In the split womb of madness, bubbling black through every pore, I feel every inch of every mistake. With feathers for eyebrows sipping in stars like milkshakes, I make visions out of bones. Scuttling human forms, birthed without light, worshipping the thick night collapsing upon itself like great waves, drowning the unformed land. Cocktails of green and white pills, paranoia coating every tear, the city, the iris of the sky holds no answers, each nurse is an assassin targeti

Forget this is number eighteen, circled red on the calendar. Forget you are sweaty, can’t be picky, sit down huffily, a storm of skin now dancing in the air above your seat, dead cells resurrected, illuminated by the sunlight streaming in. Forget the blazered back that traps you in your space, guffawing at a school friend’s joke, reclining into you, her shoulder pressing against your side - you flinch - her frizzy hair intertwining with yours, oblivious. Forget the urgent tap

Matthew waited in the toilet cubicle and listened to who didn’t wash their hands. Someone had stood by the door but Matthew sniffed to say, No, I’m still going... They huffed and used the urinal. They didn’t wash their hands. He opened the door when the first song began, watched sunlight through a single-pane window, and walked into the hall. The congregation stood from their seats, moving their hips without moving their feet, and clapped in rhythm. The worship

I don’t know how many years I have left but I’ll give them all to you if science ever catches up to the transference of jouissance-time it’s cold out and it’s no longer Christmas not for 3 hours now and perhaps it was a good one but who can tell anymore who knows how death meanders the holidays scythe-gripped in snowy streets Is death less cumbersome now? Does it come with some prize for the season? I knew you differently back in the years You would let me drink your booze an

Now You Can Lift Any Item* Since I’ve mastered chopsticks--lifting noodles to my mouth--I can wake up happy. I teleport and/or time travel to sit on the roof with my friend and laugh at the toilet flush audible from our perch. My heart feels warm again. My life was saved with warmth while I was at the cash register behind my friend who warmed me, buying coffee. The money exchanged was toilet talk, a humorous consequence of brains. Who needs brains when you have a detour into

Mum Poem I dig my hands deep into the soil soft and cold, and crumbling. There are anemones to plant, and lavender, and the moss you scratched up from the forest. Then, suddenly: the cat’s tail! The bumblebee! A sword fight with the trowel! And then, again, you’re hungry. I dig my hands into the dirt, to see if I can find a piece of me. Clamped to my leg. The deadly, peanut butter chokehold. I eat chocolate pressed up against the bathroom door. How many of you are there? It f

Digital Son Blow off the dust, plug it in, turn it on, he thought waking that morning. How long has it been? Images of the last time together were becoming faint. The days are like scattered clouds, the flowers like cracks in the skin. The hours have become tired hands, withered and gray, pasted on a doll’s face under a pile of stones in the attic. Shadows have become liquid mercury, vaporizing at room temperature. There’s no place like home, they said. It’s always goo

It was a misty, rainy night when it appeared. I sat in my car, feet up in the passenger seat, sipping a coffee as I admired the view. A large slab of rock concealed by the mist, what was it trying to hide from me? I imagined a dragon perched atop, looking down and wondering the exact same thing, so I put my car lights on to signal to my dreams. But really, I didn't quite know what this mountain looked like when laid bare for us all to see. It had only popped up at the edge of

at the bar on Friday Harbor. Water, like a cabin nearby. I say, "Sitting." But—there isn’t room. We stand avoid eye-contact, as musicians of different angles pile in. Kids, all of us realizing this is how it's done in Ireland. I've been there a lot, recently pretzel-legged rubbing stones together conjuring hands to shape the me I think I deserve Possibilities no longer meanwhile, at the bar we dance above reverb bright futures dangli

No one around, pre-dawn, below zero. It's January. Air thick and still. Fire face down in the coals. Dog barks frozen in their jaws. Everything's stopped. I have to ask myself "Am I breathing?" So maybe I died. Maybe the stars are dead scarab beetles stuck to the wall of darkness. Maybe the pale trees are ghosts, the ghosts of everything but trees. Maybe I don't move through these rooms at all. They move through me. Is this what death is? Eternally asking myself am I dead? No