oh dear
my jaw is acting up, it’s so excited to
speak with you

i love burrowing to the heart of your matter
you’re sanctifying, like a holy statue
burning through space

it must be 30 degrees
bird couplets tweeting across the mud
a nightmare of geese attacking a child
my teeth glow with yours, knowing
everything that happened was
well worth our time

let’s strip away our values and fears until
all that’s left are dreams
forgetting everything we’ve ever said
demolishing borders,
the sun screams
brighter

walls grow eyes and
stomp out our shadows
so let’s be as open as the sky
sticky syrup secrets smothering our flat tires
collecting dust like
thirsty troublemakers

peanut gallery ghosts
spying from shy corners
spilling ink all over our plans
solve it:
burn everything

quarrels degenerate into tunnel-vision and
there’s too much to think about so
i give up

nothing can upset me
i’m dreaming, undisturbed
in the warm cottage of your heart

your love confounds me, slowly
eating away my skin. maybe
resistance is a symptom of the
worry-disease. i might go nuts and
want you so bad that,
if i can’t yet inhale the layers of your stardust,
purpose-broken,
i’ll starve

feelin’ like a flea in lamb’s wool
livin’ the crazy life
and maybe your breath leaks into my skin and that’s why
my insides are storming

i’m your stumbling sidewalk litter
on the wrong side of the road
tripping over dead lawns
crashing through frozen mud

fooled by glazed eyes
beautiful distraction
ravenous burden
coveting forgotten insight
overfeeding limitations

assuming the next possible outcome
hunting down each breath
square 4 life, we don’t accept miracles
marvels must be man-made
man-bought
man-owned
man-powered
and never good enough

where’s the theme, the color scheme,
the puzzle piece?
shaking away your pain, captivated
a web of stimulating surprises

sleeping flower fields, black as the sky
curdle as we
make love to disaster

life is right in front of me and i
won’t reach it, i
won’t prove myself right:
i can do anything i want and
i’m terrified

inventing problems: what will happen next?
by Meghan Tennison

weight lifted & thrown
over & across, beyond & past
weak knees

you know that feeling you get when you
walk into a room that you can’t
back out of (you can try to hide
in the shadows, but
only for 15 minutes, ’cause
all the cars are watching you thinking to yourself,
“where is the sun?”)

everyone hushes away the hunch that they were
previously conspiring risks to
break your chances at catching any
tossed&hurling luck-bombs
“i don’t like that fellow and i’m going to find a good reason why!”

shrug away your oh-wells
take me seriously, let our pupils
battle their tears out
if we have to
gurgling muddy puddles, organs getting dirty
if we have to

i can’t find a trace of a sketch of a nutrient
in your face
your coffin will be colorless if you
keep this up
dull cheeks crawling away from the
stench of angry bones
years of silent heart-twists
clogged spinal fluid, smokey eyes
shedding ashes

every morning he watches the weather to feel important
she watches tom & jerry, searching for something to laugh about
they haven’t danced in years
too many horrors behind steamy windows
boredom devastating the mood
loveless children desperately depressed
IQ numbers dropping with each
megalomanic spout that the rest of humanity is
inept, forgetting to
pray what we preach

i asked, “what type of mate are you attracted to?”
he decided, “a christian woman.”
i dove into the shark tank, a vociferation of exclamation points,
“but mom said that, no matter how optimistic i can pretend to be,
even if someone calls himself a christian, he could still stab me in my sleep!
do you agree that we are inherently evil?”
he glared at the greasy floor, “i am.”

i admire their energy,
“will you ever fulfill your heart’s desires?”
his judgmental finger taught, “probably not,
considering things&such because of who-knows&how-come.”
she scowled, “i will never enjoy what’s in front of me because
it’s never fair! it’s never the way i try to see how i can’t make up my mind.”

the sun is here!
come see.
beaming realization
i must love, no matter how much i hurt.

