raise me up

in haunting backs, smashed up
all of the compliments
I have to go visit my mom for some first time
I have a whole family
to share my pits with, my grub
to not smoke in front of
to smile at
to not get too shitfaced, to keep it together for
to let know my excitement
they might make me go rafting, or something
which will be pretty
it's one of the prettiest places on earth, Hailey, Idaho
I'll sleep under the stars, I'll read my kafka & my baudrillard & my sontag in lamplight
I'll think of your haunting back
long smooth brown, because I'm romantic like that
of your mouth, the prettiest part on you
with a mole on a lowerlip
Do you like it?
I do, I do
I compliment you freely, no one likes compliments
  because they don't seem free
I'll drive alone, no
just me, my brain riding in the scrub seat
I'll say goodbye
I'll say hello to a secret you
  when we last met in the tropical bed drinking rum, running our bodies out each other
  but that was years ago.
  and we're brothers again.
all of my brothers, then
  and I'll be the failed aunt daughter sister
whispering, bye byeing at Idaho
    you little sucker
bye byeing at the mountains & clear summer waters.
see you soon, future turn, let me let's go peacefully, wrap my brain up
wrap me good, my little passenger

regretless

I fell in love with a lithuanian name
he was my best friend, he shared his xanax with me from time to time
I would have anxiety attacks in those days
we would dress up
in ponchos
and feathers
and we would play pool and ride bikes and drink mountains of old style and sing karaoke everyday
and we'd have sex in soapless showers
he would sing, wouldn't it be nice? by the beach boys
but he had a longdistance love
and we both knew our time was short

on his last day in town
I discovered bloody marys
they were $1 at the bridgeport sports bar.
we stayed there for hours, playing pool, drinking thousands of bloody marys
the bartender stopped charging us for them.
there was a thunderstorm that night
and I knew I was going to cry
so I took off my shoes and climbed into a tree outside the bar.
I sat up there for awhile, screaming with the wind
& it was so loud I couldn't hear my voice.
I couldn't wind my thoughts & goodbyes.
I watched the lightning all around me.
I waited until I was finished howling
before I came down
my knees were bloody from scraping up the bark.
I went into the bar and borrowed a pair of scissors.
I cut the button I'd had dangling from a string around my neck
and I gave it to him.
he knew I was going to give it to the next person I fell in love with.
he told me that he loved me, too.
I cried all night while we laid in bed together,
he took off this grubby tiedyed shirt that I'd given him
so I could blow my nose on it.
I found it a couple of days later, smashed between the bed and the wall

I saw him again, 5 years later

his band came to town

it was my 28th birthday.
we sat in someone's convertible in the parkinglot outside the bar
and we talked about how we loved each other
and how we were
and how we were.
I wonder if I'll ever see him again

ammmn't, anymore

one pack a day on some summer night! I am sorry I tried that, I have hundreds of unfinished paragraphs. what day is it, even? trying to count in evens. I think we're at 45. all of my relationships are mountains. I don't like some of your names. I like mine own. a bull charging at me, charge me. I slept with the one who broke my heart for years. I was a whole person, again and I thought I'd never be. I said inside voiced, I guess you'll own me forever. I would do anything you say. I would move to chicago instantly at your urge. ready to be destroyed again. but of course, I am bigger than I thought. big enough to brush away memory shines, pull out the splinters. lamenting at seven whole years passed. you're not a matter-to-me, I'm glad I'm on the internet where you'd never think to look for me. I'm alright with your living, our earlymorning why not. I didn't tell you anything, and you faded like time makes. my hair still grows, I still sustain a body. the craze wanders, dissipates. but we must have known when we started, again. smoke a pack to your face and die of young too-much, much too young.

