On Walking

We look at letters less often
because now they're buried in our brains.
Reviewing them is a formality
done privately.
My letter was for you
and your's was almost mine,
I think.
It was almost mine in the way
that the sidewalk is your's
while you walk on it.
You could say,
this is my turf,
and point to some grass.

different postures

i sat up with a jolt when my alarm went off.
the sky was grey but warm and
it seemed more dynamic than regular sunshine.
i thought i liked it better.
it suited me more. i looked for emails. in the shower i had anxiety
about washing my hair too much.
all the air was in there.
all the words in the emails from that person were useless.
he used 'posture' wrong and he positioned it towards me.
i'm not ok with this compromise.
when i read from my phone, i watch my hands shiver
and my nails curl.
i press the tip of my finger into the black device until
there's no more blood in it
and these words fall into my lap.
he was a liar and he admitted it in these messages.
it was his fault, he said, and he was proud of me
for being so strong but he still needed to talk to me.
sometimes, i get a cramp in the arch of my foot
and i'll scream about it.
sometimes, i feel sick and i'll make long groaning noises
to relieve the pressure.
if you come home and seek me out,
i'll scramble.

Folded Chairs

It used to snowed. We were snowed in around a tiny formica table.
We drank beers and bloody marys and I sweat in my seat
under my shirts and on the plastic and I tried to touch you.
I tucked my finger into your palm while you took pictures.
I tried to talk about my new apartment and the plants I'd buy.
I'll put my bed in the corner and get a long, narrow table.
There will be so many green things on the floor it'll become forest.
I'll scatter soil in the bathroom and leave bowls of water out
as reminders. On a chair by the tub will be a stack of magazines
with an ashtray on top and perhaps a vine climbing the sink.
It'll be a fucking forest, I thought
when the wind was white with snow.

Champagne Wall

I have no headboard,
it's just the wall there.
My white wall goes up and back,
it's high and wide
and yesterday,
when we in bed in the afternoon,
there were shadows from the blinds
all over it. I waited with the white wall.
I looked over my shoulder at it.
Poor white wall caught my hand,
catches my movies in bed,
steams up in the night with dreamy breath
and slows down with the fan.
The white wall is clear and pretty
and alone most of the time.

Boy Toy

I am a soft toy
and my limbs splay easily.
I miss the way you held me,
fed me fake food,
casted me off when a friend called.
I trusted you to ruin my fur,
yank at my torso,
whisper hot, wet secrets down my throat,
catch me with you fist,
drag me by the ear.
I relished the times when you were sick,
then we were both sick,
and you were clammy and cold
and you clung to me.
Maybe one day you won't want me like this
but, I am a toy, I say.
I am your toy.

right in my face

i sat in a mug,
i spied your mug
and cupped my hand around it.
there were many days to hang
on some silly ideas exchanged
in the remote way
we interfaced.
maybe i imagined them.
there were big, luscious drinks
to buy and cherries to eat
and you said eagerly that it was time to
switch to alcohol.
it was the first time to see you
seeing me and it pinched a bit
because it went back and forth so fast.
i can't imagine us brewing in water
but we did,
i can't imagine us climbing around
in towels
but we did.
i came home and sat with my eye brows up,
my hands on my chin,
just like this,
and couldn't explain it to my own face.

hold the ham

when i woke up
i noticed again
the spot where you used to
charge your phone,
that you were the last person
to do all the laundry,
how you propped up
all the pictures
and it seems completely unbearable.
inside this apartment cooks
a terrible red stew.
just below the floor boards
it simmers. at first it was fired
with anticipation and now
it's the saddest energies of absence,
the slow desperation of a
rolling boil.
i have to drink it with everything
i do. a cup for walking the
hallway, a bowl as i lay
alone in bed. soup pools at my feet
in the shower. it's no
good that you're out there
drinking too. i bet you find it in
your pockets, in your hands,
in your mouth between bites
and all this rich meatiness
is killing me.

you're glowing

there was a girl coming up the alley
and i could see her in my rear-view mirror.
her shoes had neon tongues
and she was drinking mountain dew
from the bottle
but somewhere on top of her big, blond
head was a beige beanie.
she ate a meal of
ice cream cake with radishes for dessert.
she walks the alley flicking bad
song lyrics into peoples' cars.
she'll stay like that,
i think.
her clunky, badly lit lot in life
is to glow dumbly
into parked cars.

