re)construction of a bird

June 15, 2010

2010-06-16T20:46:00.000-07:00

for kt

I agree with the strainer, upside down
in the yard. There is a limit to protection.
And you are coming.
And I invited you.
And how would we wake from anything
without the tiny pink hammers in our ears.

truss

2010-06-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

to sit down, to cross the legs, to relax a little, to not know fully how to relax, to imagine the damage done by crossing, to be comfortable, defiant, distracted, to write something down, to feel the wind and want to write something else, to write not the same thing but not something entirely new, to hear the dog get up, to remember how someone else talked to the dog, to touch the dog without talking, to wish never to talk again, to take it back, to say something inconsequential as a test against faith, to uncross the legs, to feel awkward, shy, rub one thumb against the other, to misunderstand a sentence someone said over a year ago, to hear a door close, to ascribe meaning, to imagine, but not want to, a horrible death.

to shop for shampoo, compare prices, smells, to deliberate, to remember that bathroom, to see through the curtain, to sit on the sink, to talk about ingredients, law school, Vegenaise, to toss a towel, to flip a light switch then, for no apparent reason, to cup the hand on the doorframe, to let it go, to put down the bottle, to admit it, to interrupt the same conversation, to walk toward then away from the dairy aisle, to handle an avocado, to regret it, to not buy anything, to push hard against the already receding door.

to call the dog, to clap at the dog, to lift the leash, to touch the pockets for confirmation, to lock the door, to walk near the dog, sometimes in front, sometimes behind, to know enough to smile when people are near, to put the right hand in the pocket, to retrieve the phone, to confirm that the ringer is off, to check for messages, to get to the bridge, to scan the graffiti, to wonder how one knows what to do, to encourage the dog, to run a little, adjust the belt, wipe the nose, laugh, remember something, check the phone. to unlock the door, to lock it again once one is inside, to slip off the shoes, open the computer, type in the password, to look for the clock then see a photograph instead, to remember that it has been removed, to click on the keyboard, to feel impatient, to say hateful things to oneself, to sign in, to let the password be saved, to wonder about intimacy, to feel increasingly frustrated, to sit there, to scroll, to mock, to berate, to envy, to miss, to use, to reach.

to climb the ladder, to pick up the book, read awhile, pet the dog, push the pillow, to imagine something, to read some more, to forget what came first, to go back, to feel relieved when it is familiar, to close the book, to turn off the light, to exhale loudly, to not want to touch oneself, to touch oneself, to expose the breasts in the dark, to imagine something else, to touch the nipples, to run the hands down the belly, to not be surprised, to feel proud in the way that one is proud of things one does not deserve, to love the softness, then the hair, to feel the genitals straining, to not think a word like genitals, to think cock or think clit, to imagine her face, focus on the fantasy, smile now that no one can see, to open the mouth, to let the neck pull, to know it’s not worth it, to do it anyway, to let the tongue out, to be desperate, to terrorize the hamstrings, the knees, the calves, to feel lonely, to change one’s mind and feel brave, to beg, to beg, to show the self, to imagine the hood of a car, an interstate, a rape, to wake up and to already be tired of waking, to do nothing, to elongate the legs, to always be imagining, to feel ashamed.

to miss things, to blame, to take the blame, to remember, to try to remember, to insist on certain organizational strategies, to be alone, to touch the nearest body, to always be near, to look at the watch, to test the watch, to push the button on the right side, to hold it down, to wonder what it is exactly that the watch claims to know. to turn on the computer, to type in the password, to not have to type in the password, to receive, to scan, to want, to read haphazardly, to forget, to read, to remember, touch oneself, hurt, to assume overcrowding, to feel overcrowded, to imagine one will have to forget.

Crossing

2010-01-22T23:38:00.000-08:00

for madeline

When you hold me there are words for that.
I do not remember the words for that but I remember that there are words.
There are not words for when you do not hold me.
I remember that there are no words in the world so I say them.
Abolishing a line is only one way to mark it.
My throat hurts from saying so much nothing.
When I say I love you what I really mean to ask is, will I change?

Tau(gh)t

2010-01-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

for madeline

I go back to that no and I sing from it.
I practice epilogue: needlethreadepi-
thelium. As what constitutes mean is the
variance. Perhaps I fly hollow. Into
some you, then. And rest. And where will the drama
queen darling? My tongue is thin without your tongue
to build a team on. Because we have been there,
dear Ranger. Let me punt to you. Face first is
the new tyranny of winged-ness. We were
a Jerusalem of avalanches gone
cleanly. Grip the resting heart, wresting. (Love, rest.)

Pre-existential condition: we. Victim-
ized and plural and. Mistakes are the only
things that happen in a mirror. Your father
drove while you slid your hand out the window. What
became a roof with no house, just some sky. We
barter what we witness. Because I can for-
give what forgives not forgets. Religion just
appropriates what beauty culls collected
in dependent lists. And what will shame me in
to breathing if I lose you. And what will pre-
sent tense if not corroborate with the past.

[this will always be the bathroom where I fucked
you where I fuck you where I fuck you where I
pee this fucking goes ongoing fuck with me
fucking you memory by member I re-
member you dick will do that dick will
barter baby’s restless call it the blue year
dick will dip you dick will slip you dick will knee
who told you momma may be an omnivore
but she always comes home to eat I got your
gruel right here baby fire me that’s what she said I see
fuck too much this fucking fuck fuck fuck with me]

I hesitate to use the phrase palm tree
because palm tree is so Miami. Nonethe-
less. Palm trees are indicative of regret.
When the palm tree does what it is doing now.
A thing anthropomorphic and lovingly
to my back. This happened in Fayetteville once
but, horticulture being what it is, the
palm tree lost by popular vote. There is no-
thing more humiliating than replacement.
To quote Eric Magraine, I’m not certain why
(you, me) we conceived in this order the world.

