march 23, me

Two hands now,
Stretching
Fetching the food
Pulling it towards the hanger.
The mother sings the song of the airport,
Smiling at me or herself,
I am too young to see.
And by see I mean with the inner eye
Past the lie
Unconditional love means "except"
If you find the right dictionary.
But college isn't a time for looking things up
It's about hooking up
Drinking up
Thinking up the things you will always believe in
Until then.
Then is the time we haven't gotten to
But think about until our minds go numb
And our tongue rolls around
Dumb found
Additionally stopped from moving
By the gluing to the face
The race
For the finish across the line.
It's words read in a room
A boom of education
In moderation
An exploration of how feminism relates to life.
And they're right.
We sit here and shove it down their throats,
Like they shove it in us
Right before we come.
And we moan and we cry,
And they only imagine out of pleasure
They treasure every moment they feel in charge
Large,
Bigger than I can handle
A word in a crossword puzzle
That bosses me around
Is found underneath the language
Two letters.
Today I ran across the land
Feeling the earth pulse underneath my feet
The beat driving me to roll around
The grass vibrating like the trees
And the bees,
Buzzing in the pistil of the flower
Distilling the sexuality
Vitality
Of another form of life.
And it's a book
Mistook for a sign
A rhyme misplaced on someone else's page
Laden with the rage of someone else's story
blatant with the sage of your mothers cooking
Not yours at all
But you fall
And take the blame
Because you know no better
And choose not to
For knowing
Is growing
And you're standing still
Blending in.
A real testimony to my mothers warning
The burning
The learning
Unlearning
Taking the words from the mouth
And tearing them out
And taking them for nothing,
When they're something to brag about.
Unmuff the ears and hear about the years of someone else's life
And life comes again to you,
As you listen and glisten in your eyes of wonder.
Eyes reflect the world,
It's when they stop reflecting there's a problem.
Glassy eyes show more shine,
And they're mine
Watching the trees rub
Like this.
I miss your caress of my ear as you tuck my hair
Behind there
Where you can see the purse of my lips
The curse of my gaze
As we raze all that was good
And understood
Between you and everyone else.
The shelf life of milk doubled with pasturization
Like you do with masturbation
But where comes education
And our nation,
One of the three we must pledge to
Dredge through on our way to freedom.
And is it because we took it
Or look it
Or book it in a casino
Or from luck
From a buck
That we invented the theory to earn.
We churn the problems up that make us winners.
We crush the beginners
We make the spinners a necessary part of our existence
The resistance dies in the parking lot
A blot of insanity in a small town
You look around
And lose yourself in the call of the TV
And the radio
And the stereo
And all you know
Turns to mush.
You're a lush, just like your mother
Just like your brother,
And the sister you would have had.
Don't get mad, you've lost that right
You fight the ones in charge
Until you barge into everything you don't understand.
You're a student,
Not a prudent genius,
A Venus for my de Milo
A penis for my Nile
A river for my high
A win for my bye
A rhyme for the time I waste getting warm
In your arms
And in the harm
Of your way.
That was today,
But still I stay.
Arms stretching
Reaching for the food
That preaches in my soul
The lewd reasons for my role.
My hear, my now
My how
My you
My truth.

directions

 
Philosophy of Religion
Why do you mock me so?
Oh you Rand McNally
You explanation, revelation
Desecration of the holy
Or the anti-holy
(Or) the whole.
The sugar pill at the front of the class
In the pages of the book
The numbers at the bottom
Holding it in place
Can you speak from the south,
The yellow and purple
Tumbling over
Turmoil turning them to brown.

I want to paint a picture.
Soft watery base,
Grounding flowers in freedom
Placing arcrylic petals
Popping off of stems,
Falling forward from the frame,
Great oily shadows bleeding out on the canvas.
My brush is my pen turning in circles.

by the by

         By the way,
         p.s., can I tell you more?
It’s like we’re out on the floor
         but it’s not, because we’re
here
           and there,
Across the room
       but aware
Of my eyes
        on your lips,
                 lips on neck,
            on hips,
        on lips.
Next.
The wall,
       the segregation.
Not just of a sound booth.
        Of a sound proof existence.
Can you hear me now?
      Good.
          Because I’m still listening.
We can drive forever,
     two pieces of graphite
           shrouded in the cloud of breath
Freezing to death on our bed of feathers.
Are you burning?
Stoking me with your eyes through the hall
        burning a hole in the wall just above my head.
Instead, can you kumbya,
Singing camp songs beside the creek,
    the stones the only things sturdy around here
And even they tumble.
       Slippery surfaces lie beneath the clear water,
Waiting for prey
                          to pray on.
Do you hear the humming,
                           humming—
                          droning in the background,
The black dog sitting on our stoop.
Our.
     our hour.
Never long enough for me to say it.
             By the way,
             p.s., there’s too much to tell.
So I stay silent in my commitment to the absurd.
       Just friends?
         Of course not.
                 No one will believe,
When not speaking leads to hours of philosophy.
        Our belief in our nothing,
                  Or at least mine,
        Dragging the ore out, the hour out.
   Our out in the open niceties tugging at the hair on the back of your neck,
Going to our heads,
Suspending us in the moment
         But taking days to bring us back down.
The hushed, hidden words renewing our little secret.
         So hush.
I hear a new day dawning.