i.i7.25

I’ve gained and I’ve lost too many winters,
pounds and miles from home.

Stuck with the weight of this body and bone-
colored sky that collects and won’t die.

The light on the other side

still glows.
I grow

more unknown
in the known.

I’m Midwest

wanting to be west

coast.
The anti social
social club,

born in the twelfth house
half-past

the eighth hour
of the eighth month.

We party
in basements.
While they’re on the beach

I was struck with 13 ghost points
exploring all angles of cellars.
Cleaning haunted houses

is the work
of those of us

stuck in the middle.

03.20.23 (last day of winter)

burn me like sun
on a bed of hot sand
set my skin on fire

soleil in spring

I like the secret things

I do in the ante meridiem -
sliders at an all-nite diner
on a Thursday at 4:30

after I’ve untangled from him.
I’m lone witness
to the azure crack at the base of the sky,

soaked in the muggy pre-dawn
post the secret things we do.

We were lakes,
pools before sunrise

in a sticky morning
as the movement of a clock hand
buttoned nite into day.
The atmosphere clung
to me as hard as your body.

Before the massive summer storm
and clouds pregnant with electricity
there was the smell of damp fur,

burgeoning flowers and
a lion tangled in rabbit skin.

09.30.22

Another punch was made
into the shrinking leather
of the Bible Belt.
It’s losing its hold

one generation at a time.
A skeletal figure beneath
the padding - butt, boob and lip
voluption is no better

a clone. When bodies follow
celebrity commands and government
demands, we are a modern cult still

feasting on something more than symbolism -
injecting our bodies with botox, fat and
vaccine hazmat.

More ass. More pout. More mandates.

More fear. Fewer questions.

I’m removed

from desert shapes formed on bodies
by the son,

babies and breast milk,
emotions that come with round bellies.

I carried no one in my youth.

Aged through to the middle,
I’m the pit in the peach,

a seed stellium at the center
of an apple.

Able to see what’s hidden
from inside

and from the core, grasp
only that which surrounds me -

I alone contain myself.
Sitting in the space of the seed

that spawns another,

sharing in that hallowed eventuality
of potentiality.

05.04.22

In my dream I ate half
a gallon of ice cream

and felt judged.
I lost one boot and couldn’t ride the train

to which you had to zip line to above shanties
and trash mountains on sus cable cars.

I saw the strawberry tops
and Chinese take-out carton from last nite

as I slide from above.

Do calories cross consciousness
like waking garbage does?

Fuck this

soft and buttery life.

I am a battery

with an acid charge.
Stick out your tongue.
Let me melt

you into ecstasy,
a circus animal

whipped and chained
for the peoples’ pleasure.

04.24.22

It’s like small town America
in Detroit tonite. Feeling the bass
through a beer can. Shotgun
bruises on my shoulder.

People want me casual.
I’m wearing a crown

preparing for war
with something

stronger than my mouth.

04.03.22

I’m hooked on pre natal vitamins
even though I'm not pregnant

like a true triple Virgo. It’s all about sex
and purity - too much or too little.

All day spent choosing
a cabinet full of supplements

and brand new buds to stuff
thrifted vintage flower vases.

I really like who I am
when I’m high on apple cider vinegar

and alone without critique
in my loaded twelfth house.

If anyone asks, I’m probably

watching whale videos and crying
with what beauty exists.

I didn’t post a black square
or publicly care
about Ukraine.

It doesn’t mean I don’t,
but I won’t

be pressured into behaving how you want.

You can shame, unfollow, try to destroy
internal and external structures I’ve built.

Go ahead. I embrace your diversity.

02.27.22

The next time I freak out
I’m going to dance.
No thought. No talk.
More love and movement
To break free.

02.17.22

Men like women
who bite their tongue.

Whose blood is it?

02.08.22

I have a body
I’d like to use

for something other
than holding a brain -

my lure
for zombies.

Eat it.

Make me feel
the power of my flesh.

02.03.22

The furnace is out and
there’s no fireplace, but
it’s so hot to be snowed in
with you.

There are things in my mind

that I never imagined.

Beautiful, wonderfully big things.

How did they get there?

I got a pair of bow fringe earrings

that make me think of fringe hearts, because, you know, hearts and bows. I really like the idea of a fringe heart, especially when it’s left alone and unexplained.

I’ve lost ten pounds and my ability to get off to him, but I’ve found inspiration.

