20: sleep

these days as i near sleep
i have been travelling far
into the dark rooms

there are some
unexpected pleasures, like
i can hear my grandparents
talking to me, asking why
i came down the stairs
to the chilled study,
if i would like a sprite
or pistachios from a bowl?

b-ma frequents each corner
of the house in my memory.
bottom of the stairs
with cake. in the garden
with a hose, always killing
the grass. in the kitchen,
hovering. her voice on
the phone. & sometimes
she sits in the study with him,
her limca-&-lime iced
her snacks salted
her elbow flesh waxy
and the softest thing i knew.

b-pa is only there, in that
study, often alone. he asks
what i am reading. the last
few years he did not hear
but before that he would
listen. his eyes directed.

it is not only pain
to go there anymore.
i hear their voices
if i concentrate
& it feels lucky.

19: on impulse

i have all days now
to analyse the voices

each little blip
with or without
a word

just the slightest
electric jab
of want

& i try to hear it

where does it
come from?
what does it
want for me?

is this one
i should trust?

should i drown it
& move on? should i
instead dive?

18: meditation

i am trying to turn to
a column of air

i want to shed self
as a season

i will not let me touch
my skin with distaste

i cannot escape
this frame of bones

i will hurt
i will gasp in lust

it is what it is
to be a body

but all this needing
i let stain my flesh

all this jitter fear
this flitting

i must sometimes
remove from me

set it gently beside
it is what i have made

from all the days
i have walked through

it is precious
enough to be carried

but lightly instead of
as a weight

and lightly to remove
to breathe free

as a column of air
within all air

17: shiny & wanting

i feel like the wind
that rushes through a window
when i have a body
to long for

somebody to know
to ask from
to give to
to share a too-big smile with

something akin to magic
that pervades
suddenly
the usual fabric of this life

it makes sense, now, to
imagine my chest
abloom
with air, to float here

to feel alternately
wrung out
damply
and then so new & shiny

all of the unseasonable
wild and askful
want in me
finds a way to turn

instead of dissolving
in the dust
and salt
of daily air

16: breath

the self is so often
tiresome

demanding & unyielding

briefly it acquiesces
when I slow the world all down
& hear the heartbeat in my face

my limbs give up easy
& my will is often weak

one thing that has been listening
is the small magic of my breath

15: grumpy

grumpy, i'm grumpy,
take down the walls!
i'm angsty, i'm moody,
i might fuckin bawl!

the restlessness wades
in, it's awful and bleak,
some days i just hate
this shit, sometimes
it's a week!

my insides are goo,
and my head is aflame!
maybe that's not true
but i still feel this shame

singing to myself, though,
even in anger,
it simmers something down so
the shit might not linger

all i've asked of the demons
is that when they leave
they leave me no poison
no scars that won't leave

14: big love

sometimes big love 

starts from somewhere inside 

you, & it rushes outward

to a figure beside

you, and it feels

unbelievable how big

it is, how destined

to fail, how singular

in its rush 

to this figure at this

landscape, the landscape

of your life. look how

sturdy it seems, when all

the love rushes to him. 

your leaves are all

angled his way, you

grow when he shines.

when this big love is stoppered

at it's drain, it feels like a fuckin

punch in the gut, a sudden violence

to your life, its mountains, its fabric

yards, its minute hands turning

onwards, your empty bed, you.

the bigger the love the

bigger the hurt, the

simplest math you have known.

but look here, when there's no one

to have your big love - look how

full you still are, how it pours

out anyway, how there's 

hundreds of smaller

loves you often forget,

your landscape still glowing

with this clarity of love, a rainbow

in your potted plant, a pretty boy

who sings to you, a friend who

always calls. look, this light

upon your face, this endless

light upon your walls.

13: body

for days I do nothing

but tend to the body.

the body needs tending.

sometimes I call it

my body. but that is foolish

too, it is not mine. if anything,

I am its.

with hard fingers I try

to ease the knots in this neck.

I stretch over and over. hear 

everything crack. 

I let this slow day

be a day of clarity.

clarity, I write on my wall.

then pleasure.

