selfish

I got someone's digits!

ya, when was the last time that happened

he was at my garagesale

he came early 

with another longhair don't care hippie 

I can't remember what he bought, 

but he came back for some speakers I'd already sold

He'd put his hair in a low ponytail by that time

and I was in rollerskates by that time

and I was sort of drunk by that time

so I complimented him on his turquoise rings

giant rings on every finger

each was so solid & big & pretty and all so different from one another.

Was that a mistake!

he took the opportunity to tell me about each one

longwinded stories

but I learned that turquoise has sex

I mean, it's sexed

I mean, it's sexy

but apparently, green turquoise is female and blue is male

so I learned something

which is always a fine, fine thing to do. 

He had hair down to where his brastrap would be

which is what we all pine-for

long, wavy, salt & pepper hair

and a tiny round butt on his chin

I'm Italian, he said, So I know how to do just about anything

I grew up in NY in the '70s, it was pretty out there

I'm a non-believer - he paused - I don't believe in anything, I'm a nihalist

I don't believe in age-barriers

or gaps

So we should party

but before he said this, he asked if he could pay $.25 for a bunch of index cards

I told him he could take them

so he wrote down his name

and as he did he said, I also have Penmanship

and I said, Well you certainly do

he wrote his number down

and his email address. He hasn't gotten "into" tweeting

So... Let's Party Sometime

and I said, ya

But, I don't know

I don't believe in age-barriers

or gaps

but the second he said,    I'm a nonbeliever

I thought, screamed inside

Well I Believe in EVERYTHING

but what I'd mostly be believing

is that this dad's-age-hippie

wants to smoke doobies

wants to rock out

wants to fuck

wants to give me some stories

wants to give me some turquoise jewelry

made in Albuquerque in the '70s

and I'm down with like 2 of these things

but I am not Pure

and I am not looking to be

       new friends

       because I am eternal selfish

sadhand

let's fuck

the world

I made myself a reasonable cocktail

in a yellow siesta-ware cuppy with a wooden handle

I made my outside bed

as if to suggest company was coming to see my new setup

for only the next two days

I made my permaoutfit on friday

it's the dragon tyedie spaghetti strap

with the skirt with sailboats that look like shark's teeth

and the child pink sandals

and I am longhaired

but I do, honestly, supercare

like I'm the supercaringist ever

but my friend is coming over to tell me about him

and I will shut up for five seconds 

to remember that there are other people

and if I really am the nurturing type

I will hold & love 

if you need to rain out

this 98∘

evening

THANK YOU, 

dear, 

for making the soup

that you won't be here to eat.

You are a Love

& you frustrate me

& make me so angry

and I know I return that on you

but you made me able to not have to do anything

save for write

with a lefthand nailpolish (called Jaded)

and a right hand crumbling nails,

sadhand. 

it's sadder

than the left

chipping paint reminds me

well, doesn't everything remind me?

it reminds me less everyday

but everything does forever remind me.

Of a future I'd invented, I've seen it

Of a past that did actually happen for a second

my weddingring finger is on a happy hand

the decal you put on it the night we met irl

fell off, finally

that one day

that is finally 

awhile ago. Awhile ago helps, doesn't it?

it can, I mean, it should

but I keep making the past so very now, don't I

in classic Molly Merrill Stoddardstyle

D R A MA
       R A MA

fuck jeff mangum (5/12/13)

98∘

I came home from work and I looked at the backyard of gayulz club

and I was like

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK this place

it's so dirty & gross here, god

and I looked at the bed I'd made & slept in, on the cement

and it is covered in little gnat corpses and little pollen flecks and sticky matter

and I was even more disgusted

but here I am, sitting

I cleaned up cigarette butts

beerbottles

beercans

a can of diet coke? whose

an empty pizza box

and I said, You know what, Molly?

and I said, WHAT, Molly??!

You deserve some WHISKEY, gurl

and I was all, YA I DO

so I got on my bike & rode my ass down to the liquor store. It's really hot out.

The temperature clock says almost 100

The internet says it's 92 degrees.

Remember that boy band

Nickey saw a pic of them these days

what, it's like 20 years later or something

and she said, Gross! they are so gross and OLD now

and I'm like Ya, why would they let a good thing die

which reminds me: remember when Jessica Simpson ballooned to like 150 lbs

and everyone freaked

bc it's Jessica FuckingSimpson

and she's hot, so how did she get so FAT

omg, did Nick Lachey leave her, you think

I don't even know

I need to look at more mag covers at the stores

I came home and I thought to make myself a cocktail

where's my cocktail?

