laws of physics are nonsense when living lungs deflate at last. for if energy cannot be created or destroyed, are his old words of wisdom now heard in a newborns cry? the hysteria in her laughing eyes fueling an exploding star?

just ignore the heinous faces i make

this is gross

the season is apparent my face
with wind whipped cheeks i exhale
vapor flowing from my chapped lips
an idle jaw obsessed with gnawing
and ripping at dead skin and now
the taste of blood stains my mouth
so i dont need lipstick.

claudette's tiny mouth hung open weezing in rhythm with the sound of her extra-wide feet scuffling across the convenience store floor. she gathered five cans of liver and bacon kitty food for the little ones and a bag of little for multiple cats. unable to carry it in her pudgy hands, swollen and peeling from her seasonal exzcema, she unloaded onto the check-out counter.

"ethcuse me, do you carry cream of tomatuh sthoup?"

the clerk was picking at her fingernails. she took one moment away from this imperative bodily grooming to look up at claudette, who still had her mouth open, her eyes fixed on the clerk waiting impatiently for the response.

"um i don't know. like you can look."

claudette pivoted on her puffy foot and scooted back down the aisle. she scanned the meager canned food section. cream of chicken, tomatuh, beef. no luck. she was upset and could feel frustration building behind her eyes. she stopped and remembered what dr. brander had advised for when her anger kicked in.

one. two. three. four. five. six. seven. eight. nine. ten.

her heart rate slowed. she gathered her big body and queued with the rest of the happy people of her town.

snow has been falling incessantly for days,
and the people of my city
have been grunting and snorting
as they shovel on through
expressing their disapproval of glittering roads,
their wanderlust for the beaches of paradise.

perhaps you should forgive my simple mind,
inured by the cold and made dumb,
perhaps i should seek pity
for wanting to be nowhere else
but in this stained suede chair,
in this coffee shop, in this city i was born in.

your absence has gone through me,

like thread through a needle,

everything i do is stitched with its color.

W.S. Merwin

if i once traded a baby tooth for a dollar, then what's the going rate now for a twelve year old maxillary central incisor? a month's rent? the tooth lay dead on the dentist table and like the dying claim their whole life flashes before them, i was taken back to the birth, or more appropriately, the emergence of the bloody jagged pebble. it was a simple time when gangling little teeth fell into bowls of pudding and swollen gums were a common indication that new blunt lumpy things would soon appear. more than anything else, a school aged mouth resembled pink gums with rake tongs sloppily jutting out in all directions. some years later, a man with hairy nostrils would hover over me and exacerbate the mortification of adolescence by cemeting metal brackets to each tooth and wrapping them with lilac rubber bands. my abraded lips awkwardly streched out to form words but after three humiliating years, i was liberated. the metal was chipped off and the boy who would break my heart for the first time said i looked "prettier" in religion class as he put his hands in places where good catholic girls do not allow. my teen angst veneered my porcelain fence posts in fast food, bubble gum and cigarettes and as i grew in wisdom, the teeth shifted due to crack of dawn grinding and late night coffee talk. last week, i awoke stinking of jameson to a dry mouth and a throbbing socket where a tooth had once been. i went incognito to the dentist who shot me with novicaine and i drooled as he put the tooth out of its misery.

i want to live in a glass house
i want to say exactly what i mean
i want to be naked
i want every dark corner
to be hosed with lightness
i want to utilize free will
i want to be sober
i want you to enunciate
when you speak
i want to tell your secrets

dirt.

caked in the ridges
of the cobbler's palm,
smeared on the
mashed potato baby face.

war paint.

a hint of grit and grime
in a picnic lunch,
exoskeleton crunch.

worm food.

nematodes,
sticks and bricks
you have a home.
orangtang special spice,

percolating,

earth's blanket
under my fingernails.

idee fixe

if i were quiet
silent
for whatever reason
a goiter
globus sensation
mutism
nothing to say
maybe i would
listen

maybe

i will make this my utopia.

as the beaches of paradise leave me with,
burnt skin, sand-filled and scratched corneas,
a brackish tongue and bloodshot eyes.
as the finest wines and forbidden fruits
have ceased in their ability to quell my hunger.
as the conflict diamonds are lack-luster and heavy
the gold wiring leaves stains on my skin.
as my silk clad delicate bones and tapering limbs
are still the subject of body dysmorphic disorder.

i will rest easy on permafrost deserts.
my hunger will be satiated by bread and butter.
i will be beuatifully adorned with mud and rocks.
and my mangled body will become the sculptors muse.

and this will be my utopia.

a somewhat mediocre cover

plans shattered scattered
across times zones

hanging strands of tinsel
on cattle skulls n bones

rolling in tumble weeds
mixing with dust

inhaled through new
freshly pink lungs

now youre
there
im still here

i kill corners of bottles
your eyes are finally clear

its about rebellion, isn't it?

you do not have to follow the wrinkled map on your palm.
you do not have to float down flow charts and fafsa forms.

you only need to stay under the influence,
of love's natural barbituate.

meanwhile the world sits, stands, speaks when they are told.
meanwhile they drop to their knees before god.

gesticulating, prostrating,
their lucid hides undulating,
on the floor of the altar.

meanwhile they combat their surges of racing heartbeats,
with slow rhythmic breathing incompatible with panic,
and esophageal spasms and heat flashes and pica ticks.