12: you

i am you

and you

are me

she said

to me

in this room

approaching midnight

all the cushions

wrinkle into stars

and the songs 

sit in the walls 

I am alone here, yes,

but am tangled in so many

lives. I want to be only

a column of air

tonight

11: step

by step

maybe life is changing

despite everything anyway

most moments have been

fleeting away even as I was in them

most weeks have been

the texture of cold-cereal-sludge 

passing down the throat easy but

mostly unpleasant 

sometimes to pause the step

and turn briefly around

can be such a gift: maybe time

passed and was not only pain

maybe everything is changing

slow leaf unfurling 

maybe this is what it is

to know patience, watching for

the slow glow rather than 

the quick light and sound 

in this step I'd like to breathe

deep and fill up my lungs far as

they go all flappy chest and air

maybe tonight I'll go to sleep

feeling glad

who knows tomorrow I might

wake and feel a slow glow

10: faith

this will not work
this hiding away

take three deep breaths to remind
your body that you are safe

allow the eyelids to droop
allow the shoulders to curl

remember the flake of the dark
soft blue blanket against your skin

ashamed or not, here you are
another day, you survived

this is where faith is required
when faced with the bowl of night

do you pour in your hopes
can you truly assume
that tomorrow will be clean
as air, that everything heavy
will pass into the earth
when your body
is willing to rest?

9: things i must change

some days my life 

feels like the news:

all general disaster

chaos at a turn

nothing that i can 

control

but even just that

you see? the first thing

i'll change 

when i can

is this: i'll stop trying

to make it all

make sense

i'll stop trying to control

*

but i circle around and

again return: should i not

be able to master

myself

better than this, a lion 

that paws, a dog that

smears rugs and barks

at the kids? what sort 

of weak person-tamer 

am i, what sort

of lowly will?

*

so change the self

but do not pretend

that the life of the self

is yours to mend

it's a car you drive

but its limbs extend yours

and, despite caution, it

sometimes explodes?

*

if i'm the one

that tames, and i

refuse this taming,

then do i still

eventually win?

in the sense of a

beast that accidentally eats

its own poor, unwise flesh?

8: grace

not much feels currently
graced with grace
not much feels
ready to bloom

not much has stuck by
when i tried to hold on
not much remains
sturdy and true

but there was something
almost a music
even when the moon
slicked away

there was a low humming
an alien buzz
even in the dark
and deep pools

sometimes just a friend
asking about
sometimes a meal
surprisingly good

often the sun when it
peers through clouds
makes a day easier
to get by

most often i know
it's the oldest of all
lights that have
followed me down

the self making wisdom
inside of a pen
that scratches when paper
is unrolled

here there is something
i can only call
grace
even when all brightness
fails

something forgiving
that goes on growing
even when i
look away

7: say no to yourself

go on. can you
do it? have you ever
been able? did somebody
forget to teach you
this, do all the others
know how? are you
somewhere broken?

how will you learn?

6: slippery

poetry is slippery
perhaps the slipperiest
slope on which
to attempt a
political stance

political stances
that change the world
must be sturdy
unambiguous
even ambitious

poetry, poor fool,
cannot help but look
many ways at once

how it focuses
on irrelevant details
the snatch of light
on a cactus arm
the dust that floats
like minor stars

poetry is a houseplant
that blooms perhaps best
in the muddiest, most
complex soil

if you give poetry
one answer
she huffs
she turns
whips out another word
from behind your ear
like a coin, and you
are stunned like a child
who did not know
magic once

yet i keep trying to say
something that isn't about
the trees
in words, something that
hurts and narrows eyes
and sometimes yells

how do i give her
space here?

5: what not to think about

i try not to think about
what i shouldn't
think about. it is, as expected,
hard. the mind spins and reels
towards what you try to keep
hidden. don't go there, you say,
and you've already wandered
thick in the bushes, you find
yourself opening pictures from
months ago and thinking, again,
of what it means to be alone --
is it that nobody will know
if i stay in this bed for weeks?
is it true that nobody will now
care? and why should they, right,
especially if you're such a --
and there we go, the mind spirals
onwards, dips its heavy limbs
into the very mud we shouldn't
touch. and how to stay away --

without realising, weeks later,
that everything you blocked
has been sitting in your throat
like an ugly ball, an expanding
thing, all sticky and unfortunately
explosive. perhaps it's like the
second fermentation of my kombucha,
'burping' the bad feelings briefly
in order to protect one's kitchen
from shattered glass and blood.

there's so much badness one
mustn't think about it. it jumps
from object to object. yes there are
people dying, the numbers skyrocket
but -- i must shut this tab! i must
stop watching. part of my fried egg
remains unfried, and i cringe at the
gooey, transparent fluid on my plate,
suddenly made aware that this is
pre-flesh, a body that didn't become,
and here i am, about to slurp
its insides down my gullet -- i can't,
and i leave some food unfinished,
but still can't tell how to balance
my brain in a way that's functional
but kind, how to forgive myself
but also keep pushing, how to, how to...

