The party behind me laughs
in my sadness. The blue walls hang
hook in me. Even the painted violets–
islands. How can a restaurant make
my table larger? I am spreading out–
a tendonless goo– and still, the
server checks on me. I swear she says
have the Portuguese custard carcass.
(originally published in The Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, Summer 2020)
Friends seem to love it
but the flowering plant
in the bathroom creeps
me out. There is a half-
empty/full glass of water
on the shelf beside
the dinosaur-cat mug.
I wonder about that,
too. I guess it depends
on how you look at
the world: the stone-
green leaf reaches for
your hand or punches
at your jugular. I want
to say I don’t have
trust issues but
you say you’re taking
a shower and shut
the door, but I know
the steam is watering
the tendrils. These
leaps of light
I can’t provide.
(originally published in Ink Sac, Winter 2022)
It is depressing to walk outside.
No one of no ones, my formlessness
would be dazzling, if you knew to
look, a vapor in the shape of memory.
I know the sensation of a crowd.
Faraway fear of missing out
in my own backyard– back
to that old mindset. Life of
lives– tenth iteration? I have
planted some sense of evolution.
Everyone’s growing gardens,
hunched over greens
of potted soils, warning
the world of rabbits. I
chase the idea I’ll never
be settled anywhere. Love
to be alone but don’t know
what to do with my hands
when I am. Nor could I be
a surgeon. Or a fisherman–
imagine me, who can’t swim,
casting a net into the lake.
A splash of water and I’m
wishing for a wishing well.
(originally published in Pomona Valley Review, Summer 2022)
It is not enough
to not be
racist. Heresy
to remove
your mask
and cough.
White men
move
their mask
and cough
into a crowd.
We are still
supposed to be
distant. Now
I can’t clean myself
enough off. Blood
on my hands
after hundreds
of years. Yet
we chant the system
has gone on
too long. We look
into a chaos
of fog & tear
gas smoke.
I am lucky
to live
this long.
We must peel
all the saturated
paint off America’s
crumbling walls
and build a new
house.
(originally published in Breathe, May 2021)
Now that I live on a well-traveled
street, you’d think I’d pass candy on
the designated day. I was at
Shady Grove for the first hour.
The servers were vampires,
I was wearing a poncho.
The lights were off (how I like it)
when I got home, not a soul in sight.
And it was trash night. So I gathered
the usual garbage and recycling,
set it by the door. And when I opened
it a kid vaporized from nowhere
chanting trick or treat! trick or treat!
give me something good to eat!
Staring at me carrying white
marinara-stained bag and a baby
blue bag in the darkness
of the porch and I said,
I don’t have anything,
thank you– I mean, sorry.
In my navy sweatpants
I walked briskly to the curb,
the wind wanting to push me
toward the black gravel of the road
but I swiveled the direction
of home. A gaggle of swan tweens
flew toward me! I covered my face,
put my head down, walked up the blind
trio of stairs far from the rustling
footsteps and laughter and wind
and turned the living room light off,
shawled myself with the couch blanket
and reached for a crinkling half-bag
of factory favorites, a Milky Way
or Kit-Kat somewhere on my rug.
(originally published in Sparks of Calliope, Fall 2022)
“They’re not deviled eggs
because Lucifer was once an angel.”
-Anth
At the bar you order
a small white plate
of celestial eggs.
Holy mayonnaise
yellow topped
with chives.
They are gulped
except for the last,
which you offer me
through telepathy.
I am the egg.
When I stop throbbing
is when I live
so I hold it high
in our five spotlights.
The arena cheers.
I see many doors.
Five floors:
on the bottom, death,
but each row above
a plethora of possibilities.
In your car, you say
I am feeling unmoored,
my shoe half-out your door.
The renaissance is what we
make. It is brown paint
over everything, the oil
light– you ask, what is on
your mind? I don’t know
how much you know
but I felt the warmth
of the machine beside me
thrumming on the street.
You were on the phone,
I think. I glared– I think
the end is coming
faster than fresh ideas
or the universe’s
rate of expansion.
The fact you drove
saved me from running
through the dark city
in the center of my existence.
In the shadow room
inside my house,
I did not process
emotion. The throbbing
sprain in my foot.
It was that death
issued a rain check
when I smacked my head
in the basement bar
of the indie theater.
I was the movie
everyone watched.
I left everyone waiting
for me to emerge
from the sewer. I swear
I will not group up next time.
I want each synapse
comprehended. To succeed
would be the stretchy fabric
of my living. Nylon
for the brain. Procrastination
for the ascent. I say you need
not worry because I am not
worried. Depression is a shovel
deep in soil and I am buried
in my mind, thankful
to be given a second
heaping of kindness
when I never deserved the first.
Hard to learn you
when my body is uniformly
jagged and growing
hairs sharp like knives
eternally out of every inch.
I want to be soft
with you, but once
we eat, all mysticism
is lost to process.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Spring 2023)
I’m in bed an engine revs a motorcycle outside
someone on this street screams slow down
but I finish our pack of blueberries, I apologize
what for? We were both eating them. The small
sour ones. The large C-flat ones. Near the end
I say these kinda taste weird. You say they’re
very sweet. I apologize what for? Where I’m at
I can complain about such sweetness.
(originally published in impspired, Fall 2021)
tin colander holes parts of me peeking
out into the kitchen horizon past the stove
which so very recently burned blue &
contained above potentially dangerous
gas of which you were in control
unlike last night you did the right
thing begging cathy not to drive
home her slurring sentences
& drunken desperation just
hours before all three of us
together I had to walk home
after downing Nosferatus
and you were there with her
drinking tequila when you called
to say now I really
have to say goodbye
but everything was fine you
arrived at your destination
but she wanted to
drive again the night
air thin
& shivering &
blue when she
departed
(originally published in Gingerbread Ritual Literary Journal, Winter 2021)
in the dark of grimy
bars floral couches live
feathers (what a thrill beneath
neon green) in view of Saint
Maria’s grand brick parish
I unclasp Catholicism’s hands
from my neck (backdrop always holy
human touch) how can one believe
in anything other than getting fucked
up loving people at parties
unconditionally my friends I have
forgotten too many nights not
to complete the circle offered
under guidance of compass
and an unsteady hand
flicking the lighter
(originally published in Incessant Pipe, Winter 2021)
Ripples of water
extend into days
we are wordless
with each other.
A storm breaks,
a dog whimpers.
We hear the groaning
Earth shifting
over countless hours
into the endless sea.
I’ve had enough
of windows,
where dreams
are a quick glance
over another
unfinished drink
in the middle
of the day.
(originally published in Count Seeds With Me, Spring 2022)