I thought I really need a cold cocktail, I'll use the martini shaker

put in some ice, some ginger syrup, a little lemon juice, some sparkle water

and then I noticed it!

a single watermelon beer

and I was like

Why would I ever maudlin-exclaim that life sucks?! No way

it's even better than whiskey right now

in 98∘

Nick & Jessica, forever

fat or thin

gay or straight

geniuses,

I hope they made it
in all this heat

mothersday workday everyday

today a guy came into the coffeeshop and said, Happy mother's day

and I said, Thanks, happy mother's day to you, too

and he stalled and said, But you don't seem like-

-The mothering type?

and then I told him that I am actually the Mothering Type

but I didn't tell him how I try to take care of all of the kids

I let them cry, and I keep a dryface

I let them rain for hours on the phone

I let them rain in the rain
and I shed nothing

bc I am Trying to Take Care of Someone,

sometimes.

I didn't tell him that I will hold you with patience

even through a shakesobfest

which I too have, at strange intervals

like behind the espresso machine

or when I look at the shitty art in the gallery at work

or when I ride my bike, listening to purity ring

bc I am Trying to Understand how to Care for Someone,

sometimes

when it doesn't want me to

today a very old man came into the coffeeshop and handed me a pink carnation

and he said, May I give you this flower?

and I said, smelling it, 

Of course you may, thank you

and I didn't do what I was urged to at the moment

I didn't fling the pink carnation at him, announcing,

The last person who gave me flowers 

BROKE MY HEART!!

lol

I wish I would have

it would have ruined someone's mother's day, maybe

but who says he deserves me to ruin things

who says you need me to ruin things

who says I need you to ruin me?

No one would say that

that's retarded

we can't

ruin

each other, we're not big enough to

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

chasttity

 will I ever be as pure as you?

I have had sex with over five million people

I could name them all on

the worl'd

on the longest paper

I could write a continuous manuscript

on a roll of parchment,

but does that change it 

but doesn't that change it?

filled with all of the sorries

doing the let me explains

urging the hear, here's whies

switch ears, I'll give another

moral blunder

your pink holes

in your pink head

there is always a you, you

and it is about you

but

we like it when

the you changes

and you are you a new you

and the you doesn't hold

to the things about me, you know

and I hold to me

and you hold me like me

like the millions have held

like I'm held in the millions more

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

never see what I meant

the own power

the beautiful brain

the envelope to slide me in

my own certainty, sparks

it rolls

rolls baby

take them away with you, in pleading voice

but they aren't my problem, anymore

they're for you

that was on a porch tonight

and I was innocent

in my getting-out-there-outfit

this is a joke on forever, 

of course

i do know i do know i do know i do know i do know i do know i do knwo i do knwo i do knwo i do know i do know i do i do i do

where's the question mark in that? write a poem, already! sing yourself off

get it, gurl

i miss u u r so wonderful

why would anyone ever look back at that?