Where does coffee enjoy you in your new home?
I am a guest. And as such I will be mis-
taken. The porch chair disintegrated and.
With it the severalties abated. I
cannot say I miss her. I can, however,
own up to what I did to the chair. Can you
masturbate? No, never. Memory is use-
less. Still. Her hand was a chronology of
irrevocable. The shape of happiness.
I imagined 4 trillion lost cells inside
it: nevering and the press back of the ear.

And please that we not clobber nor posture. Plead
fists that forget their fists and drive up dumbly
inside. Praise the devil right out of my hands
and pray he leaves hard. Pray our cock in a bag
and praise it diligent from that paragon.
It’s an old story, babe. And I can safely
say I lean on it. Dear so and so. I am
sorry I brought the megaphone to your call-
ing hours. Not ashtray. Not dirty by the door.
Pray blinding. Praise faith without cleaving. Pray pre-
sent tense is not an admission of that theft.

Last night when I looked at you there was a you
looking back and she was dreamy. And by dream-
y I do not mean dream-like but thick. I miss
your shoulders. You know how all wet I get for
all things disparate. The teeth not teeth and did
you cut yourself your hair hidden or the hat.
This peeping on you is irregular but
consistent. In 08, “overshare” was the
new word of the year. If precipitant then.
Then reason says rest. Implicate agent or
agency. Retract. retractretractgenuflect.

Not face never over do not send that. I
called you a whore and I scared. Scared face, do no
over. Scared scared. A body con no not fist
it. A body con not never there. Would you
be my noose? Never darling. Noose you nicely.
Would you lungs on? Breasts on? Never face me? I
called you a whore, you noose, try by me. Never.
Con face scared. Share. A body called fist loose me
tightly. You darling con do not wish me there.
Lungs, will you? (scared) Will you? (whore) Scared. Never. Noose
fist nicely. Never con never loose fist share.

To address this assumption, acknowledge the
homogeneity of variances.
As the central limit disagrees and the
z-calc decides negative for the null, in-
ternal attributes, things that characterize
the unable to be observed, are known as
degrees of freedom. Penalties. µ is pow-
er. µ is another way to ask the same
question. Distance can be measured on a nom-
inal scale simply by applying names to
distances. Is this one tail, darling, or two?

Thin is tongue wing-ed, not not birds. There been have
wresting heart, resting – gone cleanly. Oh build us
Jerusalem in our tongues, steal us seamly.
Build us out of no build us into first build
the epilogue build the hollow hollow wall.
Tiny bathroom the be will always the be
will dip you and dip you forget not sky. Home.
Cleaving without faith, praise (home) blinding. Praise teeth
not teeth, you can chair. Your to brought sorry am
I so and so, pray I leave hard. Your to were
tyranny, grip the wrestless. build build love (rest)

The body is a tiny pool, a pool one
expects to see the bottom of. The woman
came and went with many different objects in
her mouth. The conclusive shape of happiness
is a triangle. We are mostly not birds.
Confession is the logical opposite
of light. The body is proximity we
mistake for proximity. If the theory
is that misogyny is throat culture. For
people with mothers. I take it back. I have
to give it to you. But. First, I take it back.

What Space Faith Can Occupy

2010-01-05T21:01:00.000-08:00

for JC and Jen

Once upon a time there was a girl who loved a girl and her laughter was a question she wanted to spend her whole life answering.
- Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

I believe that witness is a magnitude of vulnerability.
That when I say love what I mean is not a feeling
nor a promise of a feeling. I believe in attention.
My love for you is a monolith of try.

The woman I love pays an inordinate amount
of attention to large and small objects. She is not
described by anything. Because I could not mean anything else,
she knows exactly what I mean.

Once upon a time a line saw itself
clear to its end. I have seen the shape
of happiness. (y=mx+b)
I am holding it. It is your hand.

Tau(gh)t

2009-10-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

I go back to that no and I sing from it.
I practice epilogue: needlethreadepi-
thelium. As what constitutes mean is the
variance. Perhaps I fly hollow. Into
some you, then. And rest. And where will the drama
queen darling? My tongue is thin without your tongue
to build a team on. Because we have been there,
dear Ranger. Let me punt to you. Face first is
the new tyranny of winged-ness. We were
a Jerusalem of avalanches gone
cleanly. Grip the resting heart, wresting. (Love, rest.)