this is a rock

what if i laid on my gritty floor all morning?
what if i lay here and pretend to have died
mysteriously? i could look good dead.
i could place a pot of flowers by my feet
and crumple some candy in my mouth. it could
have been a choke or another accident.
maybe they'll assume i'm really something,
a spectacle of sorts. maybe they'll keep me
fresh, leave me to sun that spills through the
kitchen window.
i ask only that you water my plants,
eat all the food from my fridge,
cancel my credit card and
take my nephew to the theater
because i spent so much money
on those tickets.

table and chairs

here are the plaid chairs we share
when we drink coffee and eat food
with cheese and deposit wrappers and mail
into our pockets when we stand up.
i saw you the other day
with a letter jammed in your pants.
i thought about what
a little note in a pink envelope could
say but i didn't muster up the concern to ask.
whatever that letter meant would
stay creased inside anyhow,
showing it's true glowing glue
to it's one reader
who'd shoot the words from a distance
with long, stringy sex lines
and nails. then those pink pages are plaid.
i think there are hunter plaid stories to tell
in bars, with dark plaid feelings
hemming them in, making full plaid pictures.
there are fall plaids
coming strong and they mismatch me,
always make me look fat and sad.
i bellow, i blow my nose into old
flannel sheets, crammed
with such similar colors and patterns.

sink your pits in

you're new
and the sun is shining.

i have lots of stinky wonder
and wishing to contend with.

i am not a paul or pat person,
i am a home-heating device
and a lot like coffee in the morning.

could i force you to have
a conversation with me
about something i'm not familiar with
so i can pin myself down
and you can punch me?

that's how it normally plays out.

maybe we shouldn't talk much
anymore but these perky cups of coffee
make sitting still tough.

how can a person make a proper decision
hopped up on coffee and slugs?

taxis

it's amazing to think of things like
colorful salmon skin
and fresh toads and how children
can kill them without noticing too much.
somehow they just turn into stuffed animals
with their insides jangling.
somehow i don't appreciate
any amount of money until it's gone
and the weekday collapses around an empty hole
where i kept my accounts.
let's go to the free beach where they sell
free apples and mud dumplings!
it's very important to eat.
when i'm completely sun-tired
and sand-rid of
another obnoxious day
i'll let you know.
i'll let you have me at a flat rate.
i'll let you come find me
and drag my soggy body around.
please wave my arm politely at the outer parts of town.

so long insides

i was once a caramel caterpillar.
i lived in a small space between
some white bricks
and i licked the mold with
all my fingery feelies.
i felt the grooves of old cement,
laid down in the cold, wet dreams
inside them. there was
anxiety in the lifestyle.

i don't know what i am now. i
could be a dumb dog or one of those
flat-faced cats. maybe all the other
stuff is gone and i'm a bowl of
thick, white milk,
a hunk of stringy meat still
sitting on the table.

maybe a cloud of dust will drop by
and you'll feel me dig out
some change. i am two scratchy eyes
and an old backyard.
my stomach is a long, pink walk
to sunny bench.

i love to take a photograph

Marcus Evans felt unconcerned yet a serious look was planted on his face as he stared at the brown door. "I am a regular human being. I'm just a guy," he said, with lines still showing in the skin on his forehead and around his eyes. He thought about when he broke a wine glass, the noise it made, how his ears felt when the heard the shatter, how his body reacted to the sound. "I'm a regular guy."

He gingerly picked up his coat and touched the door.

Being outside didn't satisfying Marcus Evans in the way he needed to feel fulfilled. He trapped some ants under his thumb and crushed them. "I love bodies. I respect all kinds of people." He looked into the sun and tried to imagine someone helping him by shielding his eyes.

Penny, with bright red cheeks, sat down beside Marcus Evans and thought, "Today is different somehow." She hardly noticed Marcus Evans except for the warmth radiating from his black clothes. "The sun is strong and good, like God," Penny thought.

Both parties continued dealing with their own realm. Penny fondled a few tubes of chapstick in her bag and Marcus Evans pretended to fuse his hands to his thighs, tried to imagine being stuck like that.

After several minutes a woman appeared in front of the bench and asked either of them to snap of photo of her beside traffic. "I love the commotion," she said with a giddy grin.

Both Penny and Marcus Evans looked down, hoping the other would hop to. When the normal waiting period passed, they reached out simultaneously to grab the camera and bumped forearms. "I enjoy photography. It helps people remember what's important about life," thought Penny.

