your drunken bed / the absinthe
& worm / I waited / in the candle
-light for dead lovers / two apartments
ago / downtown / how the spirits
summoned / lingering
lust / cigarette smoke
living / rooms stained
sweatshirts / rugburn turtle
couches / bleeding
fabric / and sex
(originally published in streetcake, Summer 2019)
Truth is, I’ve lost my motivation to do anything but motivationally speak
to myself silently in my head & that’s why I’m meeting with Gray
at a cafe later to work on outlines for short films we’ll never shoot &
that’s ok because the sun has filled my cup of coffee with bad ideas
I won’t act upon & that’s the useless scroll I call the timeline of my
life– truth is, I recall the night last July we nearly killed ourselves
playing Ouija downing a bottle of Absinthe & even the wormwood
couldn’t compose phantasms in our minds though we tried–
knees rocking in dark candlelight, hands clasped in prayer, a cat
named Spirit haunting the hallowed grounds– we had the ghosts
if we wanted them. Now we want them out.
(originally published in Studio One, Spring 2019)
The legend, according to my sister, goes
you lock yourself in the bathroom, turn off
the lights, say Bloody Mary, spin three times,
then voila! She appears, bloodied,
hands on her face screaming
à la Edvard Munch painting.
I obviously don’t believe in this but
do you have the courage to try?
Catholic school vacuumed religion right
out of me, but I blanket my head in bed
when I can’t explain a house’s creaking.
Believe me– if I believed
that I believed, this wouldn’t be
so scary. I’d ask God to help me.
Say I try this now.
Would a vision make me a believer?
Me, an adult in a bathroom,
chanting a name into the dark.
When my eyes finally opened,
I’d pray to anything– the bathtub,
the toilet, the sink, the sliver of
light beneath the door.
(originally published in We Are a Website, Spring 2018)
or is it clay or is it ghosts I remember
muddy footprints you walking in from
rain white plate of cookies in sweat-palms
mud on floor you said sweet, sweet, sweet,
sweet children all those black nights the salty
wind knocking its way in through shut
windows the dead flowers in vases
received sunlight their daily bread
give us ours the ramshackle trinity of unclean
dishes filthy hands and the sticky fridge door
which wouldn’t open not for you
and certainly not for us
(originally published in Califragile, Fall 2017)
there will be no homes
outside the body
our work
will be inside ourselves
transparent
and green
searching for
squares
of light in tangled
branches
the grime
will be our feet
when we walk
the leaves
our fathers
meant
to leave
(originally published in CircleShow, Summer 2017)
yellow and dust let’s
transmit every moment
as constellations that
can only be seen once
no matter how long we
look captured only in
almanacs of our pasts
(originally published in CircleShow, Summer 2017)
we’re summoning the dead by candlelight out of a Hasbro board
and there are so many ghosts in my head haunting every home
I find myself in so much history in every intimate space of belonging
but the cat doesn’t have to meow after we ask a spirit to reveal itself to make
us scared there’s a bat hanging on your door and we fall asleep holding hands
I never know what to make of you, how to call something beautiful
and I don’t think to ask the Ouija board that instead asking stupid questions like
will we ever grow tall enough to dunk a basketball and will we pass history class
instead of saying things like reveal yourself and show me who you really are
but maybe we were never really searching for spirits to begin with maybe
we just want any warm body to haunt our beds you don’t even have to say anything
to let me know we give thanks to all the ghosts that haunt us
(originally published in Here Comes Everyone, Spring 2017)
Heard the word son alone in the kitchen
of my childhood home.
His gravelly drawl was unmistakable.
I waited for him to say more, but
memories of my father are strangers
to each other. And every stranger
becomes a ghost passing
through another stranger’s life.
A wind tapped at the window,
wanted to say something, too.
When he was alive,
I did not listen
until I wanted
and I did not want
until he was silent
in a disposable suit.
I gave it a shot: pressed my ears
against the shingles, cold.
The wind
mimicked ghosts.
(originally published in In-flight Literary Magazine, Fall 2016)
With every step, the air parted
and spoke your name.
Smog and all, would you forget
the jagged alleys where
we fermented, became wine?
Its knife cut ribbons, red
repelling the pressure of four A.M breathing.
Driving home from San Francisco down the coast,
each Joshua tree prayed
to a vastness greater than the desert.
The long, Pacific vistas became the sheen
of old Mustangs caught beneath shadows
of Wilshire’s vacant towers.
Our heels kicked dust
and browned the sky–
ever were the hours sand
on the beach, infinite and pearling
a microscopic glint…
the ocean still haunts–
its salt so embedded
in our skin.
(originally published in Rust+Moth, Spring 2016)