things we think of alone

in the stars & bars, the neon bikini
wet from river,
it sucked me in
this is how drunks drown
the water black linesnaking across
I wouldn't have fallen in there in daytime, too dangerous
wet home, always the sprinklers on the greenbelt between 3 & 4 am
things we think about alone
the dry eyes, the good goodbyes
the dreams I have about masturbating
always a mother or stepmother figure to embarrass myself in front of
the geminates: double rs, double ss
the ending of sentences with prepositions
I'll let you sleep all day, I'll tiptoe about you
find you coffee
watch your skin on the butter sheets, your shorts of a dusty salmon pink shirt
long pretties
I get jealous when I overhear things sometimes
but alone on a bike in the dark, feeling cold, wet, driving fast to beat it
coming alone in the heat, it's nice like winterblanket
it makes a sigh smile across me.
thinking of your leaving, of my staying put
I'm putting out even in sleep.
get in me
you did, once, many
I'm alright with that now
so I think it
so I build it true.
now

screamy

for those of you writing, I'm suspicious
I have amillion miles long
I am waiting.
I'll sit with your body folded up in me
we're under them, dots con to each, like the pen drops
on your sheets
wish I could find an animal for it
but no matters.

I am growing, in & up too
I've
left, we've talked about it
I'm here for the 4 or 5
nickey britta luke river dad

I like to look at what the others are doing.
I DO not like to think about what I'd be doing otherwise.
I keep glancing out the window for your
spiderlong
and I am wondering, where did you,
& I fairly shed on you

things we talk about

tunamelts
limbs
river
French
coffee
illness
plays
translation
college
white hair
regret
cinnamon tans
vocabulary
laundry
noise
New Orleans
cats
moving away
sex
brains
babies
shirts
periods
breakfast
sadness
money

in summer

on not getting real

how many daze
what happens? in july
what happens when it is suddenly subtle sad breakfast & walking to the river in the heat becomes tedious & tiresome
stop by a greencovered pond, a pretty mossy blanket teeming truly,
to say, We have to keep walking, I'm angry, I'm not in the water
and we got to the river, saying, Sorry for being an asshole
& you underbreathing, I don't care, or Whatever
sitting apart
wondering if we are..., if we are near enough too much
some silence
is this the sad starts
saying, You're leaving really soon.
I know. so. is it?
are we going to be? are we holding hands, will I reach constantly for you? is it growing
on me
in that sort of way?
the good admittance
the reaching around for arms
measuring limbs against mine
length of brown forearm & mine
You know my body intimately
Don't you know I'm all legs?
spidery, leggy smooth thing
Feel this branch, instruct
worn away, green & fresh
rub on it together
I'm just moving in
later, the big dipper barely hazes over
I am good at the sad afar, keeping it
somewhere in some future
for now, just brains simple enough, bodytruth
plain beauty
nothing further
no worryables
these are the subtle anxious dudes in us
acceptances, all of the who-cares whatevers
  to share

growfup

beat up baby, wakeup on the floor
a year from today I won't be
I'll cut my hair, I'll be 30, time to be reasonable
I'll be an ex- most everything
an exsmoker, exgirlfriend, excryer
in a year I'll be in a subtropical environment
an exidahoan, exlover
excinnamon-tanner
exkid & exfloor-baby.
I'm loving this floorchild lifestyle
floor power
we move where we move, roll around
bathe in the river
get those strong arms
in a year from now I'll be benchpressing the world
they'll watch my tender brown muscles twitch & release
and there will be gratitude
in honor of my new strength.
a year ago I was caught in a jam
humid sex cave
living on the floor, out of the car
it must be a boise thing, the abundance of
floorcribs & car bassinets
I'm just barely strong enough to lift me out
but that's why some people get cars, right
rentless & mortgageless
a year from now my seas will be calm
& I'll float in that clean cast
like otters do with their kelpbed kiddos
stormless, contented
because childhood ends
& the myth of suffering subsides
& the broken will be trashed & forgotten
& I'll be grown & help
filled

married

the only thing that really makes my hearts heavy now, is the river
it is the cleanest emerald & cobalt & turquoise river
& it runs right through my town
it's there every single day
it's hot outside, and sunny every single day
so I am in it
& in it's in me every day

I was just sitting there, drinking a pacifico I borrowed from my dad's fridge
I got under, swimmingdress on, coconut oiling hair
just dog & me, and that's when I realized I couldn't be sad about a thing
save for the extinction
of me in the river, of our beaches
  JO Beach
&
  Hella Beach
and that's all
I want boise to drift into the ocean all of the time
I want the city to shrink & dissolve
I want the highdesert to crush it
I want the sage to take over again.