where's my question mark

now

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

urchn

turn it around, make me a 

winter king

look who's queen, now

sidewaysing each other

sideswaying, flutter your eyelashes now

hot puffer, flyabover

be a don't 

be a don't bother

be a don't, bother to

be a don't, bother to be

be a don't, bother to be there

I'm a sad

I'm a sad kid

I'm a sad kid don't

I'm a sad, kid don't try

urchin

 urgin

puuff 

 puufff 

  paassssssst

flirt

sometimes all it takes is a glimpse out of a cornereye

to notice that the future is pretty ones

filled with bodies with arms & sturdy legs

and maaaad bloodflow

& I've done this before

bloodgoblets

coward blood

brave blood

I have enough for the world

I am such a woman 

blood maker

I get all the closest girls to orbit me

because I'm the sun in this fucking universe

so when I say bleed, we gush 

and we gush

and we gush 

and we gush

get up, get out, and GET THAT PUSSY

dear diary, 

goodmorning! and such a promising morning. sitting out on sparkle porch, three days from it never being mine again. oh why do I keep my alarm set for 7:30? as if I'd need it! there's a squirrel chewing seeds and chuckking, Ida is keeping it together but she wants to destroy that shit & I'd like her to. such is life, never getting exactly what you want, am I right? so I've made some coffee, and I've got the morning sun kissing allover my skin, and the sounds of rich people's yards getting mowed around me, and that damn chuckle squirrel. I have much to do today. everything for the sale. I made $8 yesterday, diary. I sold neon yellow dirt shirt that advertises a company called knife river and on the back it reads like Singin' and Diggin' Deep. also, a faded glory brand child's bomber jacket, the "hipster vneck" - heather blue dyed purple-orange like pollutant sky, with triangles sewn around the neckline. and the weird robe dress thing, called Models Coat with the pearl snaps & giant pockets & paisley meant for an elementaryschool art teacher. I wanted to write the six-pack story, but a friend came over and then more so I drank the fox beer, 3, and a half of a sweetgrass. then I had a watermelon and a giant glass of ipa. that's nearly a six-pack story there, isn't it. I also made some hummus which the stoners were titillated by, but there is something not quite perfect about it. oh well, dinner: over!! for days!! I had some dreams I don't remember, the cabin of a sailboat, maybe, the caress of a hand lost to me. the thankfulness I have for friends who came by- that isn't a dream- Nickeys shows me a hand not lost. the ones who haven't heard, but who listen. Ian said something like, I don't mind a relationship that's a theater of pain... it is a theater of pain, and a theater of happiness... sometimes someone has to bang their head on the carpet, and then they stop, and then you watch terminator 2, and go to the bar and go to bed... and I'm thinking, it isn't so hard, is it? Kyle & the akron family would urge that love is simple. but I still haven't any choices so I will read a short story in my pretty last-days-of-cougar-den as romb, toom? ooh. 

I will wake up, 

I will get up, 

and I will get out, 

and 

loveletter

take me two minutes

I think it's mostly what I have to show you only

a dose is a choice

a little sip I've shoved

give me your ear

give it me

or cut it off from you.

our hearts aren't echoes

can't beat a solemn rock wall

my voice can't reproduce 

in little interruptions of itself

but can be listened-to, can be

archived

or erased

or erased before it exists

by your fingers

if your brain gets to them first

or maybe you'll keep your ear in your heart please

how to be

1

"J" wrote a book called the way to become the sensuous woman

and we're reading about the butterfly

and you can imagine the woman reading this little paperback

wedging it open in the free hand

propped up by her wobbly elbow

while she clutches carefully on his testicles

so as not to damage him for a week

and she's reading this tinyprint book which instructs

it removes the guesswork, which is sometimes a least favorite work to do

I made three bucks today

man, I just came back from the world... don't go out there

I saw a girl I don't care about, I dropped one of the books I was carrying

she said HEY how's it going! and I said fine HOW ARE YOU

and then I picked up my book

and she said, that's a lot of books

and I was like, yeah

so I tried to sell some books and I only got $3, for a fucking Murakami. I don't know, I've never read Murakami 

I guess I can't talk shit, it's what the people want

I went to the bank and I got $100 out of my bank account

I saw a model, a tall tan with black on, and shades, and honey hair, and a cellphone

I had to go to the store to get beer

I got the ones with the fox on it

and the watermelons

because tonight I am going to write a six-pack story

& it might just be my ticket out of this two-bit town.

But while I was buying beer & only beer

I noticed my shirt

its big sleeves are cut off, and it's haphazardly bleached

on it reads MORE BEER in pink comic sans

& I'm thinking when I wear it I will always be thirsty

stop doing how you do

never tell someone to love! I fixed myself up,

fox yourself up. I like to take inventory too much

I found this old green gridded journal for officing

so when someone would borrow a book, they could check it out

from the library, bc I even have one of those date stampers

it can stamp any day between 1992 and 2013

I don't know what will happen in 2014

maybe we'll stop reading by then

god I hope so, I have too many books lugging around

So the lendee would sign the book's inside cover, and I'd stamp it with a due date

a date we'd agreed on

a date before 2014, sometime

and she let her old boyfriend borrow one hundred years of solitude

and she'd forgotten she'd done that, so it was about a hundred years late but is back on the shelf

along with all of the other Márquez I've never read

save for the novelette about the president

that I read aloud to bruce over a lantern

at the reservoir while he poured vodkas

I wonder if I will ever read one hundred years of solitude

I keep thinking I will

the other books haven't been returned... I stupidly in romantic fever lent a lover's discourse

to some ex-girlfriend of my friend's ex-boyfriend, so-

I lent it at the bar, too

I had my stamp & my logbook & everything already with me, the bar library

but that was last summer

and she unfriended me on facebook

but I know she couldn't have digested that

but I ingested it so I guess I hope she passes it along

I lent light in august which is one of the two Faulkners I've done

I started it one August

and finished it the following August

 am I a slow reader :/

nah, I was reading linguistics texts

and postmodern short stories

remember? I was trying to be in COLLEGE again, whatever

I lent light in august to andy, but then of course he broke up with me

and I told him to finish it and give it back

and then I told him I just wanted it back

and then I told him he could burn it if he wanted, that I never wanted to see it again

yeah, I think I'll go take some inventory

inventorying is relaxing

shark chin

look at you go! in my dreams I was in a closet with a screaming close-girl, we were being poked by invisible fingers, but you can't hide from invisible fingers

I'm going to make that life-deposit, now. It's early late enough. The ropes are twisting, shredding, I feel the pull more, gravity more, rope shred

We've picked out our $50,000 wicker porch sets

We cut the collars from our shirts to make room for the real breaths

but we smoke a pack

into the night

because suddenly, it is night

and we've gotten there!