flirt journey

  I want to
overwhelm your mountains
  hey, girl
  I am a dripper of coins
a pouch for you, stain your sheets with copper and nickel
stick to your summer fur
rub me behind the earfolds, makeawish
  sit around outside in dark dark silent summer
  or lay on your stone, on your back, shirt pulled up
   pale stomach
   constellation-lit
  my constellated torso
and
  longlegs
crossed at the ankles
  be my best friend at nighttime
    urge me coquette
   try for me to call you through a flirt, a longdistance wink at-me
   so I can fold my wings
   under my down spots
    in my own bod
     to wihdraw from your touch-words
    the threat of
    the hum of
  your mellifluous murmurs
it might be on the way, or a thousand miles out of
  on the way
    the pacific, almost reaches
    or canada, it nearly touches me
  get me in your forest climate,
    I want into your urging dense
      your fat ancient wood
    making me a small thing,
       an occasional thing
    my spot body for your moss
  to cling to
      give my suctions little flirts to grip
    and temporary promises to sigh about

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

Queen of Sacramento, Lady of Nebraska

the palm trees, the claustrophobic planes

the spelling of plains correctly

I keep the ideas of me you have

they suck into me & become me even more me

more I than I thought

I am

whatever you say I am

if I wasn't

then why would I say I am

eminem, the great fucking plains?

at least a valley you can get out of

mountains you can climb up

rivers you can get under

but we can have the plains

the regulars

the simple

the nothing-fancy-abt-that

the unchanging landscape

a field, a tree, here & there a copse

and you,

a livable corpse, a loveable corps

lovable corpse, covesick 

covestuck coeur. Get in yer crevice, baby.

Climb in the corn, crawl on the fours

spin round, divot it

dig out a little place, make a valley from your rich plentiful midwestern soil

bury your body there, make mountains around you

a seething grave

for the unchanging 

make less your monotonous burial scene

we listened to yo la tango, remember them?

He will bring all of the candles

he said chocolate helps, jsyk

and she bought a bag of tiny tangerines, 

and I can see myself diving right into them

like when Amanda opened that tiny clementine

and she told me to look at its puffy section

like a little slug on her leaf hand

and its shell 

its pith a neon orange baby foam

and I put it between the rows of my teeth

and I teethed
and I teethed
all night

when I was 18 I listened to yo la tango a lot

in the tall dark dormroom

and I festered

(I asked you yesterday, as if this is a question, what do I do now

and you said,

wait

wait, and brood

and I said how can you wait for nothing?)

when I was 18 listening to yo la tango

I knew what I was doing

but I used to sleep till 4, when it would get midwestern scyscraper village dark

and now I am up at 4, before it is grey spring western light out

and I am very aware of the mountains,

big fool rocks

the continental divide

the crying light where the tears flow down east or west

and some get to your rivers, and some get to mine.

Maggie Nelson said something about waking up with your weeping, don't write me anymore to tell me about it

because she knows you're so in love with your weeping

or something like that.

And maybe you truly are

but I truly am not

I am not the type anymore

when I was 18 

I would scream into the bedclothes

I would rip & sob & cling & claw at my smoke hair

and my young face

and I couldn't now scream on the patio, in the livingroom, into the couch clothes

and throw up the young foam

my young brain foam

as my throat makes a sieve for it

and its goop pushes out, around, tries through the cheesecloth

to be swallowed, into the mash bod

or to be vomited

in bubbles & sobs

See now I'm 28,

going on 29

in about 20 days, I guess

so my brain is still there, it found my head again eventually

and my heart crawled back

slunk back, eyes downturned, embarassed,

out from where my bean stomach lives in struggles

and all of the organs 

fell back asleep

in their gooey cradles

I almost got lsst

I am in this sunny room in idaho where the sky doesn't change from perfect at all. When the sun sets a change happens, but within only bounds of perfect. I like it here. ida likes it here, her namesake place. I like this song called "my heart" by a band called wildbirds & peacedrums. in bed i sit, and here I am waiting with henna in my hair. I recently got my period, and am subsequently writing my first novel about womanhood.

