Day (Sixteen).2

“I thought I would die if my name didn't

touch me, or only with its very end, leaving

the inside open to so many feelers

like chance rain pouring down from the clouds."

                        ~Rosmarie Waldrop, CURVES TO THE APPLE

it was always about         choosing

                        up or down

it became                    a filled in space

            where my thoughts didn’t        breed,

sufficient already

like babies who don’t know       about their own

                                                     swimming

i became aquainted with stairs

                        couldn’t move through them    slowly

            i have to get them over with

i just felt                 spoken     

          once too many times

in            places where

                                    rain is still surprising,

my lack of thirst    gathering me

            troubled and wanting looks,

when fingertips    are all i know     to write with

so i       sometimes

 turn them inside out

make them                   bigger, bent up slightly

 talk them through a     

                            good deal             on

baskets of fruit,  places they can

curve around,     if that can be

                                 like getting at wholeness

i just felt     knocked over

                  monstrous

             a little too much like               tires

or a professor    of warmth      in

                                    the middle

                                    of bathing

a day    free of seasons,

            trying to count the ways

            people        go home

trying           to be more like

            real things,

                        hands around glasses,

things we         sleep close to    and

   press out of ourselves

                                    in the morning,

the times when you                 sturdy, filled with pewter

                    became my

                                    [despite myself]

rather than a bed,

                        prone now       to weirdness

in large areas, fields, big numbers like death

or taking off     my bandages

before

setting them down                   in your

                                                estimated

                                                fire

Day (Sixteen)

“I thought I would die if my name didn't

touch me, or only with its very end, leaving

the inside open to so many feelers

like chance rain pouring down from the clouds."

                        ~Rosmarie Waldrop, CURVES TO THE APPLE

it is eating me up alive, it is hard

to recognize,

i can barely remember my own face

if it touches me, it’s like nursing

a wounded hero and describing the battle

from the thieves point of view

it is very muscular, strong, funny, smart

but also can make no mistakes

about carrying me away

i can’t figure out if it’s

really touching me or not,

but doesn’t every girl

at some point

let someone else figure it out

don’t let anyone touch, use, or even mess

with your name, it gets fuzzy,

looks like a blemish people

can’t take their eyes off of

i can’t let it touch me or it may be real

that’s why i do this

that’s why my hands are turning clear,

when i fold clean laundry, my name

becomes dirty all over again

i think i should really rewrite it

and make it clearer or more heartfelt,

less arthritic, double plastic, it’s creepy:

i get gaggy and sick and heated and

i wanna puke, i’m more comfortable

with the glue on most stickers

i can’t get over my fear of small, dirty

pieces of paper, letters—god

help me—i recognize it

Day Fifteen

“whatever you choose to claim of me

  is always yours: nothing is truly mine

  except my name.”

               ~NaPoWriMo tweet

unless we break it    into    two parts,

the way your voice       hears me

or is it       

       radio voices,         actuality

no longer          anything like

little contained pieces,  just

                                             a bunch of fluttering

what it feels like

         embarrassment postponed,

          accidentally              large

and getting rid of           jackets

      they

come pouring out   of me

what belongs to us, something of

metal,

of my arms beyond freeway off-ramps,

     of all the places

my name has gone      and left me

                        such as perfect,

consequential     moments,       let go

in the sense of

            your nickname,            slow and meaningless,

also, numbers i don’t count to

only days    able to be   piled

onto charts,

fingertips                              left

                        of combustion,

my own dream              of horrible sailing

                             unbending, with cushion

large and open like   

                       wet hair

                     becoming plausible, noise-filled,

like your terms,     throwing sounds at

      dust or living space, easiest

to let things stay            round,

bright, or

a bit             damp

                           when they allow small boxes   to close

what it would       feel

to crumble      

             in your mouth

i’m like a seahorse

saying things

through a      radio wave

or     backwards and     outside love

with

something dry,           your hands,

nowhere to go but      toward less touching

factories turned       upside down

like China,

where   parts of us    invent

reasons

            for no longer being

           

            spoken

            held in place

            yellow

why colors       

were invented     so quickly:

                                for our hunger,

how we know

            when things           are ripe.

Day Eleven

I don't wanna stop talking           I have to keep
it going          with you talking,      I wanna see
how long this is going,                 I love

                                         sarah

I love louis, I love my kind
    
       of lots of things, mostly       terribly

in my keys   in the raw silk
you, very very                           cute
I love my phone unlocked
                     I wanna send it          sarah, love
listening to this later                 how much can I keep

talking it                 still going           
                                                      can you believe that

it's okay, I got it
                                     would last a long time

I think I could keep safe

lastly, Day Ten

looking at    pictures

feeling so          anxious

left out

& always a wanting

& always    nothing more          than going back

makes me ache     like      sign posts, alphabet, pronouns

like mommy, daddy, love

tender,  sitting inside    the outside places

accommodation,  pretty explanations

   & even when they don’t,       much more than     hunter&prey

my mouth    resembling          a child

or

            discomfort          in that

it wants         what has already been

      mentioned,                              before, only pretend houses,   

                  now, much stronger

because of places      where i slept,

weather i may           or may not have            imagined

how doodles    make everything

      lighter,   look more        like

meaning     versus   sound, how my same mouth

holds

             my r’s and l’s, confusing them

the colors only                making me

            they’re nothing like    tears, amounts of water

though they end up    erasing     

  earlier lines

places i walked           but now keep     

                               inside borders,

all the days       i’d

collect things,

gathering, as if to say

                        i once knew something

about weight

for Jp

& Day Ten

I want to say that I’m sharing.  There is darling, and there’s unfortunate.  The parts are needless, to say.  I’ve encouraged them, also.  Just falling over, just falling out of my chair.  It is completely sudden and useless.  I say things that I only mean in opposite moments.  Like stigma, but with a better punchline.   Always a certain point, and good is irrelevant.  Good is irrelevant when the material can’t echo.  Not knowing how to write them.  Wanting to be inside the car with you, the window, a way of seeing out.  Something besides myself, waiting.

and Day Ten

early wooden shapes       breathing,

something like                      combustion

  pensive charting,   notes about your fingers

                        muscles,

colors    remembering

directions i would have taken

            were i not shadowing you

and how to keep                       from ever getting there

bottom words,  cartoonish  filling up

  with   &  full   on      how i can’t

ever

hear my    isolation

   without remembering

certain times of       year, certain     calendars

so random

aimless

whatever

i could never               fit in with tumbleweeds

that put        in me

            people i forgot

            places, burning & edged in teeth

            the last way that i ever saw         a man, smiling

& swinging movements, so      deceitful

i never trusted back and forth

            until        opposites became

 the only       sentences

        i could    double check

having to stop             exactly right, here

            so as to

 not let happiness              overstay    your boundaries

without     letting go  (letting go of origins), you

      and the things we make up,

                                              we are like           buses

lots of them

in rows,     no obvious movement

just similarities             of what people assume           about us

your face         once more, too big

                       

and a lot   or   a little bit     

         of   never looking     until

    my address   can match   my name