Remember, you will die (watchface, slow ticking)

Poetics masked as years (beautiful, broken men)
--weeks old.
From you, I’ve cut fingertips
Pulled teeth
Lit fire, and of course…
walked shamefully from cinders.
I’ve called you “a lover…once”
A dozen or more times.
You as lover is he as lover
But she as lover is three weeks as
secret
--coded numbers, thousand mile stare,
crying in the shower lover.

and you said, “a lot. A lot a lot.” And
I wonder the half life
of that measurement. How quickly your
world must orbit the sun.

So Rare, Her Smile

When I get home,
I will hide the guns.
(at this point the person becomes dependent
on a romantic interest due to the slightest bit of attention
from the person they are attracted to.)

My lover--
a
be damned and die young,
James Dean leftover
put-a-bird-on-it sort of soul--
used to talk for hours (four hours) about my teeth.
To anyone who would listen.

A girl in San Francisco told
me so.

This poem is not
about teeth.
(the anxious phase is considered the relational turning point)
It is about
running away.

So easy

It would be easy to begin with what I want,
Easy, asking you to bend
come on over, touch, little darling
the stars are waiting for you to make moves
they’ve planted themselves right above your collar bone
they watch as you
wander, and beg the earth.
They watch as you tip-toe your way
around the words, the feelings, the conversation
that begins, “I want to…”
as you settle for the story
that ends with
the patterned drops of your sweat
oh no, tears. I want to break
it in my hands.
Silly girl, do not cry.
Rest. Sit still.
Wait until your chest
does not grow so burdened with each breath
You want me to tell you something?
I have many secrets. They all begin
“I want”
and end “wild and unruly.”

The last one: it is not for you.

I have stabbed someone.
Just once. Not a dead person.
It was not satisfying at all.
Not what I intended.
There were many surprises.
For instance, the initial severance of skin
makes an awful sound, and almost stopped me
but, magnetic, the blade
searched for vital organs tunneled deeper
for me, it isn’t over
and she didn’t stop me. Nevermind.
No, she simply watched
as I removed each rib
one
at
a
time.
She was so fucking beautiful.
In her open, black-red filled space.
The rising chest and blinking eyes.
The weeping
The plunge
The digging
I am not now, nor have I ever been a surgeon
but I was able--abruptly
finally to quiet the madness
and despite the embarrassment (stunning
and so foolish)
hold closely the slowing of the beat.
It lives on when you’re not in the room.
In retrospect, I have not stabbed anyone.
It was more of a dissection,
more of an unveiling
more a breaking apart of
all things right and human and full.
There were no reparations
sutures, stitching up
and for all of the cutting
all of the ripping
all of the intention
my scar is rather small and
will be well hidden.

Onset, Days 1-4 (I've never written about my illness)

The illness is not something I can separate
deconstruct; no meaning to
summer fever—platelet counts; body against
muscle consuming;
self. A lover once called it "your condition"
I had forgotten it was mine alone.

The last thing I remember
before the peripheral blindness that comes with
rising heat—one, two bites; cantaloupe
(I don’t even like melons)
cracked swallow; burst filters
sandy filth
ankles.

I'm sure I collapsed. At home?
It must have been after two days
that my father had to lift me,
bones rubber, snapping
swooping cradle; upward
now
a small child; come on baby girl.

Tongue lifted
arms cuffed
She’s choking.
The nurses seemed calmer than one would expect
when watching
a pretty little thing burn
from the inside out.

Unable, even, to hear music

Orion, put your bow down.
You haven’t a home to protect
Nor an army to defend.
What are you hunting anyway?
There is nothing but emptiness about you.
You’ve run away
again, hidden among darkness.
Unable to tell if the
lights below you are
the stars of another galaxy
or the upward turned eyes
of brokenhearted lovers.

I am not a scientist, pretty baby

And all the constellations, shine down for us to see
And if you don't believe me, just put your hands on me

Don’t quote me on the physics of it all,
but I know the lightweight innards
the crackling, fibrous bones
of a dove, or a bird like it, make for
an easier flight, than say, perhaps, you or I.
That doesn’t mean it’s impossible
blue sky world.
I’m content to befriend
the pattern of lines spinning about your ceiling.
Eyes closed
as you drift conspicuously back toward
the weight of the floor.