crickets

there are things i don't want to write
grotesque things
things like the crickets
our basement was a landmine field of leaping crickets
just riddled with these harmless, sensitive, startling creatures
terrified, sister and i stayed away
until one day, determined to get to the laundry room
we began a new approach
we'd fetch tupperware from the kitchen
we'd descend to the basement, hunched
we'd shuffle our feet along the pilly vanilla carpet and at just the right moment
we'd place-toss the tupperware over the cricket
it would leap frantically around its strange new cage
as our dopamine faced off against our shame
we were always too afraid to release them so we would leave them there
in plastic prison
until they asphyxiated
then we'd vacuum up their everything
discard them in the big gray bin behind the house
and wait for someone to come pick up the trash

poem for j

we used to have to drive in silence, remember?

otherwise we'd get to snorting

and screaming Rent songs

and inventing Real Housewives intros

or sometimes you'd ask

exquisite and ever-spacious

"where does it hurt"

and

"do you believe in God"

eventually we'd notice the google maps lady begging us to u-turn

eventually through belly laughs you'd say

"how the fuck did we get on the bridge to San Francisco"

max

I’m so in love

With the feeling

Of not wanting you anymore

more of everything

i told my landlords no today
i wish i felt it all a bit less

but

i am an armadillo ball snapping shut
wildfire smoke in a too-full sky
purple swelling in the shape of my father’s hands

i’ve chosen to feel more of everything these days

so
feet on floorboards
i travel into that drippy cave
and find who i'm looking for

i speak gently

open palm on sternum
offer the deep red blanket

the one that still smells like jess
the record player is there
the one my mom got me just because
i play blue and i whisper:
i know sweetie

i wish i had a river

how staggering and horrid and holy
to feel so much of everything these days

poem for my neck hair

i keep displacing you

there’s a pleasing pop and then
the empty comes

but you are a student of lineage
recalcitrant, ever-germinating
and soon enough
in the winky yellow bathroom light
we'll meet again

you will try to show me the vastness i belong to:

mothers braiding bread, fathers teaching Talmud, queers giggling in candlelight, descendants alchemizing

you will try to remind me:

"you are a pelican in formation"

"you are mycelium electric"

my First Big Gay Love™

so many clichés in my FBGL

my house filled up with her ceramics

we held hands and watched Carol

i liquefied when i saw her in a suit

and we both cried

a lot

but we’d also spend hours playing pretend:

me, a stranded hiker 

her, a malnourished mountain lion tracking me through the woods

dust

1. last august

you walked right through me

you left your dust in so many corners

2. way way way way way back

you let me write my name on your forehead with red lipstick

we were dear to each other then

   

3. we all knew the shapes you became

but most of our people were keeping you

and i wanted to keep you too

4. fuck you for handing me this harm

i hope you can learn something from watching me

transmute

doorbell

you rang the doorbell
and when i saw you
i was airborne

your jaw and belly were fuller (strange)
but you still called me shirubi (aw)
you still tracked me with those inky eyes (damn)
still fiddled with the hand rolled cigarette tucked behind your ear (oof)

and found a reason, any reason, to presence the harmonica (sploosh)

yes, this was the stuff of dreams for me then
my thighs tired from the strain of clenching down

the way we made each other portals to chaos

the way the nausea holds on

if you rang on my doorbell now, old friend

i wouldn't answer

my friends

i want friends who show up on my team in stress dreams

who walk with me towards integrity

and find the ways to say the hard things

i want friends who count on me as a real caregiver to their little ones

who hit the harmony and crack my belly open with jokes

i want friends who will always jump in the photo booth and insist that we moon the camera

friends who see through my many strategies but mostly let them be

who will kiss my face at midnight and then bark BITCH GO TO BED

i want friends who honor rupture and sanctify repair

who can create play from stale air

friends that i can feel at my back like strong hands

and at my sides like a nearby warmth

friends whose love travels forwards and back

as we were, are, and will be

thank you, my beloveds

you are all this and infinitely more

"enjoy your beer"

the lighting was just ok
we drank kombucha even though my nerves wanted wine
and i was kinda skeptical
the time before got funky and
i thought our combined earnestness might squeeze out all the sexy
then that dude came over, chatting and hovering around us
my pitch spiked
my limbs wriggled like worms in caustic dirt
but you?
you straightened and lengthened as if your tailbone had roots in the boundary
and with a simple "enjoy your beer" 
he shrank away

should i tell you how much i thought about that later on?
while i writhed under blankets, my fingernails slicing crescent moons along my neck?

but

you taught me how to clean the cast iron

but i forgot

how to drive stick

but i really didn’t want to

you taught me life is everywhere

but we'd already died

you taught me gratitude

but i can rarely feel it

watch

watch
watch these bones riot
and these hard-won inches come home
watch this hair flame hot
and these tits go feral
watch me cook this sauce—
fatty, salty, singular
(sure, lick your fingers but)
watch
i want to feel you
feeling me
feeling free

us three

some nights we'd pile together, us three:
blanket mummies with popcorn-butter fingers
plus the hopeful dog at the foot of the bed.

we’d holler at Antiques Roadshow,
lush with levee-breaking laughter

and resting in our shared heartbeat.

the sanctuary we made, us three…

i don’t like to travel much
but i travel there often