tar and feather.

sometimes, i spill out all over myself
it’s the sort of mess i don’t know how to clean up
like, i had some hot cocoa
totally contained, and still,
i thought i was slipping off the face of the earth,
right in the face of the earth.
“In your face!” i screamed.
maybe i didn’t scream that,
but i did scream a lot of other things. 

sometimes, i spill things into myself,
and it’s just like anything else,
and i realize a second too late
that i’m pouring salt and not sugar,
and have to conduct damage control
by repeatedly knocking my head on the wall.
“Who’s there?” asks the wall.
“Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?”
and then i’ill knock a little more.

sometimes, i spill you, and it’s such a shame
i  can act like your pitcher keeps refilling but
that’s only so i don’t feel so guilty
i spill you sometimes to fill myself back up
and when I think you’re getting wise,
i remind you,
“You know, the faucet wastes like 5 gallons
a minute.” and then you remind me,
“I don’t even really like tap water.” 

how quickly can i go downhill?

well let’s see

if we can’t find some wheels

to tack on these feet

make sure they are white

or blue, or…

i don’t really care i guess

they just gotta get me

to the bottom

(maybe flesh tone?)

and when i get down there

i think i’m supposed to level out

skating across the horizon

remembering my love of altitude

remembering my love of

all things easy to love

and mostly that tricky grin

i’ll never feel in my ear 

black ink makes me feel
comfortable
watching the quick oily, oily
slide over lines and lines
sometimes
i have nothing to say
i just want to lay my face
flat against the page
pen pressed and poised to
move slow
and deliberate lingering in
joints of letters, leaving
wet pools, fat dotted i’s
and long stems, like
grease flows,
like outer space
and sometimes i can’t wait
for it to dry
and i love my smeared
and inky finger
more than any other thing 

the slowest widow
with elastic wrists
walked in the middle
of the road, leading
my creeping vehicle
to the market lot.
walking still slow
when i parked and got out
i wonder what she thought
of my all-bare-arms
and
legs.

i wonder what
the woman at the self
checkout thought in her
light-wash-jean
elastic ankles
when i bought
almost eight pounds of nectarines
(i spent 20 minutes pressing
for plump and blushing creases)
and anxiously fed the machine
nothing but singles 

it seems that if your voice isn’t loudest
you may as well just leave it in your mouth
and when it’s been there this long
whispers aren’t worth it
i’m on the hunt
i will find my tongue on a rooftop
my teeth on the sidewalk
my lips in the cushion of an easy chair
vocal chords wrapped arounda warm bottle of whiskey
i miss wood with a dark stain
and stairs that echo with peeling paint
-that feels real
and cat hair, too
so does sitting at the kitchen table
and knowing secrets
or falling asleep with a book
tented over your nose
i will un-lose my voice
in some quarry where i’m not allowed
then run crashing through the woods
landing in some circle
perfect like the first cigarette you 
tried to roll.
let’s promise to always be
within walking distance of the water
so we can bring straws and
suck for peace
and when i see your rivers
i will shut my mouth again
because understanding
talks loudest of all 

and on the most perfect day
in May
we will stand completely
alone under the Eiffel Tower
and kiss
because, you have to kiss
someone
and later, sip coffee
wishing
there were dark Parisian men left
and laugh 

you don’t know what it means
to plan around clouds
and I couldn’t ever explain
how the barter system
changed my life

you
see dirt, think sneak
smell bats, blink sleep
I
read numbers, act fast
taste self, blink glass

I couldn’t ever explain
how you’ll hate me either way.
(or that I could hate you too)
I won’t pull it from the root.
(or that I already do) 

I’ve been waiting to splinter
To breathe soap and ocean
To cash in on straddling the banister
To take the whole day off

Conscious of buttons
thread looping, x’d fast and tight
sprouting every: hair of neck,
vein of leaf, amoeba need

Absence makes the heart
jet lagged and dripping
a gilded lily found out
and like graph paper, aspirational

Hoping without knitting to realize
I can lock myself out of the house
I refuse my keys;
you’d better knock it off the hinges 

A middle aged man in navy running shorts walks up to the counter at Panera Bread and dejectedly orders two chocolate chip cookies. While the aproned bakery attendant pokes through the pastries with her tongs, the man smiles nervously and sighs as he looks down at his feet. The stiff new running shoes are another reminder of the fitness plan he started last Thursday, and has cheated on twice in the short time since. His first slip-up was Friday night, when he skipped his evening jog to watch two hours of home improvement shows. He fell asleep in a worn leather recliner, worrying about calorie expenditures. Today is the second slip-up.