Edible

2009-09-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

What was an avalanche played a fawn and
did it cleanly. I weighted. You, who fish
on the flatbed, we are a parliament.
The theory of perilous and the pleasure of a boot
coming down. Down addiction, down. That’s a
grief, girl. I trust that you know all of the dinosaurs in
the city. The gender of hush is press press. Periphrastic.
I holy cleavage. And of subjunctive, I holy this.

reclaim (written for LGBTQ graduation at the University of Arizona, 2009)

2009-09-18T22:24:00.000-07:00

go. be like a giant, and go there singing.
carry concrete and in the other hand, carry water.
share not only teeth, but all the edges of your mouth.

go there, and be useful, hold up a mirror.
cartographer, be a dream, and go there dreaming.
in the shape of a spoon to draw the drawbridge, then spill out.

go. be like a garden, and demand more weeding.
demand a fire extinguisher. a welcome mat. sequins.
in every room demand a doorway. a window. a world.

go. be like a drag queen, and stop the bleeding.
rescue fear from the throats of the almost dead.
retrieve misplaced sharp things from the lungs, the heart, the word.

go there, and be critical, be beyonce.
terrorize simplicity. sit on a stairway and think of nothing.
bathe in all the liquid that still struggles in our chests.

go. be like a god, and make a lovely mess of things.
go. be like a telephone wire, give someone sturdy.
go. be like the flying thing not flying, and seek rest.

Thieves (for Lisa and Eve)

2009-09-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

I am convinced that there are sounds
with which my sorrow is unacquainted.
That there are arms who mean more
to the body they fell upon than the hands
by which they are inextricably known.

What publicity may mitigate for the breathing.
I offer you handlebars: all the liquid
that still struggles in our chests.

That we may hold this space gently.
and believing.
That our heads may float to Heaven
and garnish our ears.
What comfort scams rampant and allows:
say grieving.
What language mimics is oblivious:
plead rest.

Dress

2009-09-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

The plan, with you, was always easy. Plan empty and
call it open. Plan midnight. Call down
Heaven when in the throat of the suffocant.
Plan cigarette and call it cigarette.
Call down glass on the generous of the eyeball.
Call down canyon walls careless. Call it bleeding.
Call down DNA when what we harbored
was shiny. Call it political, politicians. Call it drift.

policital and all, in glass

2009-09-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

let there be silence. and plenty.
let there be end tables. breasts. buoys.
let there be exit ramps. breasts. balls.

when, what essentially I made off with was your stair.
like a tunnel grieves a view of the sky:
all the emptiness between my teeth is a gift.

pray down the mirror our reflection says we
see through. your new lover on one side of the street.
your new bicycle. and then, therefore, you.

pray down a rope around the syllable
that haunts us. the narrative that continually takes
itself too seriously. a symphony of strangulated rests.

our music undone periscopically.
the pornography remains inexhaustible.
a white flag fading at the root.

and what void can we still find our way into.
victimless.
a hand signaling daylight to the sky.

a myelin mouth frozen open in the bedroom.
what you recognize is not me, is (not) me.
that, inside the body which is not your body

to defibrillate, your plastic hands articulate a bruise.
(I love you more with your pants down.) pray down an overpass.
because a demonstrative is lingering in the airway.

all pedal and unfrozen – will you see me?
pray down a casino and then a cornfield in the coda.
(prayitdownprayitoverpassmeoverprayitdownpassitoverprayitback)

tooth enamel is the strongest substance in the human body.
shame is not something we carry.
it multiplies in the recesses of our mouths.

because one hand still reaches into the empty.
pray down the pressure of your hand on my body.
a violence of comfort and request.

shoulder gratitude

2009-09-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

let that it be visible

and sooner: your hand-

ing me row. and the dribble

of a belt coming down. let

that arthritic in a game-

room is still gaming. weather

inconsequence, yes: hands down.

A Congress of Bring and of Invisible: The Language of Heaven is No

2008-11-03T20:53:00.000-08:00

city, in which the body is disappearing.

city, in which the aorist is resurrected.

city, in which I cultivate disparation.

city, in which the body permeates know.

city, you are rampant in the earlobes. a staple

furnished blithely in a tree.

city, you are Freudian in your constancy.

city, you are the permutation. of go.

city, in which the feet stutter reckless.

city, in which the vertigo is unnamed.

city, in which the throat throws persimmon.

city, in which the sheets are an impediment.

city, in which I trouble you, like rain.

city, in which the surface is disappearing.

city, in which the manhole never leaves you.

city, in which the visible is a treachery.

city, in which her hair breaks, like shame.

city, in which the whitewash is receding.

city, in which the finally falls out.

in which the body is neither promise nor

kindness nor dare. city, in which my back is newly token.

city, in which the broken are uneven.

even and faithfully bound.

city, in which your fists are a miracle.

city, in which there remain 2 types of teeth.

city, in which we revision a thankful girder.

city, in which the violin is a fever.

a girder we must fashion from our teeth.

for the city in which the falling has already happened.

city, in which the arm of every chair leads with leave.

city, in which you protect things by erasing them.

city, in which my tongue is frozen black.

city, in which the brachial is unnerving.

city, in which your hand is opportunity.

city, in which your hand defines my back.

city, in which she will look hard and look harder and unsee me.

city, in which I tend not to play music.

city, in which I desperate to become unseen.

city, in which these hands are my hands when I hold you.

city, in which I love you is a belt coming down.

city, in which the cement arrived in us.

city, in which smaller sounds prevail and I abuse them.

city, in which my mother says son.

city, in which there are 2 fingers. 2 fingers and no space in between.

arrive in us, contact, arrive.

city, in which my mother says you to me.

city, in which my father says none.

city, in which I know nothing about the pressure a woman reels

depending on the placement of her knees.

city, in which you were putting on your clothes.

city, in which the ears were a cacophony.

city, in which we know the gentle lungs are working

by the way the breath abandons the troubled mouth.

(ir)Retrieval

2008-11-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

That _______ was born Melissa Dawn Tolbert December 24, 1974

to a woman named Jeannie Darline. That in this

we decorate almost. We mean (we relegate) we mean.