I always use exclamation points, and some people never ever do

I wonder when I will find those of you who do?

in writing & otherwise?

And question marks?? I know we all do from time to time

I want the exclaimers. Dig me out to find them.

crushed velvet sausage

'90s dads

mine wore black raybans

with lightblue croakies

the saggy kind

rayon aloha shirts

with wooden buttons

so you can leave your shirt open at sunset

when you're on a boat or on a dock

having a gin n tonic in the breeze, I guess

tassel-shoes

or as dad called them,

fishy little loafers

meant for working

spandex bikeshorts

& a hotpink tank top

with a babyblue bandana tied loosely around his neck

and those raybans with the blue croakie

this is what my '90s dad was wearing when he met my highschool boyfriend

who thought dad was gay

for the next few months at least, though he didn't tell me till later

we renamed dad

Steve the Stud

which developed into

Steve the Two-by-Four

because every friday night he'd get us a papa murphys pizza

and some blaxploitation films,

and he'd put on a nice cornflower button-down

and he'd ask me how he looked.

Sometimes I would tell him to change his shoes, or to get out of those black socks

and he'd leave us,
with castration-scenes and rape-by-poolstick

and we would get really stoned
& drink the case of natural ice the river man bought for us

drill

the password on my diaries

will be published in my diary

the one without the password,

which sounds like a riddle but is not
a popular steroid, may be
or a balance

I've never said this word aloud

I've only ever written it once, in the snow, some night for Nickey

but it melted

and she forgot

which is fine, until she outlives me and is trying to make her fortune

sadalone loser lol

I went to a babyshower on sunday, I walked in the backyard but the fiance had to lift the gate for me, I sat with my dad, he liked my shades, said, Very moviestar. He asked me how I was doing as he ate spinach and strawberries, salad on a stick. All of the women told him to eat everything, he was taking it down. I told him three things. I struck him within minutes of the babyshower, but I was guilty

I don't care that he knows these three things

he's my dad,

I guess he wants to know them

The punchbowl was right in front of us

I had been imagining this punchbowl all day, porcelain, with 8 tiny cups, crushed ice & berries & what my grandmother would call a nice blush to pour in

Small cups make many trips to the bowl so dad & I were interrupted and at one point instructed to Smile and look happy for a photo. What do you say but oh god and smile the only smile you know? Irony corners. Dad always has watery eyes, so might just look happy, not definitely teary. Poor dad. I'm sorry I have lain you on.

But he wasn't even invited! no men at showers. just guess how fat mom's uterus makes her with this ribbon of twine. I apparently know not the width of a pregnant woman, I lost desperately

He just stopped by to say hi & was instructed to Eat EAT EAAAATTTT

so sorry, I sat down & wear it on my face, three things

I tried to get the punch down but the berries were froze, not for teeth

I didn't have any of that cake

  but no one did save for the pregnant woman and the bride

tough pussy

ohh hiiii

let's go in this cave

goo crevice forever

let's goo bye

make stalag-might babies

make a maybe baybe

snuggle up to the calcium teat

a calcified treat

the beauty sparkle-spire

white, unlit

dank

 the echo of your hunger murmur

 the purr of your helpless guts

the rumble of

      whats that wumble in yo tummy?

come on baby, give us a break

a stalactite feed

a stalagmite feed you

but you're on all fours

moving through moist maze

underground tunnel

  illumined crystal castles

  from the ceiling, from the floor

  for thousands of years

building, tall-towered

or beaded tears on your beak

dripstone, 

dissolvestone

It's cool to be underground, am I wrong?

the temperature is so death

Where's my beating down sun?

my beaten down son, my troubled youth?

but it's soooh cooohwd in dis womb!

does baby wanna come out?

of his coohwd wittew womb? 

