I want to be the light

that lifts and laughs,

raises a tent

of your circus colored smile.

Mysterious, wonderful,

well worn and childlike

eyes blink joy,

blink love,

blink carnival lights.

Hues that flash on

when the sun catches

the right angle.

A short cropped lion’s mane

tangle of spun sugar

floats and spouts from your roof

in shades of coins,

tokens,

golden carousel rings

of past lives, caught.

An elephant too smart

and sensitive,

too sentimental to enjoy

the hind leg dances

and feigned grandeur.

The gentle smirk of you,

the cynic in the back row

waiting for the acrobat to fall,

but hoping with vigor

and cajoled by their inner child

to instead gape open in awe.

I grabbed your hands

in a flurry of sparkles

and bravado.

Swung us both on the strength

of my knees.

We hung there,

hearts in throats.

We slipped and fell,

only to discover

our tangled limbs

created the most comforting net

beneath us.

I feel assaulted,

bittersweet,

malted and mixed up,

fucked up on liquor

for the first time

in a long while.

I feel steadfast,

stoic,

a tad bit heroic

for not crying at all today

but there are still three hours to wait.

I haven't drunk in awhile.

It is Friday night,

I am tired,

and I still have two days

until I face you for the last time.

I cuddle my cup

and cover up

to be mindless and sucked in

by Law and Order: SVU.

These are their stories,

and they are much more

fucked up than me or you.

#poetry

Sitting in the cold car,

listening to ice fall

from the trees.

Snow coats the grass.

I can feel winter

circling around my feet.

My knees.

Snow and ice battle leaves

for property.

I feel pressure in my chest,

a magic force,

forcing out between

my breasts,

an open and uncaged love.

Like the parakeets that sing

as if they live in Australia,

not in metal

next to the window and the rain.

I could flip myself inside out,

but I would be too raw to stand.

So, I hold my shit together,

breathe,

count,

sing,

rub my hands,

and focus the energy elsewhere,

to something less self serving.

I feel too old to be destructive,

but I’m about as nuanced

as candy corn.

If I leave this car,

I will melt into yellow, orange

slush on the pavement

and attract bugs.

Who says my tits

need to point to the ceiling?

Not the sleet,

the leaves,

or me.

I may have been a shaman once,

but not now.

Just a pet fish flopping

on a carpeted floor,

a feast for cats,

a small child’s tears.

A 600 pound woman

who has fallen

and crushed her dog.

A mother wakes

on top of her lifeless baby.

Roadkill dying alone,

in pain,

scared.

Heartsickness booming

Disgust that my brain

considers these things

The same neurons that

invent horrors,

allow me to

straddle the chasm

between grey and blue.

The same neurons

sometimes give me hope.

I’ve gone decrepit,

furnished with pain.

Walls painted

with the vestiges

of my vices.

Peeling.

The carpets are old,

dirty,

faded and stained.

Frayed.

There are creaks

in the stairs,

and water leaks

in around the windows.

My toilet clogs,

runs,

but you

jiggle

my handle,

then soak

in my hairy tub.

You eat at my sticky table,

then lay in my

nasty sheets.

It was the coldest,

most golden day.

Frozen hell fire

burning swaying

trees.

My heart turning,

aging,

knowing,

changing,

floating in a glass bowl,

naked,

exposed to the elements.

It was a beautiful day. 

The sun ignited

the leaves

and scattered

the way it would

through glass block.

My dad was ashes,

cold,

heavier than I expected,

in a plastic box

inside of a bag.

My cheeks fiery

in frozen wind,

burnt by autumnal pyres

with the gall

to invade me raw,

scattered,

leaf-like.

Leaving bright specks

across my vision.

Fall came late

and left me brittle,

ready to be a mote

in wind.

Pining for empty,

grey-brown-bended

branches

to break up

blank.

At dusk,

the roads were empty,

leaf strewn,

deaf to

the messy misfires

of my neurons.

I was ugly,

shredded with saws.

My father had his

leg cut off

and couldn't recover.

We are just

meat to be chopped

on the butcher's block,

eventually consumed.

I have learned forgiveness.

At the end, it was me

who had the butcher's knife,

the power to sever,

to coat my apron

in blood,

but I am dressed in white

and I am clean.

My ears pop upon ascension.

I zone out.

We could halt the plane

and hover,

vibrating above the brackish.

The sparkling sheen of

bay water

curled into the hooked coast

A lover’s finger wrapped.

I become a flamingo,

one long leg extended 

downward.Planted. 

Sunset colored.

Weird.

I imagine my brain

as two organs.

A separate creative lobe

soft like liver

and leaking blood.

If I cup my hand to my ear

and make suction,

it might come out throbbing,

dripping,

and heavy on my palm.

Coating my fingers

and spelling word in cursive

down my arms.

Leaving prints on

my clear plastic cup

of ginger ale,

and staining

the squeaky seats.

Pittsburgh was built

in the flood plain

and I grew with

roots splayed

in the silt

on the street

that gets left behind.

I sink my claws

into cracks

in the concrete

carved by repeated

aquatic barrage.

I’ve learned to

scale hillsides,

and bridge supports,

and telephone poles.

Knees full of cinders

and splinters.

Knees on legs

that steady me

on the soft ground

of subsided mines,

of mudslides,

and vow to be

an altruistic pier

at every brown,

rushing

confluence.

My head is

all filled up

and the pigeons

are perched

on the girders

beneath the bridge.

Trees are

getting ground

into sawdust

in a parking lot.

The traffic bumps

along slow

and my toes

tap the brakes.

I take a trip.

I have been a nomad

sailing seas.

A pirate marooned,

surrounded by

oceans

slurried with plastic.

I don't know what is food

and what is foreign matter.

I am a fish

at the surface

of a bowl,

waiting for flakes

to fall

and float.

I suck them in,

swim away.