I know the clouds


An orange glow is lit behind the gray
And no rain comes,
but I smell it in the distance,
screaming
And I still remember the meaning
of every formation and
coloration,
because I learned meteorology
as a child.
I wanted to chase all my fears
like tornadoes
until they spun out of control
and became obsessions,
or tore down the walls
revealing the foundation.
Sometimes
in these slow days
I like to imagine
I'd still succeed at tornado-chasing,
But most times
I just wind up cowering in my bedroom
staring at the clouds
waiting for the rain.

Wax and Wane


She was sometimes more
like a glass teapot
than an old woman,
Heat steaming and building
more and whiter,
So brittle and trembling
beneath the fluorescence
With fingers dried and
cracking,
Her fungus nails like
diseased tree bark,
Dried blood crusting and
gathering tight like
water spots beneath
Those powdery roots,
Crumbling
like the mildew of
ancient herbs.

The age in her bones
Seeps into her ovaries and
Her only companions are
her fat cats,
Wax wheezing by her side
and Wane wailing
at the front door,
Splayed across the cool tiles with
cool eyes squinted and
Begging to be let out into
the dark.

Suitcase Pop-Tarts

I can't remember how old I was

But I still had my plastic pink

Minnie Mouse suitcase

with the silver stars

and broken zipper,

but I threw a handful of pop-tarts

inside- probably the S'mores flavor-

and walked straight out the

front door.

I didn't understand

why my parents

couldn't stop yelling

at one another,

only that I hated the sounds

and surely I felt the angst

of being utterly misunderstood

and attention-starved

as most little girls do-

or at least, in one-child

"families"

when parents

are pre-divorced and

too occupied

to spoil their punkins anymore.

So I left.

I thought running away would set me

free,

that I could start over

somewhere else

and this time I had no intentions

of going to Nana's.

I just wanted to leave.

So I did.

I walked up the street

quickly enough so I could get a

head start

before my mother noticed my absence

When in reality,

my mother knew

from the moment she heard the screen door

clammer shut

what I was up to,

She just let me go

like a good mother would

surely knowing what was coming,

or maybe not.

I made it to the end of my block

and stopped

I stood there

and wondered if she had seen

my empty bed

If she had called my father

at wherever he was staying

those days,

called the police in a terror

crying over her fear.

I imagined her face

her open pores and

freshly plucked eyebrows

and I stood there for a good while,

waiting.

After what seemed an eternity-

four minutes at most-

I sat down in the pale, thin grass

of the lady with big dogs and a

front patio garden bed

and unzipped my suitcase.

The zipper got stuck

and I stuck my little hand inside,

pulled out the pop-tarts

and ate them one by one.

Then I laid down in that

dry and scratchy grass

and fell asleep.

the lost river


She drove her car into the river,
they say
one night she just lost it
got in her car and went,
smudged tears seeping into
her round cheeks like black oil
streaks burning the streets
in the heat of summer and
She was lost in its waters
like ashes of incense
and pictures of life.

She thought of her lost child,
they say
and the nights just crept on
longer and longer
until the only thoughts left were
of the days,
counted days and measured
time like a phantom
that drove her wild
drove her wild like her car
into the Blanco River.

lowercase

drink water
sleep-
for more than four hours
(for once)
run in the fresh air
get my shit together
pack
stretch
make love
swim
yoga
paint
write
READ
for leisure
(extensively)
sweat-
a lot.
these are things
I should be doing
now that I actually
have time to breathe
but instead
I'll drink a beer
and sit here
and remember everything
and be a little afraid
of what, i don't know
maybe of everything.

old


At 4 a.m. I waited for him
in the vacant streets
the wind whipping and
digging holes into my skin
so sharp and quick that
the Styrofoam box
of old food
almost got taken away,
ripped from my tightening
hands in the dark.
The obscure crowing
of some distant machinery
like a rapid moose in pain
made me wonder
where this old town goes
at night
and how sleep deprivation
makes you more keen to
weird happenings
but mostly just a hell of a lot
more paranoid,
more rusty
and creaky like old hinges.
I felt sick
enough to vomit,
I nearly did in fact
but I held back
and only shivered
on the curb
because I knew he
would come for me
Like he always does
because he knows
what its like
to be this unhinged,
because he loves me.

popsicles and eggs


These days I rise
after the bare minimum
of shut-eye
and feed you too much
cheese and eggs and beans
like Mexico.
Even as memory
begins to fade
My favorites bring
me ease
like pina colada popsicles
eaten too fast.
Like all that chamomile
tea and arguments
over nothing,
or taxi drivers whose
favorite game was to
rip us off
and laugh over their
chorizo grease
at how naive Americans are,
how the light-skinned
women bitch too much
drive their men nuts
then run off and fuck
a tourist because
it's spring break and their tits
are perky, they're entitled.
But those days
we got so skinny,
living off the land
and Pedialite popsicles.
Now I find myself
sipping cold coffee
that smells like
old almonds,
writing down my life story
in the blink of an eye,
only a minute or twos worth of
strange photos
and a voice i hate to hear
as my own.
I may not talk much,
or talk about it
but
I have this habit of
lying in public bathrooms
face down on the
cold, smudged tile,
waiting for a miracle
Or maybe just
a gas bubble
to work its way
out of my weary system.