4: company

am here, alone, mostly in
this little room. sometimes memory
tumbles out of me and leaves me
cold and heaving, tight-knuckles
on thighs, the weeping escaping
despite my best tries. memory
knows what i have lost: the sky-deep
laughs, the ankles entwined, the slight
smile that would deepen his smile-lines.
memory knows there was truth in my
arms, but still time tumbled recklessly
on. here we are now, apart, and me
here alone. memory kicks me down,
but agh! i'll fight back! my mama made
a fighter of me. when memory eases
out my back, i tend to all my company:

my kombucha slowly fermenting, little
threads of life, the bubbles quiet rising.
my plants are not dead -- each day i count
a new root break through into water, a new
bud emerging from a green arm or leg,
a leaf midway there, half-furled, so tender.
when i sweep, i see new dust gathered.
life shuffles forward. i make light tea
and go on living. there is good company
here, i must stop saying the word alone.

3: recklessly

trying to be better with

being slow

being quiet

being empty

there is recklessness in me but i am
trying to deep breathe and step each step
with a little more caution, a watching
of the path, awareness of my
slippery feet. i am walking
through the woods though, walking
onward and on, even when days
grow monstrous and long, even when
the body is tangled and sad. i am
walking on, and then, even after
the hardest turns, there is sudden

clarity, the sky deepening into its
darkest blues, the horizon still
pale, the first star so quiet and
still. i sip on tea and remember
to untense my tense shoulders.

time will gurgle onwards, always
reckless with me. i am bending,
folding, finding space to be.

2: wanting

the cacti point their thin fingers outwards
and i have nothing to say, nothing new
that could help. every day i think i cry more
than all the days before. when i am cheery i say:
look, isn't it glorious that one can love this hard,
this large? that your chest can be unscrewed, opened
up, emptied even of air? isn't it magical to be here,
a person, to be able to give your whole self
away, like a trinket, a throwaway present? and when
the aching hits me again, i shudder, clasp at thighs,
feel a great pile of burning begin inside of me:
i want i want i want, i want what i had and i want
what i want; and if not that, if it is impossible
to feed my desire, then at least rip it away from me,
do not leave me here thirsting, alone. either i should
receive, or i should cease to want. why could my skin
not be thicker, my feet more sturdy on ground?
why could i not, instead, have taped up my chest
instead of unfolding it, why couldn't i instead
secure my singular self? at least i know
i could not have known. at least this journey
led to some new lighting, a portion of sky
i could not have seen before. maybe there will be
more. maybe the wanting will wilt away. maybe
i will rise, unthirsty, undemanding, and toss
my head away if i meet him in the street.
who ever knows what will come. i did not see
it all, could not have told you how the days
would pile and spill, would make what they made.

1: for myself

it is April again, and I don't have much.

time slips on. today I am worried. 

tomorrow might be better. who can

know - the future is a glaze, a promise

fourteen years olds make to each other

and forget before they slam shut

the light screen door. at least this is true:

there is no tomorrow, not yet. I am tired

as I have ever been. there are few reasons

to do things. words, they are far, but if I at least

can push away that hard stone of fear briefly -

of wanting to polish work so hard, right now

just now, fix it and reach the top of the mountain

already - if I can let go, the words are still

always kind. they don't have to be perfect.

but they are coins in my pocket. they are soil

on which I stand, on which currently

I may be rotting. Like my wandering jew, don't know

the right word for it, its leaves are still purple 

underneath, little white hairs still catch the lights,

but the roots are weak in the knees, there isn't 

much I can do. I don't know, and I'm trying

to be okay with unknowing, the whole great

forest of it that must live in my shoulders,

the dark curtains of it that must blow in wind,

the sharp claws of it that hurt me, no thick skin.

at least there is this. something to come back to

even only for myself. when the worst rushes over me

sometimes I think of a boy I knew when I was

eleven, he wasn't smart, not cute or funny, 

poor thing had diabetes since kindergarten, but 

most of all I would look at him in wonder

because he loved nothing, or that's what I saw,

not the clouds, not a sport, not a class or a

friend. there's little to do here if you love

nothing. time will pass you by and there is lots

of hard work: sometimes even the breathing,

the walk, the sheer being-alive-ness of it all

can take your strength, your secret resolve.

I want to love. I want to love, and I want

the energy to love. I want to make, but not

make a noose for myself with this thick

rope of want I keep weaving. Even if I make

not a thing, not one twig worth keeping,

I will still be alive, still faintly freckled,

still have my twisted wisdom tooth

straining from my jaw. even that's okay,

you hear me, even that's okay.