A Letter to Napolean

Naples,

   I drank up all the sap again. Dingo left it in the back of his pick-up and I was going to turn into lead this time without it. I could dally around and make small talk with you--that would make it a lot easier on both of us I guess. You could go on pretending that I love you, and I could go on pretending that I want to. I know you've got a thing for me Nape, but it's just too complicated. Your lips are flaky and not fit for kissing, and you know I don't like your rusty, rough hands. Your eyes are like road maps because your mother is dying, and I'm just too selfish to stick around and love you. Rue says I hold tight to my sick vices because I'm young. I'm 19, Napolean. I have the whole world ahead of me. I don't need you to get me pregnant and to live in some sad excuse of a tinsel trailer trash dream. I know you say it'd be nice. I know you say we'd have a dog igloo for Francis. But I'm over what you say Napolean, because you're a nice guy. Nice guys finish last. I'm putting you last Napolean. I'm putting you last because you work hard. I'm putting you last because you're still wearing Temo's pinstripe overalls. I'm putting you last because you trim your beard, and you have nice penmanship. You're a hard worker, Napolean. I'm putting you last because my skirt is too short, and my "nice" skirt is shorter, and if you took me out, I'd hate to leave you for the married 30 year old at the bar with a desk a job while you are in the bathroom. Don't make me break you Napolean, because I will. You tell your mom to feel better. Tell her I said I'm here if you guys ever need anything. But don't tell her that, Napolean, not really. Because we both know everything on the south side of Oklahoma City is sequined, scarred up, and turning tricks.

                                                     Eiffel

Rue:

"Idle like a gypsy
I've got gold
And my body.

I'm convinced both
Will sell,
If I'd let go of my pride
And get over
Myself."

Rue:

I've been romanticizing
The West Coast.
Because I've got no crumbs,
And all my lovers have no arms.

I'll be just as singular
With salt on my lips.
And even though it'll get caught in my wounds-
I'm sick of fighting static
And city lights--

And no
Agnes
There
To sing me home.

"And I would have

 Stayed up with you all night,

 Had I known

 How to save a life."

Moz

I am reminded of you the most
Between
Rubbing alcohol
And cherry pits.

I miss wrapping up in your flannel--

Drifting off with a nose full of Vick's.

I miss your smoker's cough
Coated by Carmex,
And your one dollar sugarplum
Bath-wash.

You were a saint at the slots.
You were pennies and pennies and pennies.

You were my good fortune.

Cottonmouth

I told you my grey matter was more magenta.
You stopped loving me for that.
I examine the crystals of the concrete now with my finer teeth.
Silence damages the lining of our bellies.

You used to be whimsical

Y o u
 
       W e r e

Some kind of Nevada fairy queen.

You had a wire wand.
You had a tiara.
And through your
Sequined,
Drunken
Stagger
You were
Everything.

Now,
I cough you out of my lungs like dust.
And you're aggressive too.
You cling to the lining of my throat;

I choke on the
Anger
In you.

My lips sputter like propellers,
They slice up a static sea,
I am battered and un-anchored,
My chest is barren and melancholy.

And your eyes,
Which used to glow
Like dimly lit,
Transparent
Domes

Are hollowed out,
With no slooping hats,

And

No porch swings to call home.

“Do you ever dangle your toes over the precipice, dare the cliff to crumble, defy the frozen deity to suffer the sun, thaw feather and bone, take wing to fly you home?” Hopkins

Rue:

"Oh. My. God!
 What did Gecko expect?
 That I was made of magic?
 I used to be glitter. I used to be eyelashes.
 But I never promised I could pull a rabbit out of my hat,
 Or any kind of integrity.

 I'm too selfish for that.

 But at least I come by it honestly.

 I don't think he can say the same.
 He's a greased up excuse of a person,
 He came rolling in off the banks of the thirsty river.
 And Purcell wouldn't have him because he talks
 Into beer cans like they're telephones.


 Okay...
 I guess I'm sorry I disappointed him."

