i swear i left it somewhere

you'll never get it back, jack, don't you know? 

live so long in a fog just to learn the ease in letting go

 

never could share, could you? with your cards so close

gripped it all with sharp nails just to find your palms empty

and bloodied with little red crescents 

 

you didn't paint the world- it painted you

anomaly climbing up the canvas, strolling through the churches

cataloging misericords, and the people carved within them 

 

drolling on and on about mercy and killing

and no one understands you beside the beetle you allowed inside your skull

 

I remember that day, jack, all your doors wide open and waiting like a venus fly trap

and the clumsy shielded insect wandered in where a person could've been 

to make its nest there, raise its young there, burrow holes there, and stare 

through the vast black nothingness in the very center of your eye 

 

beetles and flies and silverfish 

you gathered pesticide-kissed dandelions with which to play cardboard alchemist

 

yet the world will never look like it should, and you will always look where you shouldn't

not at but through and through and between and anomaly inhabits a body inhabited by other bodies

 

they told you the snake eats itself in service of eternity, you know the snake ate itself 

because it was starving or because it was scared and even though you've long sat shivering

at the ledge of fear, you never could quite fit your feet into your mouth- and so it goes,

and so you go, up and down and around, marching with your shepherd's staff, misleading all the dust

 

and when you wake with bleary eyes and lookout 

the world will no longer jive in constant movement, it will not flow together properly, your pants

will not fit, it will all be pretty or dull instead of beautiful and no one else will notice 

 

and jack, I will watch you pretend not to care and fail

 

 

chthonian woman

smooth as subterranean bones, safe from sunlight, methodically cleansed by nightcrawling friends

almost untouched– almost, darling, there’s an imprint

there, on your collar, from a thumb. there’s lines on

your wrists that remember a dead grip from the man

who ran away with your father’s gun

you cornered the king and checked him with your pawn, 

and though your fingers have oft felt the little cross between them

you’ve never felt like you've won

you know that the green fields rolling on in all directions

were once blue, once red and black and on fire, and you carry that close to your skin, which was once cellular 

crimson, globulous, murky, multifarious, what a miracle it was to leave as a denizen of yourself 

so easily you could’ve become a clot, a knot, a mass of old blood, toxic shock

stuck in the old red of ahab’s vengeful mouth

You’ll never forgive either of them, I know, not the bodies that were once homes and not your own

wagging your fingers at your own cells for trading flesh for bone 

the sheer mass of it, the upkeep, worth double its weight in gold, how heavy- how useless

for all but rings and crosses, dearest, no matter how rare your eyes or hair or smile

no matter how preciously formed- you are only bright and shining 

and the whole world is full of crows

the birds traded their souls for wings

the spirits by the roadside dance to your delight, blind driver

you’ve got gilded fins however hidden in the din of all the minnows that fly by night

there’s eyes in the striations on the strings connecting their collective at the speed of light

mycelial wire-bound messengers carrying transmissions from post to post

tears gather in polyisoprene irises, the rain falls rhythmic on the road. If you could only listen to the music, deaf rider, you’d hear us all calling you home

your tires crawl over, careless, this machine’s built to do what it is told. Your heels are leaded, you know where you’re heading and all we can do is watch as you go

between your crowded ears a hand twists a crank and brass pins pluck brass teeth

through the rusty music you can hear your mothers voice 

“There are places left untouched

within all of us, you have swallowed a key

alongside your first breath of air.”

you can see her waltz upside down with your father 

in the rearview mirror, her dress brushes past your hair

“The illusion reflects us as 

we reflect it, there are gods 

mechanical and corporeal

we live on the body we’ve built

from another. we live in bodies

borrowed.”

the reddened sky is in the pools of rain on the asphalt, even now, you travel on arteries.

