Milly

“Someone was that man’s mother”

Women caught their breath and held it in their throats

when the television divulged us in the more subsidiary details.

Details that could be publically handled.

“You’d shit yourself if you knew the whole story, sick son of a bitch”

Men would confer over their coffee and their heavy cream

trying to choke down the sweetness.

After that summer, sugar never tasted the same.

In his basement

A custom cooler

A time machine

He watched her body begin to decompose.

Tissue swelled in a chemical car wreck

Like a science experiment

(Phase one)

Tissue emanated mass weight

Like a magic trick

(Phase two)

But he couldn’t see her like this

The stark husk of a girl he loved

gaunt and pallid

dead and valid

This was not the woman he had tasted

with his malefic palate.

No. This girl was eating herself.

People with the audacity called it

art.

Families séanced around their television sets

footage of him screaming outside his home

Saying

“Don’t touch her, please just don’t touch her. Milly? Milly!”

In the arcane underground

he took a cutlery frosting knife

worked over her cadaver with

butter and solidified honey.

Laced her hair with licorice vines

carved lips from wet melon

green starlights replaced her eyes.

red hot pupils

gave her taffy fingernails

rainbow round sprinkle freckles

and purple gum drop nipples.

In an interview, years later

He’d say

“She was the sweetest girl I’d ever known.”

It was us kids though

that encountered the true horror

of his confectional affection.

We’d hide under sheets

covered in clouds and rockets

close our eyes and grind our teeth

because we were convinced she was hiding in our closets.

Sugar siren, hovering above my bed

butterfat dripping off her hips

red cocoa dust fogging up my room

and her green starlight optics

causing me to piss myself.

I swear the first time I was with a girl

I anticipated her areolas having this grit consistency

giving my tastes buds a buzz.

That sticky tart haunted my bed for years.

Every girl that wasn’t her was so plain,

Insipid and boring.

I can understand why he loved her.

His Milly.

20 minutes. GO.

Inhale
his stale still-born basement apartment draft
We echo
two naked feral children
twisted up in his clean sheets.
He's twisted up in my hair.
My tongue twists itself behind my teeth
swells, and I can't remember what it was to speak.
I am drugged with morning lethargy
Drunk from his bed
Inebriated by his esoteric corner of the world.
Exhale
my intrusive obligations, commitments, and compulsions.
Through the bedding I can see
scrolled across his arm
(in a font I love)
"fight apathy"
Inhale.
Exhale.
I'm not going anywhere today.

Psychosensory Hygiene (you were never too good with words anyway)

And you wrote:
"The falling out with her left me to grieve about as much as I did when I fell for her"
in this dream I unfolded, crumbled, flattened, refolded this letter you had written me.
Explaining yourself and how you felt.
This postcard from you was in my handwriting.
And I woke
thinking:
Fuck. I really wanted you, secretly, to love me.
What a silly thing, my subconscious.
And I walked
around my apartment for about 40 seconds
mourning the you I had invented
in this dream.
Terrible practice of mine.
I'm trying to remember if there's anything I had left at your place.
Hating the fact you've only been to mine twice and you're broadcasted everywhere.
Being in love with you is a heavy business and requires radical disinfecting.
My apartment is a calamity and I'm not even sure what to bleach first.
Sitting in front of my computer I'm trying to mentally peel you off of every artifact scattered around this tiny room (it's a start)
When I heard "knock knock knock"
Through the peep hole there stood a boy with my cell phone and two burned cd's.
I cracked open the door so he couldn't see
the
crash collision and catastrophe,
which was my living room.
And he spoke:
"Don't ever leave without saying goodbye. I woke up *turns head rapidly side to side* wondering where you had gone."
And I smiled
and was taken back by complete surprise
that it was even possible while I'm grieving for you.
I shut the door, after he kissed his fingertips and pressed them on my deploring lips
and thought I'm going to rearrange this residence
maybe with the displacement of my furniture I can displace the fact that
you were never too good with words anyway.

Prepare for Monsters

Good Morning

That’s never happened

Op Iv bracelet, realizing the week’s closing in on me.

Outside blinding bleached cold

Searing retinas and instant headache

Don’t spin out, don’t spin out.

An impulse buy

Danny, have I told you I’m in love?

Yes, you have.

Tried popping off fake fingernails

“Idk what we are talkin bout”

Tried writing

“Still high off you”

Ran my hand down Justin’s back

Apologized

Was it an accident? I couldn’t even tell you.

