sitting in a plush chair in my mothers driveway yelling at a man in a mock frueduan voice.
its dusk and probably spring, the man's white van is parked and smells like burnt rubber, i can here the tick tick ticking of oil hitting pavement

"do you feel ze penile envy?"
no
"ven you ride a bike dost it geev sexual gratification?"
the man makes a scissors cutting paper motion with his hand
"WORDS MY MAN, ANSWER WEES WORDS"
i spin around in the chair, launch myself forward and smile
the man looks terrified, its my mothers pastor, he knows im playing a game with him, more like testing him
he lifts his face and its twisted, he twitches his nose, i can't help but laugh
"vell? vhat eest your problem? i am not zee crazy one."
i break character and say maybe to him but more to myself, i am not the crazy one.
his hands, i am fixed on his hands, his gold wedding band looks tight and tired from years of being rubbed at. his fingers unlace and pleadingy stretch out toward me.
please, he says in a voice so sincere it stings with sarcasm, let me help you, i understand you are lost and need meaning
"i don't need meaning or god,"i interject, "i just need anxiety medication."
i quickly switch back and finger a smooth cherrywood pipe, puckering my lips into a half smile and squinting. this man of god sees all my demons, smells them, the distant scent of burnt hair,the sickly sweet cloak coiled and black.
"now meester tell me, why do you a man auf god wees to dig deep into my riddlers brain?" im screaming and crying but completely unaware. in the back of my mind i wonder when it started raining, why the dogs are howling from inside as though upset by thunder. i am the storm i realize.
"what is it you know? what divine means have you to heal my crooked mind?"
the pastor takes a step forward on the ball of his foot. i am the master, he is the beast.
i can heal you,
oh its that mocking voice again,
i am well versed in the body of christ, only a man with the knowledge of lord our savior can heal a hell ravaged mind like your own. all the doctors and pills are smoke and mirrors, shamans from the devil. i can save you, you are sick.
" save me like you saved my half dead mother." i feel somethinh rising
" save me with words of morality over rationality?"
im boiling over, grinding the flute of the pipe between my teeth, breathing in the smoke of my fathers ancient orange flapped tobacco, coughing and spitting like some bastardized depiction of a female devil.
"SAVE ME SAVE ME WITH YOUR DEATH MARCH HYMNS AND BURNING BUSH TONGUE.i can no longer talk, ze dockture haz left for zee night."
i rise from my chair with elongated movements, i may be crude, but i still i understand the grander of my dramatics. two steps toward the door, and its back, scraping at my esophagus, plucking my vocal chords. i stand, rigid and proud, tiny hammers through my dry mouth, cracking every tooth. "im rather angry aren't i?"
my fingers tips are numb, dissolving.
the man gets into his car and calls his wife to come clean me up.
but its clear now, to me at least. i am crazy, bat shit fucking insane, but i am also today tomorrow and every day after that. i am a holy shiver, rabid with truth. these men of god, they don't care for life or death, they don't care about personal triumph or tragedies no one does.

Felt less like my self, nails dug deep in sweetness of morning sounds, a tipping cup, fragile breath. our orange rine backs,hair knotted like delicate whips. Awake, we play adulterated bed games in our closed caves swept shut with unmatched curtains in our windowless home.

im pushing up babies and willow boughs from my destroyed gut. keeping my paramour at bay with a quick flash of nude ankles, sickly gray, the flesh, the bone. bottle cap necklace, we are to name our daughter after a drunken mans mistress

i was high
he stood and talked about politics, police bears, dancing side by side
i slip in and out
knowing
full well
what this might mean taking on
the doors swung wide
wider than usual
carousel horses, pontiacs and polloks running the races
gilded pony manes
this is a death note
an sos
my rambling is drug induced havoc
i cant write
my lips are completely numb
and if i had my way wed be fucking in the attic right now
ghost hands pouring over each cup
parking meter metronome
tick tick tick tocking
solemn rocking
my baby brothers chair
blue velvet
tiny rabbits
tomato patch that the gators over ran
so we picked up marshmallows tossed them and run like paper cranes

i dont write anymore
i sulk

ashes to ashes something splendid in the dish water, broken shutter i saved my half dead mother

well, yes, he was an immaculate human. feather hands, broken window, the cups tipped down, pouring over salt lick wounds. dead man in the alleys, winter blooms strangled in over grown hair, nothin' but chewing gum and condoms in his pocket. shotgun wedding, heroin puckered babies

9 years to say it

my mother taught me the alphabet backwards
and laughed at my dyslexic tendencies thirteen years later
laughed when i couldnt translate your humorless voice into a sing-song poem, written from the bed of a run away shelter
she took every letter with my name on the envelope
folded them up
swallowed them down
felt the curved lines of my lost sister, lied and said she ran back to the south
now your agonizing haiku's grow in the belly of our dead weather mother
oragami cranes, im so sorry i never saw them drift away
i wasnt allowed to know you had secrets to tell

torn up scaffold, holding brick facing down
chipped china finds comfort in my curls
you pull the opal flakes out and sprinkle it over my eyes which refuse shelter without your permissive hands
im a puppet when you are in me
stilted legs lifted over shoulders, heaving
whiskered cheeks, whiskey lick
busted lip, thrusting hips
deeper into my marionette mouth
over felt tongue you've come hard
troubled body, dont you lie
tell me tell me tell me
does the world blows harder though me now?
now
now that we've fucked like lonely siblings in my childhood room
now
we keep the windows closed, bodies pressed tight in vacuum sealed quarters
dont smile, i'm only comfortable when you want to die

i've got satan's touch