That the hopeful bearded face becomes a tyranny.

(That what we believe in is a form of refraction. The back turning

as a word, upon itself. Draping the neck into sound.) That there lies

a calloused form of predicate beneath the Rupaul.

That the body which is her body is a decency.

That we draw can(n)ons around permissible and rest.

That a book I received I then decided to return to you.

That I do not know forgiveness for the things we choose to leave.

That, like the after image given to a closed eye.

She is prologue. And simultaneous. She is domicile.

That this is not therefore. (salient.) That she bring.

She remembers that there are names, kinder names,

for the accidental bruising left by witness. And

sedulous in her canter these are illegible. With a mouth

full of tinder. and forget. With a hand, not a shade,

and a gleaning. That she may liquefy all outposts. and fall back.

That there is a causal born predisposed to a reachliness.

That there are fists with which my mouth has not met.

In what became known as The Topography

of Unrequited Laughter, You Fucking Suck, and The Pedagogue

of Sixth and Silhouette. It is not so much that transferable

is in the offering. (Although I am ungentle and

in between, dear Ramona.) That you come home

anyway. And bring the telephone of your liking.

That you block discreetly and settle spring between my mouth.

That we are a history. On a good day. A context. The path

of a paper airplane drawn optimistically about the edges

of a room. That my hands do still so little (grieving)

to listen to me. Usurpers of sleep and yet

their genius is temerity. That they memory

they memory they member. (non-consensual.) They member

they memory they rest. In this, they encourage

disparation. They gentle Hustler, Man 2 Man,

and Too Deep. (we are patching this in on film.)

That the bathroom is guileless in its obscurity. What we

reach for when placing a _______ in the mouth.

Do not hold your hands like a lift to me.

Lying just below the derivative of undertow. That they

are given twice as empty as sound.

It’s not silence I’m afraid of, it’s commodification.

(on peeing on, seeing on, Out.)

Masturbation’s just not the same without menstruation: what

with all the delectable injectables: where what’s obscure

outweighs antiquity: to obdurate cheekily: there’s little

that’s been improved here: he’s in and, clearly, she’s out.

Faux hawk □ (:when it all comes down to hegemony)

Chin stache □ (: i.e. and/or even the pathology of and/or)

White speak □ (: gephyromania is interminable and dis-ease)

Ellipses □ (make that a double check) (: with regard to virile mangos,

friends, and (more important) money: the subtextual consciousness of queer.)

I press curiously tender to your Arabia. (oh baby i)

My labia swell and Really. That’s so neat and all.

But it’s the rise of the dicklet we all cheer.

disappearing wheelbarrow, I wish you wheelbarrow.

the whiskey rash reel off the hand.

the ballyhorse leg is a spoonfall; applesauce

class in a round. hermeneutically sealed

in a braindrop (we are) fucking shit up

with insistence. the barrel chain bounty gives

ground. Mercedes! Mercedes! Despite the genuflect.

how much plow could really you land in a day.

despite the eyelids and the pants that fall

accordingly. despite Rothko, repatriation,

and the parallel. what will generous make

broken in the handoff. (we are) (tiny) a population

of peligro. despite the temperature and armistice of when.

(we are) rebar: for rent or for rain.

(So that there is at least one flag you will never know the weight of.)

(So that the chair has many permutations.)

(So that you move forward as if through a jump-rope.

The handles molesting your hands.)

(So that there are peepholes in which we are still lingering.)

(So that my tits are still tits in the summertime.)

(So that as long as I hold you I will continue to pour my hair out.)

(So that lack may not measure thickness, nor health, nor sound.)

That the body which is my body is a relevancy.

That the new body which is irrelevant is a test.

That there’s never been a man in the room. That,

were it not for one man fucking me back into existence,

I would have sworn to you that I thought I saw two.

That there are now tears in what was supposed to be

impermeable. That either way I am unable to be conceived.

That the body which is my body is indeterminately.

That there is little room for the tiny tufts of toilet paper.

That I will hold them in the verisimilitude I continuously

refer to as my chest. That this is somehow a demonstration

of bravery. That better models of logic are exemplified

by this drain. That erosion is what some still believe in philanthropy.

That this is a prayer shawl. That still we refuse to call her by her name.

On Minimalization

2008-09-03T18:05:00.000-07:00

(And on the more discreet notion of risk.)

Do not look at sentences sideways. Do not insert commas where periods are sufficient. Do not elucidate, subjunctive, or retract. Do not nickname. Above all, do not nickname yourself. Do not abbreviate when what you want is an intimacy. Do not whisper to the sister with whom you share a small bed. Do not share a small bed. Do not sleep deeply enough that you wander from the house.

Do not wear a face that says precious. Do not be anti-precious. Be sincere but not overly-so. Do not be aggressively sincere. Do not be a girl who plays softball. Do not play softball and do not hang out with other girls. Do not be a girl who curls her eyelashes. Do not love to see how she would look if she were bound. Do not love eyelash curlers. Do not love bondage. Know that other girls can see you. Know that they may be tempted to feel betrayed. Do not be a girl. Do not love the bondage of being a girl. Do not be tempted. Do not feel betrayed.

Do not believe in hell more than you believe in other things. Do not discover masturbation in the 3^rd grade. Do not masturbate. Do not ask god to strike you with diarrhea or stomach pain. Do not believe in alcoholism, vegetarianism, or tongues. Do not cry nor practice fuck with your mouth. Do not shower in the house alone. Do not shower at night. Do not lock the door but always close it. Do not yell at anyone who enters because this may anger them and they may become suspicious. Do not make a spectacle of your struggling. Do not hide yourself but do not pick a fight.

