Love. Him.
Playing Cowboy
I sought asylum at a dude ranch in Death Valley where the heat could purge me of my sins. I played cowboy, hoping I could sweat it out like a sauna of life and justice. I met a woman, a girl so beautiful she could sprout laced wings out of her slender, perfect shoulder blades, without skipping a beat. I ate flan from her belly button and we dreamed of Tokyo and blowing it all to smithereens. We made love on the floor—the rug made of cowhide scratched her ass and left red marks on each cheek. Later I kissed the marks, my jeans around my ankles, following the pattern of scratches like a map of our torrid lovemaking.
I came to love the desert—its pumpkin-colored sunsets and the way the pervasive dirt settled into my pores.
The woman, who in my head I called mother goose because she described life like a fairy tale, brought me fresh-baked sour dough bread on Sundays. The bread was still hot and I lathered butter into its fluffy flesh. Then I’d catch her making some poker face at me over the table, so I got on my knees and pulled up her skirt to kiss between her legs with my butter-soaked tongue. I held on tight to her boot-straps and pulled her closer, while I buried my face in her warmth. Her inner thighs squeezed my cheeks.
The following week I had to leave. She called me a bastard, but I gave her a wink and kissed her goodbye.
Mar 19th, 2011
after dancing in the disco in Dublin, and the pain of specific places,
Fish biting our toes, their salty tongues licking our heels.
her right arm, his fleshy bite
we stood in the door frames and the bath tub
I died anyway, crushed by a wayward anchor out to sea…
we walked amid orange blossoms on that sunny saturdaysunday
Tears beaded in the corners of her eyes, she let them cascade down her pudgy freckled cheeks, you ate tangerines from my aorta, citrus tingling my heart strings
I’m thinking of a color that starts with the letter blue.
I’m thinking of getting old and wearing pastels, the silver ring I lost and what adventures it must be having.
I don’t know how to control each synapse in my brain.
but what do you wish for?
Grass stains and rug burns.
Jan 22nd, 2010
Ode to the Willamette
I long to dip my fingers in your cool waters.
But I fear it too early to make such a move.
At the end of the bridge, I glance back—
The sun sets out its disco ball,
your sequined dress glitters as you sway.
Nov 19th, 2011
you flipped me off as you brushed your teeth
it was beautiful
10/16/12
I am not the problem. And even if I am, it doesn’t make me any more in control.
We kissed in a dream last night.
It was just a small kiss, but god was it wonderful and tortuous and magic. A small kiss, but just as it always was—
Like swimming in the light of a plush summer sun, like sex and heat, and like falling and falling and landing. Exploring your lips with my fingertips, eyes shut tight—catching my breath and a home to come home to.
At once exhilarating and paralyzing, to devour and to be devoured. All those places you made me place-less. places I became lost and found and lost again. endorphins too loud for any thought or sound, just your mouth against mine. I remember all those places I became place-less.
a bittersweet taste of our chemical reaction. that feeling—the thrill, the surrender.
10.02.12
It turns out that all this time I’ve just been looking for a family.
