I like to root around my family’s junk drawer for treasure
There are paper clips that jump like frogs
And dried rubber bands
That look like my worm farm
After I left them in the sun too long
That day I learned worms are not plants
But they don’t talk to me
Just like plants don’t talk to me
So you can see how I was confused
I once found a Carl Yastrzemski rookie card
Underneath a pile of old batteries
That my mom says we have to recycle a special way
I like to use them in my experiments
For instance,
Do you know what happens
When you put a child size fist full of batteries in a cup of water?
Not much of anything
But I know that now
The old man at the hobby shop said he’d give me 20$
For my Carl Yastrzemski card
I said no
Because I like the way it makes me feel good
It makes me feel good
Just like playing with my paper clip frogs makes me feel good
But I don’t think anybody
Is going to give me money for my paper clip frogs
Unless I paint them green
But I’m out of green
Because I was painting trees all day yesterday
Its funny,
There will be a last time I paint
And these bottles will rattle around
In the junk drawer
Half full, fully full or almost empty
For years
Enough blue for an entire ocean
Enough yellow for the sun of a brand new world
Enough brown for a million houses for the people like us who live there
Enough orange for my brother to cover
The house in palm prints
Because he will be too drunk to say “help me”
And enough red to burn my new world to ash

I like to root around my family’s junk drawer
And find treasure
I like to line all my treasures up on the window sill in my brothers room
When the midafternoon sun can wipe the tarnish off my wheat pennies
Fill a dirty tea cup with warm light just for me
And scream through all my marbles except for one

In the back of my family’s junk drawer
There lived this one marble
Opaque and yellow
That looked like a gum ball
And never let the light in
It was the world’s most perfect marble
And always had a special place on the window sill

Its funny,
There was a last time I did this
And those treasures turned trash
In an instant
Except for this one yellow marble
That rolled around my room for years
The sun of the new world I never created
Even when I most needed a home
And every so often
More often than I’d like to admit
I would find it on the ground
And try to take a bite right out of it
Because it still looked so much like a gumball to me
On the third trip to the dentist
My mom is confused by two things
1) That I tried to eat a trash gumball off the ground
In the first place
2) that it has happened more than once
I told her that I forgot
But I’m not sure that’s exactly right
What I meant to say is that
I tried to eat the sun
I tried to eat the sun
Because you don’t need the light
If there’s nothing worth seeing anymore
Because we can’t recognize the past
Even if it’s the only place we remember feeling good
Because there is no new world made of old colours
There is only what we can reach out and touch with our hands
A few bent paper clips
An old rubber band
And a cracked tooth covered in the mouth blood of an artless child

Welcome! Thanks for coming to our
monthly meeting. Please enjoy the
generous spread of cheese and crackers
I’ve arranged. Today, I’m happy
to say that our numbers are up.
They’re way way up. Our numbers are
fucking stellar. Fifteen hundred,
for example. Simply stellar.
Our sales, too, are off-the-charts, but
as this chart illustrates, not literally.
Next, my friends, I’d like you to gaze
at this inspirational picture of a horse
prancing on a beach, the sunset
center-frame and velvet-sodden,
a looming planet-sized ruby.
Note the inspirational quote
written on the bottom in that
huge and motivating typeface:
WORK HARD & DREAM BIG.
Take it in, my friends. It’s stellar.
Please keep this in mind because
we’ll be coming back to it later.
Remember: work hard and dream big
at the same time. Just like the horse
prancing on the beach is doing.
Stellar! Moving on: this pie chart,
showing what we want you to “give”
every day at work. Notice how
it equals one hundred percent.
Next, your questions. Are there any questions?
Colleagues? Trustees? Any questions?
Stellar. At this point, the horse
has arrived at the end of the beach.
She fixes her eyes on the sun
as the last lavender sliver of day
drowns its light in the waves, giving form
to the crystalline mane of the Milky Way.
Why, the horse wondered, was she here?
Who had placed her by this ocean,
on this infinite, endless, idyllic beach?
She remembers a speech about… sails?
About numbers and charts… about cheese…?
But it doesn’t feel clear or coherent…
And a strange and abnormal desire
to work hard— and perhaps even dream big—
seems to urge and inform every step.
The horse turns around, facing the length
of the beach once again, with the sun
upon the horizon again.
Walking on the fluorescent sand
colored red in the fading sunlight,
she thinks to herself in huge
and motivating letters
WORK HARD & DREAM BIG.
And that, my truly stellar friends
and colleagues, is in itself
the very picture of inspiration.
Let’s give it up for the picture
of the horse.

— ordered five poetry chapbooks online even though i really need to save money

— poured half a carton of orange juice and a quarter bottle of vodka into a flower vase and timed how fast i could drink it

— started doing the laundry but gave up halfway through which is probably a metaphor for how i’m incapable of finishing anything

— thought about how it hurt like hell but he called me gorgeous so i guess that makes it ok

— baked a goddamn chocolate cake because why not

— threw the entire goddamn chocolate cake in the trash because i didn’t deserve a piece of it anyway

— browsed amazon dot com for thirty minutes adding fourteen useless things to my wish list whilst thinking about how nothing matters anyway and i’m not sure i’ll make it to twenty

— found an old journal i wrote in when i was thirteen and opened to page number sixteen where i found a list titled ALL THE THINGS I AM NOT ALLOWED TO TURN INTO! it read my dad’s name seven times

crying during your counseling session
or
explaining to your therapist how lonely the cold months are
or
January in Minnesota
or
a blizzard of headaches
or
to be stranded in a whiteout
or
the blankness of a dry mouth
or
dripping your spine into the shower drain
or
snuffing out the light
or
Prozac startling your brain, smacking you in the forehead with a shovel
or
vivid nightmares of premeditated murders: a bitter man breaking into the hospital, brandishing a machete
or
carving out pieces of yourself with an apple knife, rationing your body for the winter
or
mistaking a flurry for an avalanche
or
snow banks of dirty clothes, three weeks worth of dishes, empty coffee cups, a refrigerator full of rotting
or
avoiding the climbing; being suffocated by mountains.