Interrogate any pleasure relentlessly. Do not participate. You may find casual encounters to be the most obscene. Do not count the telephone poles as you pass them. Do not imagine you are a table saw. And then a wash. Then a crowd. Do not smoke cigarettes at a young age. Do not practice smoking cigarettes at a young age. Behind a locked door in the bathroom at the mirror. Do not fixate orally. Do not look at yourself. Do not remember you have a jealous hole for a mouth.

(ir)Retrieval

2008-05-05T19:37:00.000-07:00

* sonnet crown in progress...

That _____ was born Melissa Dawn Tolbert December 24, 1974
to a woman named Jeannie Darline. That in this
we decorate almost. We mean (we relegate) we mean.
That the hopeful bearded face becomes a tyranny.
(That what we believe in is a form of refraction. The back turning
as a word, upon itself. Draping the neck into sound.) That there lies
a calloused form of predicate beneath the Rupaul.
That the body which is her body is a decency.
That we draw can(n)ons around permissible and rest.
That a book I received I then decided to return to you.
That I do not know forgiveness for the things we choose to leave.
That, like the after image given to a closed eye.
She is prologue. And simultaneous. She is domicile.
That this is not therefore. (salient.) That she bring.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

That we are a history. On a good day. A context. The path
of a paper airplane drawn optimistically about the edges
of a room. That my hands do still so little (grieving)
to listen to me. Usurpers of sleep and yet
their genius is temerity. That they memory
they memory they member. (non-consensual.) They member
they memory they rest. In this, they encourage
disparation. They gentle Hustler, Man 2 Man,
and Too Deep. (we are patching this in on film.)
That the bathroom is guileless in its obscurity. What we
reach for when placing a _____ in the mouth.
Do not hold your hands like a lift to me.
Lying just below the derivative of undertow. That they
are given twice as empty as sound.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

That the body which is my body is a relevancy.
That the new body which is irrelevant is a test.
That there’s never been a man in the room. That,
were it not for one man fucking me back into existence,
I would have sworn to you that I thought I saw two.
That there are now tears in what was supposed to be
impermeable. That either way I am unable to be conceived.
That the body which is my body is indeterminately.
That there is little room for the tiny tufts of toilet paper.
That I will hold them in the verisimilitude I continuously
refer to as my chest. That this is somehow a demonstration
of bravery. That better models of logic are exemplified
by this drain. That erosion is what some still believe in philanthropy.
That this is a prayer shawl. That still we refuse to call her by her name.

offering

2008-05-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

A rope and then somehow it’s opposite.
Cantilevered.
An amalgam of pre-injury rests.

elegy

2008-01-01T10:34:00.000-08:00

I am so not myself (sometimes) I look at her.
And we are never equal to the break that we bring.

without indeterminacy

2007-12-30T19:27:00.001-08:00

I am heavy bored with criticism.
Your new lover has a light and congenial gravity.
I remember your wrists. and sing.

Minus antecedents: The final interrogation of no

2007-12-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

Alright. Tell me one more time about the racecar.
About how your bike is better even if it’s not more safe –
because it doesn’t go that fast – but somehow you’ve shown up
so far. No, no. The last thing I need is a diagram.
Maybe we should go back to yesterday. There was a yellow house
and two stick figures in the yard. What do you mean they were superheroes?

As in: Wonder Twins activate.
In the form of a light post and the disembodied bumper of your car.
Very funny. What did the house do. It yellowed.
Its memory was the least safe
dream of us all. We wanted to be architects then so we made plans
to blow it down. Neither of us was invited to the show.

Wait a minute. Are you trying to sell me intermission?
I came here for lollipops and acrobats and even snow.
Now there are no words but there’s a diagram
and you’re telling me “Don’t worry. It’s a race
not a joke.” Do you remember your safe
word? No. What’s a safe word? It’s like house -

it’s out of context, it means no. You’ll be fine. Just remember: yellow house
(out of context) = no. But I was here a year ago and they were playing the same damn show.
It’s not that I think I’m unsafe it’s just that some people are falling (do you think I’m unsafe?)
and some people are flying and I can’t tell which ones are supposed to be the superheroes.
It’s ok, babe. I bought you a racecar.
And I want you to call it your brain. I drew a picture

of us on the back of my tongue and the diagram
drew the fixture right away. But what about the house
and the yard. The truth is there was never any yellow. There was only a car
and a car. Don’t get me wrong, they were nice cars. They always knew the way to the show.
I just can’t wrap my mind around precipitation.
We keep coming back to elephants and myspace and “safe”

words. I don’t know the difference between relationship. Between a net
made of fiberglass and an open window. The sentence and its diagram.
The ground that we move to make walls. Wonder twins,
activate. Where are you. In the form of a yellow house
and a bucket made of snow. Do me a favor, ok babe. Will you not show me
what you showed them at the show. One of us has a heart like a racecar…

It’s just that you’re an XX-man. and now I’m looking for a girl.
You wouldn’t believe the patterns I’ve seen on this racecar. I’d draw you a diagram
but I’m just not sure where it would go. Yellow house, relax. It’s ok. It’s just dress rehearsal.
I need you to save all that shit for the show.

latitude: perceived obsolescence: unplanned

2007-12-23T20:32:00.000-08:00

(we lay there for months drawing back
tiny muscle. and grafting an exegesis of skin.)