“it’s okay
always remember: you can do it, and
jesus loves you.”

it should be acceptable to hand affection to everyone. i enjoy
cleansing my friends with massages while conversing.

why be particular and money-fearing?
to never taste debt
erase necessary evils?
all day i couldn’t hear what they were saying, only my own thoughts.
both parties would struggle-squeezing tangible notes and then react.
very strange,
these reactions we carry like
stones in our pockets.

this trance sucks.
are you trying to think about everything at once?
or can you only
concentrate on one thing?

head hurts, so i lie cold,
nerves missing,
thoughts robbing energy.
nothing numbs my heart more
than seeing myself in someone else.
i’m okay with it. you’re alive and not in my way; i
respect your existence.

nothing is wrong.
sunday, hospital
stimulant psychosis.

will your life fall apart?
is this your final chance to create a happy ending?

yes
deleting waiting lines of expectations
where is the willpower?
i need to rent several pairs of eyes,
discover miracles.

nurture that future self
take care of the present in preparation for re-birth,
so you can pop out and exclaim,
“oh, how beautiful and friendly! god bless you all!”
or else
wide-screen static domination.

today the number 777
was in three different places:
wrinkles, clouds, walls.
don’t you see? god is always watching, like santa clause.

i don’t see, no. god is imaginary.

but you are god and this is important!

how so?

because i pretend that it is.

i want to perform
a good deed
i want to acknowledge
“good morning!”
the presence of others,
drag the angels back to earth.

these are tough times
staring into our reflections
greasy tea kettles and muddy car windows
seeing through our own eyes, skipping straight to:
“how naked the trees!”
“how white the snow!”
ignoring the glitter, not pausing to wonder
“who is behind my camera?”

genuinely listen to others by
robbing their shoes and
exaggerating their souls and
crying about how
correct and different and alone you are.

play the game of “appearance matters”
compliment the makeup-less:
their stressed-out hair, their limp, their frozen bones.

disable the fast forward button
walk to the beat of the second hand
each step flickering by
mother each moment and gulp it away
pushing their final leaps from the hill of sensations
dropping them into the abyss of
my sweaty machine’s bouncehousing
daydreaming hungover factory workers.

knocking at the tank of your heart, i hear your hinges
still thinking, still blinking, collecting
points for an oily fantasy diet.
side effect: your body wakes up
moaning about disrespect and
lack of interaction with other bodies
so you dive into the gutter and
fish out a beauty-breaking melody
who echos each word you’ve ever
flushed from memory.

the fridge is playing its lengthy, one-chord lullaby,
my pupils swim in-between your
three-degree pores, but
up close you’re still too far away,
a blurry chaos of space.
my words ache like
wounded soldiers still marching forward
sleeping as piles in a moldy closet.

i dream about your face while looking at you.
in theory you make my heart explode and be reborn like a
kidnapped star;
in reality i’m
still asleep.

this beach dying my blood inspires
silenced audience, absent eyes.
cackling shakes my fear of facing your
torn, brown and white buildings.
my own structure is too stressed out to
babysit its owner.

turning the town’s dial
from fierce,
weightless jewelry
to innocent,
squeaking tugboats
to draining,
redundancy

i re-start this game every pause when
the earth trips over its spinning.
it only ever stopped accidentally, but
legend has it that, if you try with shine,
you can stop it
on purpose

our weight pulled our wishes over the edge and
stomped us to sleep.
breathing compressed breaths and
struggling to open one eye, we catch only glimpses
of a world so diamond.

careful,
coma’s teeth might catch up to you.

waking up from this breed of sleep is like
feasting on a million tigers with your powerful, godlike mouth,
forgetting everyone’s face and name,
writhing as their meat digests, like
claws roaring in defense,
striking at your paper belly.

stepping on spiders,
shadows of wasps circling mine,
background’s trees bellow ghostly tongues.
unable to register their depth,
we recycle our final layers into
future dreams.

we tuned up our body clocks
to purple meadows and bumble bees
your graveyard was warmer than my hands
it was a fun boat ride; the ladders creaked and
your head fell off every time you sneezed

promise never to apologize in front of love ’cause
it will catch on fire (i used to dream of drowning
in a flower’s mouth)

mix-matching ideals can disintegrate a garden of strangers
right down to their bones
when the moon hangs so close to our heads like a
glowing bar sign or crack light, i notice how
your knees tremble and
melt
grizzly called saying he had found your hair and strawberry scars,
still boiling and fresh in the grass, but
his hunger was more important (knowledge-torture always comes second)
and i’m glad -
his teeth don’t deserve to mourn over lost birds
anymore

