Amoeba

Let’s fall backwards through the cloudy air 

and crash into the street

gently so that when we hit we split

into our separate selves and like the amoeba contract 

back 

into one pulsing, breathing blob

shapeless and fragile. 

We’ll slink away down a drain and

mutate into an incurable strain 

and take over someone’s desperate day.

We'll remind her what it's like to try

and why tonight is going to pass them by

while he fumes over unpaid bills and

she cries over spilt milk.

Let's lose ourselves in a teardrop and

follow that broken girl into her home.

I'll slide down the chipped coffee mug

as condensation

while you chase me down the porcelain walls.

And, if there’s time, I really think 

we should make our way back to the

street and let ourselves absorb the rain

before it washes us back

down the drain.

Alone.

Once there was a hollow girl and her bones were strung with nylon and she danced.
Sometimes when she moved the earth swayed to her music and
sometimes when she stopped the world stopped at her feet.

I dressed myself in white-girl skin and skated on the brim
 of fashion and power. When I reached the top i thought the I would be free but
all that was left at the top were skeletons of an older crop
of more the accomplished.

So now i know that when I'm home
I'll forever be alone. And when I breathe all I'll get is
air breathed out by other men
who sought the air of power and
ended up like me.
Alone.

Diamonds in the darkness

I found diamonds in the darkness and
let them tumble from my lips.
They fell around me like the bells
of a christmas choir in the summer swells--
--unsettling, yes, and yet
welcome nonetheless.

Santa

You woke me up with a winter whisper

against my skin with ice-dipped syllables drenched in

acid and the venom sizzled against my neck.

Santa's here bella dear, santa'll hold you tight

Santa grabbed my virgin skin, ripped it off my fucking limbs

and let it flap in the wind

like a white flag on a battlefield.

I screamed—a banshee cry, a warrior's cry—

it echoed off the north pole and

it landed right in Santa's lap.

He fed my screams through a snow-cone machine

and gave them to my neighbor's niece while

I watched her gorge on iced candy hearts

and torture-flavored cream.

Slowly, then, when he was done,

he unlaced my muscles and blood vessels

and hung me from

a puppet frame for fun.

Marionette pretty, marionette pink

marionette dance and marionette sing...

I am bones in a bag—a bag of bones

bones in a body bag tagged for home.

Merry Christmas! Christmas hoy!
It's always Christmas when you're a toy.

I'm the puppeteer's bauble, the circus clown I'm the

ring master's slave when the lights are out

and sometimes I'll yank on the marionette

strings but

it's so tiring that I let myself
forget how to think.

Mirror Mirror

Once a mirror forever a mirror—forever a plate

of polished silver lies

and rosy grief. If I look and when I look,

I may never take the time to look

but when I do I know I'll see

not skin but ink.

The rose is for the one who

loved and loved and loved

till she could love no more

and withered away wasted like the wings

of a winter rose. The lies! The lies that

sit inked on my face are whispers from

my mother's grave. She said to me you're beautiful

so I tattooed it onto my face. The mirror! Yes, the mirror.

The mirror lived once in my eyes and when someone

took the time to look

they'd see themselves in silver light

the burning, unflinching, threatening white

light of truth.

But my eyes now are no longer bright. No longer silver

no longer light. They're heavy so heavy with honeyed-tear

glaze but still. If you took the time to look,

I promise you you'll see your face. 

Silence

I plug my fingers into my ears and refuse to hear

your silence.

I could always live with empty words. I can believe in lies.

I can twist the sounds around your lips and lick them 

into the shapes I like.  

But you've taken away my toolbox and my modeling clay--left me instead with air 

that's dead and cold and hard to mold.

So I'll steal some sentiment from my neighbor's engagement 

ring and stuff it into the hollow thing

that once used to be my body.
I can hear the words you will not say and they've seized the inside of brain
and left me screaming from the pain
of listening to your silence.

I can't force the words from your lips but I
can stubbornly insist on resisting

your malice.

Tree life

So the other day I found my way to the tree where we

once used to be happy.

I pressed my skin against the grain and felt the tree push back in vain

because what lives inside it can't push clear

and I can't get to it either.

My hair got caught in the drifting vines and my skin got lost in the

browning pines and I scraped the bark with my scratchy nails

and felt the tree shudder and quail.

I guess there's still life where we used to live, if unhappy.