A pint of ice cream

And then, I set the last egg in the cardboard box

The last envelope in the secret box

The last key in the locked box

Took off into night hours, really thinking

I’m not leaving.

I tumbled into last minute plans

Cherry wheat, I can drink that.

Spaghetti, I can eat that.

Op Iv, the week.

Jonathan Kelley.

And he asks me what’s wrong.

Nothing.

Seriously.

Nothing.

Sunnie.

There’s this guilt I have

I’m always responsive, not because I want to

But because it’s become compulsive.

If you don’t answer back, bad things happen.

Like those weird scenarios you’ve been dreaming up before sleep

That have kept you up for weeks.

If you ignore the world

Act I will begin

and you’ll be left to wonder how the transition

from imaginary to substance

found it’s motivation.

I don’t like to tune out anything.

Basically, I don’t want to hurt anyone.

14 minutes later

Just disregard everything.

Fuck The Both of You.

And he says

“So what if they are? So what if they are.”

This white hot sick just dissolves my stomach

New Years, fuck.

He asked me over that night.

Seriously. So what if they are?

I’m going to assume because I’ve put that kid on hold

I see monsters falling out of closets,

I’m not safe because I told him no two nights in a row.

So now.

Now that you’re being thrown into the sea

Now that you can’t find anything to grab onto

Now that your lungs are voraciously flirting with salt water

Call him.

There was this voicemail I left, where I can’t remember a single word.

Something about “Good luck” and maybe a mention of me being really upset.

I may have ended it with a “See ya around”

His response: “Not sure what to think about your ringtone”

And

“I’m going back to sleep.”

So what if they are?

Alright, now you need your present.

It’s the prettiest wrapping I’ve probably every seen

No joke, I don’t want to touch it.

And there’s this shredded paper that reminds me of crinkle fries.

A journal.

I cried

She’s taking them down one by one

I guess I should thank her.

The ones left standing, are really fucking standing.

So what’s the plan?

I watched knives being heated up on the stove.

I didn’t know kids even did this.

Lying on the couch just handing him entrails

This is what’s really wrong.

This is why everything is such a big deal,

Because it’s not really.

It’s just easier to focus on

Because it’s manageable and trivial.

It’s just sex.

It’s just your feelings.

It’s just two people.

Two other people.

So what if they are?

Click Click, each light has a switch.

That guy had my kidney’s in his pockets

And small intestines around his neck while we snuck out.

Heater on blast

Recalling my morning

“Have I told you I’m in love?”

Nobody really likes that word.

I’ve made it into a hobby.

Now I’m facing the night alone

Don’t worry

Just write out as much as you can.

He called himself a life preserve.

Is that anti-irony?

The Sun’s coming up.

We made it alive.

Pamphlet

Manila.
The walls were that washed out yellow.
Sick skin tone paint job.
Trying not to look at the walls, my eyes wandered over to the chairs.
Sharp, angular, metal and plastic.
Keeps you awake.
Anything more comfortable would put you to sleep, and we can’t be sleeping.
Have to remember all of this, they said.
It was too cold
Not cold enough to turn the walls blue.
And the crush crush crush of the wax paper underneath was starting to hurt.
Just the sound, ricocheting off raw nerves.
Crush Crush Crush.  
Manila manila manila.

There was a long waiting period.
Before he came back.
And I just lied there.
The tiles from the ceiling were going in and out of focus.
Count them.
One two three four…don’t cry.
Don’t cry.
Five, Crush, Manila.

A magazine, with this smiling baby.
Toothless, grinning, mocking.
I could hear it talking.
“Mama. Mama. Mama.”
Shut up shut up shut up.

Air conditioning, it just kept humming.
Needed to keep moving to stay warm.
Medicinal frostbite is what they were doing.
Trying to freeze me. Trying to freeze it out. No no no.
Just stay in motion.
Crush. Crush.
Mama.

He came back.
No sleeping, he said.
No sleeping.
You’ll need to be awake.
To remember.
So it never happens again. So you don’t think this is ok.
Now LAY down!
I grabbed the sides of my hospital gown
and cried while whimpering, it hurts.
I don’t want to hear it, he said. Shut up shut up shut up.
Bleach, heavy bleach.
Disinfectant, steal, and antibacterial gunk in bottles, tubes, and dispensaries.
Clean, the counter tops were so brilliant.
Jar of dry cotton balls, cotton swabs, giving me
cotton mouth.
The corners caked with parched medical powder.
  They were dehydrating me.
  Freeze it out, dry it out.
Lips shredded, divided, sore and bleeding.
Constant licking, waiting for healing.  
It just makes it worse, he said. Stop that now. And please lay down.
The baby mocking the walls vomiting
Doctor says just sit still now.

