this is not miley cyrus’ malibu,
and believe me, Bowie is the only god
among these bones. flesh burns and they say l-ve smolders; what is it to stop from disappearing
completely? so gather your milk teeth and all the skin you’ve ever shed,
put them into ziploc baggies, label them “teeth” and “skin,”
make two small children and a leg. use spit to make them shiny and new.
breathe in and you will not smell the past.
is there not something like God in / these children that you spit on,
in a double helix, something like good in teeth and skin?
I am ------, and will be dead at
forty two, and underwater i can almost forget the painful
familiarity of closeness.
(your father brushes hair out of your mother’s face, ketchup on his cheek moves up
some call it l-ve but I want to turn away.
i will not be the alaska to your miles or the rebecca to your maxim,
for this is not our malibu.
in the nondenominational chapel, / the thing with feathers
asks you to believe that / we’re taller in another dimension,
one where it is normal for the people you hold close to have purple hearts,
but today i cannot bring myself
to / eat men like air. instead i bite my nails,
eat the parts of me they can never know.
(communion for the anxious is vore for the parvenu)
each bite brings me closer to blood and memory:
80’s new wave and paper bags and the aftertaste of kiehl’s cucumber toner,
sunsets and nav and I-95 through my fingers, hotel railings and pizza and soundcloud rap;
blood is red, blood bleeds grey.
feelings taste like bubble gum and latex-free gloves, why they are alive and cruel and
resolve themselves into my flesh,
artificial words stain my mouth and rust my throat,
pineapple does not help the taste. pineapple is blind:
your tongue is a slab of meat that he must digest, the vessel is more
sinful than what it contains. move your lips
to the Pineapple Prayer, and on the moving sidewalk
beneath the v-rgin, the vessel is more
sacred than what it contains.
for this truth and maybe others,
you / hurl yourself at cars, flirt with blonde cadillacs,
play the sax, shoot up and pull the trigger for frances,
try to reject life and your body will reject you.
/ don’t let the sun blast your shadow, don’t hate the l-ve that
burns everything you know because it is
alive than the phantoms that sing inside of you:
will you be fish or will you be bone?
will you drown out your heartbeats?
will you hate that which gives you life?
will the cat feed on its owner when he is gone?
who will feed on my body when I am gone?