lipgloss & Hell on Earth

[pearlinmyhead]

i go to bed with the weight of six million on my chest i wake up one-third of the person i was meant to be

[iguessimmyownbetterhalf]

Does your mother know?

i watched you last night but it might as well have been any night because they’re all the same, these nights, sleepless, restless, and irreverent we do not believe in filler last night, i watched you coming out of the bathroom with just a quick zip a brusque flush and i wondered i watched you last night when you were coming up roses slumped forward on your bed like a scarecrow and i wondered last night, i was watching you and i wondered if your mother knows that you don’t wash your hands when you use the toilet i wondered does she know? i watched you and i wondered if she knows about the gentle birds you frighten when you are anyone but yourself— does she? does your mother know?

[iguessimmyownbetterhalf]

the sky was screaming out your name when i myself couldn’t find my voice

[iguessimmyownbetterhalf]

i’m lying blowing smoke circles at the ceiling and im drowning in phoenix and she promised me the sun wouldn't rise if we wouldn’t let it i’m lying staring the tremble in her whisperfingerlips tells me i can’t break a fall she was jumping for the smoke curls and fades and i can’t save her scraped knees when she’s begging to bleed her feet are cold and her eyes are wet and she whispers like rings rippling on plaster “i’m sick of with boys who never learned to run their hands under water”

[iguessimmyownbetterhalf]

revised

when i was nineteen i worked at a law firm. there was thick green carpet and narrow hallways lined with shelves, crowded with textbooks, dripping with jargon; the building reeked of privilege every day i crawled into a bronze vault, stacked inside with boxes filled with curled, yellowing documents, weighted down by ancient type-writer ink. i flipped through the wills and testaments of men who had never once dared. the firm had a strict policy of stagnancy. i wanted to change my name. i was tired of painting my nails and waxing my lip and shaving my legs and i was tired of the way my name falls from their lips as if it were nothing: nadie

[iguessimmyownbetterhalf]

sestina/pantoum combo thing

I am not death, but I am hard of hearing The pipes groaned with him as he wretched Fingertips grazing that near-sighted mirror Home, where there is a heating blanket for my unpregnant belly Voices? in your head? oh, for a poet, what a blessing Let them echo only in their immortal silence

Let them echo only in their immortal silence I am not death, but I am hard of hearing Voices? in your head? oh, for a poet, what a blessing The pipes groaned with him as he wretched Home, where there is a heating blanket for my unpregnant belly Fingertips grazing that near-sighted mirror

Fingertips grazing that near-sighted mirror Let them echo only in their immortal silence Home, where there is a heating blanket for my unpregnant belly I am not death, but I am hard of hearing The pipes groaned with him as he wretched Voices? in your head? oh, for a poet, what a blessing

Voices? in your head? oh, for a poet, what a blessing Fingertips grazing that near-sighted mirror The pipes groaned with him as he wretched Let them echo only in their immortal silence I am not death, but I am hard of hearing Home, where there is a heating blanket for my unpregnant belly

Home, where there is a heating blanket for my unpregnant belly Voices? in your head? oh, for a poet, what a blessing I am not death, but I am hard of hearing Fingertips grazing that near-sighted mirror Let them echo only in their immortal silence The pipes groaned with him as he wretched

The pipes groaned with him as he wretched Home, where there is a heating blanket for my unpregnant belly Let them echo only in their immortal silence Voices? in your head? oh, for a poet, what a blessing Fingertips grazing that near-sighted mirror I am not death, but I am hard of hearing

Voices? in your head? oh, for a poet, what a blessing Fingertips grazing that near-sighted mirror I am not death, but I am hard of hearing

[iguessimmyownbetterhalf]

In Response to a Message from My Father (”--Just to clear things up”)

if you close your eyes, abba, it is the first color you see when you hear the shattering of porcelain. it is the color of petals only seen by the first,  most unobtrusive, weary rays of sunlight; the deep amethyst thirst of a sky cloaked in mourning; the blossom of vehement vessels, burst, that infects our skin like ink saturating unsuspecting parchment. twenty years too late, abba, because two long decades later no one can any longer afford their senses to hear the sweet resonance of the willow violas you had in mind when you abandoned Violet.

[iguessimmyownbetterhalf]

i had a dream last night that i had forty dollars in my bank account which is ridiculous because in real life i would never have the courage to check the balance when i was nineteen i worked at a law firm there was thick green carpet and narrow hallways lined with shelves crowded with textbooks dripping with jargon the building reeked of privilege my aunt worked in accounting there she was a model of taste and propriety from the white side of my family she and i never got along i wanted to change my name i was tired of painting my nails and waxing my lip and shaving my legs and i was tired of the way that people pronounce my name like the word nadie but my aunt handled my checks i had a dream last night