20261009

to wake. to lie there. to open apps. to forget immediately, or to ignore. to be pulled down, to gravitate. to rot, despite light. to feel dying. to peel away from the heat. to feel sticky, stuck. to wash, to brush, to take a dump. to forget (ignore) the hair. to forget (ignore) soap. to have a down day. to not get up all the way. to go braless. to feel the sag, irritating. to be pulled down, to gravitate. to decompose. to order Uber, and not tip. to be poor and mean. to feel choiceless. to drink tea, take meagre pleasure from an egg wrap. to feel like the egg. to speak to a loved one. to be a ghost. to love a ghost. to think of them. to clock in, to log on, to work. to be pulled down, to gravitate. to startle in october's sun. to be stirred slow like a crispy leaf. 

08222026 (deep end week)

Folding and unfolding

as a mode of finding

something. Bodies like

opposing ends of an

empty sheet.

Where edges meet, grow river,

joy, flower, grid, and grief, 

all pleated slow repeated folds

of silk in silver fingertips. 

Folded in like flour, maybe, 

folded like a dog-ear, maybe, 

folding like a tired spine, 

unfolding like a set of wings. 

Brought into the fold (not without

raw uncertainties), I find me more, 

I open, close, give and keep and

some things crease. 

What happens happens underneath. 

But also, 

paper cranes, 

fortune tellers, 

birthday card, 

mini zine. 

 

02032026 (love well)

i imagine a future where we learn to love well
fully and free, giving taking sharing generously
care that flows fearless unforced unfailingly
when things spiral off course, oriented against the source
imagine love every night like a north star guiding you home
love like shadow and brown tones, tangled in bedsheets
and somewhere a soft beat keeps the air sweet
cresting and falling like how cooling always follows heat
returning again like how hunger cycles with sleep
will you come back like how the shore always meets the sea?
letting ourselves love imperfectly, forgivingly,
well because we've dwelled long enough in violence grit and grief
well because shit's hard enough, loving is its own relief
love like a priority, holding humanity
like breath to chest, ache to rest, touch to flesh
love well cuz what we owe each other is an unpayable debt

11192025

forgive me for being soft and broken,

forgive me for tears at the tired shores of my eyes

every morning, forgive that i hold pain as i hold love

as i hold hope as i hold life, unable still to rescue

bloom from thorn, forgive this flower of my heart that waits, 

and withers, mother, forgive the sadness at the bone, 

forgive the warm blood, forgive the skin and the scars. 

forgive forgive forgive

this human, this child, this life, this longing, this tremble

that curls here in this silent moment, holding on. 

110425

Incense burns down and smoke cools off. Steam from tea fogs my glasses for a moment. The cloud fixed on the horizon is gone when I look back. Everywhere, leaves are falling. Dust settles again on untouched places, and the body's knots need untangling every morning. Broken things heal and healed things stay a little broken. And somewhere in the middle, my soul rolls like a drop of silver water. Yesterday was rain, and today there's sun. Sometimes there's prayer, and sometimes there's silence.

09272025 (unburdening)

I give to the distant fog
the whisper of my tears;
to clouds that imperceptibly drift,
the dreams I've fiercely held;
to the great big arching sky,
the vastness of my love,
and to September's yellow leaves,
a season of my hurts.
I give my spirit to the roots that steady.
I give my heart to the earth that holds. 

08032025

The sky holds secrets today like eyes that haven't slept.
Pink and bleary, greeting me in the morning.
Dear sky, what night have you endured?
What clouds blotted what stars,
making direction meaningless?
How light was the yellow light that came
like birdsong spreading like gold ink in black waters. 
The day starts dense, soft like the skin of a peach
that I kiss. Good morning, dear sky, returned from shadow.
Thank you for bringing me another morning.

07032025 (pretty little fears)

fears with soft names but sharp teeth
pretty but clawing me in my sleep
skindeep it's sweet like perfume on the surface
scratch underneath, you see what the curse is
i've loved like a storm with nowhere to land
left good men with ghosts still clutched in their hands, hurting, 
hearts cold when they loved so warm
a pretty flower in the sun but i'm rooted in thorns
you reach for a bloom, something grips like barbed wire
arms full of light where darkness eats desire
ache to soften but brace for fire
what if i burn these beautiful hands that
hold me down, lift me higher?

good touch?
never knew it
warm palms grew teeth
and snarled through it
rough fingers
soft skin, soft
little girl, rough
nights that broke her in
raised voices
begot violence
gripped throat shut doors tight lips and
safe silence
clipped wings
cracked nest
afraid to settle, seeking a home, longing to rest. 

want you to see my best side
when i curl into your palms, speak 
the pain out of my chest, i'm
complicated, broken and wrong sometimes
scared to death, still hope i belong with you.
could i tell it like it is? these pretty little fears
let me tremble for a beat, let me be weary and weak
could this be music to your ears? into my ears will you speak
sweet boy, a pretty little harmony?

