I remember Pauline Miller. Before she moved,
She lived in an understated, light green, box of house
on Raldoph Avenue.
She lived there for a long time.

Hair up
Tarp down
Pop
My mother uses her strength to cradle
Our liquid gold
Douses the pan with potential energy
And snaps the blade to its wand
The brush crackles and crinkles
Screams
She slaps more gold on the canvas

My blood is not pure.
Siphoned through custom it puddles as an unholy poison. 
A mixture between castes that courses sin through my veins
Broken tradition seeps through my marrow
and pools black in the hardened pupils of my grandmother

As the years go by and we outgrow our old faces and our old skin and our old identities, 
I wonder to myself if we are really becoming new people at all, 
or if we are simply just accumulating more years and more selves 

Please leave a message after the tone.
I love you. I really do.
I had so much fun today.
I’m so lucky to have you in my life.
We’re just an amazing, perfect match.
Text me to plan a date for next week.

Dimensions, our world
Minds comprehend first through third
Fail at the fourth, time

Time flies.
I was in love with you.
You said “ily2”.
I treated you with respect and love.
You said you appreciated it.
That was 1 year ago, oh how time flies.
I continued to love you unconditionally.
You said “ily2 bb”.

The tabletop
Dirty
With years of paint.
A paint knife
A sponge
A cup of water
The only things that remove years of memories
A fresh palate
Orange watercolor
Pink tempura
Black acrylic
White wall paint
And hot glue

white road lines merging under
our worn out tires,
taking us away
the radio vibrates with
noise over the homeless 
man on the curb,
boombox over stereo
used to be versions of me
over what we’re left with
maybe he wants to get hit

I love the smell of cigarette smoke 
Not because I’m a smoker, I love the smell because 
It takes me back, back to the piss stained streets 
That raised me, where the overwhelming aroma
Of freshly lit cigarettes plagued the air 

she is four years old
toddling around
on wooden floors
like a spinning top,
too short to reach the cabinets or
see above the sink,
clambering atop
countertops
to reach her
pink plastic glasses

Age is just a number
We all start out at one
But someone’s first year
Is another’s seventh
Their neighbor’s eleventh
My fifteenth

The clock glares at me,
with the steady
accusations
of her hands –
Where will you be
In an hour,
 In a day,
 In a year?

You ruffled dress.
You lip glossed, 
clean tongued, classy individual.

I am from the nail polish in my room,
From holographic glitter and high heels.
I am from the toys on the ground
(rainbow, soft, Sasha never picks them up.)
I am from cacti pricking my fingers,
From shopping and thanksgiving,
From Sasha to Caleb.

Alone to my thoughts, to my terrors,
Wishing upon days we were careless,
Remembering a time, 
Like a nursery rhyme,
Where our greatest fears were that of the fearless.

If time could be measured in words
I would handwrite novels until my knuckles bled
Analyze every single piece written by Steven King twice
Type poems so complex so that the meaning gets lost
Construct every screenplay to give you the ending you deserve

When I was a little girl,
I wanted to be a princess,
then a vet,
then a president.
I know many girls who at my age
shared those dreams.
The ones I look at now and think
What was I thinking?
Those aren’t possible!
But for a little girl,

it’s been a while
        since I found encouragement
        to rid myself of this
        writer malnourishment
        I guess I lost myself
        trying to explore the world
        yet I still found my mind in the gutters

Hours are not spent well in lethargy
nor in deep-seated exhaustion
Hours are rarely spent
more – lost

a house can feel like a whole world
when you’re lying in your bed at 4 a.m.,
too early to rise in a coup against the lingering stars,
too late for the soft black of the backs of eyelids to last long enough,

Your polaroids next to my polaroids
Yours taken with your ‘new’ polaroid camera (1960)
Mine taken with my friend’s ‘new’ polaroid camera (2017)
Yours, yellowed, colors fading,
Mine, stark white with bold colors.

I break down in the supermarket grocery aisles
because I only have five minutes to make the choice
between a variety of granola bars.

screaming letters warn
cautioning, threatening
but I lean in
revel in the reveal 
most don’t like spoilers
but I live for them

I see the pieces on the ground,
So broken, scattered, torn.
The pieces long forgotten,
Continents and oceans overworn.

Nepal, Hawaii, St. Lucia
In a long, congested heap.
The passed families stay afloat,
Souls torn by the Reap. 

prometheus — light crammed between his jaws
licking up the insides of his teeth
scratching enamels in their
his climb — ran triumphant
meek made resplendent tossing
the ember from his mouth and
great golden blooms sprouted into the loam

I self-reflect
And I gaze deep
To try to forget the secrets that I keep

I bind myself
And hide my chest
All day long until I rest

I stay at home
And lay in bed
Trying to drown out what you said

Sometimes I go through days where I will buy a whole bag of fortune cookies from the Panda Express drive-thru 
and eat them all in one sitting, just so that someone can tell me something good. 

If I were to pluck my feathers,
I wouldn’t be able to fly.

But I want to feel the grass underneath my feet

I hop like a robin on the sidewalk
(away from flight, towards dandelions
sprouting in cracked concrete)

The moment I was conceived
And my egg was fertilized to have xx chromosomes
Instead of xy
My body was taken away from me
And placed in the hands of men
The hands of men that control dress codes
The fingers that will slap my ass as I walk down the street