Things like Frolov and Nadia Lee Cohen exist.

I’m not sure how to go on when I’m the only one who recognizes myself. It’s true I believe one thing, but am drawn to another. I’ll end it by saying

despite the way we are all paralyzed, I wonder if he can feel when I think of him.

Bulbs, tubers & corms:
2022 Recitations

I want to curate spaces, flower species and loud text along languid-bodied images. I’m developing a new art form.

I’ll start a magazine. Breed flowers. Create striking places with things I find and design - nature arranged around art, furniture, food - capture the details of transitory organics and all things ephemeral etc. The sound of my voice. Recitations. Flickering stop-motions on a satin wall.

There will be more photos, gliding felt-tipped pens, full ring-bound journals, books, voices speaking and inspiration - now on heavy, textured paper, glossing the room between rows of fragrant blooms in the field. Hands.

I love the idea of collections - creating a universe of small worlds.

My passport is good for another ten years. I renewed it when I wanted to get away. It arrived in the mail yesterday. I ordered ranunculus corms from France as the sun came up this morning. The world is so intimate and I feel a happy disinterest. Right now, I only want to create my own. My life feels larger and more fertile than anything I could chase down by plane, in miles, people or land-locked masses. The ocean is vast, and so am I.

Covid Session

A year of poetry read in 10 minutes and a single take while sick with Covid

01.05.22

A soul mate was engaged two days before and Grandma died two days after the start of twenty-twenty-two. I can’t believe the roaring twenties were a century ago.

I have new shiny pink skin.

It matches my new pink iMac and new pink keyboard and new pink nails and I don’t know when I started to like pink.

Last year was purple.

Grandma was born in a purple year. 1929 was the least shiny of the decade. Things turn purple when they burn or bruise or bleed out.

New things are usually shiny. That’s why the last year of the twenties was so depressing. Maybe that’s’ why Saturn returns at the age of 29.

She was born in the spring when things were new though. It was the final roar.

01.01.22

The party ends after 7am. If we were in a city, I’d go to breakfast with you. We would walk. Or take the train - admire our breath and the early fog. There’d be no mention of the nite or morning. We’d hang in that transition between two years sipping coffee, sitting on greasy vinyl, eating hash browns and smiling.

12.29.21

I prayed with you

without taking my clothes off.
It was an intimacy

more vulnerable and understood
as something else to be ignored.

I learned what I did not know -

even christian men will fuck
then give the holy ghost.

12.22.21

Lately, I only feel like posting selfies - and looking at lipstick stains on coffee mugs at the diner counter where my type of men sit alone and barely talk to the waitresses in a tone that turns me on. It intimidates me when a man has a confident defensive sensitivity in his speech. What do I mean by this? I mean I wanted him even if his shoes were too clean. His voice was just right. And so was his haircut that framed my fantasy of a perfect mind.

I think of nuns

in sunken cloth and stale quarters
when I smell soup.

As a child, in a church,
they fed us broth

behind rich mahogany doors.
I dreamt of secret chambers,

old people, virgins, jesus christ,
and something to discover
in the dust and dark.

I knew it then. I did not want to rot
like the smell of soup
in tall places.

12.06.21

Peter, Paul, David, Andrew, Michael and John -

I’ve been a heavenly host
for most of god’s men.

I’m discipline.

11.22.21

How soft my skin is
is my little secret.

Dry heat, sweat, sex and sugar

scrub, dead weight
shed of boys who couldn’t fuck properly

feels like heaven.

11.15.21

i use triple-milled french bergamot
to clean up my act. life is nothing
without fancy soap and friends.

Healthy virgin

hair and a tight back,

slick lip and something
to suction - his tongue

not talking. He rejects
the cross

of her legs and stands

in line
to eat the body -

little white wafers
at a funeral.

10.08.21

Single bitch

Looking to apply herself

For love and money

In all the wrong places

Maybe it’s because

I’ll be in San Francisco in a few days.
I’m thinking of you

and how you’re still the only person
to inspire me the way elevated things can

like music or poetry or classic literature.
You’re probably more of a genius

in front of crowds now. My intimate interest
gone public. I read your published works.

I’ll write you forever.

The pedestals we erected
now ruins

that still support my love.

I just want to cut an onion

but my cat won’t stop meowing at me.

I tell her it’s been a long day, no
it’s been a long life

and there’s too many passwords to change
and numbers to count and call

when thousands of dollars have been stolen
and your phone’s been hacked.

