You are a desert,
the two white webs in the corners of my mouth.
I lick my lips
only to slide the salt of other lovers who have crystalized
on your
sophomoric saliva
They cheapen my rich kiss
And leave the webs spinning
slowly closing in on words and intimacy and right
Little did you know
I am black widow
I take thirsty lacework
and Spiderman shoot your
***** back to you
Even though you have always been
droughty
lushy
fatuous
Open mouthed you beg for my wet
Insatiable and bare footed
You pink your heels
desperate to climb my pyramid
Never, will I allow you to the top  
Light your cigarette on heat wave warnings
and keep disintegrating in your broken down
washed up sandy life
Even if my body becomes a well
the moment you turn to dust
Not a rain drop, would I exchange
unless it meant your copper compliments would rust

My best friend is perfect.
She cuts avocados and Mother Nature applauds
Meals are her healing message
She is a stork
who confits and door drops
Rebirth
To the grief stricken
Even when you think you will never eat again
You will.
She is there.
Ladle her famous soup and homemade crust into mouth
Watch as your weep is resurrected into brothy strength
And loafy self compassion
Her hair is a layer cake of curls
A ringlet goddess
the moment she lifts cheek off of pillow
She will not bend like her follicle
An ancient rooted tree
The fortunate are invited to intertwine in soil
A Resilient nutrient shared
Watch us grow
Her hugs are
Insulin
Acceptance
Ink pen
Lemon
An introduction is all it will take—
You are special
Remembered,
every detail studied and scribed to memory
Even the undeserving
Her biggest fear is being unliked
She will breathe her last breath without that ever happening
She notices when I pick my fingers and the second my stomach sinks to my feet
With one brown eyed gaze
I am back in the room
I like to believe I comfort her with all the ways I am not her perfect
All the ways I storm through life
She and I sit on thunder and guzzle rain
She is my warm towel and umbrella and favorite childhood memory
Her family is mine
My family is hers
and when the light never feels like it is going to enter
I remind myself of that
How we are a coming of age film
That never ends
Cinematography of black and white Polaroids
Of us
Parachuting off of the risky cliffs of our twenties,
Holding hands the whole time
And giggling
While everyone else around us is holding their breath
On the nights I turn into Ernest Hemingway
I remind myself that I have my Hadley,
My miss
Who I should never miss
Because she is always within me

I am a lost and not found item
when she leaves
I am a scratchy polyester
elbow patchwork sweater
picked up from mustard sidelines
forgotten when bell rings
I wrinkle away in cardboard box,
Puppy eyeing
Any stingy non owner
Is there any thief to claim me?
My stretched gap knit
is your shallow water made of holes
At six foot six
You brag that your toes brush the bottom of the same dune
That our toddler's tootsie touches too
She is taller than you
All the while the everything of me is
in the deep end,
treading ferociosly.
I dog paddle to
dolphin attorneys
and counselor coy fish
"Can you help me not drowned?"
I sink and
swallow
Algicide anger
dip crunch my lungs on shark teeth
Try to become sacred coral reef
Just for my daughter to find me