This whole thing has a purpose, I felt it before. I felt it this time, too, after coming over the blue mountains. It must have been near north powder, and those were the little alps, all silhouetted with the sun still bright over the edges. undeniably alplike. I am writing this because Once, during summertime I was on the same drive, eastbound to idaho, and there to my right in a beautiful lush field of peagreen were two lounging llamas. And they dazedly, dreamily, admired a flapping butterfly above and around them... I couldn't see their eyes but I can only imagine the heavy lift of a lid, the twitch of an ear, the peaceful admiration.

I saw them this time, coming on dusk, but this place hasn't a dusk, or a twilight. I wanted it to be, but in the little alps the bright sun creeps behind a jagged peak, still leaking bright, until finally the sky explodes into every texture imaginable; purple lace lining vermilion velvet, soft pink silk and chiffon folding itself endlessly into unimaginable blue, neon flesh.

remember then that subtle sentiment

song of yesteryear: 2008, 8 september (and yet ever pertinent, when will not it be)

Remember then that subtle shudder feeling. I felt it and after still. The night to the country, raining my height take things from my hands. subtle destroyer of things, in the light he ruined so sweet like constant compote to be spread but unnecessary. do but float? beautiful natural surroundings healthy, and to eat and plant of the earth, and to walk of it and breathe it and sleep and love on it. mentally acute. excuse the length of recovery natural, but desperate, too; so romantic of the same, to eat the same sleep the same sleeps, shower & dress & everythought shared, and adventures never alone. books you like, or literature, or poems, scientific & spiritually intelligent. indoors, and I will refuse to stay indoors. never to speak of love or death indoors. invigorating in the ways of the physical: off on a bicycle, to traipse through forest & desert & wild soft voice in my ear! Chile & Argentina. in the southern hemisphere, I feel a pull. relax on semiotics, make it truer. of the future, As autumn approaches everyone’s making turns around. adventure together With backpacks on, headed out. Outside, in tents, in mountains, lakes, streams, rivers. In snow, in fields, beneath the sun. all the laughing And the sentiment.

love to be present from birth, can we please

pretty little, 57 to 63


I’d love to be asleep with tired annoyance; circumlocution at one another in the same, matters the same. Finally, many a turquoise lake there seems. I nearly fell; he left the bed and I heard words where fewer would do. There are evergreens. He’ll never sleep with me; so I'm asleep after the shower.

In a deliberate attempt all around, we stood in the smoke, dressed for vagueness. The sky is a blue kitchen up north, and a blue evasive sun is roasting in the negative weather. Verbosity is tucked brightly off the deck. Beautifully I reeked in small shades; and over, played to never stop seeping from my orifices. Triangular squinting in the brightness.

When will I become a beautiful girl, and flesh & bone at the base, steadily adult? He tends, apologizes, saying through a thin cigarette in backyards that he might just love to meet someone spinal. To talk quietly in the back, to listen more and seeing more. I was happy to hear them.

Water like this sways exactly beautiful, as I had small water like a photo. Women all the time desire a chest for holding gestures, for kisses. They've been a lot more compendious, like this water. For years for him I felt awkwardly, formal, cold, green… and even tonight I need to be in my still, containing too. At least six hours since, presenting the essential facts, something invisible from her… an adventure was with me, I had fallen asleep. Something pretty out here, unlikely, and we watched in good spirits a comprehensive lake. Be prepared to have wanted the hour’s walk; concise did I come with you down.

Hard to make out, I felt slightly. Abridged, laconic. Even prepared to feel, or have sex, I’m unsure. Guilty, succinct. Paying attention. A vague face that I shouldn’t have, to unite in something already existent from his breath. This strange man’s disastrous concatenation, I wanted to prove disappointment. But how silently he sleeps! I had nothing of actions, opening a beer and talking. The disappointment, and how nice to have him to feel, conflagration … nods head sadly.

A view of my back in the morning, I suppose. Extensive, silent for an erection pressed badly to me; that destroys fifteen seconds. Outside, against my back. In my head a great talk about some rocky erotic man of land happened. Mountains in just the slightest.

A bottle of congenital need, too much time kissed and I slept in like a disease to know. Just bits align right, his bed and he, present from birth can we please.