Today is Sunday, and after lunching on a garden salad with vinaigrette dressing and a slice of whole-grain baguette, he is unsatisfied. He has read articles online telling him to focus on anything other than food when he wants to cheat on his diet. He tries looking at the pattern on the carpet, and wonders if there’s much money to be made in the carpet-pattern business. He thinks about how much money he made in the advertising business before he was black listed 5 years ago for a wild printing mishap. He thinks about the red car he purchased 6 years ago, now sitting in the drizzly parking lot. He thinks about how he still wishes he’d bought the more stylish coupe, instead of the four door model with extra air bags he chose to make his wife happy. He thinks about his ex-wife laying on the beach with her twenty-something boyfriend. He thinks about the two twenty-something girls in running shoes and gym shorts across the dining room. They are forking their last few bites of salad with vinaigrette dressing into their mouths. He wonders if they would be impressed by his car or his running shoes. Maybe the shoes if they weren’t so obviously unused. Maybe the car if it wasn’t covered in bird shit. He wonders if he could ever impress a twenty-something girl. He wonders if they are satisfied with their salads. He remembers that he is not.

The bakery woman slips the cookies into a brown wax-paper bag. She smiles and says, “Have a nice day!” The man smiles back, thanks her, then steps on his left shoe string. His stumble is barely noticeable, but he is convinced that the two girls were watching. He pushes through the glass doors with the bag of cookies in his left hand, and uses the right to reach for his car keys. He presses a button on the key ring, and the car chirps one loud note. He is never happy when it rains, but today he tries to think positive. He is glad that this shower has at least rinsed the bird shit off of his car. He is resigned to the fact that his car is a bird shit magnet.

He realizes that during his lunch, a large black SUV has parked too close to the left of his car, and there is hardly enough room to squeeze through to the door. He rubs his thumb along the smooth paper cookie bag, and thinks it unwise to attempt the maneuver. He gets in on the passenger side instead, and spends 2 minutes deciding which would be the least awkward way to crawl over the gear shift. His receding hairline rubs against the roof of the car, and his running shorts ride up to pinch his left testicle before he drops into the correct seat. He looks back at the damp lot and sees one of the salad-eating girls just passing his red car. He breathes out through his nose, and lifts his ass off the seat to adjust his shorts.

While he would prefer the privacy of his apartment, the man doesn’t want to postpone his chocolate-chip failure. He unfolds the mouth of the noisy bag, and removes the first cookie. For a long moment, he looks at the cookie, and tries one last time to overcome temptation. He thinks about the cardio program he Tivo’d for the evening. He thinks about eating salads on the beach with a tanned twenty-something in a bikini.
He sets down the cookie.
He picks the cookie up again and shoves it fiercely into his mouth. It is overcooked, crispy-brown, and he releases a spray of crumbs into the folds of his shorts. It doesn’t taste very good at all. It seems impossible to him that a chocolate chip cookie could taste so bad. He eats them both before he backs out of his parking spot. He almost scrapes the SUV while trying to wipe the crumbs off of his shorts.

i’m thinking of one
i’m thinking of jesus on a riverbank
i’m thinking of beige
blossoms in my hair
crushed with overuse
and devoid of fragrance.

i’m thinking of two
i’m thinking of cop-checked
parking lots in reverse
i’m thinking of everything
that was off limits
knobs, flames, bottles
and washing my own god damn dishes.

i’m thinking of three
i’m thinking of getting
that wasted every day again
i’m thinking of perfection
in white stockings
and calcium-rich intentions
gone cold and disposed.

i’m thinking of four
i’m thinking of happiness
as a whole instead of a part
i’m thinking of the wrong foot
and whether it’s under influence
or above inevitability.

i’m shifting my toes
at the front of my shoes
i’m biting at my jewelry
i’m floating my fingers up
to my scalp
cutting through brainwaves
to tomorrow. 

This week marks the birth of sound
as infant grass meets the mower with wailing
and I toss out the ziplock bag of mixed nuts
with just one almond left.

I only sing sidewalk harmonies
if the windows are closed
and I’ll only listen to  jazz in the garage
if you promise the city won’t tear it down.

I wish I hadn’t heard the splinters on your floor
waking at seven to remove the house cat
cardinals keep me up, and I you
shifting to the curtain clock alarms.

We argue in perfect pitch over doorbells
ding-dong, I say. It’s April, you know?
How different will the wind chime sound
if you lend me your ear?
 

i hate the freeway at night
every flying light tugs my periphery
until a numb tunnel guides me
away from some heavy concrete

i’ll roll the windows half-way down
to cripple my fingers, tangle my hair
buckled in like the compass rose
the destination is stuck in my throat

every few seconds, orange road reflectors
look anxiously to empty bulbs
disappointed plastic guides
mirror the directionless with a blank stare

each exit is farther than the last
the radio turns into migraine
i’m driving nowhere but chain smoking
and folding myself on the kitchen floor

I, cold on the black and flat
you, a melting fever spreading fast
to stain bare feet with heatwave paint
and thinning, bleed over the road

in single digits
we appear the very same
your surface solid to pedestrians,
still: yearning for the molten sole

your warm buried wish is seepage
every crack until the grassy curb
oblivious steps stick to your flow
an afterthought in action

of street level dreams
some fly white and impossible
while your smothering black flood
sinks slowly towards the sewer styx