“I know, someday,

that you will want to break the mirror.”

the moon watches on, faint and mournful

as your grip tightens on the wheel

bewinged

feathers littered the loam around,
iridescent shards catching the moonlight in shivers

it was a pelican— a vulture, no, some sort of seraphim
no it must've been a chimera, a swan

an icon's solemn face shown out from beneath billowing wings
it was Saint Mary— it was my mother, it was a shallow reflection of a stranger
in a lake belonging to a land I've never been lead to

it shuffled as I watched, passed between invisible hands. Overhand, cascade, faro
it was a memory of a memory of a memory,
replayed so often it has lost all recognizable features, smoothed out by fastidious fingers
marble statues missing identities save for the hint of a brow, a nose bridge, a socket

it was the great other— it was myself— it was my mother, again
it was the mirror reflecting itself, over and over— it was the elderly looking at their grandchildren
with sorrow, with wistful knowing of what's yet to come

a ring of pain crested 'round my skull
I asked for its name and a hundred voices sang at once

it sounded like my father's first rage— my first cry, the diner waitress asking "and what can I get for you, sweetheart?" it was up late at night finally noticing that no one calls me that anymore, and what year did they stop? It was faint, it was deafening, it was the overarching Architect hissing in my mind as I laid on the ground convulsing. Do not meddle in forces you do not understand. It was the song the rain makes when it hits the roof overhead. There is a rhythm to all things, even randomness. Orangutans are writing et tu, brute? On typewriters in a flooded basement on an island that doesn't exist yet. Their typing sounds like rain. I can hear the pattern in the storm and I clumsily clap along

it tilts its head, stone venetian masque
the hollows of its eyes belie a vastness

This ring of pain is a crown, a gift from two solemn children from my dreams. If it is a blessing why was I held down to receive it?
bewinged Angler, where is the rest of your formless body? Where is your razor-filled mouth? How could I possibly satiate you?

It unfolds its wings with the sound of a hundred paper bags being crushed— with the sound of a tumbleweed scuffing against barren earth— with the feeling of friction between skin and threadbare fabric, and pavement, and coal— with your hands, too soft, too plush— an untuned piano being played by a cat, your fingers in my mouth, salt and sweat, a set of old stairs collapsing

the soul is long and sweet, it gets longer and sweeter by the hour, it is tended to by time and light
everything that lives must eat, and all things that grow must be devoured.

stonetooth

on my knees i look for teeth 

on the muddy ground by the backyard creek

toads stare at the air with unblinking eyes and their croak

is the sound my heart makes when its overfilled itself

and spends its night with its hands on the porcelain

coughing up years of accumulated rot

but when the toad makes the sound it is for love

when I do, it is not

I remember my mother’s snaggle tooth, a curved fang

amidst a cream-suited procession, a snake in the hutch

I remember my dead lover’s snaggle tooth, twisted to face

inwards towards his comrades, a traitor in the ranks

nothing beautiful is perfect

I’ll remember what’s been misplaced long after 

everything symmetrically sound has been wiped away

I have such the same malformity, 

though not as front-and-fringe 

to notice you’d have to reach in to touch it, 

to find it, hiding shyly, curling in on itself

There is a Physiognomist smoking a pipe in my head 

this is a sign of a crooked character, he tells me

good, I say, so let us be crooked

it is better for our branches to reach out to the light

I love to love liars and I love to be loved despite

how I cry as frogs cry, merely part of a larger orchestra

of homeless buskers that play for no one but themselves

(for who else is there to play for but ourselves?)

I pick a tooth from the creek, or perhaps a tooth-shaped stone. 

