Category: Poetry

Let’s drink tea, Dad. I worry about your health. I do not think you could give me your kidney like you promised. If we were medieval, you’d have a forge working late nights early mornings stumbling to sleep in the afternoon and it all looks so romantic until the shadows of tree branches grow over Read More …

growing up as lonely small touched girls we learned the word for rape & thought it was synonymous with sex & no one taught us otherwise & the world made it seem like they love you only as hard as they hold you down & the law of attraction is as follows: they are attracted Read More …

Wear your controversy, for my sake. Some may not approve, but I’m here for you. You may think this is selfish, that it’s all about me. It kind of is. After all, you said you love me. Siri, how do I stitch a body that I keep breaking? She didn’t answer. So I asked mom, Read More …

I. At night when I cannot sleep I have an urge to climb up on the roof and count the empty spaces between stars they are always so far. I wonder what time it is in Hong Kong but realize that the sun is out, nobody is watching the stars in Hong Kong with me. Read More …

-after Frank O’Hara and James Masao Mitsui You will lose your voice and your most expensive ink pen. The next bus you take will drive too far past your home. At times, your silence seems strange, to friends. What a thin slice of watermelon, life is. You should order the pancakes at any diner, unless Read More …

“I’m an artist with a certain special something, and that something makes me really, really sad because of nothing.” — Hobo Johnson Everything hurts beautifully sometimes across from you, I’m confined solitarily to this counter chair, shaking ‘til I fall onto the diner’s vinyl tile. Let me draft my words to you on this napkin Read More …

I know these fossils should be buried, but the dinosaurs were only on the ground for a little bit. Everything of mine can be buried. I’d swallow the earth and all its famine to say hello. Don’t worry, I can handle this earthquake underneath me next to you. Where’s the stage? I’m only acting alone. Read More …

Momma told me you loved to cook ​pierogi did your momma teach you like momma taught me? did you lean over the counter and press until the dough was smooth and your wrists ached? did your momma give you a fork to crease the doughy edges? did you linger near the stove to watch the Read More …

You stretched like a leaf that couldn’t tear Carried a home, a neighborhood, a continent strapped all in chickenwire on your back Purple-headed death got your mother, even your granddaughters before they’d sprung like constellations But miraculous shamwow, you kept absorbing You lifted me and yours like a grim-faced whirlybird rising out of Katrina waters, Read More …

You asked me to paint a picture of you, for you because you want it so you can hang it on the red wall of your bedroom, framed by all the pictures you’ve taken of yourself. It hasn’t even been five minutes since we began but your eyes are already sharp. You ask me why Read More …