I thought a womb was meant to be cozy

but not too comfortable to shove you out when it's time

Let's go to the Chamber of Rarities, I don't think there's a wikipedia for it but it sounds fucking real

jerk

thought to be pretty funny yesterday, telling you what to do

but I slept   in

so I'm not as funny today, more regular-guy today

my hair looks pretty great

I am a shabby

they're going to see my hair for the first time

the repulsed old women

are gonna be like, 

Oh my word

is that a young woman?????

I think I'll have some orange juice when I get to work.

I think I'll lie about how great the chicken salad is.

but really the lie is not too much a lie because whatever

big-bra babe with her glitter jewel necklace & fresh honey hair

is gonna love it 

truly

it's called lying for favors

hey, can you do me a favor?

let me do you a favor.

advice a lie

smile a lie

present a lie with all its fun-lie mass

a happy lie

for your starving stomach.

yeah the planet distance is pretty great

so I'll just orbit for awhile

til it breaks

office motto

I really do think the temperature has changed

this is my office, now

officer stoddard

in a hoodie that has the little mini zip

beneath where the hoodsides meet

I really don't like it, too much a polyblend for my taste

and also I don't know about a hoodie, messes yer hair

not if you have cop hair

it feels like a summer storm, but it's spring, still.

the sky is a breeze gray & the dead n alive trees up in my office

they sway

in a wanting to be in a storm kindof way

so will I, then

hoodie

 man, I keep leaving the screendoor open

and all of the fly guys keep coming in

and I yell and swish them around but they don't care

fly guys don't care

don't fucking care

FGDC

oh man, I just put on a hoodie

and it's like 80 degrees here on the patio of gayulz club

and I'm wearing a fucking sweatshirt, like who AM I?

I told Nickey her blog is fucking so good

in all caps

and she told me I was drunk

and the cool thing is that I got home from work

and there are watermelon beers in the fridge that I've nothing to do with

and I'm drinking them, but am not drunk

but I'm tryin

ok so it was Nickey

she literally just told me 

that I need to try

try

try 

try.

all I do is try

  

  Last summer around Nickey's birthday I wrote a poem in the blue book she made me for my birthday

  we were sitting by a pool

  I was drinking watermelon beer

  and I was melancholy

  because I felt very like I was in love with someone

  who I knew wouldn't ever be there back with me

  So I wrote down something like

   

    Don't cry

      Let her die

     if the ship has sailed

         say

           Bye Bye

and I didn't realize it rhymed, which instantly makes it a poem,?

& it was later abrevved, tried to become my motto

try, die, bye bye

which is not something I ever had to commit to memory

bc my memory has long forever made me a committer to it

worst

a woman came into the coffeeshop yesterday,

with the depressed boring mid-forties guy

who part-combs his hair on the right, which is supposed to indicate something about his personality:

 we suspect he's a highly visual, musical, pictoral person, & feminine

and he has large wire-framed glasses,

and a nondescript buttondown shirt.

They always come in together

he pushes her wheelchair up to the counter, he stands behind her

she makes the difficult choice to order as she does always, an ice t,

maybe a stickybun.

He regards her impatiently, black coffee. They pay separately & sit at a table together & never speak.

I like to imagine that they are a couple

but that he didn't know what he was getting into,

she seemed so great at first. So uncomplicated

Or, or... they're both musical geniuses, but she was taking his spotlight

like in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

and he ran her over with his car

and has to take care of her for the rest of their miserable lives.

But, she's probably his sister

and she lives in the samaritan home

and he takes her for a fucking ice t every monday

She was wearing shades yesterday,

sortof big black moviestar shades

and she always has on these athleticlooking gloves 

so she doesn't get wheel-burn

& a thick black knee brace

on her thick doughknee

It was hard to make out her shirt,

smashed, as it was, beneath her breasts

and faded, she's had it awhile

but on it read

SARCASM (& in ornate script, the thesis) just one of my many talents

& I was like, o damn,

I guess they got me

minnesota

I'm on the phone with shareowner services

through a bank

across the country somewhere, classical piano...

ahhh! those tickle keys

and a woman keeps interrupting the piano

to announce that my call is very important to them

and that a customerserviserepresentative will be with me

in the order I was received

& I think, my call should be answered in the order in which it was received, see

so I'm already incredulous

like how do I really know these guys are legit?

If you're worth billionz, get a grammarian on board

Awhile later she begins to give me addresses and phonenumbers,

and I'm clearly dealing with some depressed midwestern robot 

and I've never heard anyone say zero like this before

but that's how I guess they do in St. Paul.

I've been to St. Paul once, it was in February, and there was the ideal

Minnesotan snowstorm, so all of the roads were white thick,

and all of the thousands of lakes had fishinghuts & fires burning on them.

