I'm Not Scared

08.28.00
12.19.03

[ ]

I woke up Sunday to the sound of quick breathing
and rocks being thrown. The house was so full of light all
the clocks had shorted out and I ran outside to see
what time it was, which was unfortunate.
I woke up Sunday after a night of dreaming
about lovers I never knew; short-haired, lust-
ravaged girls each of whom was a unique
combination of Arabian Nights and Playboy
centerfold. Each of them dies in some equally
unforeseen and tragic way. The last was eaten
alive by ants as she lay immobile in fevered dream.
I fondled the desiccated curves of clavicle
and jaw and remembered what a teacher had said, that
everyone I dream of is another part of me, and
tried and tried to cry for this beautiful girl I’d
lost.
I woke up Sunday morning and began gathering
kindling to burn the house. I threw all my books
in a huge pile in the middle of the hall
and ranged cats and computers counterclockwise around
it.
I woke up Sunday with a mouth full of powder
that tasted like pixie sticks and speed and the
lingering smell of an empty glass vial of citrus
aftershave.
I woke up Sunday morning with my legs
bent beneath me, wondering what a girls has to do in
this day and age to get another girl to fuck
her up the ass and if my luck would change if
I trimmed my nails.
I woke up Sunday morning remembering Matt’s mouth
on my clit and wondering if blowjobs felt this good and
why didn’t they teach more straight boys how to
do things like this in school instead of all the
esoterics of woodshop and metal files.
I woke up Sunday dreaming that I knelt on a
thinly carpeted floor with my master’s collar still
safe around my throat and all the fear and pain
of losing it had been nothing but a moment’s
bad dream.
I awoke Sunday to discover my naked arms
pulled above my head and joined, wrists pinned,
to the mattress in a butterfly crucifixion, which
didn’t hurt nearly as much as one might expect,
the pin being steel and mainly thrust through
bone, but there was no one on the ceiling or
peering unabashed through the window to observe my
potential struggles or escape and I found that a
little disappointing.
I awoke Sunday to find a genii hovering conservatively
positioned above my bed, who informed me that as per
the new world order, yhe had been directed to
tattoo a single expression on my face as my
constant shifting through facial gestures was rapidly
sapping the world’s supply of surplus energy, and
I lay silent trying to decide how I wanted to
look for all time thereafter, and should it be
sexy or silly or curious, should I choose what
would best express me or be most appealing and the
genie grew tired of my thoughtful procrastination and
offered to dye my eyes any color of my choosing
provided I decided in the next 7 seconds and
steal all my sleep for the next hundred years if I
didn’t.

Sodden Cardboard Phrases

03.21.01
12.27

sodden cardboard, couragated sweaty days
when the printer types backwards and I
have to keep a mirror at my desk
days without important words, days I
say ‘I love you’ so often I forget
all other phrases

The Seizured Color of Orgasm

01.19.01
11.23.03

“What’s unnatural, I mean, are there things you can study?” A human context. A bowl of grape gravy on chocolate goose. Next Christmas I want to send everyone lavishly wrapped boxes of calcified elephant dung. Each crested with a single, gilded flea. I imagine what I would look like without hands, without a nose, eyes, toes, if I had two pinkies instead of a thumb, toes on my hands and fingers on my feet, six fingers on one hand and four on the other. Last night my lover tied me to the bed with four long strips of black lace and sucked my toes, lips, fingers, nipples, clitoris. I came and the paint purple taste of plums exploded through my mouth and eyes. I thought I smelled ripe tomatoes splatter on concrete. I saw endless flats of pastel pink and blue and tasted custards mixed with perfect hues corresponding to all the best colors of innocence his fingers tapped my collarbone and I heard synthesized piano chords. His moans in my mouth tasted like olive vinegar. I’m all yucky though, we just had sex I protested realizing he wanted to go down on me but he smiled elfin and said that just makes it kinkier and kissing him after my tongue slid crusts of milky taste and saltfruit from his lips I felt him penetrating me with fingers, tongue, closed my eyes to feel my mmm’s vibrating through my body, wondered how an actual vibrator would feel and blushed as, while I lay thinking he reached over and removed it from the nightstand. Everything was the seizured color of orgasm. I opened my desire-lidded eyes to watch the glow in the dark stars above my bed turn pink and flutter hotly down around me—one landed on my shoulder and I felt a second of perfect heat before it melted silver in my skin.
“The observation of some sort of pattern”

03.29.01
11.24.03

[ ]

Remembering leaves green as broken glass
a mother, an infant, an ocean
imagine the shore—
rock-jagged
bird shat