And that machine, so angry and vibrant!
The buzz so loud and arrogant.
And me, just laying there, swearing, my fingers and toes were turning black.
            I was beginning to shrivel and sear.
            I was.
And Doctor said to a nurse I only now noticed,
She’ll have no idea what’s happened.
But I do.
Oh I do.
I remember them trying to mummify me.

A pinch, some pressure.
Suck suck suck.
That seaweed, that pissed off machine.
            It’s eating me!
Doctor said, LAY STILL!
Nurse just shook her head.
Almost over.

Don’t let it happen again, they said.
That baby shrugged and says “maybe next time”
Jeering toothless bastard.
You need to get clean they said.
Junkie swollen bellies
With addicted infants
Waiting lists for welfare.

Manila prison cemetery.
Don’t let it happen again young lady.
Just don’t let it happen again.

Not So Much Like Stamps

I guess I'd have to say...Bedrooms.
How?
Not so much like stamps in a book
or
Thimbles in a box
More like film canisters in the attic.


Have a favorite?
Many. Most.
There was one
that looked like a textbook
the way all of his photos were perpendicular and parallel and pasted tightly to the walls.
The corners of my canvas always curls
and are usually stained with coffee rings.
I've never been good at sticking things
to the wall.
I spent only one night there
under the purple light he had over his headboard.
He was an artist
-no. He was an art major.

He loved me methodically
   and then maliciously when he wanted nothing to do with me.
His roommates pretend they don't recognize me.
He had such bad tastes in movies.
Fucking Nickleback was on his Ipod.
He had an Ipod.
He had such a bad taste.
But I slept as if I were dead on his pillow.


And?
And, there's one that's the color of wax
sunbleached cotton
and honey gone bad.
I lay there some Sunday mornings
not able to scrape my eyes off his popcorn ceiling.
I just suspend in smeared bloodless dandelion.
I feel like an allergy.
There are messes in that room that have been there since the first day I came over.


How long?
I don't like to talk about that.
There are yearbooks
from April. Because I remember when he snuck into his parent's late at night.
I waited in the truck
in the middle of the street
in the middle of the night
in the middle of...all of it.
He brought back these yearbooks to show me
proof
he really didn't have braces.
And they're still laying on his floor.
They're still there?
Who am I to judge? I'm still there too. Like hay fever.


Another one.
There's this one
with Christmas lights.
....and?
I want this one.
You know I hate winter.
I dislike the layers, shirts over shirts and coats and scarves, mittens. Skin needs to inhale and it can't when it's so...brumal, and how dry the skin around my fingernails gets, I peel back the layers. Stick it in my mouth.
Suck.
But I probably could have left my car running for days.


What's that got to do with anything?
Everything. There's no pollinosis. It's just too cold.
But never mind, tell me, what do you collect?

463 North 3rd Street

There was this winter night where I got a phone call after I got off of work from a boy named James telling me to meet him on the corner of such and such streets. Where he kidnapped me and took me across town to what he referred to as “not his bar” but a good one. He held my hand while we trekked through stiff snow that bit at my ankles in a group of strangers with even stranger faces and even stranger laughs. These people were my age but I felt so young trying to step in the footprints they made in the snow.

Into this bar we filed in and dispersed and James began giving me an acrimonious tour of the place. He pointed out who, at the time, were regulars. Who he had fucked, who he had tried to fuck, who had fucked him. Who was good, who was real good, and who had bad jokes and bad taste in music. Who could hold their drink, who pretended, who dressed the part and who was the part.

He ordered me a seven and seven. I’ve never had another since.

That night James got smashed and showed me a tattoo he said he never shows anybody. And almost got his ass kicked by a guy who had less to drink and better tattoos.

That was the first time.

There was another winter night nearly a year later where a girl came to me and asked me to take her to a bar. I made plans on going to what was my favorite barroom, a hole in the wall. Small, dark, seedy but not desperate. You come or you don’t. And most don’t, which is why I love this bar. Across from a dollar theater and always has a parking space, this is where I would take her. But she was not impressed by the empty parking lot, or the size of my bar. She was looking for people, she was dressed for people. So I took her to the same place James took me.

And there we shook off passes made to us, and declined the free drinks. Which I guess is what she was looking for.

This was all before he was 21.