This will do just fine I think, it’ll fit in well enough with my own

this is the thing about a broken heart

it should be treated no differently than a broken bone

we speak of doom and sore-crossed stars, monologue

about the predestined tragedy of it all

but perhaps fate is always changing its mind 

its eyes are cast on the rug not the threads

and our little weaver is bored and tired and knows 

accidents will happen; people will fall

we set it back into place with a shout or a whimper

wrap it up with a shirt or paper, then we’re a little 

weaker forever and stronger for having overcome the pain

Not even cicadas know how to fly

I watch them crash into trees as 

I empty my tin bucket of painted shame

into the running water 

from its mouth trots out 

every mistake I’ve ever made 

and they salu! with little clay arms

and dunk their buttonheads under the water

the Physiognomist blows Os towards the ceiling

buttonheads are a sign of psychosis, he tells me

I can’t bear to sit and watch them swim around

so I head back home, full of wounds within and without 

if a planet explodes and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

creatures of doubt trade time with creatures of instinct

passing it between themselves in a crowd as one passes out drinks

they make idle chatter, about which of we knows better, the ones who act or think?

feathered beasts stroll the promenade, making passes at each other,

smirking laughing, looking downwards from the gallery

among each and every there are bodies, whose hands and minds have formed

tunnels of death, among the hesitators there are detractors

their calling is bloodless vivisection, and they wield questions like a weapon

unmaking nature's naked truths in favor of dull domestication

the animals applaud their failures with morbid fascination, they watch them consume

kill, steal, wreck, and with bitten nailbeds they stare with blown up eyes

and write and write and write all about them 

birds such as we report our findings to a hanged god

whose body litters the far reaches of space, it is gathering dust, and somehow moss

and it hears nothing, there are not even echoes in this place 

once she’s made up her mind, reality doesn’t matter

she can’t be swayed, little blue jay, she’s come unfurled

swath after swath after swath of undyed linen-

for bandages, for tourniquets, for blindfolds 

I know well enough to know what I don’t as well

as what I do, as few as few askew as it may

I know when it isn’t true

folds for blinding- knots for binding, such use 

for such unraveling, it breathes in and out 

as it waves in the wind- close and far apart again,

there are keys you used to play

within accordion pleating, they are missing

as a front tooth in a smile that’s grinning 

from ear to ear

clearly there, once, in a bygone year

there is a kaleidotelescope through which you can see

constellations, tenfold more than there are in the sky

multiplied glimpses of celestial light

between the patterned stars that change with a swivel

of an eye, it is pointless to cling to any one 

beautiful, fleeting, sight

nonetheless she engraves them within her mind

as full of wonder as she is with fear

she can’t be bent, my dear, she comes in twirling

dancing a dance we all know well, spinning even 

when we’re still

far away from now, there will be a tree

and its wood will be for writing, for swinging,

for swaying in the breeze

suppression

the stag knows, familiar the feel of the hair on the back of your head

the sound is a sound omnipresent as the ringing in your-

river rambling over your submerged ears

He lifts you up to taunt you just to shove you under again

this is how the apple bobs- with rocks inside your gaping maw, this is how he haunts you even when he’s gone 

the lamb knows little and yet more than most, knows how to soothe, knows what to say, knows what to cover 

and how to hide, knows how to hold you 

and how to bide her time

so as pages turn you can see a pattern emerge in the ink 

that sours the fiber- 

you’re wounded and you’re bloodied and raw and before

you bite she muzzles your maw

Now now, darling, don’t hate- you should feel bad for them. You stay your hand you bite your lip

but the anger stays, a rattlesnake, wasps buzzing by your-

Bathtub faucet scalding as it runs over your submerged ears

He knows familiar the way you writhe in fear 

and he lifts you up to laugh and you laugh in return

you find that inside you all fire has died 

and the sky is a blanket no noise can travel through

you get hit in the head, you apologize 

you stage your own mugging, fist your hands through your pockets, you hold a gun to your own chest 

and then you drop it- hate along with it 

and you are lighter than air- you float above the ground

and apples flit around like lady bugs and land in your hair

the stag pulls you down periodic 

his hands briefly mnemonic, it flashes behind your eyes

but you catch it and he pulls you up to watch

and you watch back

gods of empty spaces

In the land of disenfranchised gods 

all are more meat than mind

they divide themselves by even or odd,

young or old, by chromosome by creed

by currency 

How strange, you might think, 

are they not all powerful? 