061925

Love isn't something you lay with like a blanket.
It's not something you wrap around yourself to stay warm.
It's a hand reaching in the night, a heart beating against your cheek,
a song you seek that hums across bodies, lulling you to sleep with presence.
Skin to skin, pulse to pulse, it reminds you that you exist.
And in the morning, you don't carry it forward like an old trinket. It knocks on your window like fresh daylight and invites you to carry yourself. 

Before your eyes can find the eyes that look for you, you have to find yourself in the dark. Love is that threshold where you meet yourself and it's the home that waits for you out there. The deep stretching yawn that marks how far life goes in your own belly. And the exhale that lets it all go, reaching for another. 
Then you say good morning. Then you share a smile. Then your hands can truly hold. 

Love calls for you like a reflection, a dance of light - the response is yours to arrive into, again and again. 

061825

Yesterday sits on my back like a boulder.
Fear in my stomach like a stone.
Face crumpling like a pinch, 

dreams that clutch, needs that grip

and a shadow so tight
even hope turns into choking - let me shed it

and wake like a flower in yellow light,

roots humming, spine straight, 

palms like leaves, uncurling.

Let my path wind 

like a secret

through moss and fern,
sweet things that grow, quiet 

like a love gently tended. 

And let me be patient, 

if nothing else,

still, until mist bathes me 

like a blessing. 

Let my heart bloom in this, become peace,

a garden that we can find sanctuary in.

013123

A fenced creek creaks through 

muck and rock while oceans toss 

their gleaming curls. Theirs, a roar, elsewhere 

a trickle, and this, too, wild and precious.

October poems (2)

10142016 dream

Something that gleams in the hot
bath water, sparks,
and my jerking thighs.

                                      You, falling
           from my lolling tongue and
                               quiet of cooling
                                             smoke.

*

october

I collect masks, laughs
like jittering candles, death
gasps of branches -
a wind brings crystals in the night.

September poems (11)

last-ness

our shadows straggle, lagging
on every brick and twig as
we chase gold down
graying streets











*

i couldn't say

how bodies gasp
how goosebumps glaze thighs
or how the mind, blind
earthworm, writhes and
crawls for rain
or how the skin explodes -
don't ask me to explain.

*

September (quiet autumn things)

With autumn, I'm a quiet thing,
the skirt of fog trailing as
engines whine alive. Go find me
among the grinning burs, restless
with some tale of me; in
cyclones of dust; my kiss
on every balmy blade of grass and
blushing leaf.
One day I'll shake the bones out of these trees.
I know that you want more from me.
But today I watch the red sun
between seams of rain clouds, curled
up in some spot of warmth,
a quiet thing with autumn - let me sleep.

*

do the sweetest thing

love me like a seed a blighted

sun can nourish too; see that

I'll bloom and bloom and 

bloom

*

09152016

girlhood's an

egg that binds

flailing baby

limbs. Ladies

emerging all air and

silk feathers, 

remember, remember, 

the grunt blunt in 

you, your hairy back, your

knuckles only sinking

on this soft beach. 

*

2010

follow the gray path

someday to where the

copper-topped clock 

ticks; sit

on a gargoyle's tongue

once your lungs have

gargled out and

dried

but this moment, like a drop

of rain, runs and runs

down hills and out

past streetlights

and the sun - go there for now. 

*

muse

Want me, explode me. Splatter my bones

on museum walls. Worship me - 

lips, rosebuds never blooming; eyes, winter

sky diamonds. Never know me, but 

speak of me, dream of me, embalm me

like the "i" in "extraordinary" - a syllable you

swallow to make it work - and call it love. 

*

last of summer

she straggles in dapples

of sun across cold fields

dragging her feet, waiting

to meet southbound 

mallards. 

*

I'm a twitch
of rage, a pinch
of anger, puckered
like a volcano, erupting
a moment or two.