The blanket sidewalks had skiers on them. Such a place!

I drove a drunk guy home in his car 

and he told me that I didn't need to worry about stopping for red lights

that in this kind of weather, you go slow & peer & just keep going slow.

(with all of these billionz, you'd think I'd get a grammarian on board!)

St. Paul, Minnesota is also the only place I've played big buck hunter in my life. 

Someone answered! but...

it had to have been the same Minnesotan robot

Her winsome whiny decantering a

her overround lowered o

I think everyone should move away from where they were raised

she ought not to be in Minnesota

I ought not to be here

so sue me, I'm getting alllll that $$$

so let's gooooooooooooooooooooooo

le ceour of discovery

a man came into the coffeeshop today,

he was wearing a navy polyester polo insigned with 

LEWIS & CLARK EXPLORERS

and I am super jealous, because

I don't think I ever told you

about how romantic I find the journey of Lewis & Clark

They kept thorough journals, documenting new animals they came across

and new landscapes

Lewis wrote a lot about his feelings

on his 30th birthday 

he was downtrodden. 

He felt he had reached middle-age

without having accomplished anything.

I was just 26 in my lazybed in Portland when I heard this

and he was in Montana or somewhere

not killing or raping anyone

just Exploring the crazy place

and I was like, damn, Meriwether

I'd say you're doing pretty well.

He killed himself
after they returned east
it was thought he'd been murdered by indians.
Heros don't die by an own hand.
Heros don't die alone.

But he was alone in a little cabin with a gun.

Apparently he'd been calling for Clark.

He wanted Clark before he died.

I've always wanted to make a romantic dramedy about Lewis & Clark, 

but super romantic,

like brokeback moutain style.

Clark could be played by a '90s Kevin Costner

and Lewis, a '90s Johnny Depp

so, superhunky, like sexiest-man-alive kind of hunky

And Johnny is splayed out on the boat

linen shirt dirtied, torn, trembling open

beneath the 4th of July explosions

I can't quit you, Clark

I can't quit you.

I think it could sell

but I'd need a time machine

so Jennifer Lopez could play Sacajawea

like in her Selena days

impulse $$$

it was a sad summer

their names were vermilion beard, sad mouth

it was a sad fall

their names were aubergine hair, squishface, eyelashes

it was a sad winter 

their names were eyes

it was a sad spring

their names were hipbones, limbs, flesh

a bag of lemons is a bad sign is a bad notion idea indication

"if someone takes your idea it isn't really yours"-  go to work

"if I am the only one alive I am all of the life"-  go write in your diary

do you remember when we ate mushrooms

and that kanye song, all of the lights 

showed up

and I fell into your sob shoulder

and you asked me to tell you why 

and I said, it just reminds me that everything is as bad as it seems

did you know that kim kardashian has ballooned to 220 lbs since getting pregnant?

that she has ballooned to such proportions that kanye will no longer speak to her?

I read this off a magazine at kmart two weeks ago

when Nickey & I were buying toilet paper

and she desperately wanted a pop tart

so we were looking among the magazine racks for impulse buys

we thought pop tarts would make a pretty good one of those

help me find my necklace

little hero,

I too want dog-running dreams

four paws bending

dainty twitch at the wrist

sidewinder against the wall

catching triscuits over a mountain jumping a grave

I bought bananas as revenge

I wake up with my mind over the range

burners low

or mountains separating forever. That's the biggest distance I've ever seen

further than space

is

stay in space

space is pretty pleasy

I'm sorry about my body

It's falling apart inside

strings to pull out of me,

whole parts, globs, gushes

pretty pleasy things going out from me now

it's a mess

and it's a broke trust

nothing going in

nothing going on

no saving, doubling

exponentialling

I'm sorry 

but I can't get high as the sun

as stoned as the stars

wasted as states away

fucked-up as a time zone

blood is in me

like new blood everyday

new little blood wishes when I wake up

old little blood wishes

just wish question wish question wish question wish

like where's the wants to see you again

what's ours is ours

what's mine is mine

I used to like the inside of your head

but where has it gone?

is it okay if I change some things for you

is it okay if I change my smell, to us?

subtle to change my life with you

is it okay if I do some coke, would that bother you

is it okay if I say I love you

is it okay if I show you my brain

is it okay if I change my mind?

I'm sorry about the bananas,

that was impulsive & now they're ripe so I don't know what to do with them.

