me, again it's me again

I'm getting too good at this
like being too old at this
I'm reading a short story in bed and the story ends and
I realize I've been doing that thing
where I go back in a murky ball
  for you
a guy at work told me about how he cut his knuckle on the meat slicer once
and that the worst of it
was the sound it made.
it was just like the mortadella
it was just like meat.
reminding him we're just meat.
oh I know
it's a brain day
that I'm tender meat on the in & out.
I'm all brain heart lungs
but I look like a regular body bag
and I force them on me
and one day, someone might want to, again

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.

regretless

I fell in love with this surrealist painter
he was my height, 100 lbs,
and I could pick him up & carry him over my shoulder.
he would laugh a lot, it didn't bother him, I guess.
he wore polyester printed largecollared shirts and a grubby fedora
and he had a shady dali mustache.
the first night he spent with me
was the night I punched my best friend in the face.
we were fighting & I demanded a cigarette so she threw it across the room
so I punched her in the face.
I'd been punching and getting punched a lot, those days
just being drunk, just for fun
but she didn't think that was very fun.
she had a pretty good black eye
and she wouldn't talk to me for a week.
the boy & I took a turn punching each other that night, and laughing
I gave him a shiner, too
but I already had one
from the boy I was already in love with, the boy who drove me to indianapolis.
the surrealist painter & I fucked a lot
we fucked on the roof of his friend's house
before playing poker with pennies.
I won that game, it's the only time I've ever played poker
so I am undefeated at poker.
before we fucked on that rooftop
I'd had to remove a tampon
which I left, as a sleazy fuckplace marker.
we climbed down a ladder into the kitchen
and I won $1.33 in pennies.
he was a drunk guy. the first alcoholic I'd ever loved
and when it got bad, when this tender genius would get wasted
he'd slur
and fall around
and I didn't like who he'd become.
his skin was yellowish.
he told me he wanted to cut back.
I learned to cook for him. I wanted him to eat something besides hot dogs,
but he didn't care what he ate.
I started riding a bike,
because I thought I could get some exercise into him
but he didn't care about that.
he didn't care about anything.
when I told him that I loved him
but we couldn't be together anymore
on account of his broken promises
and failed endeavors
he said, Okay. that he knew I deserved better.
he didn't put up a fight.
he moved away shortly after, he couldn't hold a job
but he made a beautiful painting for my birthday
which I left accidentally
in my basement.

growup

puuff puuff passss
 
what's the secret
  you're trying to tell me a secret
beneath a bridge, in a raincar
  finally you're like me, you like me now
  I stopped thinking, I had a good braintime and then it turned
  into me, just months. let's get this callout! I am a most tender callous girl. I have never been younger.
  I talked to my mom, she wants to take everyone to the galapagos islands. she wants me to start thinking of the future, she doesn't want me to get fat. she doesn't want me to be a waitress for the rest of my life. she wants me to treat my illnesses. she wants me to surround myself with interesting people, she wants me to be an Artist. this is partly why we don't talk all that often

 I wish I could have told you abt her
before you died, but
you might have been
  too concerned with dying
  so hear more
for your deadugly ears
  a little worm for tunneling
   
while I was writing this, my mom called
she wants me to get a guestroom
in my mansionhouse
  so everyone can visit
    and I'm like duh, I will always
try to do that

closet muscle

I think of cyan in everything
I put it on all of my clothes
someone got fired today
it's sortof dullsky, I wonder if he got to the bar
to get shitfaced after being shitcanned
I have a birthday present for you
happy birthday! here is some of my smokehair
oh, you left a quarter in my bed, how tender
how tedious, I left a button beneath your pillow
  from my dusty vermilion silk shirt
  I wore cornflower blue tights
    peeled from my body
and can't wear my shirt anymore
  till I sew back the button
you should ignore me, I'm a firelight
  watch, I ignite
  gold ingots, look it up
impressss me
  get another pillow so we won't have to share
  put a shirt on it
let me sand allover your bed
  brush it off
   dog paws running against your wall
  scratch me off, cook me dinner in the waxing morninghours
   tell me to move in to your attic bedroom
     I can say whatever I want
       abt you
         bc you'll never read me
  suggest fingers to point at yrself consciousness
     tell me I don't appear to have any, make me laff
read abt how to woo a woman
by bringing a blanket out
  read about how to fuck
    or how to trade tender for passion
   or let's discuss
     that I love the talls, the uglies
       tell me that just bc I'm tan... thank you
          tell me I'm too goodlooking
for any of them
   tell me abt yr disease
     and yr panic
     and yr sad because-of-it-all
  and I'll tell you how we're ready for ever

