Letters and Emails.

My tea is too hot and the letter I got in the mail, the one from the state, is peeking crawling scratching its way out of the draw I tucked it away into.  There was no rain today.  The ink didn't run.  I cannot pretend I didn't read the words I read.
I printed emails at the office today from boys who just want to fuck me saying 'you're doing a hell of a job' and 'i hope you'll stick around' and I responded in that professional tone I have, the one with the slight laugh, the batting eyes the straight spine, no frown, all teeth.  I tucked them into metal drawers and I left and the wind outside was biting through my skin, breaking my bones.

My tea may have cooled down by now.

How many calories are in Toothpaste?

I have to wash my face with three different chemicals before it feels clean and
I remember a poet-girl in college whose ribs you could count through her tee-shirt
and the poem she wrote asking
'how many calories are in toothpaste?'

I think about it every day.

So Long Self-Published Love

i burnt all of the poetry i had written about you
it was going to be a book
with photographs and pressed flowers
and a dedications page with your name
the title was a floral play
on your name, too
now there are ashes in my hair
and i hate wasting paper
and that is why i'm crying so don't think it's you
i wish i could smoke in the fumes
and breathe out all of the words i shouldn't have written
i shouldn't have written them
i shouldn't have written lines like
oh baby, your body is soft skin, soft lips, soft hair
and i feel silly like a girl in the rain
smoking her last cigarette
but they're gone now
and you're gone now
and we're both in separate worlds pretending
that we're the one who isn't speaking
to the other
oh baby, your body is hardened heart and flawed skin
and all of those times i said 'i love you'
i lied
or maybe i didn't
but now i guess you'll never know

Tired Fox

tired fox

I drew this for you.

Sex.

I try to pretend that I am the things hanging on my walls.
The postcards and the pictures and the drawings and the painting of birds without eyes.
Really though, I am the tequila bottles hidden under the bed, the perfume on my pulse points, too much caffeine in my  blood and hip-hop songs.  I laugh too loud.
My back hurts from the cold and I love pop music.  I don't dance naked as much as I should.
I am fluorescent lighting cat-eyes - daytime hustler looking at the boys in their button down shirts and trying to see through to their chest bones. 
It's all about the money and the after-hours beer spots.  Sports on TV, always something.
Fit in, fit in, fit in.  How well would he fit into me?

hungry.

i am surrounded by sheets of ice.

i am trying to write but it isn't often i can indulge in too much coffee and daytime tv.

i am worrying about court dates and falling icicles and losing the love of my life to a warmer state.  i am worrying about the growling in my belly.  i'm alone and there is pasta in the pantry and i could lace it through hot dog bits and call it art and i could brave the snow and rain and bitter wind and trade my slippers for sneakers and go find tacos in lowell.  i'm hungry but all things, when ignored, will eventually go away.  that's what i've heard.  is there truth to that?

ice.

my fingers are raw, red, cold, sore.
i stood outside smoking cigarettes.  it's still snowing just a bit.  there's another storm moving in tonight.  work has been called off for tomorrow.  i'll sleep.
but when i was standing outside and my skin was breaking, i was watching icicles hanging over the doorway.
i wanted to catch that exact moment when the droplets of water dripping from the ends would freeze over.  they have to freeze just like that, right there, in some moment, but does anyone ever see it?  does anyone capture that one second in time when the spears of ice become just a bit longer, more deadly?
i wanted to wait, but the tea on the stove top was boiling, whistling.
i wonder if i walked away just before it happened.  maybe if i had held out, i would have seen it.  the water could have used to be hotter, anyway.
i think i tend to walk away just before beautiful things take shape too often.
it's just that there's always something warmer waiting behind the door.