It really isn’t even that upsetting
after other recent blows

and the strong winds that push
the tree into your house and the people out

of your life.

Tomorrow is my birthday

It’s become a weird sort of ritual

for me to take nudes and see how naked
I can become like on that first august morning.

I like what I see.
I spent my 33rd year running

so there’s no one to share
the nice shape I’ve taken.

I know how to be pure and vulnerable.
I can become so much more

fit - in my 34th, the perfect tone
to play with.

Despite the facts

there’s still enjoyment
of a cigarette or a sunset.

Is that how we know there’s only now?
Days don’t pile up

like a sudden car crash or steady landfill.

granite, marble, quartz

We measure the world against ourselves
as if the same restrictions apply.

Love is never a waste, even if
it stinks.

08.20.21

This morning while shuffling data,
a friend asked if I wrote something
written by Hunter S. Thompson.
That’s flattering and cool.

People like him.

I’m hyperbolic

& an understated good time. Alissa

Bennett is probably my new hero.

Why would I need to get laid
when my mind fucks me so good?

At some point

The living start to live again.

I was the materialization of a pandemic.
A presence to be cherished indoors only

while we did our best

to keep six feet apart.

I’ve always thought hands

and wrists were the most beautiful body parts.

The wrong things get under my skin
so I fill my palms

with delicate beings more dazzling
than him. I want to hold

onto something that doesn’t stick
like glass or glue. You

make my hands ache
more than the thorns

that idle ugly along
my broken line of Fate.

William calls this prosey
but There are a lot of things

I don’t care about
in the world. You’re not

one of them.

I’ve bled through two pairs of underwear
in the past three days. And

gone to work every one of them
without food. Mostly because I am excitable

and also responsible.

Everything becomes engorged. The phone
battery dies. And my skin
starts to smell like an heirloom.

That grosses me out as much as it probably
grosses you out. But no one’s around

to tell my secrets to. So I tell all of you

instead.

08.10.21

My flower photos are better than yours
but I guess some people think

your face is better than mine
so you get likes for everything

and heart eye emojis for overexposure
and I get

uglier.

This is stupid. I love you.

These precious days of muggy limbs
when a fly could stick to your skin

make me feel alive.

When I’m bad I know
how good I am

because it feels so wrong.

Nothing ever really ends
like flowers gone to seed

so give me leaders of their own lives,
not followers in my feed.

Early August

The bug bodies are loud.
The garden is high -
the list of things to do, long.

I woke up to the touch of thunder.

It was nice to wake up to something electric -
the way your morning movement

or sleeping sound would shock me
back into this vibrant world

of living love.

08.04.21

The sound,
an unknown origin shared,
between
two bellies in bed.

Sometimes when I get the garbage

to the curb on time

I feel like a rockstar.

It’s the little thoughts I have
to recognize and support

myself that really make me wild.

I’ve cursed the holiest of situations.

I don’t know how to express anger.

When I try to be tactful, I am called
passive aggressive. So I spell

curse words for clarity
and cut myself down after.

I want to be allowed to be angry.
I want to be stable so I’m not.

I cool off as quick as I fire

out in the field.
I’m a loose cannon.

Take cover.

I eat pineapple

so that when you eat me I taste good.

I like my shadow
and the temperature on my skin.

Eso and Eden

I let the flowers tan

and take shape
of you.

I always thought I’d

be like Frida, Simone or Edna St. Vincent
Millay, taking a hoard of lovers
into their beautiful sight.

Sylvia and Georgia got on well enough,
but couldn’t break free from the promiscuity

of a husband.
Emily just shut it all out.

I take it all in
then shut it all out

like New Mexico, the miscarriage
or the suicide.

I’m sure I will still marry a great mind
fuck and artist like Diego or Jean-Paul
or Ted or Alfred. But maybe I’ll get lucky

and end up with a Eugen.

05.28.21

I haven’t seen any dandelions lately and
I’m wondering who wants to be on my team.

I’ve known so many liars
I’ve picked them all out.

Now my yard is empty -
not because it’s winter.

I’ve always had a fondness for weeds

I thought
when really

I’ve always had a fondness for growth.