My voice, which is the most terrible gift from me.
Indiscriminately. You refuse to touch me with sound.

I want you to tell me a story about unknowing me.
Even the mirrors have become bars we lean against.
Even the body has become a gift we regret.

Either way, I showed up today with my cast on.
With what I wouldn’t give to hear you say Technicolor.
With a guitar and an E string that sticks to itself.
With elephants and a memory of what was found.

It is hard to imagine there are fingers
that do not belong to me. That speak a language to
your body I do not know.

Come closer love, and do not diminish me.
These, which are the politics of our nevering
and you, who are a fistful of duet.
Pressed generously in the girders of my back.

It is not so much that we are
unbroken. Standing like a cyclone
on the periphery of that door.

The cataracts of leaving distinguish me.
And yet. I believe in this retrieval. You,
who are an elliptical. a sweeping. a banishment.

Come closer. Rest my hand on that fragile.

Yesterday.

A silence we begin for.

And yesterday.

The crossing nothing comes.

territories of folding

2007-12-23T19:59:00.000-08:00

This cannot be another year about ___________ (unknowing). I was my mother’s daughter and then a series of days came. They were not unlike a rock garden on the dinner table. I brushed the ground and made a lifejacket of fence posts. We committed suicide and she called me her sum.

Pushed in a closet and bleeding.

If this is 1989:

your sister did that to your nose.

sometimes I believe I am a hallway. (I take back the whole part about transitioning.) and this is what I keep trying to tell you about desperation. (if I could I would suffer more in that liminal.) my wish which is a faulty maintaining. the tender of a slightly turned knee. (I am the least brave person that I know.)

It’s spelled s-h-e but the s is silent.

Isn’t that the way it is anyway. No two plurals in the world.

And what of CPR in the first place.

Play dead, little sister, be a good girl.
I’ll be the boy and I’ll save you.

This is air in your lungs and you are now
breathing. It is important to me that you
remember the difference. This is
resuscitation. Not blood or a kiss.

Dear rooftop:

2007-10-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

Even though.

What we were promised was cornstarch. Featuring I am all no and other miracles. Minutes were made out of east coast. Suddenly Seymore and there's a fish in your hand.

An elephant has a memory like a cyclone. And either way I come back to you.

Little is left unchanged.

The Trapping Sessions: (Free)

2007-09-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

(Eventually: 33 haiku about my transition.)

~

Somehow if I speak
the same: (do I speak the same)
negative capa-
bility is just
a word. (Word.) I live in that
compression. Language –
do something unusual
to languish me. Language me,
language, steal my voice.

~

Let’s just say I’m the
fish. Yes. I’m the fish begging
tricks for less air.
Compositional
improv is not metaphor.
My voice changed and I
thought I was k(no)wing-
ly. Speak memory, speak. ____.
Memory: break voice.

~

Smile (defer) smile, smile,
shimmy. Wink – wait. That’s not my
line. My line slipped.

~

A table covered
with t-shirts is a living
room. And who wouldn’t
feel safe in that ray-
o-gram. Where we are only
what the light cannot
prove. (I live in that
compression.) And who wouldn’t
language in whose voice.

~

20 minute mustache

2007-09-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

I always mistook my face for less sinister. I have only one secret and in 40 seconds that number will become less than three. When I wash dishes first, I fill up the largest bowl with warm water, soap, and silverware in the sink. Notice the rule of nonrecollection. It is paramount to the myth of the sink. On 5th Avenue my dog is under the kitchen table and Shana’s oranges are remembered to the wall, waiting to drip kindly on the floor. Only the fact of what I was thinking there can separate me. Less than a decade but what the sink said was years. Can someone please pass me the Technicolor? The dyad singulared and the space was an honesty. Having lived through the funnel both ways. Little intuition calls the scene.

Look at me, playtime. Listen up. It’s cold in here and I’ve got heavenly. My windmill arms are a wish. You can touch me. You cannot go any further than this. I cannot hold you do not trust me. You can go any further than this. We left the oven on much more in that kitchen. Your hair breaks in and I am lovingly. Go little grass, burn back. Go little ween, kiss kiss.

februate holy field bridge

2007-09-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

spurious concomital and loverly
she’s a good boy no matter what he’s our
you cannot be everywhere besides de-
votion resume you are only the places
where I be both tired of the obvious
and invigorate arrive in us arrive in
us temper tiny honesty arrive
not unbuttoning I thought I was dying
point the dog seeking shade in the corner
for the sake of forsaking for forsook
a girder we fashioned from our teeth

Underneath February is a test strip.

2007-02-26T20:00:00.000-08:00

And believe me. Believe me. I would.

Men is another moment of happily.
They say your body. My breasts
in my hands and. Your hands
cleaving. I said I would tether them.
Lay your hands down - I will
sever them like wood.

parallelograms for a. to z.

2007-02-26T19:45:00.000-08:00

You said I will pull you out of my body in 237
ways. What you wanted was beautifully to
sever things. Here love: the same things. changed.

Finally: a taxonomy of afterthoughts. As though
you were the one who was
sleeping. Breathing in the marrow of would.

You, who are a valley of no, I hear the music leaking. (How she.
How she. How I.) You say low key and I do not believe you.

I forgive everything: the perseveration of skin.

My hands that are a chopping block and I
cannot touch him. I cannot touch him
without not touching me.

