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.

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

Day Ten

in an effort  to             hold galaxies still

i would like to      sort of

                                          highlight

the difference    between

perfect     and               so necessary

the things

            that simulate          rambling

the pitches          different &   accommodating

            your body parts

not thinking            there has

    been        something

 not a recognition  &    faces

            the kind that     say things

to

      grab onto

                        other ones

            sooner,    glances that

look   precious, dueling,

            constant secrets involving

collars    & shapes

            and not eating,  partitioned mouths   in little     

sometimes    revolving

         habitats,  breathing by location

rumbling and counting down

lists are good            for

   bending      your head

            getting patterns,  snapshots

of the things

    that parent      other things      you know

   space without discernable speech

like habits, flat teeth,

       certain parts    of the body

& more important

  processing the face          into the sound

                                                of the face

unless we can    become   smaller &

  more like rocks

                        i don’t think

necessarily   grey

                                    but a lot of holding,

best described as           folks knowing,

   protection

maybe              things  living

                           under us,        a little stuck

you and i,   and all alike,     superficial

for the sake of having       something

     that everyone can see

Day Eight

heir presumptive

of rectangles  i say:    bricks

    hot suns spreading themselves thin

~

i kept notebooks filled with

            my pretend importants: weights, lines i couldn’t step on,

the places i hid books, hoping the words wouldn’t haunt me at night

dirt, that could be wet but not necessary

futility,   explanatory loveliness

i couldn’t stop,                not for   death

   or porcelain filled  trees,

   how badly everything needs to be cleaned

~

i forgot how to say     pallor, your pronoun

you, 2 and 3 years older than the oldest

  person

       i’ve ever caught   scooping    up

weeds and rock salt,    trying to be

  my clothes

your stillness,  all the showing skin

not even enough to bathe in.

~

someday, my body parts will be so far away

  from each other,    they won’t know

where the other ones  are.

Day Six (written, but not posted, on time)

i didn’t have the heart              to

        

            every time i      open

            begin the slow process

of staggering   like   the weather

so i took sharpies        &        i found people

      living in their pockets    

i was taking a break from       good

                        crazy excited

for the tips of your hair,       diving and rattling   into

length,

           for now

i was born       institutional

             along the lines of

    what it would           sound like

    to swallow   your ear.

sometimes

  i can’t   tell   the    difference

between

                              thinking and       being quiet,

you, like           daily bread

so big      when i think about            how you got here

Day Four

for Maurice

one time           i had horses

millions of them

             until floating became something

small enough

                        to slip into people’s drinks,

my knees suddenly too weak

to be held onto,

too many foot noises

                        and my own wandering

            grip

people are too lonely

                                                            and mountain like

   to be neighbors

so many drinks hugging skin, slipping

   me

beneath     my seat

long hair is not even that pretty

                                    just as

a poem needs to   throw up

a little

   sometimes,

we find out the accuracy

of liquids

I am no longer     of  identity,

    better

    than grasshoppers  and  ants

these things aren’t important,

            but they’re enough to be

like sleeping     again,

of the waking up

  habits of birdlife,

suddenly,         cold bathwater

and guns lying around,

                        i could        maybe

            shoot melting snow,    running

water, dripping  

            icicles

if that ever happened,                   

i can    go         like this      and

roll right onto you,

   but i have a hard time

        keeping the letters flat

around here,

words share the properties

  of

poorly cut metal, misplaced napkins, water

  more ice cubes than one breath could reach

and that’s life without kissing, anyway,

just my face

  pushing   up

against

            your face

Day Two

a little ways back

            i remember          you

stirring, stirring

feeling odd about             fathers, money, long fences

                                                where people stick their faces

                                                            and weep downward

thinking about    wrapping up  backgrounds

in other colors

            like pink, leather, bad conclusions,

always      a kind of adjusting

always     about money, too expensive

                                                            so

i escape the bills

                               by paying them in curls of hair

or        

       erasing the parts about me  or

sending them little conversations

about weight, my fear       of

  sitting down with mirrors,     distraction,      practicing my

           

                           little girl legs, so much uncrossing involved

           

and by bills, i mean       recollection

the things i owe you

                           for                 displacement

for the chair next to me

where my name sat (my will to stomp)

for saying, break these  in half       again,

to see them      little parts        

me         

and it gets easier

                                                also, to leave

the things that get stuck   between fingers,     teeth,

                                                       two lonely people

names become the stuck in between pieces

                                    other faces

we never think about               

                                               

                                                anything,    but

hugs   and   puking   and

removing the pieces,

all the women               who don’t know me

            who are a few years older than me

and the mirrors, disgusting        like axe blades,                   i wanted to try them on

but

people keep taking off their reflections

it becomes     the only thing    i can’t look away from

near your face,

                        not always easy to     distinguish you from          

without becoming your
        little handfuls
of bones