*

periods (ongoing)

bent double, I birth
islands floating
red across the warm
bath water

twisting papaya
threads; a split
and gutted fruit

days like a single moaning
wave pass me, nudging

i swallow an ocean this way, gulp gulp

*

092616

yellow evening wedging
into the gloom - a lemon slice,
hints of light this heavy
autumn day

August poems (5)

autumn came yesterday,
golden dress cloaked.

*

rose song

Sweet flower,
make diamonds of
how yearning cools
on waiting lips.

*

170816

let's dig holes through
the days that wait
for us, nest love there
out of time.

*

19082016

you wait for joy like
the moon's gray spots
to fill; galaxies overflow and

spill, child, blossomed
from that dust.

*

where the river changes

I knew you,
River, you were
a kinder thing -

     what sunless wild tore
     your tongue into
     this spitting froth -

     knotted with your heart,

     what swallowed stone
     made home now
     grates to frantic grit

the song that
held me
gently once?

*

july (lack of) poems

july was as silent
as a hand sewing

june poems (10)

this hurt
like glass i swallow
shredding my tongue
taking the words

*

big bang

imagine everything pressed tight-
hot exploding. beautiful;
violent:
that's you.

*

This beautiful sun.
This minute before 7.
Notes of hallelujah spilling from the quiet radio.
This memory of you stirring in my heart.
This love, this ache.

*

remember how slow
the world used to move every day a
drop of light caught in beads
of oil remember night's laughter black
and gold tumbling through the tall grass remember
falling?
how heavy it felt bringing me to you

*

you, a mirage that
pooled
in cracked skin, on
bonedry lips,

i lick myself to taste just
a dream of ran

*

06132016

We lock dead eyes, we
love by chance, lungs
plumped on dust. Above us,
satyrs dance.

*

the sea betrays its
deepest wish, to dissipate
and kiss the moon's smile.

*

if i'm a piece of meat

know: you can lick me dry
but the ugly story of your teeth
will be written on my bones.

*

if my heart is a flower,
it's sick
and never opens to the sun,

only daring to love
the rain on its crinkled skin
promising the sky in every dying dance

*

I go

beyond the promises of birds,
where time runs like a stream down
summer's endless throat,
remembering the scent of apples
your golden eyes and tight tongue coiled
only like a chill that recedes, here
where waves lick away my melting eyes,
I wait for you.

May Poems (8)

Gray May 1st

I wait for May to
burst like a pomegranate seed and
dribble down my lips; today's just
the pith.


in the shower with a thought of you

mist whispering, swirling
against neck; water licking
skin, nibbling; threat
of burning tumbling down
spine; I mere
sigh, melt settling into you.


forecast

clouds bumble in, soft
white like marshmallows, hiding
hearts of hot lightning.


what it is (II)

the quiet of a
flower opening and your
gentle eyes that smile.


loneliness

not in your eyes like dusk
not in your touch like sleep
not in kisses like dreams I gladly drowned in, but
when you left - god

like a star's first waking blink into
nothing, wide-eyed I
drifting cradled in her smile.


05242016

bones that swell and pop
lungs that bleed from screaming
palms collecting journeys for another life

before these, your face is the sleeping moon
and I'm enchanted by craters, waiting for your eyes -


i am so hungry

I am so hungry
for the missing bits of me,

the fullness of a belly
unbuttoned. Hungry for poems

I can't read, for how my
tongue can't twist

anymore and all the million words my mother
plucked from pain. Desperate for memory,

I let your evil jungles split my
brain and licked into the cracks,

smacking my lips: hungry
like you almost.

Almost.

But in the mirror where I go
to swallow myself whole,
my eyes on me are not like yours.

Bless them for what hunger can't take.


05252016

this grey morning-
forecast of split skies-
this day that waits, teetering like a boatman in the fog-
I am by the window braiding words to keep thoughts from flying-
tucking worries behind my ear-

recess

what madness stung
the hearts of boys,
sick with playing nice,

what thirst pressed heavy
on the bone thrilled them to
break a hundred homes,
cackling in delight?

the bees are dying, boys - what madness
stings the hearts of men?

after the fact

No nightingale,
no pain transformed to beauty,
Cracked tongue lodged in this human throat,
I croak broken notes
to sing of you.

7 minutes or until pasta is tender

7 minutes or until pasta is tender,
let's fill ourselves in different ways:
nibbling on tidbits of our days,
the dreams that leave us gasping;
tell me about your hunger
and
simmer with me.