Because if you leave, and you are already leaving, there are three.
But you say less than three. And the couch, in your absence,
is crenellated. And who is going to watch us as we leave.

To add to the list of changing things: life preservers are no longer
about preservation. They have become less holy. PFD =
personal flotation device. Endlessly possible. Unlike wood.

Stacey May Fowles wants a lover who will hit her.
(I do not believe in submission.) I want you to erase me.
This is a kindness. A kindness you tell me. A kindness I do not deserve.

On the floor. By the bed. Hotel Congress. March 19, 2005.
Room #23. We are a long way from disintegrated. You said Now.
Look at me. And I did. And you bloomed.

(When my mother died, I will say.
Many years after my mother has died.
But I will not believe her. I’ll be like my grandmother who

despite my parade of girlfriends and her profession
that nobody should be mean to them, still
doesn’t believe in being queer.

I don’t believe in being dead,
I’ll tell my dead mother. And just like you
she’ll repeat herself. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Happy New.)

I expect there will be a morning when you walk up to this very gate
while I am sitting here. I know this. I know you less each time I see you.
I know this like I know you are more lonely than glass.

To your languishing. To your bubbly.
To your recent. To your hologram. To your desperately.
To your seeking. To your dictaphone. To your you.

Neuromuscular facilitation is just another way of saying
Vancouver. Always is yet a matter of roller derby. Just
in love with you. you, more than sleep.

In the top drawer is a photograph of them touching.
It is not so much that it is a photograph
as it is a depiction of what. what, not could.

I want to tell you about my body. About testosterone
as unwitting art historian. About recovery. Me(n). What it feels like

underneath there. The part you cannot know. but should.

Either way. It’s a house. It’s a house
like everyone else has. I take things away.
I don’t take them for good.

How delirious must we sound when we are falling.
I miss you, you can’t even imagine. And how bad
at math. Less than three. Less than three. Less than three.

And what if. I completely remember
it wrong. What if I remember there were two
of us. And then what if. there was only one death.

I do not believe in the existence of holes
that lead to nowhere. Muscle memory remains an enigma. Still, you cannot
touch her. You cannot touch her without not touching me.

(And still) you are not not a part of me. The world is
uncharacteristically unresponsive.
I could thank you. You stay with me. like grass.

thaw

2007-01-16T11:52:00.000-08:00

My hands are consistently.

so many pieces of wood.

anyway, what the hell is a panic attack?

2007-01-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

So it happened that I had a panic attack last night. The first full blown one in several years.

Sitting at Bentley’s and the room gradually fills with bodies. The sounds of bodies and their individual coffee cups. The sounds of merriment. A seemingly invisible collision of worlds.

This happens all the time, of course. People come together in public places and do what people coming together do. I have been a person before. I remember it in the way you remember something that happened in your presence. Something you may have witnessed but ultimately, it didn’t happen to you.

We were sitting there, it was amazing. She had on a black shirt, I think. Or maybe it was blue. Either way I don’t remember being afraid of her. I was alive then, I didn’t worry about it. I knew we were people in a world full of people. It never occurred to me to have my eye on the door.

The ugliest part of a panic attack is complicity. The way the world becomes a table top lifted from one corner and the plates slide. People who were eating salmon now bite into chocolate cake as if that’s what they ordered. No one whispers to their neighbor when a plate or two makes it to the floor.

Today I feel as though I am broken.

I feel like a road that folks will continue to drive down. I wonder where this goes, they will say in their wandering. And, oh, what a beautiful view. The patches seem seamless. Really, they’re nothing more than pieces of non-reflective glass.

"upper-lower class or lower-middle" - can i say i grew up poor?

2006-12-30T11:39:00.000-08:00

Mostly I want to use this site to post my poems. Today I just want to share. I probably won't do this often - which most of us will be thankful for. This thing is part memory, part rant, part cliche. I wrote it about a month or so ago.

______________________

I just re-read the letters between Dean and his sister in Without a Net. I remember reading them on the plane back from OB and calling my mom later to talk about growing up poor – how the most she would say was how much (little) she made: around $20,000 a year while raising my sister and me. How she had this intense need to disassociate us from the “really poor” – which I get because we did have some privilege, we are white, we have family to lean on/live with. But how she wanted to rewrite history – how she kept saying, “we always had food to eat.” And how that is true. And…

I wonder about her (our, my) need to erase the ways that what we ate was our pride. The trips to the places her checks had bounced; the way we had to go there and actually apologize to some dumb manager for being poor. How we had to try to buy more time to pay the overdraft fees – the way she had to take us with her – how embarrassing that must have been. To see her crying outside of the grocery store, afraid they would eventually take us from her; moving from apartment to apartment to Granny’s house when she couldn’t keep up with the rent. Wanting an easier life so getting married to LaVaughn and then later to Tim.

What would my mom have been if she weren’t always struggling to get by – always submitting herself to shit jobs and shit treatment so her kids could feel like they were going to win.

I remember going to her boss’s house for some holiday thing. Maybe we were actually at her office. I don’t know. I just remember the old, rich man sitting in a nice leather chair. Was she flirting with him (fucking him?) to keep her job? He took out a 1 dollar bill. Maybe it was a 5. Either way I remember thinking that it was a big deal. Then he’s giving us some dumb pep talk about money, about how we should work hard and then we can make it and then he takes the dollar bill and he rips it in half. He gives half of it to Julie and half of it to me. Fucking paternalistic joker. I was awestruck by this fool.