They had lived at the top of the tower for so long

that their only meal left was each other, remember 

they are all more meat than mind

among them walked the gods of empty places

who took their empty spaces besides the rest

huddling over desks and small glowing monitors 

something about quarterlies and bottom lines

and ‘status quo’ 

I wouldn’t know what goes on in those walls of text

and numbers, I am there but only under

waiting for one to drop a cracker 

so I can bring it home to my mother, though I’ve heard

That the god of unknowledge wasn’t at the party last week

because too many people knew about it 

so he spoke in an ancient buried dialect 

to the lost memory of an extinct creature instead, typical Thursday for UNK

the all-seeing god is still wandering, no one knows where to or from, his large yellow eye ever-shivering with the weight of witnessing

Only UNK would know what he’s seen, and he only relays it in languages no living being remembers

lost to time like you or I in the next five minutes or millennium or so

they stick around too long, they do, 

fighting over paper and pronunciation and something called 'laws' 

I don't understand why they've built this tower or why they made these rules

though mice do speak to each other, 

and I've heard tales of a world once green now hidden underwater

stories of loaves of bread large enough to feed our whole family for weeks

but there were more of them back then, they say, so I count my blessings. Either way, our life is in hiding.

❄︎☟︎⚐︎💧︎☜︎ 🕈︎☟︎⚐︎ ☞︎☜︎✌︎☼︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ 👌︎☜︎❄︎☼︎✌︎✡︎✌︎☹︎ ❄︎☟︎☜︎ 💣︎⚐︎💧︎❄︎ ✌︎☼︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎⚐︎💧︎☜︎ ❄︎☟︎✌︎❄︎ ☟︎✌︎✞︎☜︎ ✌︎☹︎☼︎☜︎✌︎👎︎✡︎ 👌︎☜︎❄︎☼︎✌︎✡︎☜︎👎︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎  Unk whispers,

EYE shivers in reply

❄︎☟︎☜︎✡︎ ☟︎✋︎👎︎☜︎ ✋︎☠︎ 🏱︎☹︎✌︎✋︎☠︎ 💧︎✋︎☝︎☟︎❄︎📪︎ 👍︎⚐︎🕈︎✌︎☼︎👎︎💧︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ ❄︎☟︎✋︎☜︎✞︎☜︎💧︎

EYE shudders

the others ignore them, continue typing.

I can see the god of lack of light hovering in the corner,

a thin layer of translucence within the shadow of the potted Monstera

I know you 

creature of the in-between, 

lord of missing things, missing tiles missing plank missing pencil eraser and case

leftover scavenger from a missing world 

💣︎◆︎⬧︎ ❍︎◆︎⬧︎♍︎◆︎●︎◆︎⬧︎📪︎ □︎■︎♍︎♏︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎❒︎♏︎ ⬥︎♏︎❒︎♏︎ ♌︎♓︎●︎●︎♓︎□︎■︎⬧︎ □︎♐︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎📪︎ ■︎□︎⬥︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎❒︎♏︎ ♋︎❒︎♏︎ ⧫︎⬥︎□︎📫︎♒︎◆︎■︎♎︎❒︎♏︎♎︎📬︎ 💣︎□︎❒︎♏︎ ⧫︎♒︎♋︎■︎ ◆︎⬧︎ ❍︎♏︎■︎📪︎ □︎♐︎ ⬥︎♒︎♓︎♍︎♒︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎❒︎♏︎ ♋︎❒︎♏︎ ⧫︎⬥︎♏︎■︎⧫︎⍓︎📬︎ ❄︎♒︎♏︎⍓︎ ♍︎□︎◆︎●︎♎︎ ●︎♏︎♋︎❒︎■︎ ♐︎❒︎□︎❍︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎📪︎ ♓︎♐︎ □︎■︎●︎⍓︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎⍓︎ ♍︎□︎◆︎●︎♎︎ ♌︎♏︎■︎♎︎📪︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎⍓︎🕯︎❖︎♏︎ ♑︎❒︎□︎⬥︎■︎ ⬧︎□︎ ⧫︎♋︎●︎●︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎⍓︎ ■︎□︎ ●︎□︎■︎♑︎♏︎❒︎ ♍︎♋︎■︎ ⬧︎♏︎♏︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ♑︎❒︎□︎◆︎■︎♎︎ ♐︎❒︎□︎❍︎ ⬥︎♒︎♓︎♍︎♒︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎⍓︎🕯︎❖︎♏︎ ♌︎♏︎♏︎■︎ ⬥︎❒︎□︎◆︎♑︎♒︎⧫︎📬︎ ❄︎♒︎♏︎⍓︎ ⬥︎♓︎●︎●︎ ♎︎♓︎♏︎ ♓︎■︎ ♏︎⌧︎♓︎●︎♏︎ ♐︎❒︎□︎❍︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎♓︎❒︎ ❍︎□︎⧫︎♒︎♏︎❒︎📪︎ ♓︎■︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ❍︎♓︎♎︎⬧︎⧫︎ □︎♐︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎♓︎❒︎ □︎⬥︎■︎ ❒︎◆︎♓︎■︎📬︎

