oh it looks like something bad happened to you

summer just started, the days are getting shorter
I fell asleep by the river last night, by myself, on the lavender lisa frank leopardprint blanket
it was a storm all around
through my eyelids
lightning
and I counted the seconds between it & the thundercrashes
remembering the movie poltergeist
and the movie jurassic park
but I don't know about the science, there
it was maybe 95 degrees, all I talk about is the amount of degrees I know
I am a varying temperature
I am trying to let my hair grow around my face, around my body, root in the sand
I am always taking the beach home with me, too
it feels secret
it feels like stealing
all of the ancient piss to take
I was dreaming, a little when the phone rang my stomach
and I was with child
it came & it became naked & it dove into the cold dark water
and then it began to rain the fat
allover the trees we can identify like cottonwoods & maples
& those we can't
the fat drop drums
we had to go, we had to go
to the yard
to make a bed there
to brandnew naked babes, there

are you selfboring, you can identify
that
are you identified friendless by your boring
are you okay with all of that
where's your girlfriend?
you mean, beside you
Hi, girlfriend
get in me

it's waaaay tooo western sad here
the universe is flashing relationships at us
fisting at us
& saying, This is what you are, you know
This is what you will be should you be
& I am solemn faced in slight knows
  I'm out
  & about
I'm shaking off the splats,
shitting sand from my shorts
pulsing out your water
sweating out of all my numerous little holes
exfoliating to scratch me, myself
pushing the pullout
letting the bites scab burn dry wither welt pus
my style

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

poets diversity college

  John Shinn & I are going to start a college

the ad will feature actors of indeterminate race- 

  headshots in high contrast puce lighting

saying the name of the college

  in various intonations

"poets. diversity. college."

"poet's diversity college."
   etc.

  John Shinn & Molly Stoddard, famed photographer & artist, respectively, know the challenge of finding a college that works with your needs.

  "Every student who attends pdc receives a laptop computer and a wheelchair, if needed, to keep, if they graduate, ABSOLUTELY FREE. Not sure which path is right for you? At poets diversity college, you will learn that everyone is a poet. Just ask yourself the question: how poem am I?"

we're pretty big on diversity, here. there are wheelchair ramps on every entrance

there will be clubs to join for every race, sexual orientation, religion & creed

oh, and speaking of religion!

try checking out pdc's sister school, poet's diversity bible college

because you can be a biblebanger & a poet, too

just ask history

no

wait, 

be a part of history

in the making. 

all the wheelchairs have a built in laptop table

so you can poem 

from the comfort

of your sleek new ride.

the only for-profit poetry college in America

  & don't forget the promises you'll make & keep

    & the free laptop & wheelchair you'll get

I heard Kyle Crawford just got his MFA, and his driver's license

  so he'll be teaching there, for sure

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

on riding over the dry leaves in the road

finally, the red leaves a litter. They like largest driest petals dropped from crusted rose. I see here, the roses still on their tall stalks, if brushed would crush to fall. If a rose could talk it would bloom; in the times I've felt the nearest push of prick into me, my cushioned thumb in hazard, in lightning, I never hasten wonder when wilst the final bud drop to crumble. Anchored now in thorough autumn, still open and gushing sappy pink light of softest flesh petal skywards. The open rose, the frozen palm.