Here is this thing we’re always, and I mean always, in need of and he’s got the gall to tear it in half and think he’s done us some favor and now isn’t he so cute.

On the ride home I asked my mom if we could still use it – if Julie and I taped our halves back together could it still be spent. I remember wanting to give it to her. Knowing that whatever she was doing with this creep, however many times she had to say yes sir, the money was rightfully hers and it wasn’t mine to keep.

I think the hardest part about remembering money trouble – because that’s how my mom phrased it – we had “trouble with money.” Like it was the rear driver’s side tire that had this tiny nail in it and so every few days we would come out to go somewhere and find it flat. The hardest part was the hiding. The way I tried to space my few outfits apart so that the kids at school wouldn’t notice I was wearing exactly the same 4 or 5 things every goddamn week. The way “vegetables” meant instant mashed potatoes and canned peas. The way we’ve stuffed it all down – made it a ghost past because now we’re outta there. The ways we silence ourselves. The ways we make nice. The way it wasn’t that bad – the way we can’t comfort or talk to each other about it because we can’t really acknowledge that it exists.

2006-12-25T12:45:00.000-08:00

the palinode

2006-12-18T14:35:00.000-08:00

It is your birthday and you are a beautiful boy. We are beautiful boys on a motorcycle. You wave to other bikers and the other bikers wave to the beautiful boys. Beautiful boys on a motorcycle waiting for a train and your gloved hand reaches for me. We laugh and your gloved hand reaches me. Your gloved hand and the motorcycle are missing. Your gloved hand waves to other bikers. Beautiful boys, your birthday is over. Your gloved hand, beautiful boy. Beautiful boy, your gloved hand. How beautiful. Beautiful. I’m cold.

~

Part of it is that we are at a gun show.
Part of it is that we are at a gun show
but we have not come together. The danger
of not coming together. Put the gun down, dear
and take the bullets out sweetly. Push them
one by one. Marry them
to the muscle that sits between our bones.

~

Let’s just say I remember everything. Eating a ham sandwich for the first time in your living room. My leather belt and the way you loved its smell at eye level. Markered up lids of olive jars. The gentle way the linoleum gave beneath you when you begged your knees into the floor. (New ending: I am the red-winged monster curled inside you like a fist. It is not so much the darkness that concerns me. It is the loose thing, the clambering thing I imagine inhabits your chest.)

~

As of October 21, 2006 I will officially be becoming a new kind of man.

You won’t forgive me for taking me away from you.

When, for the last four days I’ve dreamt about you, I’ve woken

up close to the ugliest thing I’ve ever known:

~

I love you and you are out gun shopping.
(Forgive me for taking me away.)
I love you. You. No longer. So I’m told.

a love note for my breasts

2006-12-18T14:33:00.000-08:00

(abridged)

Thank you for the joke about Tokyo. I’m cutting you off now. For my grandmother and the way she talked about my grandfather. She said he liked her for her big brown eyes.

~

Thank you for protecting me from straight women. I’ll miss that. For making me think long and hard about why there was a marriage I was leaving. For the 1997 I never had.

~

after rilke

2006-12-18T14:31:00.000-08:00

(I think, who somewhere said something* about defending against mosquitoes, periods, Lazyboys and other indoor furniture relegated to the nearby outside:)

I give you curtains.

Paper clips, a tripod, the dictionary:
love, here is a deadbolt. It wasn’t a pearl
we were chasing; it was cinderblocks.

In your mouth slept a vacuum of stars.

*We are unutterably alone.

the complete and normal failure of art

2006-12-18T14:27:00.000-08:00

Leslie Feinberg’s face was held down in a toilet
full of cop shit before she was anally raped, plain
and simple, because she looked like a man.

I don’t know how to make this beautiful.

I don’t know how to take the image.

To fold the ace bandage she used
to keep her breasts down in a way
that doesn’t remind me of broken knees.

from passing...

2006-12-18T14:25:00.000-08:00

I believe a line set down
at any point in space is
infinite. The body is a collection
of linear. Crepuscular. Dumb.

If I believed in little arrows
shooting off the end of every i
I’d be asking for it.
I’d be taking over.

The body doesn’t need that.
The body is retractable.

Touch me.
We’ll become less one.

I say nothing / about my vagina
and nothing stays. Nothing stays
saying it. Nothing vaginas.
Vaginas stay nothing. Nothing says
vaginas in the room.

I keep thinking I want to
fall in love with you but love
is so much constancy and.

I is too many words.

paper crane

2006-12-18T14:21:00.000-08:00

If I begin any day with a pronoun, a foot slips off a barstool crossbar and, because the bar is a bar and not a foot stalking mecca, the consequence is minimal. At best. No one mispronounces shorthand. No one forgets their drink with its soggy napkin in miniature. In short, the show is decent. No one leaves misunderstood.

If I say I and you begin to doubt me. I’ll go back to the bar and bring a footstool. I’ll go back to the crossbars and what could. There will be mirrors there and you will think you are shrinking: 1 foot, another foot.

Gin and tonic and soda water. Brown eye blinking. (You begin to disappear.) Good.

~

This is not about the gender of soda water. (People kill for that shit.) This is about origami. The gender of soda water is simple: it’s lampshade. It’s irretrievable. It is your body, folded like a pillow behind me. The lock broken and the dog goes on sleeping.

I I (and I notice)
I’m unattached.