boys--7/6

Boys

My ribcage fails to hold in my absurd heart
for it and the nerves in my skin
fail to reach symbiosis.
Once again, it must throw itself overboard.

I.
I laid with you in a red room
with a red curtain and red cheeks
red hands and red sheets
red hairs patchy as red stains
and we were young again.

II.
His sweat made my bed smell like a tomb
and I tried to tell him that the man on the couch
would rape up both if he could.
Hungry as a panther for our empty stomachs
and dirty hair.
So I clamped my jaw shut
and waited.

III.
Somewhere, your face is painted, my bedouin.
I write you letters, piecing together
remnants of my life that seem as innocent as we were.
I sneak in dried lilies, butterfly wings,
and let them sleep with ink and drunken night kisses.
Taste the gin on the sealed paper
and someday I will leave my gold sandals at your door.

Swamp Thing--5/30

Swamp Thing

How many times will you go belly-up in your toxic tank
just so you can try to reach the ocean?
You have worn out your welcome
and passed out naked on the couch.
Shut yourself in your shantytown
and let your failures become urban legends.

Your eyes have a second skin
a primordial glaze of a reptilian lush.
I have slept next to the river.
Voodoo embers fell upon my knuckles
and by morning I smelled of singed lashes
and burnt toast.

You can glide through the sewers
growing fat with the flotsam and jetsam.
You slither up through the drains of unsuspecting bubble baths.
Eel-like, you slither through the silt floor
trying to smother the brightness
of coral-haired gazelles
but I was always too quick for you.

Attics and Turrets--4/23

Attics and Turrets

There is more truth than you think
in those fairytales about those aloof princesses
kept in attics and turrets by spinster aunts
or hungry dragons.

Why, might you ask, did they not throw themselves
shrieking and kicking into the boiling moat?
Why didn't they dance off the windowsill
to meet the soft black earth cradled in thorns?

There must have been one cell of love in the dragon's tongue,
She must have felt some security in those leather wings.
There must have been good intentions
in the aunt's withered lips.

They must have known
that they would be no less trapped
in the arms of a prince.

Santa Annas--4/23

Santa Annas

You're an east coast baby
but the Santa Annas always keep you awake at night
this time of year.
Your black lungs cringe against the gusts
and your heart bleats like a windchime.

The ocean holds its breath with me
and you board up your eyes in vain;
the hurricane will always rip out the boards.
This weather, it drives you crazy.
Like the sky, I make my rotations:
each year, Cancer shuts me in it's shell as I scrape along the reef. Each year,
Leo steals the sunlight and give it to everyone but me.
The moon pushes and pulls
and I am thirsty for her again.

You're a landlocked sailor
and your weathered hands clutch women's limbs
like stalks of corn in autumn
but they will always bend for you.

caution--3/11

Caution

I would be very careful
if I were you.
You should be very careful
if you were me.
But if you were me, you’d learn to reign in
Apollo’s smoldering ponies
and pray the sun doesn’t rise on Medusa’s mascara-stained face.

Get out while you still can
because after me, you will see the world through bloody Oedipal eyes.
I will scar you worse than your mother’s back and wrists
but unlike the cripple she is, I will chase you like a vengeful Fury
or leave you like Homer’s wayward Muse
only to return at the most inconvenient hour
mid-fuck or in the middle of a hypnotic state
while you are trying purposely to forget me.

Proceed with caution, wandering bard
for you are in grave danger of a potentially pining Calypso.
I am madder than Cassandra,
drunk dialing in her tower.
Play on your burning piano
you have struck a chord.

trash

Trash

Really, what’s the difference
between Eurotrash and white trash?
Those bastards have just been around longer
and English food is just as shitty as Southern gruel.
I don’t see much of a difference
just hot noise, street pissing, and a few ruins
and exposed tits to gawk at.

Ça va, mon amor? (Je ne sais pas.)
Whatever the hell that means. Çe’st la vie.
The best way to lie is to say I love you in French.
I don’t measure my madness in metric.
I don’t see why anyone ever would.

I am the ugliest American, and I can admit it now.
I will not transplant myself, though many have.
I will not come bouncing off the plane with Chlamydia,
a Prada scarf, and a brand new worldview.
Oh, your semester abroad when you ruined your expensive jeans
and had too many rendezvous
with pretty boys in their Ikea-strewn flats to call yourself innocent
as if you were the first.

Man of Leisure, Man of Peace

Man of Leisure, Man of Peace

End it, go ahead!
Kick me out, you grab-ass landlord.
You are no lizard king.
You are a reptile of the most common fare.
The Buddha hides knives behind his serene smile
and all his followers are just greasy-haired whores
who look good in orange.

I am tired of your clanging finger cymbals at 4 am.
I am tired of your deaf and dumb psychedelia.
I am tired of your Mayan roulette.
I am tired of your cat-hair covered boxers
hanging around my floor like passed out partygoers
but the only one attending was you
and maybe a couple hits of blotter acid.

I am checking out of this haunted hotel
I am a lady of taste
and your lukewarm pasta dinners are squirming in my gut.
I got burned out like your opaque chemicals
and there is no safe place to scream.