I wrap around this fur body in springmorning

very close to the dirt, face in

the roots

the gentleroots

gentleman earth

I am a bloodbath

an old babe,

with bloodcurtain as cape

my mouth a twist, a smile, a hellow-honey

my shana punim

my hot-air balloon

my beautiful dreamer!

 watching you sleep is a shame & watching you wake is a slaughter

champion

I have a gold heart,

I have a chocolate heart

but foilless, boxless

gold in gold out

squish

the most sublime gold goo

little valves, gold hollows

close & open

letting in the steam hot sludge

the kind of gold you need sunglasses for

what does an ounce of gold go for these days

or a lid of gold

an eighth of an ounce of my heart weighs the same as a ballpointpen

gold around the size of my small fist.

remember when you were wrapped around me?

well you should have put it all in

because then we could have said we'd done it

elbow deep

flush me out

vacate me,

inhabit me

you could have built a fire inside

set about with the world's pillows

take the draft out

shake out curtains

spit shine like glass

throw the mirrors in the fire

a tree grows through the kitchen floor, through the roof

wrap around that, get scaly

ponderosa splinters in your trying arms.

downcast your eyes, 

do a tired tried falter

There is something to do with heart like that

submerge it

melt it

slice through shell

heat & drain

waft

my dreams are coming true

my sweat hands are pouring it out

my sweat mouth is   pouting it out

I am becoming an onion

I am not red 

I'm not white I'm not green

I'm not a rosy little shallot

but I am rank

I am a fetor, organic earth bulb

little dirt baby

organ baby

juicy layers

I got this B6 vaping out of me

the vitamin C all cloud water around

but I haven't a stalk

or a shaft

or a connection to anything

just a globular squish 

solid-bod

cut into me

get me open

cry when I vapor you

when I steam on you

when I exhale
allium miasma

little mist

little onion burst

they don't make me cry at all, never

but I'm ready to sweet my juice on you, 

for your big old tears to drownout

sad 

little 

onion

cynic

basted

I woke up later than usual but I am in here,

and the first thing to notice me was a tiny little tear,

the backwards kind

been waiting for the sun to rise

so it could greet me

back through the nose tunnel

into the canals

so I'm breathing underwater

drowning in sleep

like waking up to your weeping

like I woke up with this soft dog

in yesterday's dress

I've trained John Shinn to not refer to a plaid shirt as a flannel if it isn't flannel

he calls it a plaid, then

I don't even notice that I do this

but maybe I'm incredulous

or maybe I'm just correct

maybe I'm a boss

it's just a shirt.

do you want your shirt back?

the ironic one

it smells bad

it looks bad,

it's a sad, terrible t

I wish I didn't know where it was

within the handful of those I love

there are some who are more difficult than others,

some do worse, some cause upset,

some I can't barely get along with

some I trust less

some are easier to hurt,

some are wound up, like me

some are delicate. 

But we all remain 

even when one of us loses

or loses it

& we don't give up for anything.

I expect everyone to hang 

because to hang is to be worth it is to want to be worth it.

To say I love you in a silence,

I'll love you whatever,

even though you've lost your mind,

or are selfish,

or are too tender for conversation,

or have overabundant expectations.

I'll be here when you get back 

from whatever terrifying trip

you're on

squish

abdicate!

our minds have slippery sources, make slippery the secretions

they're hard to hold onto

I just gipped mine with dagger paws, tamping, tramping a bit

the jumpy little guy. Where you trying to?

I have a smile now, it's a lone one for me myself only. They listen to my words, they are my friends. They nod, I guess, but maybe they're stoned, maybe they've never been here before. I feel like my relations aren't hard to not. Can't you? Always begging the other to understand. Even if you don't agree... please please please understand me. I don't want to be a different language, a tongue tie. I amn't exotic enough to be the other. You're not exotic at all, but still you cling breathing your veil to be protected forever from things like me. I am. Wishful wait giveup girl.

