The Worst Night of My Life as Evidence

They ask me to explain it in lightning bug,
but I am more corroded copper green wire.
And I forgot your Instagram username,
but I remembered you in bed
with your bracelets clanking like loose change.

I am so sad, and there is no blood in me.
They stuck me ten times because
nothing would leak out of me like a
mouldy peach and the only thing that is real
is the bruising like court stenography on my hands.

I am more than guilty.
I am a red moon when I am drunk,
but a moon all of the time. And I don’t know
how to keep on living, but I keep on
rotating over and over.

The chart says somehow
they have three vials of my blood,
and so I am trying to frame that as
evidence. Look for light to refract.
Chant: I have blood.
I have blood.


Thinking About Fire in San Diego

How sea lions look like sardines.
Seals, the letter U, and also V,
and how orange bikinis are kinetic
on bodies that aren’t mine.
When I’m told I’m Chief Copy
Editor, I go dormant. Press
cancel print on myself and dream
about fire not burning. I would like
to think I am a slat of wood
running horizontal in my ceiling.
But really, I am a tree shaped like
a witch’s hand with the top knuckles bent,
in the abandoned yard we passed
on our walk. I am learning
new ways to crack my fingers.
I am letting myself look straight
in my brother’s eyes while
beads of sweat glisten on my
forehead like spider’s
eyes and melted ice cream.
I am trying to love the crook in my back.
I am trying to slurp ice cream melted.
I no longer want to be the orange
horizon line above the ocean.
I want to squiggle like a speck of sand
in the wind. Marinate
the eyes of a stranger.


Endings as Cows

I read another poem and love everything
in this world again; except myself
for not having written it.
I want to be five years old again, asking
why until the words dry in my mouth.
Why milk. Why cow’s milk.

I’d ask you why. But I’m scared
to talk to you because the only words
that’ll come out are: the end.
The funny thing is I’m not actually
scared of endings. Or beginnings.
Only how they collapse into one

like an undigested holy spirit analogy
fed to me in my formative years.
For once, I demand an ending
that is only exactly an ending. Not
a beginning wearing a quick-change
costume. A complete stop.

A guy in my math class once
described death that way:
a stop sign on the edge
of a planet. A new religion:
death, complete on its own.

A professor told me to wait
for the words to come.
The most bullshitiest bullshit
I’ve ever heard. I’m not going to
set up a picnic and watch cows pass by.

Hey little word, come over.
Actually, don’t. There are others.
Look over my shoulder with
wide cow eyes. No.
Thou shalt not pretend not to care
while making cow eyes.

If a word doesn’t come, I’ll make another.
Plashow. Prasha. Thou shalt not
wait around plashowing for words.
Sometimes, you text me first.
Instagram reels. Kids falling off bikes.
I translate them to: the end.

I send back a skull. I mean:
that was so funny I’m dead.
But we both know
it just means dead.
So I have to believe
that death is whole.