VENUS

my evenings in summer. I couldn't smoke at Kari's when I lived there so I found the clubhouse. when I'd ask people if they wanted to come there they'd say yes and we'd zigzag sharp upthe hill through the sages and past mellow pink & graygreen donkeytail succulents and we'd wedge our ankles into seats to prop us on, and they'd say, I thought there would be an actual house, here. I loved it at sunset 10:30 at the tip of summer mountain standard time, when up & to the right there'd be glowing venus. I can do anything I want to now, here, so I sit on the balcony in the trunk of summer at sunset around 8:07 central standard time and up to the right there, thar she glows. familiar as ever. if I were in Idaho still I might lament that the trunk of summer radiates nervously, that days shorten at not my wanting, for I've no doubt the same sun sets there, too. I share a timezone with you. doesn't that craze me? meaning makes me crazy. I'll always think of the sultry air surrounding me at this moment, forever I know it. I might not ever quit at saying so. time changes, my zoning mutates. but I've my forever promises & my familiar footholds in any muting sky of summernight. I'll die with some imprint of a silhouetted palm behind eyelid quakes.
there be no doubt in that.

I wrote a poem at you in my sleep but I forgot it instantly

there is always a you in the you I talk about 

spurts of months ago

acid wash

the act of being worn out

I dreamt I was to do the charleston in an auditorium of people but my dress was too long, and or I also was wearing pants beneath it (the long thin breaths in a bed beside me in real life) so I called, tiny voiced, Wait, and of course I'm dreaming of all of my bags and luggages, filled with things like ski pants, the hippest new threads for shredding the gnar-gnar on sale now in Hailey, Idaho. I parked my car next to the dancefloor and half an our of my changing into flouncy layered skirts I was asked to move it, I was skipped, relieved. I had sex with an obese black man who'd come from the Twin Cities to find me. some grandparents almost wouldn't let him in. analysis: I'm moving, don't know where I am have all of my things billowing from backpacks & car don't want to go skiing don't know black people lament for being missed don't know how to dance but want to be before a crowd

analrapist

therapist

it's overcast & so am I

at this internet cafe

fresh out of bed

fresh dirt sheets, chill out I'll wash them

we've jobs to do to end a vacation 

ants in the bedlam.

bad news noone

I just got the saddest news

at the yardsale

my dad came by, I was in rollerskates with a little mimosa 

in one of those tia maria cuppies

and I have been good, distracted, happy

bringin in alll that $$$

and I introduced him to Kyle

and Kyle went on & on because it's my dad, finally

so he said, Let's take a pic

and it was pretty dark, 

my dad wasn't into it I don't think

and you can't even see the skates.

he told me that the Stoddard family cabin is going down

torn to the forest floor
that hasn't seen a sun or a grower
since 1932

fucked, gone

ripped off

sometime next week. I was going to go there on my birthday

so I could look out at the lake at night

at the big orange moon on the mountains

waxing toward that
full flower moon

its reflection on glass

because no one's there yet

save for the mansions

and the goose, being just so

I wanna kiss someone everytime I see them

- I just said this aloud

after Kyle told us that he kisses Gray 

whenever they see each other

I said, that's nice, that sounds good

and Kyle said, I'll kiss anyone, it's fun

last summer, we went to the cabin

the vortex at the cabin

in robes, in tyedie

☮ frog

drank in the sun all day

sunscreened one another's noses

when we fell asleep in it

last summer, we thought it necessary

to greet each other with 

kisses, always

and we did, for awhile

but then I guess we all forgot about it.

I grew up & out, there

I lost my orange kitten at the cabin

my cousins & I went door to door

wearing sombreros, captain's hats

and the cabin neighbors would look sadly at us

because there was a tiny kitten in the forest somewhere??

But we found him, 

(his name was Desmond)

beneath a seat in the motorboat

just mew, mew, mewing away

anyway, I wish I could go to you with this

to lament, hey...

we were going to go there

but it'll be deadforest by then

I wish I could tell you, and I could tear

carefully

and you could hold me with your voice

but

  you don't like 

bad news

things we do to damage ourselves

   put your head between the two speakers & lay upside down so your organs can slide back, loud as you can
   hold the knife blade in, but gently
   never quit
   never quit
   never quit
   take drugs that half the time urge you to kill yourself
   tell your friends you want to kill yourself
   let music & only music hold you
   lament the past efficiently
   get pleasure from tears
   destroy yourself for crying
   give up
   forget someone you thought you'd love forever (a celebration in this like your very last birthday maybe)
   starve
   stay up
   fall in love with your own heartbeat
   let your own heartbeat drown the world out
   isolate yourself in you, as if you're the best hiding place
   dislocate
   disavow
   distrust
   promise
   expect
   forget why you came, pretending you never intended to
   keep your heart a secret
   keep your brain in your throat
   keep your mirror as a pet
   wish
   hope
   look behind you with watery eyes
   call the best poem you've ever written a tear-stained page in a diary
   forget your own beauty
   call yourself a genius
   call yourself a retard
   kiss anyone who holds your hand
   make truth out of whatevers
   say I don't know
   tell someone that you do, and they won't
   watch yourself go
   write bad poems
   thinking they're like a bath
   thinking they're just words
   try
   stone face smiling
   ignore
   revenge