​September rains occupying my mind as we sit sipping from crystal glasses. 
Pulling down the shades. 
The bed calls.
We don’t hesitate smelling of musk and skin. 
The sheets cool our hot bodies. 
The mirror reflects hair and open mouths, 
shoulders and sex.  
September is quiet until the wind blows.
Then the sounds rustle my nerves. 
The edge drops like shadows hidden. 
Even breathing is too loud. 
September falls with me down a hill. 
Laughing over skinned knees and sweaty tears. 
My elbow yelling like the Mexican sun. 
September shines at night where glasses clink.
Where in my champagne brain a relationship burns. Where we keep it real. 
We keep it bright. 
We keep it lit. 
September happens to us. 
As we take walks holding hands. 
As we sleep touching fingers. 
As we eat each other up with our eyes. 
September reminds us when we talk about the past 
not to skip pages. 
When we want to fall apart 
we skip to the end of the series. 
When we want to close doors 
we peek at the foundation. 
When we want to collapse 
we share tea. 
September is full of clouds layered like a Monet 
even when it’s dark. 
He holds me in my pain. 
Laughs when I fake sleep. 
Tells me words that make me cry. 
Sings me his songs. 
Grabs my thigh through the night. 
September holds our kisses over the years. 
Smiling in silence. 
Growing grass. 
Raising dogs. 
Living in a dream. 
Wet foreheads. 
Open palms. 
September leaves me sitting at a table. 
Standing in a doorway. 
Laying in my bed. 
Shedding skin. 
Beating slow. 
Praying to whoever will listen. 
Craving more. 
Fading fast. 
September is almost gone.

​Waking moths
I don’t want anyone to tell me how I should feel.
 when I don’t even know how I feel, I can almost guarantee that whatever falls out your tears,  is not how I am feeling right now and surely is not what I will be feeling in a spell.
 I would think that I would know how to bite by now.
 Thoughtfully, with time taken to assess the damages and call in my dogs. 
But no. I don’t. 
Perhaps I have unlearned that in a matter of waking moths and growing toads. 
Growing toads. The very downfall of my own wildness. 
If I raise my voice too much I’m eruptions. If I don’t say enough I’m just desert.
So fucking what? If I can’t be eruptions and I can’t be deserts why would I ever want to be their mountains or skyscrapers or valleys. What scenery are we even building? Because I don’t fit into it.  Perhaps that’s the dice.
Why we fold people into origami cranes and set them to the sides of our desks. We won’t ever fit right but we have a small place if we must exist.
Well. 
I’ll set your cranes to craters. 
I will pull myself out of my jowls,  straight from my toes, where i’m curled into blankets.
I will pull myself out of my mouth until he doesn’t think he knows me anymore. Questions if he ever knew me at all,
 if I was ever rosemary,
 if i was ever sunrises,
 if i was ever cotton.
 And I will keep coming, and coming, and coming.
lengths and cords of this sage, this seer. 
Until im standing cauldrons high
and taking hash in powerful laughter of witches.
 Until I am so certain of myself and my tears I won’t ever choke on my ropes again.
 But humanity might.
 I will carve them into my snakes. And take my seat up in storms.
 I’ll sit in the clouds and watch as my guts spill out, everything that I have ever swallowed, ever hesitated to say, or carried in my clutch.  
I will watch it play across the sky in dark clouds and harrowing twisters. Lightning to the pastures.  My weather will eat the things i love like games. It will do to the outside what it has done to the drawers. 
And it won’t cease fire until the cupboards are scrubbed clean and the wounds are licked and the gardening gloves go back on.
 And when it calms I will round up my cherries and tell them of what I’ve seen. About how ladies take up swallowing snakes and let them live in their bellies. How if they sit, they fester and bubble and stink.
 How the bile is like the backwash of the ocean when I vomited  back onto grass. 
I will let them know that there will always be growing toads. 
But they are theirs alone to tame and harvest.  
For there are gnomes in the woods and they are petty thieves, and they will always try and get to talking. 
They want to change the way your kitchen door slams and how you peel your oranges.
 And if the bones inside are tired, and if the physical body needs love. 
My dear, as I,  you just might let them. 
But when the graveyard overflows and arm hairs stand on end, the time has come to disrobe. Know your own snakes and call in your dogs . Head alone to barren eruption road. 

It’s all dark
except for fireflies just out of sight
my face is hot 
barring the sweat on the back of my neck 
keeping me cool when there’s a breeze
I want to smoke pot 
but the boys are nowhere to be seen
I look around taking in the movie scene
I see souls passing in slow motion 
over the forest trees
I wonder if they can see me
light litters the ground like licks of fire
it’s a dream when I’m oh so far beyond
and I prefer it that way
the buildings disappear when I feel this distant
but only as long as the moon is bright
tonight, when it is new and dark 
I see the bodies falling
I hear the cry’s for daddies and babies
I see mothers with tears as big as planes
the owl screeches me into my surroundings
it’s better than sirens
tears cover my face but no ashes
the lone crumbling is me 
as I fall to the pine needle ground
I think about where I was born
I think about people I thought I knew
I think about who’s gone
no one can see me planted on soil
my face in the earth
breathing in dirt covered worms
wild flowers never grew from cement 
although they tried
I left before the singing began
I had to or I would have flown places I shouldn’t
the sound of cracking jerks my head off the dirt
I can almost smell the fire from here
or is that wrong
looking up from my position I rise to my knees 
and I pled
make it stop
make people stop hating me
make it stop
make an elevator to pass out the top 
that shoots like a star
throw money out the doors 
like leaves flying off the trees
sleep with women that live on other grounds
holding them on pillows made from clouds
cross lines with promises 
from long before men forgot they wanted to be alive make it stop
make it stop
make it stop forevermore

I floated through the 60’s with flowers in my hair
my eyebrows heavy
my tummy hungry
mom worked 2 jobs 
poor but proud
food came with the Puerto Rican’s 
red beans and yellow rice
chicken fricassee or fried eggs 
plates were divided in order of size 
wine was drunk by the jugs
juice came by adding water 
cigarettes bought by the carton 
see, I was raised in the city
an integrated city
at least where I hung 
all shades played together 
we amused ourselves with dolls 
everyone had a place to live
rent control or the projects
no matter what their checks said
we’d run through the sprinkles or the fire hydrants
we climbed trees with the squirrels in the park
slid down the rocks on our butts 
spend hours on the swings
singing every song we knew
bouncing each other off the seesaws
pushing each other off the slides
we’d laugh
no crying
I cry now
now poor is a dirty word
homeless with no job in sight
hell, there ain’t even no more middle class
food comes from stealing
can’t even pick at neighbors garbage 
without getting arrested
can’t even drink wine from paper bags no more
some buy cigarettes by the singles 
where we bought joints
fireman hand out dolls but not Barbie
fucking correct bullshit
hell, it’s all a bunch of bullshit
rent is for the rich
rivers full of infections
trees dwindling away
songs scream of violence, curses, hopelessness
we had Motown, romance and love
guns are the throw down
hell we used spray cans to spread our words
now there’re cops on campuses 
I’m frisked at the movies
at the movies
I saw a metal detector at my elementary school
what the fuck
we used our fists
we hated
but now the hate has risen to the top
comes up on us like trash on the shore 
and it smells like being poor