We're all walking cliche's,
So what's the big deal?
I can  wear a beanie and a gay pride tee shirt and moccasins,
And listen to Neutral Milk Hotel,
And talk about feminism and politics.
Do not kiss me with your mustang convertible and your ****** piercings.
I am a taken woman.
But I will take your free drugs.
Thank you very much.
Stop mourning me,
My arrogance should never have been a turn on.
Pretzel crisps, tattoos, and student loans.
It's hard walking down the boulevard of broken dreams,
And bumping into all the other lonely souls.

Evenings were sandwich time
brought in by big Ted
sandwiches cut in triangles
in white and brown

and he laid the plates down
on the center table
and the patients
bored out

of their fragile brains
pounced upon them
and ate ravishingly
as if time

was running out
to eat
but  
Yiska nibbled hers

took small bites
her finger tips
holding the brown bread
her white teeth

nibbling gently
Naaman watched her
his sandwich held
but uneaten

smelt
viewed
but held away
from lips

he took in
Yiska's nibbling
the way her fingers
held as if a holy host

not fish paste
and her lips
parted just so
her tongue seen

the white teeth
and her eyes
unfocused
her nightgown

buttoned at the breast
with a missing button
and he wanted
to be that sandwich

in her fingers
wanted her lips
to feel him
her teeth to nibble him

but then
the foreign woman
distracted him
by taking

her sandwich apart
opening it
between fingers
sniffing the contents

******* up her nose
muttering something
in her foreign tongue
throwing it on the plate

and picking up another
don't waste them
a nurse said
ask if you don't see

what you want
the foreign woman
chewed on the sandwich
she'd picked

the nurse removed
the torn open sandwich
Naaman ate
a small portion

viewing Yiska meanwhile
licking her fingers
******* the ends
in and out

and he wished
it he she was doing thus
he looked away
the evening sky

was darkening
through the locked
ward windows
the bright electric lights

above their heads
made mirrors
of the windows
and Naaman saw himself

in his blue dressing gown
sans belt in case
he tried to string
himself again

and he gazed at Yiska
once more nibbling
another sandwich
the same *******

technique
the similar lipping
routine
and the missing button

on her nightgown
revealed a small portion
of flesh viewed
her small *******

pressing the cotton cloth
of the nightgown
and he ate unceremoniously
the last of his bread

watching her fingers
licked again
while outside the window
the sound of fresh rain.

She walks in beauty, like the night
     Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
     Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
     Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
     Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
     Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
     How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
     So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
     But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
     A heart whose love is innocent!

now I’m sweating,

sweating and I remember walking

really heavy and fat at seven-teen-

it was like ninety degrees

a walk-in oven.

what did I know then?

it feels like that time

happened to someone else,

some girl who happened to die

or fade into obscurity

with stretch marks and cesarean scars

a passive husband and grimy faced children-

but then again I catch

glimpses of that girl

in my own long mirrors

and realize it was

my life a long time ago.



so I was trying to get a job

at some grocery store

and was walking home from the *** test,

nothing to worry about

such as the vanilla life I was tame-

(a subordinate in denial)

walking from the lab in

a sweltering haze

wanting to die

frizzy hair

stuck and humid

some boy I thought I loved

some boy I thought I would die without

sleeping sound in the air conditioning

in my bed-

and I lurched on

busses passing me

with the mild hope I would never sit in one again-

and that I could please a dandruffed haired

and acne scared boy

who harvested dreams of my toil.



as I showered clean and fell

like a fleshy tree with yesterday’s make up

still clinging

beating self-loathing with sleep,

I woke a decade later,

a slim shadow free

and wish that the old me knew

what I had starved to learn-

I smile and think,

I don’t even have a picture

to remember all this by.

In a lit parlor you recite pain

Anecdote

She went missing, babe split in the night

I’m placid and have mastered jealousy

this time,

I know a friend best when I can face them leg splayed.



But that old ghost howls,



Old ghost

Old shame

Old photos alone.

I had a unibrow in one and my shirt was too big

but I thought it was stylish

And I thought I could be a model.



Whatever happened to that photo?

Where do old memories go when you toss them out

with the trash?

I always thought the garbage man must have a

fat photo album.

I guess I should be more careful

I guess I should learn to let go



I’m walking with my head held high

My hair twin serpents on my breast

And I stumble over a meaty stump-

It’s alive with larva and its eyes are ripe

And its tongue hangs out of its maw vulgarly

It laps at my ankle

“Remember me? Remember me?”

CAN’T YOU STAY DEAD

I hear myself shouting from somewhere totally vulnerable and

Why did I ever let you touch me?



Thanks so much-

Thought I'd start off with a clean slate today
Completely clear my mind
Sit in a darkened room
Give it a little time

See what there is inside of me
Digging deep what I will find
Grab a hold the poet soul
Spend the extra dime

I found I like it better here
Without the fuddle of mankind
Just me, the darkness, and my mind
In the deeper meaning of the rhyme

because we fell in love with the law
and fell out of love with ourselves.

because the ***** of great minds
wear pineapple fatigues in their fathers’ *******;

from Judas swallowing 9 bullets
to one day being a kid at heart
a symptom of some abnormality.

Ever get the feeling that you’ll die on a Tuesday?

Or one day wake up on their government bed
Screaming,
“you can blame the French Revolution
On silent reading!”

watching

as three teacups of *** plan war on the asphalt.