A Letter that Will Never Send

Agnes,

    I laid out all the lavender you owned. It's on the bed in the guest room if you ever decide to come back. I say "owned" because you seem to be disowning everything these days. I even found the gold earrings that I gave you last May in my soap dish. Perhaps it was on purpose. I am going to pretend you are not doing these things out of spite.
   Sometimes, I chuckle at your immaturity. I blame it on the fact that I can now see your blue veins peeking through your silky, purple hands. I guess you have to overcompensate with something. You have to make your point; and you do--in your quiet ways. Instead of saying what you mean, you leave little reminders of yourself all around my house.
   Agnes, I'm tired of the chasing. I haven't said anything to you because I can't say the right thing. I think you like bounding away from my welcome mat. You leave the front door (as opposed to the garage door), so I can watch the anger storm inside your dizzy head all the way out to the driveway. It doesn't go unnoticed, Agnes, it doesn't. But it also isn't helping. I don't know what I want to say and when I try to add in empty dialogue, you become frustrated. Do you want me to throw my hands up? Do you want me to abandon ship?

 Agnes, we've been through this;
 We've been through this, Agnes.

   This is me letting you go.
   My legs become dust beneath me, and I'm sure eventually you'll start to notice potatoes sprouting out of my organs. That is, if you ever come back.
   And if you don't Agnes, if you're still avoiding the incessant chirping of Mam's old, buttermilk, rotary dial phone--then I guess that's that. It's settled. I'll turn into rot; rodants, and odd birds will feed upon me.
   Maybe that's me playing the victim. But Agnes, I learned it from you.
   And I'm not going to stamp this message. I'm just going to assume that if you're meant to have it, it'll find you.
   As for me, Agnes,
   I'm not going to look for you anymore.

   Your hair disappeared up into the stratosphere today--like smoke.
   Agnes,
   I'm no pilot, and I'm no red balloon.

   I'm rooted-exactly where I am. And you used to call me "home," Agnes. And you were home to me too.
                                                                                         Rue

                                                 
                                                                             

Rue:

 "When Ember started lighting up with Red, 

 Her face became transparent. 

 Had I not heard the smoker crawling its way off the streets of her belly,

 And up through her esophagus, 

 I would have believed she had evaporated into thin air.

She ate pills like they were M&M's.

She said she liked being "multi-colored."

She said that to really know art, you had to experience something as beautiful

As hallucinations.

One hour before she succeeded at becoming Sylvia Plath,

Her stomach became charcoal, and she turned an inky black.

I couldn't look at her. I couldn't remember her like that.

She was freckles, and freckles, and freckles.

She was breath and soft skin.

I miss her flesh, and I miss her organs.

When all the breath left her body,

I inhaled it like smoke--

Trying to save some bit of her soul inside myself.

And I, like Anne Sexton,

Was the poet that lived."

 We're terrifyingly similar.
 Your pea-coat buttons roll under the desk and hide themselves from you.
 And all of my tea cups are chipped.
 And we've got enough hostility
 To be technicolor.

 And we both bite our bottom lip.

Notes from an Airplane over Arkansas

 The succulence of life can be found in airports.

 "And airports,
  See it all the time,
  When someone's last goodbye
  Blends in with someone's sigh..."

In the Midst of a Torrential Rain

My hands long to look occupied.

My carpet bags have
Satiated bellies-
As if Europe anticipated me from the other side.

But I know,
I-
[The walking wanderer]
Am hollow
On the inside.

I am suitcases,
And shin braces
And twelve hours of pacing,

Outside the train station,
For a hypothetical
Ride

"Home."

Between the Breasts of Peacoats

She's erasing twilights,
Thick-lashed
Navy eyes,
And fire-twisted, tangerine skies.

And I'm letting her slip
With her smeared lipstick,
Over chai
And fake conversation.

And I wonder if anyone is
Believing
Any of this.

 Zach was my October.

 He was sweat.
 He was curly locks.
 He was loved-in flannel.
 He was the broad beating inside my chest.
 He was the euphoria injected
 Hope inside my lungs.

 Now, there are Turkish Gold Camels
 All around his grave.
 I use it like an alter.

O.J.

 Nel: "The trouble with believing in boys is that when they say they mean forever, they don't always. Sometimes they mean a little while--like a few hours, or until next Friday. Sometimes, they mean a few weeks, or until you start parting your hair differently. Sometimes, they mean until you gain five pounds. Sometimes...they just want a girl with softer hands. Sometimes, Rue. Sometimes.
         Everyone ends up alone in the end. We all stop holding each other. We are foreign, plastic dolls. We don't know each other's language. We're angry, we're mute, and we're all growing weary. We argue endlessly. We never get anywhere. But I've told you all of these things. We're living life on repeat.
         What you're really afraid of is accepting that you've lost everything in your life that ever mattered for all the pathetic things that never did. But you did, Rue. Eat it. Work that out between you and your God or something.

