Vows. A commitment to Truth. The psychosis of relationship. Impermanance.

Turn to me. And pluck out eyes with eyes. I am just another who will die I know. But I want you to always be mine and with me in my bed, I want us to always be happy together. You wake up with dreams of a past lover and I go upstairs to make us breakfast forever. Peppermint and ginger are too sharp in the back of my throat when put into the same glass at the same time. You write songs you leave on your piano I read when you’re not around. I can’t read the books I want to when I want you on my neck. I can’t read the books I need to read when you are on my neck. The internet isn’t working. All the furniture in the place where I keep my stuff is gone. I sleep on a hard floor if you don’t call me in fifteen minutes. I make rules to make sure I’m not ruled by something like my want to be with you. Time is only sacred when I light candles and turn on music. A bath and salts. When I pretend to enjoy being lonely. I think about all the manipulative things I could say to you. The internet isn’t working. Who am I next to her? Asian women are a threat from now on – an entire race able to take you away. I am just books and bad credit. I am just twenty-three, and sweet. I am just white and soft and young right now. After I give birth to your children, I hope you know. That every woman grows old. Our children will have blue eyes and dirty blond hair. Have you seen my mother? You didn’t’ like me in the house where I grew up. You don’t like me when I’m sick or sad. You don’t like me every other month. Our cards read schizophrenic. You love me yesterday. OK. Well. Goodnight. I love you. You call me by my first name like it is a name you’ve given me out of your fondness. When you write songs about love, you say “you” but who are you referring to? Cause tonight it was “you” meaning her. like she is the “you” you have always referred to. The one you will always refer to. I’m not crazy. I don’t think I can do this anymore. My space is not mine without you. What would my room look like if it was yours too? Let’s move in and get all unconventionally domestic. Let’s always come home to each other and be more excited about it everyday. Call me, damn it, or I swear to God. I will sit here and distract myself all night long. I will not sleep well. And I will tell you otherwise in the morning.

in between my teeth

In my sleep I speak out loud “He’s been daughtering his hands - they’re too soft for hot water.”
In the morning I read out loud a headline from the newspaper “Fangs and Feathers in Rare Fossil”
In the streets I call to people their names but they cannot hear me, their ears numbed by the sounds of civil and concrete.
In the night, I am quieted by ghosts in screens who tell me
not to speak or to think, not to think or to speak, not to speak,
but to buy and marry.
I floss and brush and rinse for it.
It’s on the top of my tongue,
(right where meat meets molars)
I’ve been looking even in between my teeth tonight.
For solace.
Mother writes me letters – she says, “ It’s in your bones.”
So I stretch and shake and peel back layers of pages of skins, of wishes for memories of sins.
What did I commit?
All I find are apples and ribs.
I seek the oceans for it (phosphorescent) and dredge up only old Spanish galleons, constitutions, stirrups and saddles. I find cowboys and ovens. I find suit coats and diamonds.
I’ve been told -
This country wears her hair long and braided. She wears an apron and spits on skillets, banging a triangle she calls for us all to come home.
In this earth there is nothing to find but the bones of soldiers and once erected stones.
I want my body back but it sits in cages and waits tables in diners.
So I reach down to put my hands between my legs and find shopping malls, I find legs crossed patiently, I find a fragile disposition.
I find wet and wanting skin.
I find dry and beaten skin.
In between teeth and the concave of space of living and the air that doesn’t feel like anything. In between the words that describe me and your understanding of them. In between the minutes that slip so quickly through the space between my fingers. In between my skin and your skin. In between the walls of my body, and the bubbles and holes of ozone, in between each breath. In between now… and now… and then.
This is where I live.