there is a tulip

there is a tulip

that looks like an alien radicchio

or an angel fetus

what the heck

it is too frilly to be a tulip

it is a baroque mess of violins blasted

from a passing car as you walk

back to your apartment where most

days are ordinary but today was not

today you were exceptionally afraid

and then you were not

the tulip sways in and out of your vision

oh consummate and dangerous dancer

oh totally fucked primaveral dreamwing

the tulip breaks

over your head in a burning wave

you could pull a sword out of a stone

or out of your stomach and survive

needing only five stitches

you also have a sudden fierce

craving for hummus

isn’t life a scream

by the way, the tulip was purple

like really deep purple

i go ballroom dancing and then

i go ballroom dancing and then

i walk to your house

 

at this point in my life, everything is within

walking distance

 

which is to say, everything looms

large in my vision

 

and everything hits close to the heart

with millimeters to spare

 

i think i know who you have a crush on, you say,

and proceed to guess correctly

 

you saw her and i sitting at a party

with our thighs touching

 

i had cake and vodka in the same

plastic cup

 

my life was an oil painting wedged in the mouth

of a lit fireplace

 

and the smoke poured out thick and fast

and deliriant blue

 

i sleep the night on your couch, nine fine-spun hours

with the moon’s hand on my chest

 

when i wake up it is too cold for me to walk home

in the skirt and tights i came in

 

so you lend me a pair of your pants and walk me home

as i wear your too-big pants

 

a few days later i return the pants, folded in fourths

on the edge of your desk

 

when you are not in school you sell, among other things, tulips

and squashes from your farm

 

you have an unspoken understanding with the world around you

 

your work is to coax

your gift is translucence

 

your sigil is water in the everlasting process

of becoming still

 

i fly into my rages or go terminal with love

 

and you’re there, annotating poems, stringing together glass beads

you fired in the craft center kiln

 

shitty beads by ben™ you call them

 

some are round and some look like

bits of pasta

 

one is a turtle and another is half-guy’s head,

half-dinosaur

 

i know you’ve hurt people in this life like everyone else

 

but still i touch my wrist joint to the wrist joint of your black dog

and say goodnight

 

knowing we will see each other soon

you were in fourth grade

you were in fourth grade and sam was in fifth, reading together from a book about the trojan war. sometimes you were first to finish both pages and enjoyed a few seconds to yourself as sam caught up. other times she was the one waiting for you. menna-loss, you pronounced it. sam said, it’s actually menna-layus, and you stared. you couldn’t tell her how it brought you to your knees, that syllable break between the a and the u opening like a struck oyster. through the fracture, a violin hummed. a curtain drew back on a cracked painting of a redheaded woman. the woman led a goat to a stream and it drank thirstily. menelaus, you incanted, and went home and sharpened a pencil.

one night my friend pointed out

one night my friend pointed out

a darkened shopfront

with a disembodied pelvis

perched on a kitchen stool

one thing followed another

and i thought, “i am in love with her”

it was western oregon’s most doomed thought

from 2016 to 2018, for which it received

a bouquet of pink ranunculus

two casks of nitroglycerine

and a hand-stitched sash

the sense it made

was tectonic in scale

how could i not bury it deeper

than even my fear of extinction?

hobbled with secrecy, i scrawled

profanities on notebook paper

and fed them to a campfire

people thought i was trying to be funny

but i was trying to perform surgery

the neighbor’s parrot screamed all night

from the fact of being alive

or perhaps he had a dilemma like mine

a lone black wing beating

auroras out of the air

i named him ambulance dave

i burned my fingers

on the horns of my hips

and prayed for escape

i want group hugs
In front of thai restaurants

i want group hugs in front of thai restaurants

that last longer than any human

would deem reasonable.

i want a clothbound book

with deckled edges to record

all the unbelievable signs i’ve been reading:

handy hands, swan island dahlias,

largest reptile show in the northwest.

