close quarters

fleshy, unthinkable
& sun setting red
the ebb and flow

of our story
finds its root
in the pierce'd
kiss plausible
yet impossible

i am twelve
and what is this
feeling

forever i'm
in love with
forever

wish it was
always this
easy to smile

wish you
could hear
me better

my (o)mission

to get tipsy
without falling

to sing songs
weep-less

to catch yr eye
floundering

to take ya home
sobering

we make good
on our promises

& we look good
in the darkness

rapid battery suspense auction

freezer burnt

creme brulee

paper towel

empinada

ice floe
fur skin

red forge

prognosis

artificial

fire paralysis

throat lump

worming my way
through candle wax
afternoon with bitter
taste of twin cups
of coffee lingering
my logistical chances
at making it dwindling
disrobing my doubts
over whether or not
we will feint our hands
into catching a rash
feeling in our knees
and toes that one
of these roads
leads us further
into the mountains

slipping

reverts to comfort-
able state of being
that being waylaid
or way-too-laid-
back whichever
state makes persist-
ent failure okay
i'm complacently
adjacent to an
enviable life
watching it through
the would-be-glass
brings me no closer
to the other side
i'm reeling and
kneeling darling
if they ask where
i was only silence
can describe

terrorist

it is unacceptable
to call him anything
else

maybe murderer

maybe rotten
degenerate
undeserving

it doesn't deserve
a poem

he's a terrorist

who looks like me

how skin
and bones bear
with such
garbage

i don't even know

let me down again

wise angel, where did you go?

i'm doing things i don't wanna.

was this what they meant by

following your passion? who

pitted these bananas inadvertently
against each other? my tongue
blooms fuzzy. forlorning. fast

afraid of what it might take

to unspool someone else's

song. what privacy waits

gathered in someone else's

arms? uncomfortable offering

and reimagining of second
& third senses. relentless
milling of teeth and slack
jaw jutting inward. second

cup of coffee. caring,
as in capitulating.

twelfth hour turbulence

nauseating
surrounded by
balloon-folk
mopping the
floor mopping
up my frustration
recalibrating
the trajectory
of my career
piling up the
money touching
elbows insisting
on a full-fledged
effort towards
success-ion

as the drones do their contractual bidding

I meander

meaning, I
am full of wonder
as if these were
not the same walls
between which
I have
wallowed

I am asunder

hardly cogent
or breathing
assembling scene
decoys - return
of the day-draining
dream - oh honey
you used to say
jubilenne

and I laughed
like it was some
kinda beautiful

the poem welts
in my periphery

seasoned
with sharp
glass

trepidation
of the good
god grind

rest

sweet sleep
you never
knew
how long
i waited
to climb
inside you

how lasting
my wasting
and how
bruising
makes
a pillow
out of me