Freak Girl

And in the sand

where I lay,

stretched out naked

on a towel

that felt like a scrub brush,

I ended up

standing in the bathroom line

for 34 minutes

while listening to two women

in matching stripped suits

talking about hating blowjobs

and wondering if they’d ever love again.

The world tilted the same

all the time,

and it felt particularly predictable

some days in the summer heat,

especially in grocery store lines

or at parties

where you only know one person

who’s really more a friend of a friend.

And I rolled my eyes

to the circus

I saw around me,

which did not make me popular

even in middle school

where clicks got their kicks

by messing with the freaks

so I sang in the choir

and kept my head down.

But somewhere

along the rocky way

I found

this solid fire magic

within me

and she cradles me

when this freak of a girl

feels too crazy and alone.

Be You in Your Sensual Splendor

Oh God

sometimes I fake “ok”

so well

it scares me.

Im all smiles and

foreplay phrases at the table

then sitting on restaurant toilets,

spinning panicked breaths

and craving a dark watery hole

to scuttle back into.

Why couldn’t I just

be me and

be done with it?

The pressure around and within

howls me to sleep

with rhapsodies

of acting normal

in a fucked up world

which is a goddamn laugh

but still has me

chained to the lamplight

beside my bed

practicing odes

of pretending

which makes me so angry

I felt the hot breath

of the dragon inside

snort and sputter.

We are made

to be messy and

irreverently more

ourselves in each moment

during these times

of the capitalist pig

and the boar

that knocks down

the door

demanding production

and sleek slime sublime stupors

that keep us under steel-toed boots.

We can speak up.

We have the power.

Shout it out loud

and be heard by the angels and

some of us beings on earth

do crave you to be

exactly and magically

you,

in all your sensual splendor.

To Be Wild

I was the lost boy

that fell back

through the moon’s mirror

to earth with a crunch,

back to this side of the looking glass

with a moan,

and I had to squint and

tilt my head slightly

to remember my home

in that other world of

ether and water.

Back in my skin

the body felt,

predictable,

and the delusions or prophetic visions,

however you see fit,

stretched out time

so that a million flashes

could happen in just one moment,

Jesus,

slow down,

stop,

breathe.

Count back the clock tower

from madness,

match up

mixed up memories:

I said this?

You did that?

I hopped a circus train

headed out of town

to get far away from

the shoulds and shouldn’ts.

I stripped down completely naked

to feel the air

coursing through me,

sighing,

singing fire out of my mouth,

wanting,

with fervor and

the deepest desire

to not have to explain myself.

To Be wild-

The Magician and the Deck of Cards

The magician’s

deck of cards

was full of insecurities:

The Joker,

a constant wild animal

with an obscene mouth

which I kinda dug

but who refuses to take off his mask

and still wrings his hands

and squeals his sorrow cries

into the dark

when he is alone.

The Queen of spades,

a shade bitch

with eyes

that even pierce

the skies

and pours down

on her fellow

ghosts that walked

in bones,

groaning for approval.

The 4 of hearts

who crashed his car

into a bridge wall

with full force

for he thought

he was a caterpillar

turning into a butterfly.

And the Jack of clubs

who lies while

speaking soft

into your ear

and promises to leave the keys

under the doormat

but throws

a pack of cigarettes

on the porch instead.

I watched the game play out

from the hole in my dollhouse,

with its own share of hauntings,

and winked at the magician

who laughs with a knowing

that the cards

may switch characters

but the queen

is always left like the queen of Macbeth,

shaking blood

from her broken hands.

Family (grief trigger warning)

When I sit

at 2 in the morning

eating a family size

pack of m&ms

it almost feels forbidden:

to eat so much

it almost makes me sick,

to think so fast

my body lines blur,

to be too deep in it,

that messy glory wasteland

with her howling angels,

to stay up so late

I forget what month it is,

to remember

what family feels like,

all 5 of us,

sitting at the picnic table

in the fall

when the wind whips

around you,

listening to NPR

on the radio,

laughing together

as the leaves

fall down

mixing with the

gravel and sunshine.

How could I have known

that even though I loved the snow,

the move to cold Minnesota

was the start

of the end of family.

I cut my hair off

at 3 in the morning

with a rusty pair

of old scissors

that my nana used

to cut crisp and neat with

when I was young,

and now scraping clumps

of hair off my head

with dull pieces of metal

the summer after

my dad died

and I missed him

and my mom

yelped at the sight

when I came down

to breakfast

in the morning.

And later,
I smoked 6 cigarettes

outside in the depths of the dark

having paced round

the hospital room for so long

I was forming a trail

of sunken floor

with my heavy feet,

waiting for my twin flame

to wake up after

his first brain surgery

as the doctors

ripped out as much

of the tumor as

they could

even then knowing

that this was a road

which would end,

in tears,

and for me

my worst fears being right,

doing it all,

running round and round

so as to feel nothing,

sitting at the window,

looking out at the red bird

perched in her tree branches

outside my bedroom

at 11 in the morning

when I held Jordan’s hand

and whispered

over and over:

I love you. I love you.

Can you hear me? I love you,

until he died in my hands

with a sigh.