Monday, September 27, 2010

Culture Shock

Every morning I wake up and staple
gun a smile to my face before stretching
my gradually whitening limbs onto the synthetic floor.

My head craddles a litany of fool proof phrases
that slosh around Broca's region like foreign soldiers
caught in a flash flood.

Whether going to the grocery store or getting money from the bank,
eighteen sandbags are strapped
to my arms and legs
and my mouth and ears are filled with cotton balls.

While sitting at my desk, my fingers clench and unclench
reaching for something that I haven't yet discerned.
asking with words I havent learned.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

There're Korean Figurines in My Cubicle

Spill me from naked fingers
blushing under the attentive
gaze of sun strokes,
that gift liver spots
and beauty marks
and freckles in equal measure.

Yesterday I was told that
having a small face was the
height of beauty
and with Socratic induction
informed, that in all my
foreign glory-
I fit the standard.

With each conversation
we weave ourselves together
crosshatch cacti longing
that prickles as it pines
for summer days spent shucking corn
and snapping peas-
I'll count the hours by your shadow.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

moratorium

you slide through my fingers like
grains of rice, pearly seeds
sinking into rich soil to create
speckled shoots that spell out
baggage, which will not be
contained within photo albums
and ticket stubs and birthday
candles.

i watch us burn out and rub
my fingers in the wax to create
printed ships that bob and
distintegrate without a trace
and in my mind I trace the oil
spill rainbow ripples that flow
outward from the
source.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Work in Progress

He would velcro his toes to the cement lip
of the pool, peeling them up one by one
with a rip, to dive into aquamarine
aquatic shoe boxes.

He spelt his name like zip-cord
and gene splice and forgot the second
half of the alphabet because he was too
busy dropping noodles on his socks.

After school we bend over treasure maps
and rub peanut butter fingers over trails to
final destinations, while our hair would waterfall
in ribbons of blond and black.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Alas

Our pinkies linked like promises
made in sandboxes, castles crushed
beneath our bottoms, when we
failed to look before we fell.

If I had a nickle for everytime
I fell off sidewalk curbs and
rocking chairs and wooden
docks then I would start a menagerie-

a home for all the exotics that walked
with three eyes and two hearts,
beneath skies painted dark chocolate-
we would open our mouths when it rained.

I wish I could bleed into your mouth
like vampires and restore your buck
teeth and crooked smile, but instead I'm
left hands empty, knuckles white

Monday, September 6, 2010

I Wish I Remembered More

She would pump her legs so hard and fast that at times,
it almost seemed as if she would flip over the swing bar
and crash onto the rubber wood chips.

Ribboned socks were replaced for revamped skirts
that she would fold higher after school,
and let boys slide their hands up her thighs
in the back of rusted pick-up trucks.

One summer a daisy grew between
the cement creases in the sidewalk
and she watered it and talked to it
and one day plucked it bare-
petals falling like feather tears.

Her bed was stained with snot and tears
but her sheets were clean,
so that at night she would clench them
to her chest, holding tight to lies.

Goddamn I Miss You

When I shut my eye
lids at night, I can't
help but see a field
of eyeless you dancing
hand in tail with maggot
babies, roaring with silent
mouths.

I want to peel apart my
shoulder blades and pluck
you from among my rib
cage, where you'd sit perched-
long legs swinging.

There's a certain kind of
helplessness when I think
of you tipping like an ice cream
scoop, on your way to the ground;

The seams of my flesh pulse and pus
and I curse the fingerless
seamstress who sewed me back
together in all the wrong ways.

Please wait for me by water
holes and broken bicycle wheels
and I'll let you teach me to stand on my
handle bars and together- we'll taste sky.