The skeleton with the needle


For years when I was younger
I feared sleeping.
I hated being alone
but loathed
the act of sleeping
even more.
I could only drift off
if my mother scratched my back
for at least ten minutes,
usually more like
twenty.
I would awaken every night
without fail
around midnight,
usually a bit later
and I would flee my sheets
and run for cover,
across the shiny tiles
to my mother's room
on the other end of the empty house.
I always imagined
a towering skeleton
was chasing me,
holding a hair-thin needle
between his
bone phalanges
And with cracking strides
and snapping jaws
hot on my trail
he would hunt my hide
all the way until
Mommy's threshold,
a mere few inches from
overtaking me
before i reached the
safe zone.

Blank Pages


I am so tired of this carcass.
These plain slates and
Broken thoughts,
Scribbled as pounding voices and
Heated like microwaved lasagna,
only to become chewy. Old.

Lately I drink paper instead of tea,
sleep against hormonal imbalances
Instead of a strong back,
White light of computer screen
sheltering me.

My skin is dry and cracking.
I am so needy for nothing.
Hungry on empty,
for a deadpan quiet
Instead of glazed expressions.

Mouths tight and closed
Begrudgingly
Because it's harder to keep the space,
but easier to breathe the stench of silence.

Such a risk, the truth we say we seek out
The confrontation of
Reinvention
like the tremor of some wooden ladder.
Hollow steps toward the sky.

Blank pages of stretched skin
with veins like margins,
Blank pages speak to me.
Louder than fire alarms and
the fear of spreading earthquakes,
Louder because I am a coward.

Into the oven like Sylvia Plath,
Mountains of cookies and
Blackened pans,
Ignoring that wretched howl within.

Death by Bug


I thought my boyfriend was choking to death
I thought his throat was closing in.
He gasped, stopping short mid stride
Halfway between home and the library.
He hacked and spit and gagged, bent at the waist
And still his face turned redder.
I was afraid and patted his back,
Slightly bewildered and
shoulders tensing.
Uncertain of the cause of such purple cheeks,
I saw no evidence for his sudden distress,
Only unexpected asphyxiation.
The culprit was too quick,
Apparently. Or maybe not.
It was a pleasant sort of day and
Thankfully we were merely deterred
in the fresh air,
Not stuck in the parking garage
That bat-shit cave of a place
But my poor boyfriend, nearly retching
Chest heaving thickly and quickly
Could not free himself of his assailant.
An hour before a poetry reading,
His voice was made hoarse
by an invisible corpse
Because a bug flew into his mouth
and died there.
But not like my boyfriend.
He did not die at all.

german poundcake

an old poem I found




I cooked German poundcake last night
instead of studying for the two tests
I'm going to fail today,
with honor.
Her favorite comfort food
to help soak up the vodka in my mother's
gastric juices.
More like spongecake
I guess.
I'll put some candles on it tonight
I considered a morbid black,
but settled on
White.

A Happy Death for the
Birthday Ghost.
Maybe it's too much like
living in the past or being in denial
But she asked me to,
Something to accent the two balloons
for the turtle pond I think.

Today will be one of those days-
constant indigestion
with a mouth sore from getting too impatient and
burning myself,
I keep tonguing it and
pretending there is no irony attached.
She's already flitting around, busy tasks,
expending nervous energy
and then there is this sinking
Like the childhood dismay of watching the last of the warm bathwater
swirl down the drain or
Waiting until the last minute until suddenly
there are none left.

Last night I dreamed of spontaneous disco dance contests
after being rained on,
being hunted on the playground,
trying to hide from the afro-man with closed eyes
while the audience watches knowingly.
It's an epic playscape, and I'm quick like a pixie
but even with shut lids he finds me every time,
typical.
Needless to say
I was disappointed,
in myself and in my subconscious
for giving me such shitty lingering sensations upon waking;
trying so hard to live up to expectations
and leave some sort of impression,
Like every pursuit is a contest.
So pale in comparison to
past nocturnal themes
that I wish I had stayed up all night studying
like I used to do when I gave a damn about school. Sort of.


Maybe then I could have aced this German test
and given her a reason to smile at me from oblivion.