liar

i promised myself
i would never
write another poem
about you

dreams

i wish i could
wish myself
to death

hope so hard
my heart stops
this painful beating
in my chest

forget it

i take your fantasy and wring it
wildly over my chest, drink what
you had thought was yours

it tastes of saline and false unicorn
tea-- i mean false reality

if i hadn't taken the truth through the wash with me
i doubt you'd listen, i doubt you'd believe
me anyways.

displacement

i published
a poem
about you

i gave
the book
to another man

he really likes
it. he thinks
it's about him

work drunk

the taste bites my tongue
overhead, a fan spins
the bug bites on my legs bubble
and pop. the pus runs clear.

train station

september winds widen the air space
between my house and your backyard

i find myself cutting
the grass, trying to incite your allergies

i wipe your sneeze off my sleeve
look to the sun and breathe deep

too often i reach out, over
the fence and pluck leaves from your almond tree

cup them to my nose, eyes closed

my middle name is also eva or eve

curved fingers dipped in gold gripping plums
like palms purpled from the beating of strong winds and summer sun--
when pressed to lips they shiver and bleed flavor of shadows and breaking down liver
i carve a bucket from my thigh and let you drop them in so as not to bear the weight
my excuse is your arms are twigs and my legs are branches

licking the skins of figs the leaves leave shapes burned to our bellies
your gray wisps whip my lips and i tell you my sin
my secret of the snake and how i starved it to death
bagged it and buried it beneath the orchid that no longer blooms and is home
to a garden spider

no number

i can’t remember the last time
you called me. as each day passed i threw
a poppy seed on the ground and now there are so many
i don’t even believe i can
count that high.

sobriety

hands flailing skyward, to hang from the moon
would be ideal

the water coats my face, below a mysterious
darkness beckons

the surface breaks with a struggle, september
disguised as cement

a craving for a towel and clean clothes, the shoreline
miles in any direction

awaiting me: sunshine, the sensation of
sand in between each toe

a place to rest my weary arms, a hair tie to keep
everything else within sight

meditation

a walk in the hillside exposes a fallen cedar. it erodes under a crest of light and a pile of pine needles. spiders nest in the holes built into the spine. southside: 3 mushrooms absorb what little moisture is left sitting in the soil under a fern. a shadow cast eastward awakes the owls while the women in town tuck their children into their beds.

vicodin

sore ankles support a sack
of skin, scaly and saggy
and pulling on the bones

bent from the inside out--
intestines tangled up in the chest
alone like the tree-line

my attention is elsewhere
and i can no longer feel
the pain