Stackable Dreams

Like a contortionist, I have bent myself backwards, reshaped my frame, bowed and twisted the actions I wear and folded my words back into my mouth. 

Building this story like a house of cards, I move with the greatest caution; stacking each hope upon the last, my fairy tale mansion made out of dreams. One card for each time I fall in love with something new, each strength you possess, each transformative quality of how your character has manifested and grown from its seed; the man who figured out how to become what he’s never seen, the gentleness that cradles, even from a distance. 

There has been a wild and radical growth inside of me, stretching me so deep that it sometimes hurts. Often I find myself questioning my capacity- to hold myself together with the balances shifting so sudden and profound. I want to be what you desire. And although my capacity for shutting down can almost not be rivaled, please be gentle with pulling me back.

Don’t let me lose me, inside my head. Don’t let me break me, inside my frame. Help me to stand on your truths as they are. Help me to hold you, in all the ways that you need.

Never

on bruised knees in the void of my own stomach, i never really wanted to lose the hook. from the very first time i sucked that devils dick, i swallowed down euphoria with a smile i never knew i owned. 

drawn back to the aroma therapy candles that romanticize that three day old piss smell. i smiled till my face cracked, i smoked till my lungs froze. i came back so often that most times i didn’t even bother to leave. 

i invited the cheap motel room gag of past dirty inhabitants, wiped their filth away with my mouth. let my lips wrap seductively around that hollow shaft like i was being photographed for an obscene magazine. 

free basing crystal meth with the natural ease of a high priced blow job, i know what it is to have a two day long orgasm from foil and a rock… 

…suddenly i realize-i am every whore to lie in this bed before me, and the only lesson i’ve learned, is to never say never! 

Resurrection

For 30 years, I have fought you about as successfully as one side of Velcro can fight its other half. I scream with every pull as though it hurts to prove us apart, when maybe that’s not meant to be.

Each year I try to find the me that’s not you, and the you that’s not me; which has brought me here. You are now longer gone than you were in my life, and I am older than you were when you died…and still I can’t get the fucking Velcro apart!

The more I find, the more I learn, you were only trying to be the person I have unknowingly become –

The in your face decolonizing, educated, traveler; the queer poet, the mother who did the right thing, even though it was the hardest, the rough and tumble smart girl in the room. The one one who got out. The surprise.

It’s taken me 30 years of searching, 15 of interviews, buckets of tears, loads of sheets and laundry, binders and journals, crushed hearts hanging from the sleeves of every shirt I’ve ever worn, and a consciousness that has carried me through it all to survive without your body, only to realize I never should have tried to rip you apart from me to begin with.

Thank you for carrying me inside myself even when I didn’t know you were there. Thank you for being the spirit inside of me, guiding me, my choices, my travels, my poetry. Thank you. 

And for every day you will never have, I will live the rest of mine for you, for me, for us…see the world for both of us, stitch the Velcro back together and never mind when someone asks, “How’s your mom?”

She’s here…inside me, locked deep inside my heart, living the life she always wanted, but could never give herself.

Bubble Gum

Underneath the dinner table,
Knees to her chest
She buries her face into her body.
A throw away shell she has once again
Violated
In an inventive new manner.
She was a rookie when 
She crawled up that pant leg
And hid in that pocket.
She posed as 
Raspberry flavored bubble gum.
Never a question
As to where she came from
She was needed to kill the bitter 
Taste in that mouth
Left behind
From that same old
Stale meal-
The everyday engagement 
That had become harder
And harder, to stomach.
She noted how it 
Took a while 
For the taste to fade…
But all the “real world” proofs
And facts that base 
What would logically 
Come to pass next 
Were irrelevant to her.
What she wanted then was
The caress of those words
Words that had been locked up.
The imprisoned words that
Ached like hell
To be released.
For they mingled
Well with her flavor.
She wrapped herself 
Around that tongue,
And wanted it
To never end.
She swam in the words 
Of that charming mouth.
She made the taste of the day
A little bit sweeter.
And the hollowness of hers
Became a whole lot more full.
But it was only
A breath,
Hot air in her bubble.
And then that jaw
Got tired of chewing
On her rubber 
Washed out flavor-
And thus,
She was of service no more.
So, she was quickly spat
From the uncaring mouth.
Wherever 
She’d flown or landed,
Was not a concern.
And the next time
She crawled up that pant leg,
She was shaken off.
And the next time she posed
As raspberry flavored bubble gum,
Se ended up a mess…
Stuck to some shoe.
And now here she is,
Posing as a shadowy goo;
Underneath this tabletop…
Hoping she might accidentally
Be touched,
Despite what a disgusting thing
That she has become
Withered away and hardened
In a sticky hollow shell;
A sickly wrapped up pose
Of a hardened mess
I’ve mimicked 
Way too long.

On The Inside

You haunt 
Like a ghost,
On all
Of the days
That I wake.
You take
And you twist
And you 
Break me.
You flip
Me around
And you
Shake me.
To know
And to feel 
That you 
Are me…
Could ever
Have been me;
Could ever
Still love me,
After what I
Have done 
To me.

Like Begging

‘Round here, the girls writhe silent conversation with the dry-hump-grind of their gaze, like pulling a suicide bombers rip chord.

Generations of sorrow, swirl and stand erect in a vacuum of her counterfeit sophisticated beauty, like resurrection.

She was born before the bendable legs revolution, melted on her knees inside that Beat Up Barbie body, like plastic painted lies.

Filled with paper handshake promises from IOU goodbyes that threaten death, like stab wounds.

She sees the world through wishing well chasms, black from dirty pocket change regret, like darkness burned on secrets.

And she always betrays herself with that slow defeated flutter from three day thick mascara, like neon strip club arrows.

A broken-hearted history of solitude and abuse leak through Saran Wrap eyeliner, like reused condoms.

Still, she massages knotted tensions with feeble eyelash arms dressed in boxing gloves of waterproof sexual deviance, like comfort.

Her will is strong enough to move mountains with gravitational sex, helping her force to raise lust…only to let it fall, like apples.

Shifting glances elegantly with hand-me-down expertise, careful not to crack that $7.99 Maybelline masterpiece, like watching for a ghost.

She breathes childhood memories: inhaling Wonderbra miracles, and exhaling strokes of oral sex invitation, like panhandling pity.

Her self inflicted smile speaks of mutilated masochism, like a Halloween mask.

Above, sit eyelashes stinging of sadism…licking attentions, like the paper cut sting of a wet leather whip.

Yeah, the girls around here, they ITCH for affection; they wear their makeup like shadows and give a stare, like digging.

They reach and scream for love with twisted desperation…and blink…with eyes, like begging.

Rush

it was so sweet. 
it was luscious. 
it was a french kiss from the inside. 
it was a car crash. 
it was a return to me. 
a finding of who i really am. 
it was an inhale exhale intercourse that i could not get enough of, but paced myself anyway.
it was love.
it was everything i’d been missing and more. 
it was milky, creamy and smooth. 
i relished in it and tried not to feel guilty about just how happy it made me, really. 
it was sexy. 
it made me feel beautiful, beautiful for the first time in a very long time. 
it made me feel graceful. 
it made me feel better. 
it was soft and almost fragile. 
it was a plane crash with no survivors. 
a culmination of everything that i thought died in me, resurrected like a phoenix from the ash. 
it was a slow rise. 
it was dense in its embrace, and carried me inside myself. 
immediately it became my secret. 
clean and crisp, folded up in my pocket. 
each line telling truths. 
like how this could be the beginning of the end of me. 
and how i hope it’s not.