I don't love you anymore, place, my nostalgia has evaporated.
because I've been in you too long.
and now I will leave you and I might
come winter
have missed you enough
for you to squish my puffy heart.
I'm going to the asshole of the great muddy
there won't be my clean clear water
& it will be hot, & I will be wet
with my coconut oiled hair
and my tender aging skin
freckles > cinnamon tan
& I'm not going to escape you,
but to
  reacquaint myself to the big true love.
I don't have to call you to tell you how I feel.
I don't have to tear myself apart in bed
in blood gorges
to prove it.
because we're inevitable
this is called forever since before I started
using the word as context for everything.
till death do us,
 we unavoidable
  be doing it together.

2:49 am voicelog

the even like you
fleshbrain
sketch my feet in the sand
wait for me I'm on the salon
laying here legs outstretched feet taking
a little diff in the forever from forever ago
I wanted to read you but then I remembered
that I don't even like you anymore
but if we're still on there, that, I like me more
everybody knows I like me more what's not to like me more
so I'll try
with my voice with my feet in the sand
I'm out so its legs pointed toward the river
to the dark water and the swish of it and the glow from the streetlight
in the dark of everything in front of me from the trees below to me
waiting for someone to show up so I'm not around here
anymore
surprise me forever for the middle of nowhere
come at me in the dark of the water
learn me learning tell me
your whole thing to me stories
we're at the gas station what are you going to get
I'm going to pick up some beer and some condoms
do you need anything
no I think I'll be fine thank you
its 1:42 a.m.
I'm standing in the light at the Maverick
I'm watching our bikes
I'm watching that easy cab
listening in the lights the gas pumps, right musics
deal homeless in the cars with a truck
  fun sounds on
its 1:43 a.m. and I'm still standing in front of the matter
what you get at me now
your pain in the grass
I'm sitting at your picnic table in your yard
at the stars come out
we'll have a beer and the end of it
what's going to bed now
you and I
the morning jinx me
good time on that long
long night with you
I don't cry dude
dude I'm a dude
I wouldn't say anything in front of you
Evernote
music notices me hiding
let me stand, boy
I'm to end
catching
me, you never will

half a man

      if I only had one arm to hold you
      I would hold you at arm's length
I did cry a lot yesterday, this morning
I was a baby, it was probably 100 degrees when I woke up in your bed this morning
I was a baby when I left the bar
because I couldn't find kyle anymore
but he found molly
just not, me, molly
just the right molly
and I was angry that he left me there, the ravers allover the place
I was in the alley and I was walking and a guy chased me down
and said, Can I walk with you
but I was already done walking
so he said, Can I sit with you
and I said, No
and I was thinking, in what world does this make sense?
when does a girl ever chase a guy down an alley to ask if she can walk with him?
I mean, what?
some other guys sat down, and I let them talk to me because they had whiskey
so I drank a lot of that
and I wasn't so mad
but then I had to leave, and I was drunk
and I was sobbing, I had to take my glasses off because I couldn't see
and I was yelling a lot at myself
I was pretty mean to myself
and I was mean to kyle
and I was mean to the others
so I went to the other bar to see what I could see
and I got a cocktail & put it into my jar
and I called one
and he said he would meet me at the river
but then I got caught by some conversation
and I was laughing, not crying anymore
and the basque man followed me
and I gave him my number
so he could text me the most offensive things he could think of
because neither of us gets offended
and then I did chase someone down
we were walking the same way
we talked about making espresso
and about art school
and then I went to the river, and found that one walking toward me
he'd been waiting for half an hour for me, I felt badly about that
we went to his house
we went in there
and we were in, for hours
and I was glad
I had stopped crying
until this morning, when he got out of bed
because he is passionless & silent
and I was wondering where all the feelers are
where are the ones like me?
I left, he didn't know I'd been crying
he doesn't know about my bad brain
he doesn't know anything
he doesn't know that I write about him sometimes
and that I am more than I let on
but I'm glad I got some human touch
some human struggle
some interactive strangers
some surprise journeying between tears
and it's hot
so I'm going swimming
and I think the tears
are done for the day
WHEEEEWWWW
thank my brain is starting
 to grow back a little

