120/365 : this poem is about money. it just seems like it's about sex.

good god, i want you.

i want you in my vagina.
i want you in my mouth.

i want you combing through my hair
with your unassuming fingers
that know how to choose
things that last.

i want you to buy me that pretty green dress.
i want you to feel my lips move slowly across you.

i want you to quiver.
i want you to shout, YES.

i want you to shake song out of your spirit and leave it on my doorstep.
i want you to walk when i'm treating you like shit.

i want to be so naked, so raw, so real and wild with you,
that you cringe and hiss every time you leave the bedroom.

i want you to know that i get you:
i get that you love to show up and praise

what's helpful
what's beautiful
what's love.

and i want you to know that i'm ready for you.
ready to tumble til i'm laugh-cry-dreaming with you.

because i finally get
that i am helpful, beautiful love.

i finally get
that i'm more than enough for you.

119/365 : i know nothing about love

i know nothing about love
the kind where staying together forever
earns us all gold metals and
parental approval

i know nothing of parental approval

when i was twelve
i wrote in my livejournal
things that got me in major trouble
things that the backdoor neighbor
somehow read and repeated to my mother
as they stumbled into each other
walking their dogs
through the suburbs

i wrote things that i'm afraid to muster from my memory
and spill out in front of me for you--
normal things that make up my normal gory roots

perhaps if i tell you, you'll want to fix me
or judge me, or worse love me

love me so loud that somehow
no story would be too gory
or too boring
to stick around for
til the end--
even the beautiful ones
even the triumphant ones
even the everlasting love that is actually
alive and well in the temple of my heart
(my heart, that's more protected and unscarred
than i ever let myself admit)

i am not my controlling father
i am not my silent mother
i am not the suitcase carrying my favorite journal
on the side of the highway
thumb out praying to god that some stranger
could take better care of me
than the very people who birthed me

i am not my disillusioned victimhood
i am not a divorce statistic
a broke kid writing poems
a dandelion seed to far from mud
to root and grow
into something normal
that turns into a dream

118/365 : the trouble with love stories

the trouble with love stories
as in, the stories we tell ourselves
about what can qualify as
reasonable love,

is love needs far less reason
than what we've been reading
and repeating like a religion of verses
for the scared soul

choosy children, we are
choosy and unwise
saying, this, this is my favorite 
story of all time 

read me no further
write me no new scripts
the parts, we've cast
the credits, we've pre-written
before we've ever met the
glory of the tradition we follow

silly children, bound to be sad
bound to a bible of culture
a stone tablet of choices
chosen without ever knowing

the god of the wild wind
the goddess of an unrelenting spring
in a hidden garden
back behind the trailer

back where nothing is forbidden
and the greatest story of all
is your capacity to fall fully
to your knees, heart spread
and hungry
for something hearty
and honest
as lips touching lips

117/365 : songs of the ballerina

i carry my love stories like tiny camp fires
jewelry box capsules around my neck

the only one who knows
the songs of the ballerina

when the clasp tilts back
and the spring uncoils

is me

116/365 : old ways, new wardrobes

my old man's scribbling poetry
in bed next to me

warm flesh against warm flesh and
the candle in the corner

is flapping its flame
like a hummingbird gone mad

when i think of my friend judy
in new york city

and her old man allen
and his late wife hazel

whose opulent dresses
heavy with history and lace

he gave to her in a big red trunk
"they're amazing," she told me

"like a whole new wardrobe"
and i think, i know exactly what she means

except my new wardrobe is naked
and dripping in cum

amazing,
and totally undone

115/365 : priest hole

it is spring in eastern oregon and

the john day river is screaming cold

but you like the shock of splashing

and i am laced with fairy wings

and this is more like love than

even ice cold hail pitter pattering

on the tin top trailer roof

could scare me out of

114/365 : secret recluse, born again

black cats and bats
i can't read your destiny
but mine is screaming at me
to go sensually
and independently
through the illusion
of them needing me
and into the reality
that i need myself the most