I shake my head and scuttle back into the hole hidden behind an unused bookcase

the EYE says nothing

all is business as usual 

what's your game, world?

I digress, illumination is most found in the gutter

I see it glisten when I stare down into the clogged sink drain; something there 

down among the strands of frizzy hair and rust

and spit, is more true to man than all this fanfare

about purity and light and god, 

all good things come from dirt

which houses rot, we’re born in blood

and sinewy strands of snot, we come out

toothless and hairless and wrinkled 

Sphinxes speaking in tongues

and we go absent in a similar fashion

leaving behind beer bottles at the darkest depths of the ocean

You wash the floors until they sparkle and think

to yourself, isn’t this kind of a lie?

If I stare long enough at the threadbare patterns

of this old rug, I will see Manson 

his head, his face, the shapes, 

the cadence of his convincing

If I stare long enough

at the ceiling, the plaster will turn to marble 

to vines to honeybees and cherubs with molotovs

both smacking their bodies against the window like moths

There’s something there, in the obsessive conscious

stare at the ground at the radiator at the corner 

at the dust at the exoskeleton at the bones 

at the drain at your acne in the mirror 

pick and poke and prod, it’s a kind of perversion

and morbidity is more human than the catalog 

or better yet, this desire for perfection

implies a kind of underlying 

twisted need to hide 

no self-respecting animal has any desire to be

anything but exactly what it is 

And we walk around in this parade,

chanting no one’s here! No one’s home! 

We run a tight ship around here

Our pipes never leak, we have all our teeth

We leave all our lights on, you’d never guess

Where these hands and mouth have been

you’ve nothing but what you've been given

My tea is full of nicotine 

I drink and chew the leaves

I put hypocrites like you to sleep when I

scarcely dream 

the mantis queen doesn’t know my name,

though her soldiers prattle up and down my arms all the same

all in formation in patterns unseen  

the cattle lay siege to the wooden fence in the night

glossy eyes like mirrors in passing headlights

they know nothing more than who you are behind closed doors

I titled my ear to hear and I’ll tell you what they told me;

That hares hide in fox skins when they’re scared

that feline hierarchy in truth, pays no mind to verticality

I walk backwards down the stairs

his name is nothing, no one, absence

his power is that of negation

shoulder-herald cawing an old song

into the ring of your ear, 

into the shell of your skull

his cadence is double-negative

whatever you say, derivative

whatever you feel, chemical

his power is that of negation 

you are a soft machine filled

with blind mechanisms 

his talons toy with switches in your navel

Old prince, never king, he flits around

with wedding rings,

delights in impossible promises

bowed heads, arched necks 

‘In the bed now,’ he says, 

‘then in the distant cell of memory, 

then in the haze of nonexistence-better yet a hot flash behind your eyes 

while your vehicle swerves and flips and skins the road’

do you think  vultures can taste longing

beyond the acid on their tongues? 