    Just stop inflicting your problems on me.
   
    I'm tired of the badgering.

    I wish I could help you further, but I can't.

  There's only so much nicotine left in my dashboard.

   And Rue, it's a long way home."

Of an Ivory

Bug: "I chalked it up to how broken you are. I guess--it's a declaration of your immaturity. You just never had a mother; you had a best friend. That couldn't have been healthy for you. You lack direction and character. You're always chasing after things--and you're never fulfilled. I'm sorry you're a wound, Rue, I'm real sorry. But it comes down to this. I'm getting married. I've met the man of my dreams. This is my something good, and it's happening. I don't need you anymore. I don't really even want you anymore. And even though we had something great once. I don't have time to stitch you together."

The Transcendentalist

Tiff: "I think he really believed he was Henry David Thoreau. And I mean, junk, I was kind of happy for him too. And I tried to make him love me because I was so intrigued with the idea. I made him gingerbread houses all the time. I bet he thought that was real cute. Here I was confusing someone who hated society with someone who wanted to play Hansel and Gretel. He had shiny buttons. I should have known then. The vests were too much; the tassels...too much. And all of it was quite a contradiction. He was a spit-shined figure that I was constantly too afraid to wrinkle. I was...a big, goopy bucket of mess. And then it occurred to me: he really did care. He cared too much about what people thought. I never did. I was the one who actually transcended. And you know? I wasn't so hacked off all the time either."

Luling

  I am the plum encompassed, saliva smothered bookend of a wilting and withering nicotine fix. My ends fray up in silent smoke. Fingernails curl backwards like parchment paper. The breath of my ashes whispers its anguish into the vacancy of a private sky. My curled hair fringes and my eyelashes become crisp. My lips, my tongue, my breath, and all the passion in my kiss melts. My entirety is composed of velvet puddles. 

  My skin is raw, and I am without four walls. I am the emaciated, iron jaw gutters of dustbowl, vacant city. His hands smell like metal, his fingers taste like dimes, and the hair on his arms is rough against my cheeks. I still pretend I am plump and pink. My hips even blossom sometimes.
  He rifles through the gaping landscapes of me. He presses his cheek to my cheek. He is so concrete that it makes my skin hurt; even my bones feel it. I am all splinters.
  The leather tongue of the desert yawns before us; it laps up the billowing Western sky. Night holds her breath on the cracked foundation of our front porch. The screen is split and she huddles there. She is frightened by another "1 a.m." Fragile--she trembles like a child. She collects her glistening jacks, her paddle ball, and her knobby knees. The wind catches her marigold hem; it traces its fingers over the red threaded flowers of her skirt. She tucks the excess fabric between her thighs. She strives for the fetal position. She is navy Keds and glow-in-the-dark shoe-laces. She never seems to get too old.
  We cut the tension, and swallow it down. The thickness of it coats the lining of our throats. We chase it down with Mam's Lemon Meringue Pie.
  I watch saliva and coconut flakes gather together at the sides of your mouth. I wonder how long it has been since you've said something nice to me.
  You used to think my apron hugged my figure perfectly; and I was a wife. You'd watch my skin bathe itself in the buttermilk lighting of our quaint, flickering, kitchen. Before the flannel forgot itself, before the bed springs sprouted up through the rot, we were tangled sheets. Your body, and my body devoured each other; we fit together seamlessly. Now, we hold each other between vacant lines. And we are lonely. We ignore the draft coming from behind the blue boards that smile down upon our naked limbs, like gap-toothed men. Between the velvet pews of Sunday, and the contracts that bind us in-we waste away in silent spools, wondering what might have been.

   I think I might be damaged. I am currently composed on the dispersed index cards that so chaotically scatter themselves atop my writing desk. I am bullet points, and I am outlines. I am thesis statements. I am grammatically correct. I have compromised.

    I was once a garden poet.
    Now
    I am
    All
    Steel frames.