Baggage Claim

I am choking down several Flintstone Vitamins
with my black coffee:
my scruff is caught between childhood and adulthood.

Always a late bloomer, always with this arrested development,
always with this pain in the neck--
I pay my bills and reuse the stamps you send me.

Maybe I have something to offer,
like good taste in music, decent casserole recipes,
a hearty laugh,

mental illness.
I promise my brain hurts me more
than it will hurt you.

I promise you will let me down.

I can draw you a bath or draw you a picture,
do research by the side of the road.
I can pamper and cater and
get my shit together.

I promise that I will hold you with these fleshy arms
and listen to your secrets and not tell anyone.
Even after we break up, I will not tell anyone.

(And somewhere, while we're talking,
my flaws are folded neatly
in a bright yellow bag,
and that bag is caught in an endless ride,
a carousel ride,
wishing it was home again, with me.)

Some day

Some day before I'm done,
someone will hold me.
Someone will hold me and say,
"You are enough.
You are more than enough."
Maybe some day.

Through the Shell

Just don't leave. Don't leave.
Radiohead, "True Love Waits"

A throbbing head
listens to another caller.
Even whispers rattle,
and I know I am annoying.
And I know that promises
are fragile eggs, but cradle this one.
Cradle this one a little longer.
I gifted myself.
I created myself in your image.
The sun knows you are lying.
It shows through the shell,
reveals my tiny organs
beating in rhythm to you.
Cradle this one a little longer.
I know it's difficult
when I keep shaking.
I will keep listening.
Just don't leave.

Campfire Communism

Marx was a Taurus
which means he probably
left the toilet seat up
while giving a damn
about bigger things.
All winter hair,
all broken up
about arrogant assholes'
"Truisms,"
he probably would hate
today's twittering and
armchair diagnosing.
Maybe he would like The National,
but probably not.
Maybe, like other Tauruses,
he would keep his
grievances to himself
if they weren't shared,
if he could not band together
with kindred spirits
like sacred melted marshmallows
against the fire.
Because Tauruses
try to be practical
even when they are annoyed,
they prioritize others
over themselves
while grumbling about
soggy s'mores,
tempered dreams,
suffering to pay bills.
Everything is terrible,
and there are always,
always things to fight for.

May 4

Ask not what your country
can do for you,
or you risk
getting killed by it,
and yet challenging bloodshed,
preventing
the imperialist fist
from bludgeoning
foreign neighbors' faces
is met with the force
of a hundred fists
bruising and bloodying
our own faces.
If each life is a gift,
and we have the right
to protest when
each life is threatened,
please, please,
please
stop
killing each child
who challenges your fist with a dream.

I Try To

I do my own hair
and makeup.
I tie
my own noose
because that's what those
old phone chords
are for.

I am quite a catch
so tangle me up
in your nets
and trap me.

I am smart and funny
and a Hufflepuff
and I'll huff and puff
and blow
your fucking house down.

But I try to love.
I try to love you.
I try to.