little star, never sun

did you know they ate the sky while you were still young?

there was once a ladder made of moonlight

do you remember the smooth breeze of platinum in your hands?

no, you wouldn’t, would you

I plucked the memory from you 

as you would a daisy,

petal by petal

until there’s no wonder left 

only metal

shoulder-herald, earth-bound son 

he reaches and he winds and winds 

he hides under your hat and in the barrel of your gun

his power is that of negation

knocking on your door, sliding down the bannister

You know how it ends already,

he curls around your eyes

pale claws picking at your mind 

why do anything?

why be anything?

why breathe at all?

false vacuum

 your dreams of omnipotence overcome you

the loneliness of others is easy to see

it secretes from their laissez-faire laughter

radiates forth from unshuttered eyes 

i watch them move about their lives with a pity 

a projection of my own reality 

how small these people are

small their sufferings, small their joys 

a cuckoo clock existence, it rings 12 

and they come out on conveyor belts 

bend over, kiss the hand, twirl around

and back through the doors 

effervescent inadequacy, 

courage in the tiniest of life forms 

glass bottles turned to pebbles at sea 

perhaps this is how it'll end 

in an instant, in a blink

as fast as light can blind you, I always thought

the best protection we're ever given is our own eyelids

so that we may lose ourselves to darkness when necessary

perhaps this is how it'll end

a box cutter tearing a line into a tightly rolled ribbon 

we'll come unfurled, untangled, forgiven 

my dreams of omnipotence are only 

dreams of a power great enough that i would be 

safe enough to forget myself entirely, I want

perfection so that I never 

have to worry, I can dance through life

unfettered, telling all in drawn out whispers

'what if this is how it ends?

in an instant, in a blink 

imagine that 

close your eyes and picture 

yourself on a brink

toes in the air, heels on the cliff 

you've been given the gift of blindness your entire life 

imagine if you could truly see with your useless eyes?

the yellow moon is an eye, the sky a stomach 

and who are we but tender morsels lain 

to dissolve in a bottomless pit of bile?'

the moonbeams touch me with their long nailed hands 

I close my eyes in respect 

nothing great 

desires to be seen 

all the angels

live inside hidden things

the longer shadow

turn back slender hands that may shatter between the smooth pads of your fingers 

turn them back to the beginning 

I slip out of skin as spirits slip from sleeping bodies, soundlessly painlessly 

timelessly, there is no time 

for you and I

I slip out of sleep as lithe legs slide from stockings after mass

have you kissed the knuckle yet

have you kneeled at the foot of your bed

aching for the past 

I found a ouroboros twisted into a double helix 

hung from a branch and buried 

behind cascades of Spanish moss 

I unhooked its jaw 

pulled the tail from between its fangs  

and when it finally had room to speak it whispered 

careful where you're standing, girl

once this was a seafloor

all your mountains underwater

you'll find their fossils in the caves 

keep your footing, keep your mind 

you never know when either 

will falter without you noticing 

once I was a serpent, grand enough

to swallow you whole

now I am less than the length of your arm 

see how decompression makes pitiable monsters 

of us all

I returned the snake to its rightful place 

hidden in long blades of grass

knowing it will only revert back to its previous state

after enough time has passed 

I turn back slender hands to the beginning and break them 

there's no use counting 

all this searching only to undo what time has done 

only to take back what it has stolen from us 

there's no time for you and I, no time at all 

I'll show you how to step forward with such perfection 

that it moves you back, traversing the fourth is an unconscious act 

I was near darkness when I heard you speak of redemption 

I was watching when they taught you how to become closer to light 

I must warn you, dear

it is only fair 

the further you go

the longer your shadow 

careful now, this was all ocean once

keep your footing 

lest you sink