notpoems

i.
when i wake up i cannot move.
i try stretching, playing my piano, religion;
fantasies about braiding black hair,
about adopting a mountain range, counting
all the things i've lost and found.
so i sit on my couch.
stare out the window, watch it rain in summer.


ii.
donuts. frozen drinks that you slurp till your brain hurts.
chocolate bars. my blood thick and heavier from the sugar.
(muffins the size of baby's heads and cupcakes dainty and
gorgeous as Marie Antoinette) so thick it can't be pumped,
i'm cut and bleed in gelatinous raspberries. emerald and
candied geraniums. i smile and put it to my lips.

do you need gas? she asks as i pull in and stop the car
nono, craving cookies. (yumyumyum)


iii.
it's nothing, it's a hole in my middle name.

i am a ghost ; to many people, i am a foreign long-distance oh-yeah-remember-him? name.
former once-upon-a-time girlfriends who might from time to time remember my hands on
their waists and feet they'd never let me kiss. former how's-about-a-time roommates who i slummed with and ate $5 noodles sitting on the side of the road at 2am

it is weird to not exist to so many people.

i am introduced to her. i say hello, she asks to hear my name again, i say: for your whole life you'll remember a sunday afternoon when i watched from the hallway you come out the shower and put on your underwear. and the window was half open so the milk grey sad rained on dream of afternoon infected our lives forever more and you turned and saw me and picked up your lotion and and held it out to me. ___she asks about my name again, but i've already told her all she'll ever remember.


iv.
you should be standing on your own two feet by now.
that sounds lonely. __standing on just two feet. __i think i prefer to stand huddled together,
standing on the backs and shoulders and feet of people who love me.

(and when i walk i hear a small army every step i take)