NEON THINKING FROM A SIGN IN SOMEWHERE, NO-NO LAND

NEON THINKING FROM A SIGN IN SOMEWHERE, NO-NO LAND

To My Delicate Lover
please tell it to your dick
that I have loved bigger things
have sewn wounds bigger than craters I have realized I don’t have to
and I am starting to glow with more than cosmic light

this is as dirt cakes between my toes
under my nails
under my skirt
these things are big
and you did not put them there

To My Suicidal Friend
like gods have taught us to do
I am sipping the cosmos through straws
and from mud swollen pots

I am shattering them when they are empty
I am scattering the ashes and picking up the pieces as I go

can’t you see we are doing the best we can

To My Broken Pots
please cry
please bleed
please read this like you read the stars

I have been drunk on these inanimate things
and I’m not sure I want the leftovers

To My No Vacancy Motel Body
you have come this far
have been made of entrances with exit signs
have existed

have left other tongues tasting the questions you left behind
on your used glasses of water
and cloth napkins and tissues with lipstick kisses

this is a good thing

To My Mother Who Cannot Love Herself
believe me when I pass to you an urn of dead pottery
this is Earth
this is People

I know it when it hits the wall
when you throw it there when each piece and the urn break again

I know because I have been their bellhop
used your throw away
Go Away
as my signal
to clean
to fix
to make room for picking up the pieces and starting again

To My Strapless Stranger
who has backward fallen into No Gravity
No Messing Around
No-No Vacancy you let me in

you are the only stranger out of ten I’ve seen today
you have snipped your bra straps and left them for the world to see

we pick them up as we pass
and drop them as we go

To My Sleeping Self
I still don’t know how I got here
or why I’m dreaming on a pillow that belongs to everyone
and this question shakes out of my dirty fingertips like polished nails chipping
shedding onto tile floors white and speckled
I sled through the pieces
and collect them as I go

To My One Night One Room Place To Live
this is how I live tonight
this is one night of many
this is me staying here when I think I can’t staying everywhere
as an extension of here so I can give my letter
to the paper shredder sky

I know the pieces will fall like comets
and people will catch them and paste them together
a ransom note in the wrong order
saying wrong things to so many people

I still sled through the pieces
and collect them as I go

it is the best I can do
it is the best we can do

don’t tell me you are waiting when you sit drinking in the parking lot
you are stupid to lie
when the neon lights say I wish you would leave

I can read these things these big things
that were supposed to be smaller than the stuff in pots
those cosmos that will one day die out
like my dying letters flashing on a sign one word at a time

I am sick of being full
of things that are empty

I am sick of my No Vacancy Motel Body

and when those things are ashes when I am ashes
I will leave them as I go

there’s a willow

there’s a willow grows askant the brook
that shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream
where all the swans from the ballet go
and all the children fold newspaper boats
and artifact women toss bread as old as they
into the water

everyone has sundried hands
freshly picked and promptly shriveled
after groping for a vine to hold
and turning away from the absence of any

raisin fingers and prune palms
hold each other over the water
how can I not feel guilty
stepping across a bridge of hands

the heels you put me in tiptoe like point shoes
and pierce their prune palms to the sound of strings
and Jesus, my lord, cries out in pain
and Jesus, the fisherman, casts his net
into the water
catching nothing
catching nothing

I wouldn’t let my good lord fail I throw myself
into the water
warbled sounds of child laughter
move like bubbles past my ears

and Jesus’s net paddles with the swans above me
in communion with old ladies and their bread
and Jesus’s net is like a jungle, weeping,
I can’t quite catch the vine

no wine
no wine
for my body no wine
I drink to your good health
who will drink for mine

my body bloats like waterlogged dates
tiny boats turn soggy in my hair
I feel myself slipping deeper
under
and I wish I was Ophelia
so it would be okay to drown

as it is

as it is

I.
I have been pulling hair like weeds from my thoughts
I have been tasting tears like I need them to feel
I have been groping through the stubble on other people’s faces
I have been scooping my intestines into teacups on tea plates
to examine them and make sure I’m okay

I have been offering these cups for other people to sip
to sip and make conversation
to sip my intestines and hear my words
saying maybe I’m not okay

I have been waking up with fingers on my teeth
to make sure they’re still human
to find grass in their creases
this is not what love is
I have been eating grass every night since I started to grow
this is not what love is
love is not waking up holding other people’s breath in your mouth
and wondering why you cannot feel your own
it is not calling breath grass to justify a feeling
love is not remembering to check if you’re okay

II.
once a month my body bleeds gasoline
I hold fire in my throat to cancel explosion
each pregnant moon I fill myself with raw wind I hope to give to other people

at low tide and high tide I tidy myself
I am cleaning my palms so they’re soft when you touch them
I am scraping matches against my skin they will never light
I am bleeding gasoline
from my eyes
from my stomach
I bleed from my feet that are stomping in place
I bleed gasoline in my words that come from where my throat is on fire
and there will always be an explosion

III.
I came into a world where our grandmothers wear sweatshirts
as though they leaked out of their breasts
and molded onto their torsos like milk

I came into a world where our childhood is over before it begins
or it lasts too long
or it doesn’t mean anything

I came into a world where we sleep with each other
and wake up to eat someone else’s breakfast

I came into a world where our teacups are on tables
as though they bloomed there like mushrooms
or like flowers or like vases
like extensions of their roots

I came into a world and because of this
I will cry salt babies from an ocean bigger than myself
I will clean my body like the earth asked me to
I will bleed gasoline
I will explode from the inside out
I will eat grass and pull weeds like hair
and feel my body dissolving
gathering at the bottom of a cup
like sugar in your tea
I will run my hands over dirt
to make sure I’m okay
I will never be okay
I will always be okay

IV.
I have been learning what love is
and I have been taught what love isn’t

I can love it all

V.
I am sorry
I am so sorry
I am so so sorry
but as I wrap my arms around myself
I can never apologize for existing