Grief absolutely spitting from my hips
Trellis to keep my pelvis tipped
Euphoria in absence of control a pebble for my chest
A lizard for my cheek
Laughter threatening to become sad hysteria
Dancing threatening prayer or
apology
My view of green and grey, bare branch for low light
Hold my weight because the way my arms are
Is going to drop me on my
about face
When I am not being perceived
I want to sleep with no confusion
I want to drink so much water I age backwards
I want to kiss very openly and be met with a sturdy face
I am paddling towards spring
But I’m also like a dog with its front leg pushed straight against you
Paw on chest with a locked joint
A kid dropped a computer on its corner and the screen
Got absolutely boinked to hell
Fuzzy colorful LED grid and no internal computing
And she rushed to me saying her hopeful
“You’re not mad at me teacher you’re not mad at me, promise”
And she took my hand in hers and looked me in the eye
And said you’re not mad at me
“Can I have some hand squeezes oh oh oh”
I want to know what its like in other people’s brains
I want to forget about changing and let it happen
Under my nose measured by nothing surprised when it shows
Germination over the weekend
Mold in the jelly jar
Sometimes change my ecosystem
And must be waited out and tended only
Half consciously because if I focus too
Closely I am a magnifying glass in the sun
Friction on what should be left padded
Bones and my skeleton
I am one girl in the meetings
Capable and talking to the ceiling
And I am one girl on the train
I metamorphosize in the shape of
A figure 8 ouroboros while I spin
From classroom to station to home
And back again and it is a real strain
When someone from one part of my
Metaverse visits another
I choke on my snake tail
My stomach holds so much more
Than I would’ve assumed and some days
I need the fuel like no void has ever gaped
Vibrating with emptiness and crushing
Little bubbles of oat milk oil on the surface
Of my tea
the tennis ball
in a perfect
arc across
the auditorium
and it hit
the light fixture
in a kiss-like
shatter bullseye
sending glass
flying around
the room like a
terror premonition
of the sieges
we are imagining
Glen told me
he wants to
date and be
romantic and
see each other
a lot and he
knows that isn’t
what I want
and his silence
is just like mine
now that the
dream is
splintering
his hope was
a sunny slimy
thing seeping
through my phone
And I said that it would be fucked for a long time
She was chuffed and said ouch why would you say that
After a long, 18 moremonths walk through the muck
Each dragging the other through brambly swatches
And pausing for breath whenever a sunset was particularly bloody
They’ve come to the floating dock at the end of the path
Where they’ll linger and tell each other the ways that they’re family
And describe what is unbelievably dear
Then they’ll slowly take their clothes off and switch
Putting the other’s pants and shirt on, inhaling
And they’ll dive off opposite sides of the platform
They’ll float in the same waters without being able to hear or see each other
Sensing the other’s presence only through the tugs on the thread
That attaches from one’s nose to the other’s pinky
The thread will wither with time
Classically, imperceptibly loosening and fraying
And when one thinks to look for it and doesn’t find it they’ll flood the place with another round of weeping
Nothing left to do but swim on, they’ll flail like dolphins and sink like stones
Until they’re in their new rivers where they’ll rush and wait, baby salmon in the brackish transition
When they are salted enough for the sea they’ll find the new open world
Dappled with sun and soft waves, which will agitate their fledging ease
They’ll swim down like anchors until the muck clouds like steam
And they’re held determined in the familiar shadow grasp of their old love
While I do my morning exercises
She tells me my hair is nice and thick
And my shoulder mobility is wonderful
She tells me I’m strong and that I have a nice figure
She tells me the amount of beauty I have is totally acceptable
The amount of love I have is completely good
She says my sex life is admirable
And the success and riches I’ve chosen are enough
She says I’m right that revolution isn’t peaceful in the traditional sense
She says if I need to die for the cause that she’ll greet me
As I wake up next to the river
Water logged and shellacked with mud
Buzzing with the pain and fading importance of the last round
She says she’ll help me get ready for the next round
She tells me her stories are private except the ones she wrote down for that modern day posterity email subscription thing I gave her one year for mother’s day
She says to read those stories again
She says to read about the evils of my ancestors
She says to cook sticky cherry chicken
And radicchio salad
She says to gather information and supplies and exchange them with others
She says to teach the kids how to resist
Their own oppression
The smell of juice washes up
Into the air and quick travelers
Are united in sugar vapor
I am one of them
Adorned in atonement
Passion orange guava in a ring
Around my lips
I am without a phone number
And the only way to reach me is to remember
How my body looks precisely
And that’s impossible
Because I’m a kumquat with the seeds picked out
Overlayed onto the shadow of a branch
On the wall across from the window
eggnog drunk and bleeding from my thumb
on Christmas Eve
I was not sure how to hold
people’s clenched fists
and tight throats
it had something to do
with relaxing the criss crossed
straps of muscle in my back
and untying the ribbon
around my neck
the dog that bit me was scared
and I took the wounding off the cuff
shook it away like water on a beast
just out of the lake
leaving hoof prints in a vibrational arc
I let my mom buy me Neosporin
and I gripped a bag of ice
we watched the Jeff Buckley documentary
which ends with “it’s very special to me that you are a person that a child came from…anybody can be famous Mary
but it takes a real spirit hear me it takes a real spirit to raise a
kid. I love you. I love you! i love you I love you!
I love you. I love you.”