i want wooden chopsticks with my takeout

instead of a plastic fork though what i really

should want is consistent metal cutlery

for all my meals. i want more

lanky androgynous metal guitarists

whose sharp dancing fixes me

in a fugue of orchid-white yearning.

i want more small stories with good endings,

like this one: chessie was walking and met

a brown tabby cat. upon realizing the cat

matched the photos on a missing cat poster

she called his human to say he’d been found.

oh, said the human, he’s an outdoor cat

and he’s been found for awhile now

but i haven’t taken all the posters down

because i forgot where i put them.

it was part of the local lore: people called in

regularly to report sightings

of the cat who was found, and found,

and found again. perhaps exponential foundness

could feel like this: i approach two friends

curled on a comically large beanbag

and ask to join them. our closeness

crescendos until our bodies

enmesh like figures in a klimt painting.

a toast to our squished angles

and luminescent patchwork.

a toast to stomach noises.

i want to climb a semi-extinct volcano

and tell the world about our clump.

i want to be the french braid

on an acrobat’s head.

oh child, your hair was an animal

oh child, your hair was an animal, preening on your shoulder like a fox. it had two bright eyes that roved around its body. when you ran your fingers through it, it made a low rumbling. what was that, asked your deskmate. my hair, you said. your deskmate twisted her mouth around. you’re a mental case, she spat. your hair hunted at night through tunnels and trees, and one morning it brought you a mottled egg. inside was a new feeling. it started with an a. you spelled it in the sand and pored it over. a-n-g-r-y. the egg imploded. your deskmate was running through the soccer field, and suddenly you saw clean through her skull to two structures inside like glowing almonds. anger was a net of stars around you, a lace of aluminum trusses. it was lightweight and silver and did not debase you, not for years yet. you threw back your head, and the soccer ball paused at its zenith. in the trees, animals licked their coats to a holy shine.

not me in the mirror

not me in the mirror

not me with my veins glowing

through the wall and my vows

in pieces on the opposite wall

the flame starts at my sweater hem

and burns up what is human in me

forgive me for being a cornered rat

forgive me for thinking there was

something in the sky

for finding a tiny door with a painted eye

and believing so ardently that it led

somewhere other than a blank wall

that i let the rest of my life

curl up at the edges and wither

i thought i was a heron made of fire

but i was only the patron saint of driving

myself home with a brain injury

on top of my thoroughbred depression

my only goal was to get home safe

i didn’t plan for what came after, and after

when i said the light hurt my eyes

i meant it in more ways than i could imagine

the doctor said there was bad news and good news

they were the same

that there is no end in sight

i love the way you move through time

i love the way you move through time.

i want to move through time with you.

let’s go to the museum of miniatures

and look at the horse carved

from the lead of a sharpened pencil.

let’s get hospitalized together.

when i drink too much, join me

under the blankets and rub my back.

pour me a glass of water and make me

finish it. make me finish what i begin. hold me

to ideas of beauty and valor

that make sense and feel attainable.

when i’m busted for my arson ring,

be my prison penpal. forgive me

for the way i keep speaking in imperatives.

let’s make a language full of wildflower

fricatives and vintage memes and

lingering touches of the hand

that give way to moments of piercing

grace. i’ll distract the guard while you trace

a fingertip down the marble statue’s

immaculate asscrack.

when you laugh, the bloom it makes

is bluer than the spark

flashing through a cat’s winter fur:

something i can feel worthy of

one day your heart will have enough

one day your heart will have enough

and lie down by the side of the road

feeling the wind caress its damp face

yes your heart has a face

it is crooked and secretive, tucked away

in a meaty fold like something delicious

some wonderful lewdness

your heart will sink into the reeds

and a stranger on a dark horse will ride by

abrim with silvery accoutrements

jingling and flashing from under their cloak

maybe a sword in their orbit, maybe

a bird or the idea of one nearby

the stranger will place their fingers

in your heart’s mouth until it shudders

like an engine and goes blue-black

your heart will jostle in a sack

with others just like it, hitched

to the stranger’s saddle, and the world

will continue its fascinating work

ribbons in the trees

towers in the distance