laryngital love stories

i'm screaming in the middle of the library how
i want my voice back NOW but
no one even looks up from their books,
& i'm stitching ripped up bits of recycled term papers
into the lining of my coat for insulation come winter -
i don't believe in summer anymore, only
this taunting regression, like the way
you send letters from half a block away
& then pretend not to recognize me
when i catch you unawares
with yr hand on my knee. i want
to run faster than cheetah wheels with you.
& i want to kill my liver quicker so
give me one more swig of that cherry nyquil, please.

anarchy

& i guess this means i'm going at things hard enough, cuz my life is catching up to me & i like it that way. made myself sick from lack of sleep & biking tummy grumbling in the cold, from sharing drinks & cigarettes & proximities indiscriminately. bruised sides & ankles & a cut on my lip from flailing limbs the other night when the music danced & jumped & sweated its way into us, leaving us panting and joyous walking through dumb stumbly baseball fans to that party where we found ourselves drunk on good beer & new friends, spinning fire & scribbling phone numbers on hands. giant fake fur coats to hold us all three warm at the busstop, running down sidewalks falling and tackling and laughing too close. i'll bite yr fingers off but it's out of love, i promise. did i mention the next day of bike shops & explorations, scruffy anarchist singalongs while we sat crosslegged on the floor and talked about what's real? beehive collective & riot folk & hip hop. ugly is beautiful. familiar new faces. hours riding home to the library to do homework at midnight, an afterthought, not enough to make me forget my bruises & my achy legs & these songs stuck in my head. maps on my body of where i've been, maps you'd only misinterpret, my dear.