In the low light of dawn, I master—
I conquered
my body and led it / as a slave.

I’m thinking of your fallow tongue,
the taste of what you did and didn’t say.

Southward

You are the big blue sky
I never thought you would have
The moment when you turn your head over
So the water freezes
So the ginkgo falls
So the wall full of photos is also pale
And

just looked outside
to see what’s going on
whatever         it

is thursday
precious, beautiful
whatever as ever

and i can’t
pry my hand
off the windowsill

i’m driving the future
it’s a

You had one of those
shag haircuts that all lesbians
in Brooklyn have we sipped
your favorite pink drink

From champagne flutes as the
sun bled crimson and the air
crisped between us you’ve

Waxing Phase

Sparrow day
draining to red

red wall of night
night a voice

caught within the throat
the throat a tunnel

a blackened river
a wing bending

a moonrise

Night

Hiring Bodyman

This city hates me

I get so tired
of waiting

for you
I groom myself

Now all I have to do
is show up at your door

& you’ll call me sweetheart
forever

I hate

that was the year that all the carnivals came to town. sounds like a fake small town thing, but when you live in a small town, all the things that happen are fake small town things, except they’re

I'm Not

Losing / floundering
ignoring / coasting
retreating/ rethinking
stalling / shrinking

I am settling my debts
clearing the inventory
and wiring the electric
to be seen in my own

i think you can learn a lot about a person
based on their Super Smash Bros main. or starsign.
or by asking. how convenient to be told? to learn
in spite of our own misgivings. part of growing

I wake to the shuffle of wind along the sill.
The soft moon hue weighs on my blanket, saying nothing.
From the fragile dark, experiences remembered
become rocks tied to my ankles and feelings churn

Years later, he asked “Do you still use this email?”
and I replied “No.”

Sometimes
trauma is a prerequisite for softness.
It depends on where you’re from,
and who you ask, but you should always ask.

hemos vuelto heridos de una guerra que todavía no empieza
yo perdí una de mis extremidades
y él las perdió todas

caught in self-asylum / let it rile ‘em

1. Teller

as a teller i tell people things

like no

but mostly yes

and

can you wait a minute i need to ask my manager

and i smile and give dogs treats

i didn’t

according to my mother, men
are just thieves rifling through another’s calm...

oh raised-hand Matt. you
centrist bastard, your mouth kool-aid-stained
with stubble, it gushed and fucking gushed.

You can never return to the track. A hard truth, heaven knows, but heed me— delay the wreck
and coma. Take a longer backwards way and savor that last downhill run, the final door to close.

...she told me she had lived in Singapore
too long to call it home anymore. She hated her name so together we made
her a new one, & like this she finally belonged to herself.

Remember when Lena Dunham said

She wished she’d had an abortion?

On the other side of the apocalypse, you will become something unimagined,
you will dissolve and finally become the wind—then, you will be enough

i ask if i could be june
my birth month he says all days any days
for a smile like mine

Fuck an infographic — where’s the paper?
Operation: Get Paper to hand out paper,
‘cause all my people needed was their papers.

The Day I Drove to Dubuque (an Hour and Fifteen Minutes One-Way) to Find Out I Had $1.09 Left on a Books-A-Million Gift Card

poetry in real life is January in Iowa,
watching from my