Molly you live
in a mansion in my mind
with hypoallergenic pets and
lighted pools and faux down
comforters clean, white
and a spigot just
one easy turn away
from pouring sauv
blanc the kind your mom
drinks I got you all set up
in there you name it it’s yours

there’s no drag in my mind
you can sit on a desk chair and
roll fast forever through the
hardwood hallways if
you need to get free
no fluctuations in my mind
warm compresses stay warm
ice cubes stay ices cubed
this world of grey folds this neural
neighborhood runs in accordance
to my very own theory
of everything generally relative
to my very own you

Molly your mansion I built it
in a corner where green
things grow and vine and blush
all the lefts are protected and
the biting bugs and
insurance policies lost
their taste for blood but
if anything does
get toothy I can be
there quicker than the blink
of an eye I’m your sugar neighbor
on every side the real estate
all around you anything
you need it’s yours

‍

       for Kelly

Using funny
in a few ways
1. how
at the end
of her twenties
she realized, shit,
I forgot to punch in
‍2. how
her cat hunts
for the laser beam
3. how
her stomach
rocks like a
riverboat
when her
brother
gets sick
4. how
she swore
she locked
the door &
turned
the oven off &
double-checked
her wallet
5. how
a sunny drive
with a boy
with a girl’s
name
blurs her
vision, splits
her gut like
worn-out upholstery
and she could be
        a) roadkill
any second
        b) happy
having laughed
and having
never
once
wondered
there yet?

I knew a kid
in school
whose dad wouldn’t
let him eat
some nights
during wrestling season
and if he failed
to make weight
purple-green
would bloom
beneath his eyes
he called me
once with a gun
to his temple

I saw a young
man in his singlet
heave as one of
the white many
referees in
his black life
ordered scissors
to his dreads
a few racists held
on to their hoods
the lynch mob
salivated at
the chokeholds
of metaphor
the microcosmic
headlock

the win
is not
about
the
win
the loss
historic

I couldn't let this year go by without at least partially writing a Cinnaminiatures holiday track. Here are some working lyrics. See you next year with a finished ep.

‍

Terminally Reminiscent (Or Another Song About Faux Fir)

V1

when we were the kings of suburbia

building fortresses in the snow

that the night painted blue first

then street-lamp marigold

bright like they were lit from within

bioluminescent

bright like we were lit from within

lighthouse children

V2

when love was plastered on us

as arrogantly as a ship’s name

and we wanted for nothing really

just plastic piled in a red sleigh

bright like it was lit from within

bioluminescent

bright like we were lit from within

I’m terminally reminiscent

C1

can’t paper snowflakes

can’t a Faux Douglas Fir

can’t Christmas over the phone

can’t my mother in a dream

stand in for the real thing?

for the real thing?

V3

I wanted to strangle you in tinsel

when my feelings got too big for me

I wanted to tangle you in garland

string your guts around the tree

bright like it was lit from within

bioluminescent

bright like we were lit from within

heated and radiant

C2

can’t a holiday special

can’t cinnamon in a candle

can’t visions of sugarplums

can’t my mother on the screen

stand in for the real thing?

for the real thing?

Working
the kids are inspired and
I think me
too

Downsizing
whatever you can fit
in your bag’s
fine

Scoping
he looked just like you in
that MacBook
glow

Changing
your degree in me is
obsolete
now

Reading
books have spines like mine where
ecstasy
lies

Choosing
my indecision will
surely kill
me

‍

My quarterly prompt-based art and literary magazine, Junk Drawer, published its first issue in June. The following poem is one of the three that appeared in the Summer 2018 issue.

‍

Knowing Now

didn’t know tragedy proper
only that it was why I’d keep

the tag on my Princess Di
Beanie Baby and wait to sell

it online, unloved, for fifty bucks
to a romantic overseas. why

I’d get sent home from school after
the collapse of towers I’d never

heard of full of people I’d never
heard of. had the wrong idea

about princesses. knowing now, they live
and die just once but can be borrowed back

broadcasted for the global anonymous
the rubber necks. the wrong idea

about wars. knowing now, they are only finite
for the men counting their winnings from the luxury boxes

…

tragedy proper isn’t as violent
or crazed as I imagined it would be

as a child when, in anticipation, I tripped
every breaker so loss would never

sneak up on me. cased the deep-dark
caverns and cathedrals so I knew how to navigate

my way out, bats and all. twenty years
older now, pen to page, the wringing out

of a mophead. obsessively pushing
dirt from one side of the kitchen

to the other, making believe I’m
doing something about my grief. what

kind of trophy do you get for not making
a scene, for calmly, quietly surviving

your real life and will someone buy it
on eBay years later for more than it’s worth?

‍