hysteriaparty

haha

I am laughing, it rarely sounds like that, but I am full of it

 my dad used to say I was full of it a lot

 it took me awhile to realize being full of it is being full of shit

I was young, shit as shit didn't cross my mind

I left work yesterday and took nathan with me, and he met her

and she had that shellshocked look, like who's this man in my house!

and I don't care... but I should

  I should care, really I should

I locked us out of the house, I had to call Nickey to ask her to rescue us

we sat in the car

  Nathan drank the end of a bottle of flat rosé

  and I drank an apricot cider from a jar

and we smoked, and we listened to the lana del rey pandora station

  and I read him a bad poem, but I didn't write it

  we laughed

  he buttoned up his pale blue collared shirt to the top 

and he put on one of the bolo ties that hangs from my rearview mirror, 

  the one someone in my family got as an easter present in the '60s

  with the aqua leather and the silver horse running.

she rescued us

  we bought more beer

  we took our beachchairs

and I got into the river.

the others came & I had the other others on my mind

  and I was tired of looking at everything

  like my hair, my body

Nathan said If it's inside me, if it's invisible, it doesn't exist

and I said, What lungs? and the crowd echoed, laughing  

                 Liver, who?

I was tired of looking around until the wind picked up

  a fuzz layer took our sun away

   Where's my son?

then the cotton was floating around from the branches,

  it looked like snow

I looked downriver, the wind blowing all the trees, the white fluffs

and I thought this looks like the strangest storm

  here, with my damp swimmingdress on

  and the warm

  and the vague light of the sun,

but this could be a winter's storm

and this could be snow.

what if it was snowing right now?

the wind picked up around us, blowing us over

I went to the car to get sweaters

I got naked in the car for a minute

I walked on the sharp rocks

I told myself to stop looking for it

to stop searching it out

to do what it takes to unlatch

  and when I'm drunk, it's so easy to clear everything but these sorts of words

   with an understanding chuckle, here & there

but I woke up sober, so here I am again

teeth in, ready to anxiety-attack myself

  but what doesn't go away

  is the knowledge that you don't inspire me, you any

                                     & I don't admire anything about you, at all

  and of course, this makes me feel more the fool

as I continue

something so gross,

  so uninspe-rable

  so unadmire-able

but I'm going to go cut my hair now,

  the ugly ombre that everyone brings up

   because I've got to save that money

   because we've something like 44 days

until I break

   physically

from my gooey cords 

  giving me sicklife

  from your gross shells. I wish this was only but finally about one person

a one You

  so I could have an explosion party, so I could blow you up

but You are Many too Many and my brain splashes

 in an overdone explosion party

   where I'm the only once celebrated, and I'm the only one lauded 

and I didn't even get invited because I 

just

live there

jerk

so I think the universe
  is trying to get something out
I think the universe
  is becoming an excuse
this is why a bar's a bar
  bc it gives me every drunk reason
    to blame
     the universe
poor innocent little universe! how small & helpless,
  what powers have you?
I'm a jerk
a terrible friend
a bad kid
kick me to the curb.
  I'm apparently waaaay too date to care
  too date to drive
  too date to be attentionful
someone else.
someone, somewhere else
  tall
  tall
  ugly
open the window
get me a glass of water
open up the compliments
get me those compliments
  you're just so well spoken & eloquent
    I like your face
      I like your smart
         I like your have-a-heart-that-feels
  I like your body.   give it here
  will you marry me? let's just kiss-away each other
  under the waxmoon
  by the river.
I used to love to watch the trees sway from my window
I don't really do that, anymore
  let's clear the room.
  tell me what you're trying for.
  tell me how instinct this is
  tell me how incest this has become.
someone else
someone
  else, tell me more
    blame me
      I'm a guilt
  tell me I'm cold
bc I'm a stonegirl
without all of the arms to hold your bones from shivering
  get impressed & sleep silent pretty
    and shock, then
           shock at my
    jerk

