Born a peasant

always a peasant

work, work, work

never stopping

bound to the land

living from it

I sleep thinking,

why me?

I want to leave

I want to die

but what will happen to my family?

Republican

Yes! Bless The New U.S...

Making America Great Again

With only the best.

I must confess this victory came a little shocking.

I wasn’t expecting Trump to win,

The way the media was talking.

clouds

pink and blue smears

go over my head

like the moon

or calculus.

i long to float up there

where i could eat eclipse and crackers

and differentiate my thoughts.

At the grocery store

In the days of our youth

The green twist ties were the best part.

So easily entertained were we

With these simple pliable toys

Laughing and forming new shapes.

Bleach blonde braids fall across my shoulders

as caramel curls caress my cheeks all for the low, low price

of my life’s savings and a bottle of bleach

They say that time is a constant,

In math world it is an unchanging letter k. 

But I say that it becomes a variable,

A perfect letter x. 

Time can be carefully controlled, ceaseless,

A cascading current.

“Take all the time you need,”

They said.

But now I’d much rather be in bed,

Because I’m 76 today.

My life is beginning to fade away.

“Take all the time you need,”

They said.

I hope you’re happy.

Now I’m dead.

look at them,

so cavalier, drinking

future-liquor in a future-

Between her slender fingers she pivots the earth

Amused by how the blues and greens twirl

We let the motion power us

Letting it rock us and push us, haunt us and slow us.

Our lives are dictated by her constant motion.

It’s my last day with the old giants

In mourning I hike the lost trails,

sniffing the aroma of the bark,

that cinnamon of the forest

Under tepees of wood

in a membrane of shadows,

I stalk the earth, its mammal traces,

Varuna pulled forth the world the heavens the stars

With a roll of his tongue he wrenched time in her place

A word on his lips and the floods would recede

From sludge he said let there be more

When we wake, we stretch to

fill out our expectations of where

what should be & then we look in

the mirror for confirmation is this

me is this me is this & we know it’s

The sun dawns upon me

Again I’m greeted to gasps of reality

Holding onto dreams I can disappear into 

until the day breaks, bright and true

Every morning I breathe incapabilities 

but I still wake with a certain heart

Time is a girl with curly hair that bounces with every step and twirl she takes

She talks with her hands but never fails to find the right word to say

She can be by your side one second and gone the next

Getting lost in the crowd is fun to her

I seduced Time

I brought her thorny flowers, held her worn hands and kissed her softly

I caressed her flushed cheeks and played with her hair, long like a timeline

I ran my hands along her battle-won scars and her strong but delicate body

145: i looked normal for a girl my size, a little extra meat on my bones but nothing to make me despise the body i lived in. Until i started comparing myself to the girls around me. maybe i should lose a couple pounds see that’s how it started.

the void beckoned.

i stood softly

quaking

afraid

what is there is to do in the void?

i pondered quietly

the void answered,

nothing.

perfect.

i replied

i need time

i need time

i’m a mannequin, a marionette man, my actions preplanned. 

i go through my motions, i do a little dance. My movements based off the crowd’s applause 

i give a little wave because 

words bubbling on my tongue are not metaphors,

They are a message, a warning of future plights to come.

I should thank this body for that, thank

you. piece of flesh you

distracted woman you

She stood in front of a mirror

Clean and sober thinking about how she feels taller than her own reflection

Then she took an injection

They’ve run out of garbage bags to use as body bags.

Power lines cracked in half like splintered pencils are strewn through the streets

neighborhoods panic as the ground forgets what being solid is again

“What is one factor that affects the Blood Alcohol Level and is an extremely important factor (in order to ‘sober up’)?”

I hear the gunshot, I do not see 

The bullet but I know it’s coming 

Aimed to perforate my skull 

They say your life flashes, once death’s 

Shadow is on your tail and grips you in 

Another black kid got shot by a white cop.

ANOTHER BLACK KID GOT SHOT BY A WHITE COP.

ANOTHERBLACKKIDGOTSHOTBYAWHITE COP.

ANOTHERBLACKKIDGOTSHOT

ANOTHERBLACKKIDGOTS

Ten . . .

Nine . . .

Eight . . .

Seven . . .

you are like the sun:

oblivious to time’s existence

wake up at noon to eat dessert

and watch television reruns.

you are sleepless nights

and grease stained fingers

covered in cuts and bruises and scabs.

you are like the war

Like clockwork revaluations to new forgotten ideas lined up in my mind like young adult novels on my ratty old grey bookcases, I live stories lined up in many different tenses    dog-eared identities taking place in crises fueled hourglass clocks, if there is one thing I’ll never run ou

You would think the sidewalks were made from gold

From all the rumors regarding this place

A fabrication that is bought and sold

Tradition is lies into lemonade

The fragility of life will always terrify me.

Sometimes I feel so vulnerable, 

thinking of all the ways my life could spontaneously end –

the accidents

the inflictions

what I inflict.

Vanessa and I talk.

We like talking.

The smell of acetone and wine

fight in the warm air.

A lull of

Avett Brothers music fills the

silence.

Our nail beds

burn,

from too many attempts at

and when you talk in your sleep the voice is never your own

and when the world ends and the next begins our radio stations

will still patiently recite their numbers. (dear mx. god,

is this how it feels to be replaced?) In the wilderness,