On his 21^st birthday, at midnight he wanted to buy liqueur because he could now. And so I drove him straight to this bar because it was the closest one to his apartment that was still open. He handed over his ID and while the man looked it over for the birth date this boy got cocky and said “Don’t worry, it works out”.

After that this boy started showing up at this bar more and more and I found myself not wanting to show up so much because I don’t care for the way he ignores me when there are people around us breathing.

This is not my bar anyway, I concluded.

And then, there was this summer night where I walked with under the table consorts and we shared our stories of heart wreckage. We stumbled and trotted, catching our own limbs from under us until we found a back door to the infamous bar I’ve been going on about. We snuck in our 20 year old friend and decided to drink until we forgot everyone else in the world but the three of us.

This plan of harmonized amnesia would have been the exact medicine I needed only that was a night the boy was there, and decided not to ignore me. He bought me a drink and I rode on the handlebars of his bicycle to his apartment.

So I began showing up more regularly because there was a chance that night could be reenacted, or at least mocked in some drunken joke. And the girl joined me because we were not real friends, but just convenient friends, which I didn’t know at the time.

Then there was this night where all of us were at this bar, and this was a night he wasn’t pretending I was wallpaper. But it didn’t matter because this was a night she got trashed and pulled him aside to talk to him. I lost precious time with this boy to her, this girl who wasn’t my friend. Although I didn’t fully know this yet.

That was also the first night I noticed the man in the black suit who leaned against the wall with me while I stared at them through the window as they laughed together in the smoking section. The smoking section I can’t spend too much time in because my throat starts to close and I panic.

He looked on with me and told me what I already knew. And when I found another wall to disappear into, another pattern to dim myself with he’d come over and just blend in with me. We were bar scene chameleon’s and we were Siamese twins, and I just wanted to be left alone tonight, but he was there telling me what I could see for myself.

So I wasn’t going back to this bar.

But that never happens. You never stay away from the place you swear off from because there’s still that chance where your night’s going to turn into something improbable and euphoric all because you changed your mind and decided to walk down to that bar. Which somehow has become the only bar in town you ever go to.

After the girl and I parted ways due to a number of things that were never really reasons but more of excuses of why we just couldn’t be in the same room anymore, excuses I won’t argue, we would find ourselves in the same room of that bar. And so I vowed again. And again. And again. But kept finding myself there on the 3 days a week I always find myself there.

There was this night I sat at the bar and concentrated fully on how the edge of it tilts down just slightly enough to where you don’t notice until you about tip your drink into your lap. And every time I sit down at this bar it’s like I’m rediscovering it for the first time.

And the girl’s there, she’s dancing. She loves to dance. I love to watch her but right now the tilt of the counter is engrossing me. That and the fact that she hates me. I guess that’s keeping me from watching also, but right now it’s not that important as the angle of the glossed wood plateau.

The man in the black suit is sitting only a stool away from me. He’s been here every night I’ve showed up. He’s drinking a seven and seven and telling me to get my face off the bar because it’s sticky and I don’t want to break out. I wave a hand at him, trying to tell him to mind his own business. There are fibers stuck under the varnish. Particles fixed here for eternity to watch girls like me eyeing them, and they wonder why I don’t get the fuck out of here. The man in the black suit agrees, why don’t I get the fuck out of here? I’m starting to wonder myself.

But I can’t move because I’m wasted off of root beer and sick from the candy cigarettes I couldn’t keep out of my mouth after the girl told me we were never really friends. Just two girls who annoyed each other.

While I’m mouthing to the dust stuck inside the enamel asylum “Don’t worry, I’m going to get you out of here” another regular sits in between me and the man in the black suit.

The man in the black suit tells me to get my head off the counter. Sit up straight. Only he’s more serious this time, and in fear he might make me drink his seven and seven I do as he says. The regular looks at me and I suddenly become very aware that half my face is probably red from the blood trapped under my cheek that I’ve been pressing into the sticky bar. The man in the black suit tells me not to worry about it, he’s drunker than I am and he doesn’t care because he thinks I’m pretty. The regular hasn’t said a word but I know the suit is telling the truth because the regular’s pulling my bangs apart Just. Like. So.

And the dance floor, the pool tables, the smoking section, they all just cave. People are probably screaming under the concrete and wood’s splintering like supernovas. Broken glass shards and ruptures through the red and gray brick dust that’s blooming up from the floor. I can see chalk, mirror pieces, and teeth flying past the three of us, the man in the black suit, the regular, and me. Yeah people are probably screaming.

I couldn’t hear anything though. Just felt the way he ran his fingers through my hair.

That was the night I claimed the bar as mine.