summer in you

I wanted to write a poem called

I'm having a better summer than you

I was sitting by the river

after having sunk myself in

you know, the short breaths,

the regular too cold for you water

and I am warmskinned, pink,

imagining how you're not  

we noticed the sand

smelled so bad that

I would eventually say, I have to walk home

because I thought a hot day walk from raniers

and doritos and the slow moves of summersoaked kids

laying your head on my pelvisbone

soft of my stomach 

quaking with laughter

under the big tree, spring leaves falling on my body

which I celebrated & you mocked me for it

a lone walk home could be.

but then they all said, it smells like shit here

let's leave

gross beach

dog eating wing

you rubbed my head, my hair which was

just it

more human touch, I am a touch-me sort

out of the muck sand,

I moved a bed to the backyard

but no one bought it, or

I knew I wanted to sleep outside

I made it with quilts & pillows

and Nickey & Ida came in & we talked how we talk

& we smoked & drank whiskey in the dark

and a pine dangled over me.

It was the best sleep like windows open everywhere

I was in a breeze, and everything left 

but I always have the best summer

even when the birds don't wake in my ear

even when I leave the elements alone

even when I have to drive a car

with one window down

because I like a long distance

& something in summer is 

always to be looked forward to

29

it's official

summer is here

I baptized everything

at do-it-yourself doggy detail

the proprietor is a giant man with dredlocked dogs of all sizes

he said, When you shave a dog like this, 

and we look suspiciously at the collie,

You have to go at it like you're scraping ice off a windshield

it's official

because Nickey made us a birthday salad

like she made last year, when I turned 28 

& discovered bulleitt bourbon

Everyone cries on their birthday

& I was in love again or still with someone I'd loved 5 years before

and I left the bar alone

so the bar could be alone

so I could be alone with my middle-aged present 

& my maudlin I-miss-you past

we drank the bourbon with salad sap,

rhubarb syrup

we took it to the river with us, 

and a shorn collie

and our beached chairs

and I climbed into the river, under the water

and while I was inside her for those seconds

the hard seconds, my being very much aware of how

soft & warm

my innards are

how they're encased in a thousand knives stabbing you all at once

not to beconstatly reaching for titanic quotations, but

it was a bliss

a true moment where I wasn't terrified

because I am 

soft & warm

at least inside, still.

and I surfaced, gasping, mouth gulping sun

my wet seal hair long down my back

the droplets on anxious tired flesh

trying, breaking, popping 

in the light.

When I'm 29 I will police my emotions

I will make arrests

I will cuff me

I will throw me in the back

I will read me my hurried rights

I will put my heart on a leash

in a chokechain

& demand it next to me

legless, dragging along

taught tether,

slack tether.

that water was life-affirmer

my river hair, passion-confirmer

vehement future-asserter

(The other day she asked, how do you pronounce that word, vehemence, and we said it aloud a couple of times

I don't know that I do anything with vehemence, I said, and there followed the scoff of the century.)

When I'm 29 I will write down the names of everyone I've been in love with

and the list will crush the planet

the names will fall into trenches

into little graves

with headstones in ornate decay

How many people have you been in love with

Are you in love with anyone, now?

I used to ask two questions

when I was falling in love with someone, I'd say

Are you in love?

and

Are you an alcoholic?

It used to be that I'd turn away when the answers were yes

which they often were

but mostly I'd stay. Else how would I keep it all so relevantly destructive?

There are new questions to ask

like,

Do you love

or

Can you?

How many people have you been in love with

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9

or

1,2,34

or never say forever, and never forvember me 

nevember me forever