gummy

I know the endings too well; I plunge in and head straight for closure, removal, the safety of anticipatory distance. All the rough force of our determined defenses, peach pit poison shells, & the forts we've got ready-made.

These some small things sautered together, these syrupy rituals we repeat, and again, as if stretching for refrains of salvation. There are secrets revealed by our bodies while we sleep, stranger than dreams, tenser than our waking moments. (Pry yr shoulders loose from the stiff pose they've held all night.)

My father tells me how he wakes with grit in his mouth after grinding his teeth all night. My sister's jaw locks and aches, like mine does. I spit blood and toothpaste into my grimy white sink each morning, and chew on my raw lips all day.

So many small muscles tensed in each balancing act, have you noticed? Taut and defensive against the dangers that lie along the borders between our soft bodies and the hard edges of the world.

cylindrical

who says things like that anyway? do we, i, you?

i OD'd on coffee and flung my bike across the room. i unspooled yards and yards of cassette tape, only to see the words flaking off of it onto the floor. she says girls are like otters. he says my pheremones are calling. i say this ache in my side may send me astray. she lies on her back on the carpet watching feathery dust particles swim through the air above her nose.

the tape's over, and not a minute too soon. someone once told me his hipbones were mine for the taking. summary enhancement. smarmy melodrama. blue-green patterns on rugs worth more than our homes. the asymmetry of yr roving thoughts and mine, and the shapes of our inquisitive noses. she lies on her back on the carpet with her face in a puddle of sunshine.

not my weak guts and raw eyes and chapped lips. my legs curl up while i sit on the ground and wait for yr eyes to meet mine. (i stare down from escalators.) i'd blush if you knew. (and all the faux cheese sauce we could ever think to eat.)

sailboat

a whole fleet of numbered days and sails raised like hackles to the wind, against the wind, always against because it gusts in our faces no matter which way we turn. we hustle and bustle and hubbub is the name of the game though we should be striving for less hullaballoo and more hovering quietudes instead, like do you recall coffee and poetry in the hammock in the cool mornings of summer, in the backyard before work, waiting for my lids to fully greet the day? oh, what contentment.

there are blizzards of yr skin in these blankets.

parfait

each day sashays along. these roles might be miscast.

i filled a jar with papaya peels and it smelled like frogs and other bright wet things. (maybe one day we'll cut into one and find its cavity brimming with tadpoles.)

we are riding the waves of inertia, sometimes. we all know we are displaced, unhoused from the land and the dirt of our heels, but we strap on blinders and just look on down all these flat, straight avenues. we fall to our knees, but only to better see the dawn.

this is something else. shadowing his cheeks and his fingers.

we pause.

i ask, again, How've you been? we both pause. he looks at the door, the floor, me.

drown

resolve. reserve.

i try and remember my dreams every night, but they roll off my tossing and turning shoulders while i wake.

i dream of california like it's the land of sunshine and short sleeves and all these sweet girls who got sick of chicago and went back to the west. i'll bus towards the sunset. i'll place my toes beside yours, and we'll smile and raise our fists in celebration of still standing upright on this damn spinning earth.

you are so silly; you are so strong. i slip slap slingshot taffy fears. we trade candy hearts for valentine's day. i wink a goodbye as i fall down the stairs on my way to the door.

you are back to never quite looking me in the eye.

drink water 'til you drown.

mad dash

we crank out a new story every night, some by hand, some by sheer force of will. we're all helpless against the onslaught of old voices, musty hair, you little trembling thing you already knew what breaks a heart; nobody ever had to tell you a thing you just knew.

says she, she says.

slither across this snowy street, slide and slow and climb the streetlights. i fumble in the dark sometimes. some things strike me, some cold coffee memories and burnt reminders, some peeling pages.

oh this, oh that. oh mustached nights and sparkly shirts and plates piled high with good things to eat. i'm new in town; you look like you know what's up, he says, but his tennessee eyes are too easy to fool.

sidle up sideways, link elbows and make a run for the door. for the horizon. for what might be the horizon hidden off behind and beneath the tall buildings of this fat downtown. (beside them, we forget the smell of dirt.)

winter is a blessing and a curse. every season is an excuse.