plastic surgery

I'm attached to the idea
of being attached to an idea
  I finished my project
19 drawings for 19 days
  the last was done at 6am
    it's just a couple of lines
                a couple of depressed leaves & branches
   with the date stamped depressingly on it
  I think it's okay
I mean, I did it, right
   accomplishment
I ate only part of my birthday tunamelt
  Ida ate the other half
I drank two strong beers
  and had to walk around the Basque block
    to cry out some little-girl birhday-tears
I tried to tell Nickey I wasn't going to be sad
  and then I stopped myself, and she was like, ya right, I know
  but I've the close ones with me
and I'm not a tender misery
  I'm ready for the new-year
and may will end
and summer will
and I'm getting out
and no one will see my emotion-crumples
and my wax face
and I will iron my memory-wrinkles out
and flatten back to life, sewn & sinched

where are those good izod boyshorts?

I just came out
  1 in the afternoon
being
on birthday
ima birth this day
ima birth ima birth ima birth
I wasn't alone, fuck it
  I have a headache, we can't find our underwear
  but who needs it
we're virtually 30
  I said fuck it & you smiled pretty face kiss-me-mouth
  and then you said happy birthday, molly
 
nickey says it's weird to cry so much when you're getting madeout with
or when you come
  but I think it's more strange
that no one else thinks it's strange
  they just kiss tears off a face & don't ask
   maybe that's what Poets do
   they think in tears & come
   so when someone does, its not a shockershocker
   or maybe they think I'm tender
   or sexy, when is sad sexy? AM I SEXY, NOW???
  I got out of the car at 5:23 this morning
& I said fuck it
my birth
   I'm soft
touch me leaky
tell me happy birthday
tell me you disgust yourself
tell me you're a disappointment
tell me you're alone
tell me you'll never leave
 
  fuck it, I'm virtually 30  
    let's just do

I'm late

before I went to the babyshower

Britta dragged me to sheepherder's breakfast, which is something I'd definitely have taken you to if you'd come

chorizo & eggs & pimiento sauce, and bottomless frozen sangria & churros

but I hadn't an appetite, I drank all of the frozen sangrias

and the sugar tangle of the churro couldn't quench anything

on the way to the babyshower I thought it would be best if I showed up pregnant & engaged

like my two cousins, respectively

and I'd take the party away from them

and that was funny to me

because I felt the cling of forever

at the notion

she says forever to the guy who said marry me

she says forever to the baby she's doing

and that is a word I have a strangle-to

but it never ever stops finding me for trying.

I guess you all fell in love with someone else,

it's what I'd have done if I were you

but I never want to be like that

   I may be a planet

a gassy little planet

but I'm solid

even in orbit

and I'm a relier 

and I'm rely able

for always I say always,

and forever is in your mouth

and you spit it at me

and it clings with suckers in me

and now I'm a danglefish

and I'm a tanglegirl

and I'm still an alwayswill

                        alwaysdoes

and I'm still a forevertry

                      foreverdo

and may be you see me banished

bashful

tender or miserly

but as they say, I am not a broken thing

             though I have my broken things

we can't be altruistic we can't be selfish

we can take care

we can take care

&

we can take true care of us.

I wish I had health like yours,

but I'm more lightning

than you are cloud

attributes (accompaniment, accused)

Adjectives

I.

concupiscent 

hopeful

desperate

devastated

amorous

impatient

tender

insipid

forever

II.

bristly

evaporated

longing

watchful

isolated

boring

absent

laconic

wrecked

Verbs

I.

wait

brood

wish

weep

fight

II.

forget

dismiss

expunge

dissolve

attempt

Nouns

I. 

pose

force

question

guilt

future

heart

guts

II.

denial

punctuation

fear

finish

tree

tears

distance

thanks s sontag

one day

Reading One Arm, by Tenn. Williams. "But death has never been much in the way of completion." I realized I stopped paying attention after this line; looking at the various birds of this backyard Boise, the recognizable house finch with its vermilion tinted breast, the color subtly changing faded green and the sage growing purple, wheat-yellows, the rustle of the invasive Russian Olive. The ending of this story, with the Apollo youth seeming too perfect for anyone to touch with a knife, his unclaimed body donated to the medical school, just a tender one gone...

truly lovely, this writer.