I have your name written down on a note in my phone.
It's on a list of the boys that I've slept with.
I don't need photographs to remember you by,
because I have strong memories of how our skin touched so closely.
You contaminated my mind with false ideas of who we were.
When we were together, were we even together?
Perhaps we were only sleeping together.
It's uncomfortable how you left me so easily.
As if I meant nothing to you at all. Maybe that's just how it is.
But if we're being real, and true ,and honest,
I suppose you're really just a name
written down on a note in my phone,
on a list of the boys that I've slept with.

I just want five hundred grand
Is that too much for me to ask?
It is a lot. Probably too much.
But I am prepared for the task
Of spending that much dough.
I have it completely planned out.
I know where every dollar goes.
It’s all over but the last shout.

Right away, I want a house
And a decent one here on Kauai.
I also want a brand new truck
For my husband to drive and try.
I also have a few trips to plan
Like floating down the Rhine
And then up by train to Denali
That would suit us both just fine.

That ought to do it, I believe;
A secure home all paid for
And decent new cars for us
And a world out there to explore.
That should spend that money
And have a bit of change left over.
Satisfying the homebody I am
And the man I married is a rover.

I am very willing to write a book
And have it sell a million copies.
I have several started and am sure
They would each be a hit in shoppes.
There can be about eight books
Carefully edited by me, for sure
Those alone should make my rep.
That would be my poverty cure.

1) It echoes of slumber, dragging the bedsheets with its claws. Beckoning lips to the day.

2) It listens to the grumble seeping from its cracks. It is awake.

3) Turn the dial, let the beast face the fire.

4) I hear it roar, alarm clocks are broken, replacements have been found.

5) The gurgle leaves the chamber, the ceramic has grown sick. Regurgitate, regurgitate.

6) I remember a song... “Tip me over and pour me out.”

7) It flies up, cradling the slumber napping beneath the lids, pin them open til midday.

8) Soot crumbles to the bottom, the muddy cliffs have divulged.

9) Stinging nettle of magma, scaling down the cliffs, fog rolls over its hills.

10) I am short. The beast shall not face me this day. I would lose the battle.

11) The buzz of the alarm clock is obsolete. *** rush the front door. Your tie is loose.

12) Speedy escapades, a slosh of regret, the white shirt is defeated.

13) It went off to bed, down the silver basin. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Or perhaps the midday shall awaken me.

Stop.
Breathe.
Go for a drive.
See.
Admire.
Pray.
Ponder.
Sing.
Dance.
Be spontaneous.
Trust.
Surrender.
Release.
Hope.
Love.
Pause.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Live.

2AM
Bedroom door
Dim lights
Squeaky stairs
White noise
Television
Silhouette
Tick-tock clock
Kitchen knife
Red blood stains
Sweaty palms
Strawberry jam
Wheat grain sandwich
Midnight snack

You move me chemically more than any other person

in my mother's basement
once upon a time she ******* a clothes line
though most of the time
the line
was used to hang up
hangers
precariously hooked to a rope becoming less taut
as the years go on

the paradox of garage sale hand-me-downs of broken homes
as bodies for clothes become subtracted they make room for memories
we grow heavier by
as the hangers continue to multiply unused
clothes hangers are sacred
they are ghost as zygotes

back then there were days
I would wear my woven leather belt for an inverted neck tie
on those days
tie the other end to the wooden cross supports in the basement ceiling
then tip-toeing up
on a beat-up old stool
play chicken
a game of chicken with nobody
a side of extra mc chicken sauce for the soul

I wonder now
how if anyone would've wondered
if I had died never really learning how to wear a belt
or how to properly tie a neck-tie
kids today wear their pants too low
and parents back then were way too given to involuntary penance

to up the ante
I would write a list on the wooden beams in the ceiling
each time I got up there
for all the reasons I got up there
in attempt to embellish the exit sign
singing ugly duckling swan song echo
sedated by the attempt
training wheels for Icarus syndrome

it wasn't that my youth was in disillusion
I just never really learned how to measure distance properly
a pair of breaking parents
an unwanted pregnancy
"What's with in arms' reach?"
a game of catch
a game of release
a flight of stairs in one step
"it's not your fault kid
but you're gonna have to get hurt anyway"

funny how when you are teetering on stoic infinity
balanced like an idle pendulum
a noose becomes a life-support system
dance like no one is watching

I don't play those games anymore
my bones have gotten too heavy to bet against
memories I still wish to change
knees too weighted to two-step the precipice
on weekends

and since practicing how to use my legs again
and again
I now prefer walking this earth
wearing my belt around my equator
over drawstrings around my neck

the basement has since been renovated
no more wooden crosses
exposed in the ceiling
I don't play childish games anymore
I just do my laundry there