Verse 1 (The Black Comes Out)
Since a youngin’ always dreamed of being one thing
I’m a half breed my nigga
I am something that rhymes with nothing
But everything ends in nigga
Used to want a shiny chain and some Timbs
Body too small for all this blood my nigga
Give me a definition give me a name that fits
I’m a flood my nigga
Call me a song with too many samples
Like all things about my body
You half-right get it?

Chorus
Last night I had a bad dream
That I was trapped in this body
And I asked is that really such a bad thing?

Bridge (The Half Breed Song)
I know that everything that glitters ain’t gold
I know why you look right at me when you say that
Everybody wonders what the sun looks like up close

sorry to disappoint

I’m just a collage of red A scarlet marriage A map after it drowns

Chorus
Last night I was a bad dream
I was trapped in this body
And I asked is that really such a bad thing?

Verse 2 (El Latino Dice)
Oye nos vamos finalmente
My Spanish is a drought
Crack open my tongue
There is music in the dust tambien
Pues este chico baila como no tiene un abuela
And that’s the key my nigga
Atras de Washington Heights
Quien te enseña cuantos nombres
te robaron de su sangre?

Outro (A Repentance)
Padre perdoname I’ve just gone astray
I renounced the blood until it was undeniable
I google translate my own skin
I push my own name overboard
perdoname perdoname perdoname

Here we are watching the amaryllis change colors in the living room. Here we are learning to kiss on a dirty wooden floor. Yours was the ninth tongue to enter my mouth but the first to ever taste like a tongue should: not metallic or milky, just like mine, only yours. We are equal parts young & already dead, perfect & all wrong, quartz & aquamarine: we reflect ourselves & everything else & the sky. Here we are weaving each other’s scents into blankets, printing each other’s body parts onto novelty t-shirts. I want to tell you: We can have a bigger garden. I want to tell you: We can have dogs & babies & a silver staircase or we can not. Either way. It’s up to you. I want to tell you: We can make the staircase gold if you want, or platinum. We can make it out of moonstone even. Here you are watching me dry off with your binoculars, or plucking a stray hair from my shoulder.

when I met you

in March, last year, I said,
so what’s drunk-driving like in this town?
your eyes stuck like you didn’t hear me because,
you probably didn’t hear me.

In April and May, and in June,
I didn’t know, or maybe
forgot, that you existed.
In July I packed my shit and moved,
sweated through every dress I owned,
my thighs chapped and I hated this city.
I started back drinking during the day.

In August you would condone my love for late
night waffles and Lorazepam,
my monthly habit of being miserable,
and I knew you were just as crazy as me,
when I had been thinking
I’d be dead by Christmas.
so in September, I think, I said,
I think, so what kind of pills do you take?
you stomped out your cigarette with a scoff;
told me, someone, sometime, somewhere, is going to want you.

and I swear to god I didn’t know
I wanted it to be you.

The only things I knew about her
were the things you knew
I shouldn’t have known;
like in December how you said,
I sleep on the couch when I’m there. Basically, I just feed her.

I believe you and I could write an almanac.
and if I could write an almanac, it would have the truth
about what’s really out west.
I’m not embarrassed
or sunken in with shame;
When in January I said
I could love you like this;
slammed a shot of Old Crow Bourbon,
gripped a Miller Lite,
and you hated that and tried to hate me too,
so then in February, I kept warm by fucking
some people I didn’t know,
and tried to forget that everything
I thought I loved in January,
will be leaving me in May.

I have never been good at carrying water.
Or swimming. Or becoming one with

any kind of body. I was almost born in
a teal Volvo, the rain coming down

so anxiously on the way to the hospital
it only made my mother contract more.

The first time I almost drowned, it was in
a pool at a family barbecue. My mother

jumped in fully clothed to save me.
The second time was in the Pacific Ocean

on Christmas Eve. The strongest wave
pulled me down, then carried me back

to shore, as if it, too, was overcome by
a maternal instinct. The third time

was in my own bathtub. I was almost thirteen,
and sick of feeling stuck in that sea of brain sickness.

That day, I learned I am not only not good
at swimming, I am also not good at dying.

I held my breath for a minute, then let
my skin meet the surface again as I remembered

everything I had left to live for. My thirteenth birthday,
only eight days away. My family. The possible day

woman learns how to breathe underwater.
I wrapped myself in a towel, overcome by

something. A maternal instinct of some sort,
but for myself. These stories have a few

different points: my mother has saved me
multiple times, even if she doesn’t know it.

I have saved myself multiple times, even if
I don’t know it. I was born on the cusp

of the Water Bearer and the Fish, and if I should
ever have children that I am not afraid of having,

they will not come into the world by broken fluid
or iced-over city. They will not be born trembling,

terrified of the damage they will bring into
this universe. They will be born with their heads

above the water. So help me God, I will always
see to that.