Suburban style van, with its stained coffee cup and sheaned sheets. The ceiling that sags and the mail tucked into the windshield, with the dent on the right of the bumper. The keys in the ignition, the fire has started. Will you drive?

The fountain reflects light
onto the face of the library downtown.
We went there once, a long time ago.
It still glows.

Took note of the swept-out aisles
in the wavering light that shines through the windows.
So empty, so quiet.
A volume fallen down in Biographies.

like the exuberance of bangs cut too short and stacks of bracelets that never match. 

gold is for the good days only. 

most days are silver. they are plentiful and lacking variation. 

endless hours and constantly runny eyes. 

The world is large, but so am I.

An ocean of confused compassion

rolls through my veins,

and I balance boulders 

on unmanicured fingertips. 

What will you let yourself know?

And what will you put in boxes

And crush

Hoping it won’t spring up again

yesterday, 

i was greeted by the moon herself in your driveway.

she left my palms damp with slobber in her wake

and i stood outside your front door,

feeling like a fraction, small but rightfully so

This morning I listened to an interview 

with poet Ada Limón. She spoke about 

epiphanies and didactic endings

and how sometimes a poet must surrender 

to the discomfort of unknowing.

How sometimes it is best to listen 

i’m floating on my back with 

sunscreen spread along my nose and 

water lapping against my shoulders. 

i should be focusing on

how the sun is warming me from the outside — in or

I wish I had trauma that I could spin into a story, 

a story that would grip your thoughts tighter than leather binding, 

Something I could rip to shreds, over-analyze in the margins, 

The sun went missing today.

There were no rivers of blood or plagues of locusts,

first-born children did not fall ill, nor did frogs descend on the cities.

It was quiet. 

The black hole stood stagnant.

We could only watch and wait.

I am melting butter

in AP Statistics

draped over the desk

warm dripping out of leaky sleeves

as I slide puddley down the hallway my mother screams,

 “Finally, some fat inside you!”

someone needs to pour out my sneakers

As I pass through an unmarked apartment building,

I observe a woman’s relationship with a stray cat.

Obscured by the shadows of happy hour light,

the dirt that has accumulated on the floor’s grout still shines, 

The Sun is a greedy emperor, 

Shining its light across the Canyon, 

And evaporating drops of water. 

 

With the land so parched and no color than red, 

Mmm, you are a distracted assent, you coat like cold sweat,

glisten

like contented sleep.

And then you are songless– muh like mundane, buzzing of the lampshade fibers,

quivering

from the lamplight flicker.

The credits recover,

and suddenly like a k9 you snuffle the criminal boyhood out of my skin.

I always think myself circumspect in my cover-ups, but in seconds you know where my blindspot is.

PART I: AI is created

I think God made you and me out of binary code You call me an enigma,

But I do not speak your language. You would be the 1’s.

Standing tall

Always at the top

Perfect Aryan halo on your head I would be the 0’s.

Ocean wanders in to contemplate me

drafts a verse about my ankles in

twisting foam, scrambles the lines

and forgets. A mirror in the slick

afterthought of water on sand

where my feet sink in soft parchment

Floating through space feels like lounging on a pool float. True, your float is no pool float.

It’s a slab of discarded metal lost in the wasteland of the universe, and it’s pulling you with it, too.

In another time - a whole other life -

(1) every puzzle has an empty space, and a piece that never seems to fit

everywhere.

on the train in november I found

a duality called us (antithesis as mirror) sorry it is colder here than I remembered

and I am tired

of being called a dreamer

Wrong

Is how still the air is, standing

Is how grey the sky is, weeping

Is how red the fallen leaf is, dying

Is how green the grass is, living

Living, living, living

A breath in, a breath out

Taken for granted—granted, it’s

Under my umbrella,

I watch the clear drops descend.

They hurl, abiding gravity,

As they run, far away,

From the hands of the sky.

It makes sense for the clouds to darken,

To yowl in pain,

And to jolt fear across the land.

the vents in my grandmother's old car blow

cigarette smoke at my left knuckles

and right forearm.

there's something so cold about crawling back to the house and home

where Caroline kicked me out for borrowing her water bottle

Are these the pangs of birth or the aftershocks of death?

What awaits me beyond this shore?

And even now when legs and feet have failed me

The sand shows trails, like serpents, of this fragility

I bleed: the gravel grinds my skin and flesh

李白静夜思

床前明月光,

疑是地上霜.

举头望明月,

低头思故乡

This is my dad’s favorite poem.

And I have no idea what it means.

Breaking News - Serial Killer James ‘Smiles’ Hiraeth Suspected for the Murder of a 7-year-old girl. Mother Beth Reiner stricken with grief, medical practitioners dispatched to relocate to local sanitarium

Forgiveness - Beth Reiner

After Toni Morrison’s Beloved

Mother, tell me about the child in your womb.

I ate the placenta and the umbilical cord

(and i ate and i ate).

I tasted the iron on my teeth

(it stained until i swallowed and i swallowed the hydrogen peroxide).

Been sitting still the whole day

Can’t sleep

Thank you trazowhatervthehellyouare

For the frog and the eyes

And the image of my

Ex-girlfriend in the sun and

What am I saying?

What’ve I done?

Graze the lips with concrete and floss with blood

Wintergreen and sharp, pennies in the mouth that

Rattle like bicycle wheels down long hills.

Bandaid sticky, adhesive concealer that fortifies a face

To face the world dripping with bruises, salt, and the momentum

My brother’s just moved into college!

Well, not entirely- there’s still his coffee machine and a box of granola bars, but we’re driving those to him today.