeezed from “beautiful,” and thrilling, leather-padded, is not so soft or warm to touch. Maybe what stung more was that beacon light “epistle” flashing, nude and stark, against [...]
it was too much today, that neophyte din, that spitting of 'sickness' from naive, shrewish lips. their words gnarled and twisted, spider-creeping the room, rings and things forcing forward, walls profaned. glassless picture frames jeering at me, scenes of servile sterility-- escape! my head crushed against the bathroom wall, the silver ring i couldn't understand-- [...]
i want to fall into myself, to wrap my arms around me, and build a wall of bones. i want to shrink my skin, shrinkwrap my spine, i want to be texture, ridges, thorns. my core burns clear, contracting in, it hones my spikes against the world. i am sharp edges, protruding lines, i am [...]