write now

 

Watermelon and pilea, fraternal twins 

A blue pot and a dark red one 

Reminder to ground 

 

Buzzed head dyke -- I kinda see it -- 

Granting myself permission 

 

Queerness is sacrosanct 

I am coming out at the worst possible time

 

The pink daisies persist 

Twenty days older 

 

On the morning of our wedding, 

 it's bittersweet. I'm proud of myself for getting here 

 

What if I made a mistake. What if I bite off my own fingers.  

We bought out all the sunflowers at central market. 

 

 

Remember that you need time to rest 

which is probably for the better

 

 

 

I cannot bring myself to kill the carpenter ant as it traverses the beige rug

 

It is not because the rug is beige and a smashed ant might discolor it. It is not because I am unaware of the potential damage to the wooden structure of my home should more carpenter ants move into it—though, in truth, my knowledge is secondhand and not necessarily accurate. It is not because I am squeamish (though I am, sometimes, that). It is because the ant is alive. Who am I to end a life?

Can I say something

 

How about something else?

And another thing 

Whelp

He is drawing an octopus with colored pencils 

Once a man penned a palm holding a flower, black inked and beautiful on painted yellow. 

We sat open locked eyes and shared for sixty minutes.

We drank so much water so fast we got high. 

He was very kind and open-hearted and I never talked to him again. 

Once a friend got quiet during my favorite verse so I could sing it. 

The ocean lapped the sand and we laid in the open trunk of a beige Subaru. 

I lived on his couch for six weeks and made $97 working part-time at a pizza shop. 

Once I snapped my ankle and hopped or strapped my arms round his chest for six miles out of the backcountry, body torn up for months. 

Once we climbed a mountain on snowshoes. 

We moved to Queens and the kindly men sitting on the dirty sidewalk outside the hookah bar helped unload our Uhaul. 

Once I moved to Washington, D.C. alone and lived with an uptight woman who displayed Bob Marley paraphernalia all over her house and car, a green VW bug. 

I've been Loki for nearly seven years. 

What'd you think of Moonstruck? 

I really appreciated it for being a really interesting storyline and script and plot. 

I don't know if I liked it. 

It was weird. 

There are three different little trays there. 

Not octopus. Jellyfish

What are the parts in between the choruses again? 

If I want to become a farmer goddamnit I can do it. 

Just some cool stuff

I have one or two links for you. 

Some organic gardening supplies and resources, some funky seeds

I haven't been alone in so long 

Let me finish this load of dishes 

Let me help your life makes sense, thirty-five years late

Didn't you know there was something wrong with you 

A cutting board clanks inside the sink 

Do I remember how to say yes 

2,100 trees later I'm really doing it 

There is a flotilla of twigs above the dam 

Hanna wades in the creek smiling 

Let me go, I dare ya 

We can do it tomorrow night 

I have buzzed the side of my head and I love it 

More more more 

I am as cool as I aspire to be 

I got us 800 dollars in cash 

Hanna's such a goober 

The soil in the planter has frozen 

I'll tell you more about 'em tomorrow. 

It's so incredibly good

 

His incredulity sparks it

that anxious feeling again

earth rollups spiraled into cloudmatter

crags rain down, splintered droplets

mulch retains its moisture 

 

this room made beautiful by christmas

antlered deer leaping

soon we'll make woodfires

10 years and I'm still lit up for you 

I never would have guessed 

 

We lobby sneezes, sneakers squeak acrylic

We should really get a landline

 

like a thin hot snake lashed inside of me 

Lodged inside of me

Step into the green yard booming 

Leaving was the right thing to do, because we left

remember the soft grass, the gaggles of small 

brown birds, the imagining 

farm to feed the misfits 

half-acre filled with wildflowers

if I'd stayed I couldn't plant them 

Hot wet

 

 

When I am alone 

Bent quiet on the grey chair in the bedroom 

Laundry squished beneath my lower back 

Claw marks on arms 

anger like a freight train

my red hexagon 

A tiny crossing guard waving from the tracks 

 

 

So obsessed with protecting people 

saw it coming

All day small, small, small 

Hot wet shame 

Ugly little cry face

 

I did it too.

Bad day for screaming.  

Will the yearning end now?

Is this how you felt?

All the lines I told myself I'd remember I've forgotten

 

Too late 

Look at those cute little eyelashes

I'm hurt 

Two boxes of honeycrisps and a bunch of lavender 

She looks pretty in that dress 

The leaves fall golden-brown-dimpled-purple 

I rake them until the web between my thumb and index finger blisters 

 

At long last the new sofa has arrived

150 native plants this fall 

soon I'll tier the garden beds

 

I'm really grateful to have friends

We'll pick our own at the pumpkin patch 

Before it rains we walk in the woods 

A snake surfaces

Guess what motherfuckers I like a lot of musicals 

I press my nostrils to the lavender, inhaling