05.18.21

fine
i’ll get back into myself surrender
to God

sleep it off learn watercolor
and the perfect grilled cheese

i’ll smile and serve the perfect people
on the rotating front burner

that’s my electric life
fine fine
fine

Parking space 72

In 75 degree weather,
I’m wearing hot pink short shorts

and waiting for the call from my car.
The first time I’ll be touched in over a year

will come from a lady wearing non-powdered latex gloves
who accepts Total Health Care insurance. I’m not kidding

the Hallmark channel is on. A life-size
cut-out says to face life, face first. Another
wants me to transform my life-size body

without surgery or downtime. Honey, honey,
honey. Give me allll the downtime and surgery.

There is a sign with the words “forever young”
side by side and in the exam room an ad

for microneedling to improve fine lines and
wrinkles for younger looking skin. A reminder

to be confident and my sensual self
is next to it. I’m naked and panting.

I get fingered and a shadow learns
how to swab something deep inside of me.
I learn that thing is crooked. I’m not surprised

when I notice a ground splat on my way out.
I’m still wet like a bandit. I celebrate on the inside.

In line to check out I’m almost slender
between the women with big, beautiful bellies
younger than myself and a size two from behind.

Some have tattoos. I’m not imagining it
when I notice I’m the only one here without
a wedding ring and that joy glow.

I don’t know what’s worse.
I return from the juxtaposition of it all

to wait in my car,
severely cry and age alone.

One hard boiled egg

A cup of cottage cheese.
Half a grapefruit on its side,

each pinwheel sliced haphazardly.
Bikini bottoms

are the closest thing to underwear
I can legally wear in public

and the closest option to what I’ve
worn 24/7 this past year.

I’m gonna plant sweet peas
and tan my pretty ass

full on firm ruby flesh.

05.12.21

I exist in a space so thin
the deer hooves collide.

A belly bends.
A bottle breaks at the neck.

The greatest contortionists
cannot fit. Like a child

at the circus, my eyes
widen and roar

towards the spectacle. The space
becomes an echo chamber

of distorted delight
appall and applause.

05.08.21

I was barely standing
in the shower.

I was under fire
and the influence

of bourbon on your breath
how it met

my mouth.
Now wet,

I don’t have you.
I don’t even have covid

and the whole world is burning in that fever dream.

05.08.21

I have a big imagination
but I don’t daydream very often.

If I find myself
in you
when you’re not even here

how could I ever question
the day or the dream?

05.05.21

Unlike most people who woke up
in 2021 surprised that their jeans don’t fit,
my mother told me I was fat
halfway through the pandemic.

This was bad news at a good time.

I want this honesty in a man.
I want a man who prefers skin cells to pixels

and I want a mom who is a little more
margarine — soft and almost butter-like.

I’ve got none of the above, but
I have clothes that conform
and a mind that doesn’t.

This is enough for now.

05.05.21

I start to write about other people.
What do I know about other people?

There’s nothing left for my body to do now
but build soil as rich as my world.
Most retire to the land.

Some choose air or water.
I’ve blown around.

I’m having my earth experience now.

Soon, I’ll live by the ocean

and the taste of salt will remind me
of my future.

04.05.21

I feel so clear

of the past

it’s a wonder

I’m made up

of anything at all.

03.19.21

I have a mullet
don’t call me ma’am.

If I wanted to be sexless
I’d have a husband and kids.

No offense.

It’s youthful freedom on display
in a museum that holds time captive

even if it comes with wrinkles
and grey hair. It’s its own problem

I love to solve unfettered and selfish,
but simpler and my happy choice.

This is what it’s like for me to be human in 2021

On Thursdays, I water my plants
and watch Sopranos with John.

I like to think it gets them juiced up
for the weekend. Because

I like to call men dreamboats

I imagine myself more as the jewelry dripping
drunk spinster lighting up a dark bar with the
end of cigarette than a smoking Kardashian.

In reality, I’m more like the jewels they wear
as costume than either of those archetypes —

much closer to the earth, natural, free range,
organic, sans parabens and artificial dyes.
Like a quality egg.

Hank

I love to use my black cat as a pillow.

His stomach is adorable
and he keeps his coat so soft.

After I lift my head,
he likes to clean himself of my scent

and occasionally scratch or bite me,
but so does every man

who tires of my mind

and
his armpits don’t stink or anything.

In Tim Hortons’ Drivethru

at 9:22 am. It seems late.
But all worms get coffee.

Sometimes

when you dream that an ex is getting married
it’s hard to get out of bed,

but bed is also the last place you want to be

out of fear you might fall
back to sleep and continue that nitemare.

