summer, (l)over

how could i ever forget?
your earnest proclamation: 
you missed california's light most
while suffering through winter in brooklyn
or the way you would stop and smell lavender with your whole body

one cycle of the moon's phases
burned these memories into my brain
and i am certain it will take many more moons to erase them

listening to songs i wish i had writ on repeat
at least i wish we could listen together
but you don't want to hear anything from me
so for now you'll keep laughing in my head
and maybe someday i'll see your smile outside of my skull

"don't ever compromise what you believe"

i still mean what i say
though convictions are strange
and having feelings even weirder
how do i tell everyone i miss and love them all at once?

oh look, i'm still thinking about you

i can't do anything
that reminds me of you
which rules out everything
that reminds me of you
which is everything

cucurbitaceae photography

luna opens her mouth,
she tries to speak.

"i have made another green world for you."

her voice quickly fades, 
lost in the verdantly thick summer air.

today my heart was

today my heart was in my throat for more than one reason.

babybabybabybabaybabby

I'M SO SICK OF
SONGS ABOUT BABY BABY, GIRL
BABIES ARE BABIES, NOT FOR DATING
CAN WE ALL BE SICK OF PATRIARCHY,
PLEASE?

untitled #33

wish you were here
wish you heard where
wish i was there
wish you would care
wish wish wish wash
wishy washy herse verse

best coast?

my days are eight minutes longer than my father's
(and at time of writing, almost 40 degrees hotter)

Venus, a perigee moon, and thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats all rose with the night (which does not fall, I recently learned). An ex-lawyer, a farmer, and two college students walked into a bar. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but really was just another Saturday afternoon in Rio Vista. We were greeted by at least 600 pairs of eyes, most of them long since replaced by glass and forever stuck in a rude stare. So we gawked right back, took a few dimly lit photographs, scooted past the biker gang, and returned to the quiet heat of an almost vacant downtown.

i am rocky raccoon.

gideon's bible is only good for burning.

I wish there was another way to stand. One that really showed how you felt: you're floating and your toes just barely touch the ground, because you just experienced something so enthralling and exhaustingly beautiful and your heart is racing so you haven't the energy to stand up straight and make coherent sentences with friendly strangers who will soon leave your life for a long time, maybe forever. Floating just an inch (or a few centimeters) above the ground would make more sense in this case.

a cinderella story, as in, i might turn into a pumpkin

you and i, we were like spring break.
hawk moths to an evening primrose,
we are alien metaphors and nothing more.

"there's a bed where my body should be."

shorthand advice

hack into yr mindframe
do what you rly wanna

me mamo tim heidecker

absolute power corrupts, abso-
lutely. i understand this
when i balance three eggs in my hand
still warm, freshly plucked from under the hen
and i contemplate how easy it would be
to smash them right there on the driveway.
or, when i drone along the freeway
and my mind drifts to a quick jolt of the wheel
ending with a smoldering wreckage.
i suppose i prefer exacting my power
over dragon's tongue bush beans
and aunt ruby's german green heirloom tomatoes.

kandy kane

tooty frooty booty
lollipop gumball beat drop

good job kid, you're used to the sting

nettle noodle nozzles
metal poodle models
settled feudal falafels

let them dream of cake

untitled #4

alyssum
aster
digitalis
linum
phlox
zinnia

wait, that's not a poem
that's just a list of beautiful flowers
oh, so it is a poem, nevermind

les pommes de terre

!viva México!

emerson is eating jelly rolls in his grave

"simplify, simplify, simplify,"
said the shirt
of the father
freaking
out
over the wrong frosting on some stupid cake.
"i like your shirt,"
i said.
and he looked like he puked a little in his mouth.

duck and cover

life, forks and knives

les pommes d'amour

making new friends is nice,
like learning that in france they call a candy apple
"le pomme d'amour."

moving day

today is moving day.
last night was spent in a restless tussle with my sheets.
i cannot tell if it was the wind,
the almost full moon spilling its light through the curtains,
or the horrible itch of poison oak on my cubital fossa.
today is moving day.
today i move in under the old (non-poisonous) oak tree.

californian bank account

today i opened a californian bank account
my thumb was so dirty, the ink almost didn't stick

i don't hate couples, but they do make me think about how awkward i am.

it's so hard
to know what to do with your hands
when you can't
wrap them around another human
it's so hard
to figure out how to stand
when all you can think about is where to put your damn hands

performance art

if i read this poem out loud,
i'd let the audience know,
"this poem is about
looking for love
in all the wrong places.
or, rather,
trying to smooch all the wrong faces."

i just started reading ursula le guin

too much, not enough

remember when you said i gave too much?
remember when we played swords in the street
and yelled CAR like we were fifteen?
remember when you spoke of the importance of honesty
and hours later pulled a ridiculous charade?
remember when i snapped your suspenders
and asked how your day was going?
you don't remember, but i gave as much as i wanted to give.

my brain stained with champagne, you shattered my reality like the flutes we neglected to drink from. we began to rebuild our world meticulously around shared obsessions, shutting out everyone and everything. like two psychiatric patients, we ran through underground cities and living nightmares, screamed into dark hollows and whispered secrets to the stars, stared across cracked horizons, and wanted nothing and everything all at once and waited for the day when you could love again.

cut my big toenail too short
met a cute girl named kate
typical, typical

three knights, two maidens,
one undeniable feeling of hopeless hopefulness.
careening through brumous countryside,
only to explode on the valley floor.