“we need to replace ourselves sometimes.”
well, mountains don’t reclaim their sand or
shovel their skin flakes back into their caved mouths and only
alcoholic veterans beg the shops for a new liver, so
i would gladly shed my wool,
spit into your heart’s dumpster, and
apologize.

this brand new and improved vaseline lipstick gently treats you like
the thinnest of baby skin;a bottled genuine form of sympathy,
listenhearabsorb you’ll be forced to soon; they’ve got these sneaky
sound machines now, you know.
so let’s close our eyes and wish for a tornado ride home.

we stand at the welcome mat of their capital doll house
a scent of plastic limbs carefully placed, displaying
dinner,mossy fountains,letting each know when the other wants to
brush their teeth or take a ride on the backyard roller coaster,
pet goats sporadically itching barbecue chords all the way down the mountain stairs.
yeah, i think i dropped the key
to the hiding places of my body.

hi, don’t talk to me. i’ve got a date
with this blueberry pie and the tattoo parlor and the beach.
somewhere far and not so set-on-fire.

a rock fell off the moon and it dreamt of dark submarines,
entrapped: cages leaking dog gelatin whose personalities evaporated
just this last week- so close you were, detective! and anyway,
your face was gray, i let my fingertips taste
and they reported: “a marriage-
he smells just like the aftermath of your honeymoon’s nest!
you gotta buy into it, granny, who knows when it’ll last.”

that soap opera there did not apply to any blood cell i own, but
my shadow mingles
with it
somehow.

i said yesyesyes until i agreed that i will never know what to agree on
truthfully,atleast . 4 stories high
our sweaty, hungry-for-pizza flock sat on top of black trees.
level-headedness miles that way, pointer-finger said:
“in that plane ejecting pink lemonade exhaust, lingering something
filmstrip-innocent.” good.i’ve been meaning
to get rid of that, but my money’s garbage man had instead.

rodent smile,epilepsy gaze,shy songs bubble through her giggles.
strings stretch,gasp,fall — until thoroughly cracked.
hasn’t school ever taught you? never be humpty dumpty,
your body breaks and so does the rest of your luck.
it would seem like nobody knows how to talk anymore. maybe something
happened to our planet? “nope,
just yours,
robot-person.”

you cry like a tiger. i like it when you
bite your lip before shooting a gun.

let’s go play in the toy store,
in the soap shop, in the lingerie aisle;
let’s spray four different perfumes on our backs because
we are modern skunks; let’s follow the train tracks
to civilization, to chinese food; let’s eat lunch in the alley,
nexttoallthese strangers, withallofthese strangers
who transformed into what not even they had predicted;
let’s make wax castles
using all the candles in this abandoned house;
let’s play cribbage and eat cap’n crunch;
let’s have a picnic
on the highest hill of the graveyard,
by that blowhole,
on our roof.

let’s get drunk and go skinny dipping,
pee ourselves, and then wake up
with piss all over the bedsheets.

do you feel the electricity, transferring from your body to mine, running through the tunnels in our chests, roaring like a million different trains? do you think if we created enough friction we could set ourselves on fire? since it’s a love fire, do you think it would be pink, with heart-shaped flames?

your ears are the kind whose lobes glide down and disappear, attached to the homey skin of your head. if you took both of those ears off and conjoined them, you’d make a heart.

i want to teethe on your brain.

yelp,
howl,
ferment.

sleep with me in a low-calorie paper house. let’s stock up on furniture that leaks color all over the floor. visitors can leave their hand prints on the walls. let’s throw away our matches we use to set off our skulls’ fire alarms. isn’t it getting dull? wouldn’t you rather be a body of fruit trees and modestly low-grade farm land, rather than a body of taxi lights and chocolate pudding? your colors were not dyed by a machine and your skin was not fabricated for a school project. you are really orange juice and sunlight and your pores rumble with all the stars that fill them. real stars, not the ones we’ve made up to feel less lonely. my favorite words aren’t in the dictionary, they’re in your movements and buried in your hair; greasy, chlorinated, salty hair full of dandruff, hairbrush lint, and city smog. i love how different we are. i love every aura you radiate. i love you.

blockage, swollen
community sickness
stovetop gasoline aggravates argument bubble
a chore to draw movements

freedom for the liquid yellows who watch
the letters
sccramblingg in vomit tidal waves

contradiction reality mixture = inexcusable
broken body structure = unable

to prevent literary mess