charades

that night alcohol smoothed

metaphysical questions away like

running my arm over a wrinkled sheet

bar lights beat us to the end of the universe

flashing heady truths

masquerading as stars intent on keeping us

sedated, pushing & pulling our way through
non-ironically

wanting everything we could have.

the word I drew on your lips

was my only fear, when

I kissed you it oozed down my chest

heavy with the weight of sainthood not

that I want a personalized halo but

promises go down easier than curses these days--

the cure feels grittier than sipping gin

& tonic, pebbles stick soft into flesh

as I skin my elbow bloody on the hardness

of being 22 and young and thirsty

to see real stars for once

not over-painted charades.

permanent

the roots are showing through

where I dyed my hair

impulse dye

straight out of the bottle

permanent

soft pillow

pink except it

didn’t take, my hair

just turned a different

color blonde, brassy but

still roots show like

shameful acknowledgement

of that afternoon I was

so tired of being me,

roots show like tracks in

the snow, pull me back

into my head where

I find myself

before I dye.

wrestling

the words aren’t coming

which is odd because

words always come for me,

I pull them slick from my tongue

or squeeze them out of my blood like

juicing a tangerine, pulp catching

sticky in-between my fingers glinting like

semiprecious citrus jewels.

but tonight no words come.

the fear makes them crawl back cold into

my molars, huddled fetal position shaking.

I tell them there is no need to worry--

they don’t believe me they are scared

of something but they don’t

know what and that is more terrifying

than actually having something to be

afraid of.

my poetry sucks without you

I say. they giggle and laugh before

growing solemn and grim pointing

out across the night sky like

look look don’t you see the

stars have been sucked into the

blackness and the cold Chicago smog,

soon everything will be

drunken up and in by the greedy night

sky and we will go swirling into

this black hole of oblivion crystalized

like star gods but not ourselves.

I tell them not to be silly this is all nonsense

but they stuff their ears with cotton

to my siren call of normality

clean each other’s tears off

tell me it’s coming—can’t I

smell the burnt rosemary

swirling change that drifts thick as

church incense past my

forehead worry lines.

stretching stiff fears into 90 degree angles on the ever-eternal cosmos

I force my breath to behave,

slow-easing tension into downward 

dog as upside down blood 

rushes to my head like fears

 

I forgot pinched cold my skin at night--

yoga makes me realize where I’m not opening up--

I topple onto the mat because my

left leg gave out but so did my

memories. cloudy light cuts

dust into a million small things

and cuts into me like who are 

you, precious worrier

nostrils flared with exertion, stretching 

arched foot to ceiling, pressing palms so heavy

into ground, one would think you’re

holding back water from flooding

a dam (maybe I am), stomach

tightening with weak inability--

what have you to be worried of

you flesh and bone, 

you synapses and fleeting sadness?

the tension hinged in my elbows catches

me soft as I remember how

vastness swallows us all.

printed on my skin: the map 

of the cosmos that trails

heavy onward, spirals into my

hip-bones, does not let me

follow as it takes each soul

heavenward and perhaps

(who are we to say)

beyond.