"1-2-3!" screamed the woman as a truck made a wave of wind.

"No, I'm supposed to count."

"What?" the woman replied.

"I'm supposed to do the countdown. The 1-2-3. Stand where you want and wait for me to get ready," said Marcus Evans. He'd grabbed the camera quickly once he realized Penny was willing to take the photo and now he felt bad about it. "Ok, 1-2-3."

"Click!" screamed the woman.

The woman left quickly after her photo without thanking Marcus Evans. She simply continued laughing then ripped the camera from his hands and back away from the bench, facing them for over half a block.

"She must have escaped from some home," thought Marcus Evans.

COOL FRIENDS

my friends, dustin and dave, do indigestmag.com. they put me in it. go look at it!

fancy flat

this is my new floor.
soon i'll know all the sounds here
but for now i cover them
with loud music
so they can also get used to me.
i want to do something
to feel more comfortable
like slip into a coma,
or be really hung over here
and watch bad movies
and bake brownies and leave
dishes and crumbs around my bed
but i don't have an oven
and i'm totally over chocolate
and one day i'll be sick of
this place, as in throw up sick,
and i'll leave
and become a sentimental jerk
around toaster ovens
and exposed light bulbs.

Dolphin Course

Through the cards and candle wax
we watched TV and you said you were drunk,
so drunk you couldn't stop drinking
and I agreed and I poured foamy beer
on my legs.
Should we move? It must be a sign?
I clutched an old guy, an old, old guy
who looked at me with salt in the corners of
his eyes and mouth and begged me to take him home
again. I didn't because of my wet legs.
Whenever you or anyone else brings up next week
I have to laugh. I have to hate the sounds of
laughing and then tell you how much you suck
and scream and run out the door to get more drunk.
We're surrounded by old dolphins,
shiny rubber creatures we get excited to bump up
against. Hold out your hands. They have photos
of themselves in desperate waters, in hotter times,
how they're now here by sheer idea, just swimming along.
I love them and I have to laugh. We're all such different
circumstances, math problems. Maybe men are big math
problems and women are meant to handle the numbers.
So for now, the long drawing I gave you will work.

house-sitting

for all this red wine
i'm quite sure i don't have the energy.
these two orange cats follow me everywhere.
i've wanted certain nice things before.
i wondered how out of touch,
how impaired my lines of judgment truly are.
24 little dogs lined up along our sidewalk.
it's chalk these days,
chalky medicine and hair weaves.
when you left, i whimpered,
wondered again when the mail would come.
it's like when you find me later i'm
hopelessly hammered and stammering on
about the climax, the way i hit you
and you cried and cried
from misappropriated pain. it's like
when i call out, you answer
just to see if i'm really
addressing someone here.

melinda, melinda

melinda was a pink-peach version of her older sister who was light, light yellow.

melinda thought often about scabs, light fixtures, being late. she was late most of the time and when she wasn't late, she was unprepared.

melinda ate unscrupulous amounts of yogurt and practiced the shimmy for three minutes every day in front of a full-length mirror.

melinda does very little for a living.

melinda sometimes purposely cuts her hands on sharp objects in the presence of her friends, pretending it was an accident. she's used nail files and open pop cans in the past.

melinda enjoys physical activity, is quite good at it, but she refrains from formally involving herself in anything. she accidentally has sex, she accidentally starts doing gymnastics.

at age ten melinda contracted a virus called purple-pink fever. purple-pink fever has several symptoms, most of which are latent. at age nineteen melinda started having seizures, in public, on purpose. melinda takes fake medication for her seizures; she puts smarties in old medicine containers with worn down labels. she pops the top of an orange cylinder whenever it seems most inappropriate.

last thursday melinda told her mother she was going to work through a break-up by taking acid in the park which was silly because acid causes brain bleeding and melinda isn't interested in men.

melinda thinks the sound of water is intoxicating.

melinda "holds it" when she doesn't have to.

melinda gets nauseated in shopping malls but really enjoys shopping. she once bought a dress she hoped would get her fired.

melinda hates the way the skin on her back feels when she wakes up in the morning.

nothing, honey

i have two big cameras,
they clunk against my back.
the pictures are grainy
and sometimes they turn out backwards.
i've wanted to rip photos in half before
which is often difficult
because of the paper.
then i remember, i'm not from here.
in the courtyard, outside my window,
there are bricks, there are other buildings,
people move to and from them and around
in them. there is a broken water supply.
it's cold.