whoever you are, remove yourself from the floor,
glue together your aching shattered patellas,
stand with knees locked unwavering,
like old trees against the restless
winds of life.

he wanted to be a dentist. but you would not assume it by looking at him. a curl of his cracked lips revealed fence posts veneered in coffee and nicotine. the hum of teeth chipping machinery narrated his awkward gait as he walked the four blocks home to his studio apartment. when it was summer in the city he did so with his shirt unbuttoned and the flaps of his cotton blouse would hang like curtains framing his hungry body. his room was filled with venus fly traps. the carnivorous plants were his army and when he caught a carpenter ant or earwig he would feed the crunchy carcases to his soldiers. today there was no sustenance for them and the sight of the plants empty gaping jaw was too much to take in for the sad man. it was like seeing a starving child call out in agony. he touched a fork prong to the cilia fibers on the inside and it slowly collapsed on nothing. he stepped back and cried over this cruel trick he played.

have you no urge to give it
a dignified sea burial?
that heavy lead promise ring,
rust stains on your finger,
shaky hands glued to your sides.
chums under supervision,
sanctioned by your sponsor,
your old lady, your lord,
who your lethargically wrestle,
three to four days a week.
animalistic races to see,
who gets the happy ending,
uninspired coitus interruptus.
have you not grown tired
of this methodical match?

bare skin above kneehighs
grazing the cold metal bones of my desk,
i am locked into this dunce cap cage, where
rubbing hands up and down goosebumps
can never create enough friction,
to combat this ice box of a room,
which serves to keep anchored eyes
from sinking into sleep.


he is caged in his skeleton,
a matter of six inches of electric energy,
between my plaid skirt and his pleated pants,
wide-eyed day dreams end abruptly when i feel
a touch from an idle hand with a not-so-hidden desire,
to carry out his solitary vice.

and i, in my young body,
accept hands under my uniform while i,
drag a finger along text and keep my eyes glued
to crucifixes and cups of blood and brothers of God,
and how to ignore the pleasures of the flesh.

i have tuscon on the brain...not sure why, but it sounds as good a place as any right? clear blue skies, cacti, desert dust under calloused feet, lobster skin...yea, tuscon.


i want to run around in the sun in barefeet, get salty and sweaty, then go inside where dim lights will make everything appear as if im looking at it through a fuzzy black hallway while pupils race to adjust themselves.


ya know?


its not that i really give a rats ass about ohio weather. im done listening to people talk about it. [in a daffy duck voice]: "oooooh golly its so cold out there! when will this snow ever give up yuck yuck yuck!" ummm....hmmmm how can i respond...no shit...its winter.


anywho, tuscon.


this ones fer you, ROO:
Sometimes I feel so happy, Sometimes I feel so sad.
Sometimes I feel so happy, But mostly you just make me mad.
Baby, you just make me mad.
Linger on, your pale blue eyes.


Thought of you as my mountain top, Thought of you as my peak.
Thought of you as everything, I've had but couldn't keep.
I've had but couldn't keep.
Linger on, your pale blue eyes.


If I could make the world as pure and strange as what I see,
I'd put you in the mirror, I put in front of me.
I put in front of me.
Linger on, your pale blue eyes.
Linger on, your pale blue eyes.

(velvet underground)

sestina

its all said and done with the purchase of a one way ticket,
ill say i knew you in the west, when you reach the east,
the only one in the whole town with clumps of knots for hair,
i miss the the sound of your cough, letting out smoke,
the kind hearted mania in your eyes when you smile,
wont look the same in pixels and muffled webcam noise.


in your stick shift coffin with bass vibrations thumping noise,
pollution, i rustled through the stacks of speeding tickets,
and thoughts in my head for something to make you smile,
like you always made me. you told me truths about the middle east,
because you know everything about everything, despite the smoke
and haze that grazed the floors and nestled in your hair.


remember when we spent four nights tangling knots in your hair?
while you kept your eyes glued to pinyin despite the noise,
of anthony bordains talking head babbling. break to smoke
in the winter woods, squatting on wet logs. the presidential ticket
was all a joke to you. "im looking to the east, the far east.
"who else in the world reacts to communism with such a smile.


oh baby, baby its a wild world, its hard to get by just upon a smile.
ill say take care, remember theres a little of my love woven into your hair,
and someday i swear ill dig my toes in the dirt of the east,
and ill eat all the dog meat that you want me too and take in the noise,
of the street vendors. ill pack my things and get my ticket,
but it will be round trip, ill return and again miss the smell of smoke.


i dont know why we talk about cats so much, you exhaled smoke,
into the ears of my kittens. when they became lethargic you smiled.
can you stay a little longer, just for a minute forget your ticket?
i promise to spend the whole time working wax into your hair,
i promise to sing to you all night but i wont make a single noise
when you says it right to be silent because when you are in the east


i wont hear you, carry my heart with you when the west meets east,
you'll need it when you are piled high in skyscrapers with nothing to smoke,
i cant sleep with out your restless legs shaking the bed, or the noise
of your rasta beats still stuck in my head. i hope you smile
when you think of the time i put a butterfly clip in the back of your hair,
you didnt know it was there for so long. tear up the ticket.


take in the noise, when you reach the east,
because you wont rip the ticket, you will give up the smoke,
you will smile when you recall my love in your hair.