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

a joke on forever

When I went to the desert I met again the old crusher destroyer love of mine, the one who ripped me to shreds over & over, but it had been six years. Six years since I last saw him, running from me through the dark parkinglot, 3 in the morning after his 21st birthday, over parked cars, his long body too fast up the stairs & disappeared into his apartment building. When I went to the desert we met again, that last sighting still that last sighting, and we sat on a curb on a desert street and we uprooted all of the malicious & cruel things we'd done to one another. He was in an accident & cannot remember a lot about us. He can remember all of the badness, the desperation, the vengefulness, the gross vomitous terror of it. He can remember the tattoo of the mountain bluebird. He can remember the old canteen bag I use as a purse. He cannot remember the stencil I made, of my likeness with the words I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I'd spraypainted on the sidewalk in front of his apartment on Surf Ave. Just after we'd met & I was certain. I made it as a promise to never say I'm sorry, to never relinquish the blame for anything, should we never do anything to make an apology foam out. (You said I'm sorry the other day, and I give up on you) After the night, physical, close, struggled, serene, simple, devastating, shaking, I came to & we parted but I distinctly remember distinctly remembering all of him from six & seven years before, the way my thoughts collided with my brain with my heart, the way my heart split into dazzling pieces and I was able to scoop him up & roll along, and the bullets & the armor dissolving into me when he stopped being there. I was gushing, asking for him to stay awake with me that night because I was panicking, something I should admit to doing more frequently than I admit to doing frequently. He raised his giant head, his giant eyes half closed, a giant hand beneath a small familiar chin, and he listened, smiled dazedly, let me in effluvia. I couldn't move my thoughts in order, I was turned around and interrupting myself, I was shaken & my brain was pushing out through my mouth, and I was wet & chilled & hot & taken, and all I knew is that I was desperately grasping in the devastating familiarity that he should be desperately grasping for something, too. I'm the only one here

When we left the desert that morning, I sat in the backseat of the car watching the big saguaros slip away, the empty hot settling in, my panic lifting me out of mind. Suddenly, I was losing everything: the desert I so loved, but then, didn't I only love the desert because he brought me there, seven years before, and showed me this place, this lovely wild place, and I'd become obsessed in an effort to cling always to his absence, to the loss. I was losing everything: my bronze metal from a ski race when I was seven; he'd helped unwrap the chain from around a strap that morning, so I was paranoid he'd stolen it (I found it an hour later on the seat beneath my body), I was losing everything: my wallet in the gasstation, I was losing everything: my phone in a bookstore. I'd already given up on a mind, my heart, clearly, was thrown in pieces at him years & years ago, he had it, he kept it, he shuffled it around with him maybe without even knowing.

I thought I'd grown, become smarter more beautiful less panicked less desperate more full more certain more effective more intentional, and I realized in that tear-car with all of the loss around that someone owned me, that I'd have done anything for him then, I'd let him pick me apart even if it meant I'd never come back. I'm ready to be destroyed forever, if this is what you want- this is what I'd given in, to. How disappointed. I guess I'll just be like this forever, I thought

but all that dissolved a week later. Experience is the best therapy maybe, even though I become increasingly less popular in the world

bags

I keep on having dreams you're talking to me about grace

and that I'm falling you

following you around from room to room

Always your head, the back of your head for sure

Always your slow stately bringing it up

  like the notion of grace stuck in you repeating

  or you secretly seek my advice on it

and you haven't anyway to work yourself around it.

I am also in a boat

in a cockpit

in a mall

in s america

and I can see your face as the back of your head slides around.

I am not a pretty girl

I am not intended

I wait for summers to come

I wait for bad news

I try to get some 

I try to wait

but I haven't any patience.

I wake up with kafka, breton, sanford, nelson, even nin

but I haven't swallowed anything, still just still just still just.

I got a sunburn, I want to pretend it's a cinnamon tan

I asked my friend if he wanted to get a manicure with me

because he always says he wants to do that with me

he paints his beautiful gold nails

like chitinous beetles

but today there's nothing I'd less like to do than that

like normally

like acetone

like $$

like filipino muzak

like a woman holding my hand, not speaking to me

like all of the problems of our national celebrities

like the stars are just like us

they bring their own to-go jars

they secretly compost in the bushes

they drink stale coffee

they drive home drunk

they wake up and write bad poems

to prove that they are bad, or that they're helpless

like I'd rather peel my skin off

peel my hair out, have a happy saturday

a good may

a pretty week-end

partysoul

throw yourself a soul party

maybe I'll get all high on drugs or something

or maybe I'll be a yuppie

with a shaved border collie at the farmer's market

in swedish clogs

just like the stars when they're just like us

or maybe I'll be an artist

I'll throw up on my nostalgia

and my sentiment will break me out

I did throw something away, you know.

It was a baggage tag for an airplane flight

it said 28 November 2006 on it

it said C A's name on it

it was from the last trip we ever took together, we went from Chicago to Montana

I remember it was 9 degrees when we left Montana

and we listened to Music for Airports by Brian Eno while we waited for the plane to come

and he took photos of me sleeping on the airport floor.

Apparently I'd been dragging that baggage ticket around with me for 6.5 yrs

I'd say that's pretty fucking impressive, Molly Stoddard