Is it because of her 

That these barbaric beetles can fall from your mouth so easily 

Crawling down and out and onto me

There legs plucking at my skin, nerves

Infecting the whole day

||what is in the heart 

Comes from the mouth

I feel like an ocean

Just after dawn 

There is no break to wait for 

The edges of me are carefully tucked in

You can see no creases 

Or dips on my skin

|because of what you said to me 

The trees are trying to

Carefully

Take off winters sweater 

I know because of the Robins

They told me from the branches 

She is small

It is the best way to put it

Her thigh is the size of my arm

I know children that tall 

In her eyes are stories of 

Four marriages 

Withheld grandchildren 

Hurt

The eyes are a rage of the ocean 

Pastel like a cockatoo 

just as noisy 

She is cold from blood thinners 

always dressed like she is going to the club

Claims her 50 year old boyfriend has no idea she is 70

|| he must see it in her skin 

The words I used to say no to you 

Not believing in the oil and brush more

The time unspent with those of my blood 

Not buying flowers at the market on Monday

And hurrying her as she spoke 

|| the things I regret 

The things that grow |  

The white of hair stiff like a birch tree 

Daisies & road grass 

The Weed between the bark

The need for sun

Queen Ann's lace

Desire for more more more 

The age of my mothers hands 

&  my love for you.

To take the little seeds

The good of you

I want to turn them into trees 

|| until we are a forest 

rehab
is that what they call it
where they take you off everything that once made you calm
to give you your mind back

what if your mind is infected to?
what then?

the thoughts like Tetris

Collide into one another and break

Before they even have a chance to 

become tall like trees
with roots

His hands dry like concrete 

Splitting on the knuckle

I'm angry with mental illness

And how it has breathed it's bad breath all over my family

Is it a curse 

If you are made with it

Or a gift 

That we have not learned how to applaud or work with

   --mental illness

I'm pregnant with insecurity 

Everyday I give birth to this child and blame him 

You are there with your thumbs up

With every word I need 

But I look for You in him

I forget you are even present 

his small words 

Disappoint 

Because deep in me

I want YOU YOU YOU

Only YOU

Please

Do not get lost in all of the

Lights

I see it drain from you

Life 

The Fists pound for more

you are their drug and you think
this is a good 

forearms are tight like a guitar string
swollen with tiny words that will be forever
but are not eternal

You have my blood 

And
sometimes
I think of it at night

|| The lights that make all of your life

Dark

I want to be a ladle
full

Color, spring, applause

Slow to speak quick to listen

I curse my Irish skin.

Felt the rose blossom in both cheeks

Going off like a bloody

Hand

Granade

All across my chest

|| Anger can be like a flower too. 

SR.

I remember you were soft like an apricot

Young
but the thoughts in your mind 

tall, like a father

The entire world in your eyes

The organ in your chest, full like a lamp

|What have you lost except for all of life  and can you be drawn back

Max

The shadow next to me

Is wearing you

jana

insecurity becomes a strength

when you speak to a best friend

they pin flowers and perfume onto your words
and make you feel like the two legs shaking
the words jagged, wet face
is an extraordinary dance

"When,'

She asked

"Are you most yourself?"

When I do not have to ooze

push myself out 

When I do not have to grow larger than the tube of skin pressed on me

When I'm a farm

A collection of All my mother gave me

||& I never think of it once

||& he's smiling at me

S

This will not be lost

All of her

I've seen a man widdle the most beautiful piece of cedar into a mouse

But she soon saw her reflection 

Like a horse she will not jump

Blindly

If you ask her to give up her soul

The mind

For a man 

She will run away from diamonds and promises--your empty mechanic hands

To be free 

If you make her more free

She will like both of her legs 

you will recieve

All of her

Even the horse

|| woman

I've let go of photography

Like I've let go of jealousy

Fantasy 

Discontentment 

They have feet and voices

||they keep coming back without welcome

An old poem

You

Fragile like rice paper

Your forearms lean like a greyhound

But Fear

Fierce like scissors. 

CT

You are 

Calligraphy

A rose open

The color of Georgia's winter

I've watched what the smoke took from you and how you've wept and risen

|| it makes me wonder if I am stronger than I look as well and what I will have to endure to find out

the conference

Inside

His head

made him dwindle away

Because his mind had anorexia

First

|like his father

Detroit dropped beneath us

Carefully pushing us away from his chest

Streets become floss

Landscape 

The color of pond

Dry like a split end 

The houses like a keyboard 

Flat like buttons

We have left 

the coffin of Michigan for the

Flamingo of mexico

C.

I remember when

This woman, my age

Like a mother

Took me into her arms 

The vines of so many arms

Shoulders chests 

Was a careful roof On my chaos

Today

I found a breeze that cooled my fears

it's been inside me

All along

In the form of you 

Matchstick

In the last week 

I have been building my very own house of fear

I even put a chimney in it somewhere next to my heart

So I could stir up a fire now and then

Coveting has been the wood and every tiny mistake you make has struck a match. 

E.

It just so happens that the one pedicure I do I have to wear gloves for so that I don't feel like I'm smelling her feet or eating her toe jam for the rest of the week and 

It just so Happened that this week one of her toenails flung into my bra 

And she took her body

Heavy and aged

The boots zipped up the front

And walked right into an active massage room that she thought was an exit. 

I say why. 

He says I'm teaching you to love well

And He also must think he's funny. 

all of my eyes watch you
even my skin is watching you.

my fingers ache for words
pigment of oil
and you

the you i see when you first said i love you
the you i see carefully being born beneath the good instruction of other men like water rising and falling over the rough parts of your stone
the you i see when there is an idea in your womb
your eyes like fire
birth it into mine.

We stare straight 

There are 

No words to string together

All of a sudden the walls are intricate 

This water necessary 

And the red leaves of the balsam trees elaborate

Thank goodness she's a fast pee-er