insomnia

it creeps back in when you least expect it,
edging around the screen door,
flitting up the stairs, and i'm
just too damn tired to fight it,
my mind still pounding like a battering ram.
"Kill the beast!" legs twitch,
arms shift, and the downpour won't flood the streets
tomorrow, i won't take the heat,
but God willing, i just might get some sleep.

crush

guns erupt with a thwop and a thunk
and a tiny explosion of starch on the green
while boisterous blond memories tap dance
and fraternize across this last week and
this god-awful pain up the side of my skull

easy to say that you love me, kid,
easier still to believe i'd love you back
but he'd never fold an iris into my curls
and you should hold out for some other girl
somebody who isn't running to end up in the gutter.

retrograde

my hands are weathered,
more agile and less learned
but the soap is the same.
a rough antiseptic wreaking havoc on my
unbitten cuticles and lined palms

and she tried to curry favor with jamaica
came out jaundiced, salted, cruel
but lilac proud

i am the cherry taste on your lips
and the years you can't forget

i am your mistake; you are my restraint.
regret me if you choose,
but i will practice you

mysterious

i wanted to return the favor and
so i made an inquiry in your name but
he sort of shot me down with more words than
i've ever heard him use but then
a few hours later i went back to grab my things
saw him sitting on the couch and watched him sing
and baby, i can't tell you any more now
than i thought i could before but i tried,
yeah i tried and i'm sorry that he hurts you.
yeah i'm sorry that he hurts you,
and not just when it hurts me too.

everybody's got a little schizophrenic going,
everyone's a sinner, talking to themselves,
everybody's bound for heaven, less of course they land in hell
and i see your bipolar and understand
and i love you anyway
and he just sees a selfish struggle.

so let's call him a Muggle,
and wash our hands clean of it.

smoke and mirrors

to keep myself from feeling oh so small,
i go and let the curtain fall
over the sad little girl too pathetic to get over it,
too bitter to let you forget it,
too determined to do what they expect
to let the facade crumble down
(though i try to hide it, it's clear,
and you can fill in the next line.)
if you feel the need to interfere,
or be irritated with me, dear,
have some fucking fun.

but i swim in frigid ocean waves if the sky is blue enough and i don't worry about the dangers lurking beneath the surface of your love, or lack thereof.

if you gave me less credit, you'd be less disappointed.

a very long poem about my very long weekend

i drifted that day reveling in sunshine
and turquoise satin, which is almost exactly
what i've wanted for a year now and

what i want more than anything, i can't have.

lady, don't treat me like a child, too soon we'll
exchange on a first-name basis and maybe i'll write a song
for you because i think it might sound nice but please
at least pretend to be as crazed as i am

dear father, all i can really ask is why?

and you are three twins, i know it's what you want and
i get it and i'm glad but i want you and you don't have a clue

and love is real, not fade away! (not fade away)
we're all still here, the same today!
looking for a miracle, dancing in the streets,
sharing bags of cocaine sharing all you've got to eat
children playing in the dirt will never know another way
and thirty years from now my daughter will wonder how they went astray
and it was too small, that part of me that wanted to stay,
i drank it, shimmied in the contact high the haze of illegal blues
got me down deep baby, deep.

forget the mile high club. some day i want to have sex at a concert.

and my shirtsleeves roll up and random gives me hope but
it wasn't too long ago i was crying and so much i can never change

because it will never, ever be the same
and you'll never, ever say my name.

but i want you. i want you so bad.

week six (a haiku)

i dig my fingers in dirt
she digs into you
my gaze betrays my smile