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i come back here every now and then thinking wouldn't it be sensible to take a left turn five minutes ago? (i've never been sensible.) but here i am again. called by a voice barely heard, the possibility stirring somewhere below my skin deliciously. it's results-guaranteed kind of not-smart daring ridiculousness and i'm so tempted to just sink my teeth into it, let whatever bruise blooms bloom in peace or chaos, either, i'd take either, anything, i'd take you. if you'd have me. this is silly: i am feeling it anyway.

It was the night of her sixteenth birthday, and she'd been released from the family festivities around ten o'clock, when her drunken aunts had finally stumbled back into their cars to leave. You're a w-woman now, Astrid, they'd hiccuped, giggling, as she rolled her eyes and shrugged on her hoodie in the doorway. Okay, bye, she'd replied, and that had only set them off again. It was a relief to get away from her family. They'd made a huge deal about her sweet sixteen and how she was a young lady all of a sudden -while, of course, seating her with her five-year-old cousins at the living room table instead of in the dining room with the rest of

so my tio, he makes submarinos which is a pale beer (think keith's india ale) with 1 oz of mint liqueur submerged in the gold. as you drink the shot glass shifts and leaks green- very irish, he says, in spanish. my dad laughs. and for my tia i make sex on the beach because she like the sweetness of grenadine; she doesn't like the bitter of a dirty wet martini like i do. cerveza y vino ya but cocktails go down smooth, at least the sweet ones do. mom can't drink anymore, not the ron y coke or the wine or the cerveza, and instead i mix her up the sprite and grenadine with some cranberry and orange. she looks like part of us drinking her mock

goodbye! i'm packing my bags for budapest, because i like the way it looks in photographs. i've had enough of the straight lines and impersonal sterility of airport lounges, i want curves and crumbling stone- take your dead metal abominations and let my pulse race unchecked; i want stirred blood in my veins, not the smell of it.

3. You give me a feeling as immense and sprawling as the twinkling city-bones that I admire from the windows of planes at night; the glowing lines that map the beauty of men, and the things they make with their hands.

You are a temple. The sacred arches of your eyebrows are raised above mere mortals, In your eyes, the light of God shines through, as in His gothic stained-glass windows. Your limbs are like the grecian collumns, too beautiful to touch, And no one dares to places their hands upon The proud and stately domes and slopes Adorning you. And I would kneel in worship, praying for my freedom, But what cruel dieties do dwell inside your mind Take pleasure in the suffering of men. Our sweat and tears lift them ever higher. If they see fit to grant our dearest dreams Allow us access to your lofty treasure It is merely a taste of Heaven's

You think you're safe? That the lawmakers and their gun-wielders are the beneficial conduits that they claim to be? Well, that's because you toe the assembly line, meet your quotas, and count your blessings. You're a productive cog in the machinery. And the television that's hooked in the tender crook of your elbow, the one that shows the protons in the atom bombs they make, you think that isn't connected to the same dirty circuits weaved through their robbers' gloves? You think that what you see through all the static isn't just their feedback? Ungrease your gears, my friend. Let the tick-tock of your sleeping heart wake up your shutte

now- a second lies suspended in the still air, unswayed, like a droplet of rain reflecting our brilliant particles in fractals; multiplied endlessly into the billion empty spaces in a string. now- the minute is sixty infinities; a vast feast swelled by its division- eternity tastes of cake, crumbs incapable of filling concavities, for our rumbling bellies may devour constantly, churn the bits into ever smaller pieces without satisfaction. now- the day is longer; eighty-six thousand and four hundred of the aforementioned spheres evaporating as this continuum rolls on, never late or early, or enough, just a softly tumbling stone maki

you- you with the lazy eyes, the nonchalant twist of teeth that passes for a smile- you, infuriating slick-haired spectator of your own one-man mirror show- you, clinging smoke-fingers, ever grasping for the ends of skirts- you are not entitled to my heart.

love, i knew: to catch you is to ruin you. oh- but when i saw you trilling, spilling songs into the sunlit trees, what could i do but love you, brilliant bird, and listen? waiting suited me- me, child of muses, who mimicked every verse i heard, and thought i'd found the only tune that mattered. but, love- your sweetest notes were never meant for me, and i must find my own hymns- my own feathers- dear bird, at last, i set us free.

I was there the first time that my brother froze, the first time that his brain revolted. The sound of breaking is a gasping, rattling hyperventilation, the heave of panicking lungs, and the shuddering convulsive thumps of limbs against a car seat- something seat belts, and parents, and my own hands are powerless against.

leave your lover, girl, get on and walk yourself into that blinding sun fresh-eyed, palms raised, defiant. leave your lover, girl, get on- flip back the pages, redefine that too-small line she tried to pin you with. leave your lover, girl, those fingers aren't worth your voice, your soul, your songs and laughter. leave your lover, girl- you were born for more than kisses. you were born for true words. leave your lover! girl! don't doubt you'll find another, soon or later or whenever you are ready- leave your lover. to stay would be to stunt yourself when you can stand and grow- leave, twist up towards the sun green and fresh and frag

1. the sky isn't really blue. it's a bit more complicated than that. 2. truth is complicated, too. i figured this out the day i walked out the double wooden doors of my parents' church for the last time; they survived so many things with this cross that they can't see how heavy it lies on my shoulders. when i gave my mom all my rosaries she cried. my dad didn't say much but we used to discuss things, used to talk about the stories in the bible. what was true and what was art, how genesis is written like a poem, how hyperbole is a kind of truth. i talked about those things in literature class but it wasn't the same. they tried to get me to go

i saw in silk falling for another an imperfect infinity of spaces;                               stars disconnected                           into lineless constellations- fingers unlacing                     no more pictures,                  no more bright heroes stretched like       wool over the eyes. (not  your      hands,                                can we close orion's belt                              and zip up          not the hands i want,            not where i wanted them,              not the  words                   i wanted to tumble from your eyes                    through lips into waiting hands,    

our whirling's warped: no stage or ruby slippers in this precarious performance- only skin and sweating upper lips, deliberate movements puppeteered by pleasure- and i'm a sucker for a love song, sweetheart: but promise me despite the polished surfaces of our tongues that i will not shatter when the record slips like pacing feet upon a slick floor, that i will not be forgotten by your hands- for you are home now, not simple heat- not space between the sheets, but the blankets that envelop me on nights when this city seems too cold- i've called you friend since we slowed to winter waltzes. and if you leave on that ever-stretching road that

i heard the river calling me; each night i crept away to lie on beds of moss and stone until the break of dawn. i gave myself wholeheartedly- poured out my trembling soul, and underneath the summer moon i loved, and was loved, there- but stones turn cold, and mossy banks grow barren. sweet moon sets, or lifts her face to higher things, and lovers cease to lie on river-beds. all seasons pass: my river onward rolls. so do i.

got fractures and plates building me fragile again (you can only regrow some bones)-- one of these days i'll unstopper myself and all the words will have you flat-- insinuate themselves into the crevices of your ears, they will not look you in the eyes, they will not take but they will give you more than you asked for, more than i ever wanted to give-- i can't hold them in forever and i don't want to try anymore. i was too kind and you were selfish. you can be selfish with yourself, but you cannot-- should not-- with my body-- which you should have known. you should have known. (i know-- the presence of words or hands weighing me down the