I like to stare at the Ikea light fixture in the living room,
letting the middle bulb sink into my shallow eyes.
I look until it starts to hurt, my ripped fingernails gripping
the worn suede of the couch as pupils get lost in

I miss running down the street with you at half past 3
When your dad dropped you off after softball practice on Sunday afternoons.
And there was never anything more than grass stains on white pants and empty soda cans that my mom told me to throw away two hours ago.

i never met her
but i always knew she was there
my dad talked about her so fondly
“we used to drive
for hours listening to old cassette tapes
singing along
not knowing where we were going
but not caring”
sometimes

I can’t remember
why pink ice cream
smells of lakes
and trips to grandma’s house
I have no memory
of cherry chocolate chunk ice cream melting
in my mouth
But sometimes
I lick my fingers
just to make sure
I’ve gotten the last drops 

The West,
To me,
Is Capoeira.

Boundless
And filled with
Saudade.

It is
The macaws
Of the Amazon.
And the macaques
Of the tamarind trees.

In the West,
I string words together like
beads.

Montana and Wyoming
The sprawling landscape of Yellowstone
Against towering mountains
Form a place that I’d never seen before
The animals and people you meet at pull offs
Are what make the experience an experience
Waiting for Old Faithful to burst

Yesterday, I took a walk.
I went through the park,
I passed by one empty cup,
two used napkins,
three cigarette butts.
I jaywalked across the street,
past the hardware store
and into the coffee shop.
I ordered a small latte,

why do i allow myself to participate in something as dangerously stupid as Love?
allow myself to participate
i say
as if i don’t
put myself up to bat
in a room full of automatic pitch machines

Wet hair clings to my cheeks
salty from the rain
Drops like tears slide down my nose
as the gray of the sky peers down upon me
Barefoot in the grass
for a few moments
I forget about the life I am crushing below
With my eyes closed

It’s strung together through the fibers on the back of the lost
Dreams that leave you sweat-stained and hopeful
How dare we doubt ourselves?
In the midst of our mist and making, we think to miss?

Maybe it was the wind that blew her to the ground.
Maybe a subtle hollow she hadn’t noticed brought her down.
Either way, she ends up in the dirt.
Earth covers the soft pink fabric draped over her
Like paint splattered on a porcelain canvas.

A ransacked village in India is where my lineage began
Women.
Women, I will
And
Can never, ever know.
Tribulations my western brain
Cannot comprehend.
They made me.
I have the blood of
Hundreds

I am from
the expressions of my people
flattened nose and slits for eyes
leathery skin and cricks in my back
each feature of mine
a reflection of my family heritage

Somehow, I pull the words out of my mouth like the colorful scarves inside the sleeve of an amateur magician
And we are both trying so hard
To save our best magic trick to use on ourselves
So that everyone can stop asking so much of us

bent backs
grasses bent in a tweak of fingers
bent my fingers bent my bones
my toes in
earth sweating dew
digging a way out

sweetness
sucking on a single clover

I will count them all
shards of glass in the mirror

every part of me adds
up to nothing

I’m standing in front of violets
in front of a Renaissance painting
and wondering what do I have

Let’s make one thing clear:
there wasn’t a big bad wolf.
Not in my story.
There was no screaming
and running of little girls.
This is an old story;
One where
the structure of power
that had devoured
the generations of women

momma momma momma
it was ricky it was ricky

momma don’t believe that it was ricky who done it
she thinks i killed him

momma momma momma
don’t call the fuzz
it was ricky it was ricky

in this town
words hold hostages
not meaning.
if i cry i will
bleed, and i will
lose,
integrity and i will
rip apart the frontdrop that has
made my portraits pretty
for (maybe) minutes on end.

I’ve never understood why people are so disgusted
by silverfish.
I like the little guys.
They way they scurry around from place to place,
they’ve always got somewhere to be,
perhaps because they don’t like where they are.
I know the feeling.

From the moment a screaming woman thrusts us into the world,
Soft, bloody heads first.
We begin to deteriorate.
For some, that occurs at a faster pace than others.

I feel that if I move from this spot I will die. But I take a step forward and don’t.

Forgive me father for I have sinned.

Once, before the people moved in,
before they took my brothers
and sisters
and cousins
and friends,
I saw the sun.
I grew up
and I grew strong,
trying to reach the sky.
I meant to make
the world beautiful,
but I was robbed

I wake before you and in the darkness,
I don’t recognize you right away.
Your lashes bring their own light,
full like fields of crows,
a murder of crows. The birds nested
on the hill I’m sure I’ve told you about
in front of the tomb, white stones holding

Pouring all of the liquor you can find in the house down the drain is the most fun the daughter of an alcoholic can have without attending therapy. Isn’t that how the saying goes?

who cares about that umbilical cord when it doesn’t stop you from hurting me
you say I’m part of you but I feel you don’t love every part of me
let’s go through my childhood book of memories
earliest one my neck falling backwards

7 november 2017 (sight)
your veiny, wan feet/expansion/between you/the floorboards/creation of
     space
smacking the granite countertop breaks
     infinity they say

This is the pretend-dream,
where I am teaching you to swim,
and your body and my body
remember their names in the water.

We pull them from the lake
where they’ve been drowning,
covered in salt, covered in
sweat and horsetails.

She whispers in my ear when hugging me
I want to stay here forever
I don’t want to go

I’m driftwood
I don’t ever stay for long
But I don’t have the strength to pull away

I know
that when I die
I’ll sink into the soil
Be eaten by all the things I’ve eaten
Become the dirt for all to walk upon
I know that my thoughts are just neurons firing
That my heart is a collection of molecules
that happen to beat