she fluttered up the stairs
To save her stuffed animals from the curious smoke
that was peeking in at the room behind her eyes
but it weaved through her and overcame her
something as seemingly inanimate as smoke

you scooped her up
and brought her downstairs

you scooped us up

this summer is a blue. A bulbous, juicy, middle C blue. 

a light blue.
dark blue.
jazz blue.
hypnotizing, sickening, swing, sleepy, sensless, sweet, drunk, awake, sticky, smooth, sexy, swerved, darting, punching, citrus, coffee stained, comfortable, unaccustomed, consonant, atonal,
lovely.

blue.

with overtones of green.
and a dime sized, breathy, yellow, bulb in the corner.

more than that we are a symphony fit only for a homeless marching band.
and we are black and white.

mostly only five or six of us are on a staff at once,
and we kick each other from the ledger lines
and we disrespect, and we forget to write things down.

we use dirty accidentals for color. Sharps and Flats make everything sting more in such a lively way.

Wrenne is the conductor. Weed is the woodwinds. Tonic is the tonic. Marc hides the sheet music in his pocket, partially because he can write something more eloquent. Jack can play trumpet I guess. Andrew plays the bells. Andrew thinks he missed his cue, but Andrew hasn’t missed anything. Chris keeps the rhythm. Harrison sings out of key but we make it work. Will approves and thats enough. Phillip hums. Walter never shuts up. Max is missing.

bands see us as paper. bosses see us as paper.
parents see us as paper. sometimes we see us as paper.

to the developed minds we are paper.

to the theoretically advanced mind we are paper.

so we are paper.

The Foxhole Manifesto

the once flaccid pools of unwritten words inside of me foam
even the parts I thought you could never reach
are rubbed red.
as the sleepy blood sloughs from my pores,

you snake your arm down my throat, tug me inside out,
and drag me to a mirror,
where I can become acquainted with a special kind of self hatred.

you chew your insults like a lady
but you purge sirens in the adjacent bathroom
and the whole family can hear.

When him I tend in search or glance or gaze
My thought lies not in fit of hour robbed
His elsewhere winter brings me peace not plague
I do not sick or feel his gold hold lobbed

When name speaks less a call than a story
And messages are phoned and strained and splashed
Like bookends of ten states and twenty mornings,
A patient breath re-laced my spineless back

For in our future lies a history
A quelling home that comforts timeless night
A beatless tempo keeps me going
The march of love will never halt for time

When lonely fate docks you in distant bays
I will but laugh at time’s supposed chains.

jailed every incomplete nod
Even more innocent than it chimes
A time when we, on a porch touched with Christmas lights,
Tugged eyes at just the right time
Then played games from across a map
He stopped biting his nails
And talk turned to chat

I am happy

A pill

We have made a family of alate spools

Tell us what the trick is

I am happier

More pills

Fare well

we turned left onto Magnolia 
and I thinkof your black rope curls
in a heap somewhere in Boston.
attracting dust and all of dust’s companions
poor unfashionable curls who will never know
the great purpose they served in making you trendy
and more flexible.

I pivot onto 18th
and ask about nightlife or the music or girls
everything I am doing lacks concentration and confidence
I shouldn’t have said anything about missing you
I’m so embarrassed.

you reminded me it is a left onto Portland
in what I assume to either be a reaction to my driving deficits
or an afterthought from your conscious effort to stifle eye contact

right into the ally,
I think of our last car ride
hooting to Billy Joel
screaming with sweat
tantalizing the busy wind we were causing
your leg dangled out the window like a crude private flag.
we were people never taught to hum
and every breath became its own appendage to the moment.

I park.
you pack your things
I huff at the speedometer like there is more than one person in the car.
altogether, there is too much contact
with the ground.

I’ve imagined that if I am to die of a motor vehicle accident, whoever loves me at the time will ask an attendant what music was playing when my last hum hummed.

“Poses by Rufus Wainwright” he answered, “her borrowed car had a giant blindspot.”

And the window was down in the middle of January

No kiddin

I wrote that last year from the viewpoint of my best friend as he was going through the college search. I am not depressed And neither is he. I feel fine about not getting into Northwestern… Or at least it’s more of a bruise on my thigh than a gash to the gut.

Right before I opened the email my first worry was “shit, what if I get in?” I visited once. All of my love for it was based on the romanticization of a semi close friend. Semi close. I trusted him with my next four years. I’m not sure if I should ever trust anyone with college. I’ve been planning this since seventh grade. I worked hard on the ACT and got a great grade, my essays were great. I wrote northwestern a sonnet in ELIZABETHAN WITH FOOTNOTES.

I just don’t know what I am doing with my life. I can’t seriously pursue acting or writing, can I? Wouldn’t that require an elite school? And how could I get into an elite school with learning disabilities? Where am I going to be in half a year.

Where am I now even? Catholic school, lying to my family and my teachers about two things that shouldn’t define me but do. I’ve always wanted to get out but now I just have to find a place

         what

it’s like,”

the hair bun gestapo spits under two tarped eyebrows, “Why would he be mad at you, you were out of town!”

well she wasn’t really out of town

we all know that.

but the sigh police are always humming, and people will always have shoe string to strangle their fingers,

but only in winter,

do everyone’s eyelashes extend enough for human contact.

sigh