So you become invincible.

03.08.21

I don’t have trouble sleeping,
but I just popped a melatonin.

I’ll probably dream of mudlarking -
pulling ancient coins from riverbeds

the way I plead for you
to pull me into your possession.

03.06.21

For some, I’m too well defined -
for others, too free
and excessive.

I told my mother
”I want to buy a truck”.

She let me know what men don’t like -
women who drive trucks. I felt small

after thirty-three years.
I should know better

how to hold my desire

close. This was such a small one,
I let it slip. Doesn’t she know

I’ve gone on zero dates in the past year?
Doesn’t she know

I have to keep shit moving all the time?

03.05.21

My only boundary is a finespun edge
people tell me to materialize,
but they don’t know

what I know. I’m not going to tell
you. I’m soft and edgy,

a sharp, delicate thing
with a subtle spin

and rich
gauzy aura.

02.20.21

I don’t trust people who are too precious
about washing their produce.

I think about this as I eat a strawberry

from a plastic carton that says
wash before eating and listen to
workshops with channeled beings.

New love

Do you ever find something you love
and while you’re in the first stage of loving it
think shit

now I need to spend $5 on cold brew every
time I go to Kroger

02.20.21

I just YouTubed how to boil an egg for the
dozenth time I can’t think of eggs at this point
in my life without associating them with labs,
tubes, pipettes and conversations with my girlfriends

I’ll put sriracha on them

Each breakfast
my cats tell me to fuck off

They slowly eat the last few dry kibble bits
stuck in the outer rim of the inner bowl
rather than the expensive grain-free wet food I
serve to them on a white porcelain plate with a
gold reflective rim and tasteful illustrations of
owls in black like they are savoring it

For a while right before and during the first half
of the great panini - otherwise known as the
pandemic to people who aren’t me or Cassie -
I was washing my clothes in bargain brand
detergent

I won’t ever do that again You smell dirty when
you are clean

12.12.20 at 10:04pm

I’ve been walking the perimeter of my basement for the last hour. There’s no anxious pacing, nothing too deliberate either. There’s just a steady movement, an easy flow — like the motion my brother and I would perform in our small pool when we were kids and wanted to make a whirlpool. We’d lift the heels of our feet from the vinyl floor and, for a few seconds, be swept away — effortlessly pulled forward by the prepared momentum.

Non resistance.

Getting ready to be ready to be ready.

I feel the change in the basement as I circle and circle and circle. It creates this kind of vortex. This time, invisible, but my energy can be felt as it collects in the bottom of this house — a little deeper, a little thicker, a little more embedded. Solidified. If only for now.

I haven’t spent much time down here. I haven’t spent any time down here without a reason or a radio, a beer or a project. That is to say, without some distraction.

As I walk, I realize I’m here right now in the silent underbelly because I’m finally comfortable being totally alone. And totally alone in this specific house. It’s a house that reminds me of where I immediately came from. That home I prepared with Ryan. We had so much fun. He felt closer to me afterwards. I felt that closeness to him from the start. It was a beautiful time of my life that I loved immensely then and now.

In our basement, we strung lights, set up liquor bottles and whiskey glasses, made cocktails and hosted holiday parties where a full house danced all nite, smoked endless cigars and cigarettes, played bizarre games and stirred day into nite like coffee into cream. It felt warm in our basement. It felt free.

When I bought this house, I envisioned all of that taking place again in this basement. Albeit, with new players. I also had a fear from the start that I wouldn’t be able to fill this basement with the same energy and bodies. I say that in the most innocent sense of filling a basement full of bodies. Lively bodies! The dream from the start was also to make this an art studio. While this basement does not currently host either of these things, I no longer fear that they are not or that they will not be. And so. Here I am. Being alone in this basement. Comfortable with what I have. With where I am. With who I am now. Not afraid of any of it. Not afraid of any future. And in complete security of my dreams.

I’ve loved every nail and staple and leftover relic that I’ve come to know of this house. As we’ve learned one another, I daydream over the details left behind from those who lived and loved here before my arrival. These hooks and this bit of merry tinsel has happily haunted me and given me joy and faux memories of old Midwestern glamour Christmas parties. These memories always feel smoky and smell a little boozy. There’s mood and atmosphere and laughter and lots of love.

Word Play

Don’t worry. I’m keeping these blank sheets warm until inspiration hits.