He is an old soul
Who adds years to my life
When his smile crinkles to his cheeks
My core becomes the first time I went too high on a swing
He is the most original person I have ever met and still a novelty
I love to see his soft cotton t shirt whip around core
When his board slices through people and places and time
When I give him a hard time or “get on his case,” as he would say
I can always tell he’s holding back a smile
He secretly loves the untamed in me
It is a warm hug
He kisses like he wants to vacation on my lips
Set up umbrella and sand chairs
I drink him in like I want to swallow the ocean and become his antigravity
He does not have to comb his hair or wear fancy jeans
He is organic beauty
I love how he hugs me into a slow dance
And turns my body into his favorite song
He sleeps like he is a different part in a play every night
Monkey. Tin man. Zombie
His eyes are a time lapsed sky
And his hands are clouds that I can always make out to be a bunny or a dragon or the all of me
He is always worried they are not bright white enough
When they always are.
My cat adores him
We both break down around animals
We turn to mush and comedy
When he cries the mountains and the carpet crumble around me
I yearn to be his fortune cookie
Break me open,
You will find that everything will be and is okay
When he looks at me he really looks at me When I talk to him I become a novel he cannot put down
Ferociously flipping pages
Not ever wanting to get to the end
He is not aware of how  rare he is
Like his old man loafers that he pairs with gym shorts
I cannot tell if he is as truly free
As he seems to be
He is multiple ages at the same time
A wild little boy growling and gritting his teeth
A teen sneaking tequila  
A senior making the bed for me  
He is a gorgeous lover
I hold my breath sometimes when he puts his hands on the pads of my heels
His skin is salt and milky smooth skipping stones
I beg them to bounce and eventually sink into the blue of all of me
When he is tangled in my sheets and resting his head on my shoulder and eating in the morning with me
I often imagine the two of us
Untainted by life and society
Color is calm with him
And noise is melody
What would it be
If I was a different person
And so was he?
I, a mother sweeping up wreckage, rebuilding my own captain and ship
Him, a salmon swimming upstream
Pink and powerful

My ******* are
raisins
faucets
grape bubble gum
chewed and twisted, masticated into purple milk
That resurrect into lactose layers regurgitated on the scoop of my neck where I used to sweep wrists over with the latest from Dior—
Now nape exudes a hint of expired Greek yogurt with a hint of sweet snot
Dior Dior, make something that isn’t swimming in alcohol
Or can I swim in alcohol?
Instead of bobbing above with engorged ****, ankle weights of an open gummed mouth
While I close mine and smile every time anyone asks me how it is to be a mother
Of course love her, open mouthed and all
So unapologetically in want
I envy the way she sprawls open
Screaming and ripping, demanding what she deserves
When do we learn to be hushed, silenced for what we hunger?
How I learn from you, sweet Audrey

I birthed a lotus  in rare form—
Ringlet petals,
orchid like dimples on gorged cheeks

Then one day I looked in the mirror and all I saw was mud
Dark grit under finger nails
A mom that double checks automatic payment notices and
“Goes to the bathroom” just to breathe into her ribs
I ache to be the garden.
I am the manure.
The pathetic reality tv show at midnight
I am the fiction book that I used to gobble up as I did nonfiction for thirty minutes
Digest to remind myself of the masters degree kind of woman
I used to be
The woman who used to be able to dialogue and synagogue and debate and have an adjective for everything
Here I am.
soil. and clam. and contrite.
With nothing but seeds in between my teeth

WEEDS.

A worship or a song or a conversation waiting to be watered.

These days all that grow are EOB’s, needy blue bubbles going unanswered: conversation flies that don’t flinch when you swat at them.
An empty canvas.

I slam the door just to feel my pulse again
I see him kiss her forehead with so much more love than he has for me
I see my heart breaking skin
I see myself as sludge.
Baby blooms
Daddy dances
Mother wilts.

I christen my apartment walls with the *** I have collected
Since your embrace became a family of fire ants
And your words became a cold room for my sadness to fog up and draw faces on
I beg for the day my heart is scooped out
With the cold cream fingertips of
Ryan’s and Bryan’s and Licky lipped lions
Who reach for ******* and nape and *****
This whole wide world is my sugar cone
Topped off with a syrup of 3am Merlot tears
On Wednesdays my weeping transforms into lubricant for long haired boys to drink off of.
Thursday mornings
Drown ribs and power pressure brain cells and any memory
Of the doe-y eyed romantic I used to be
When I saw pink
Now, colorblind
How many times do I have to play black and white Johnny cash songs on repeat?
How many times do I have to gulp down photos and moments and memories you prostituted  
You turned me into a dollar bill
Even Good ol’ Georgey is blushing
You clothed me in scratchy objectification like a mannequin
Now my heart is as plastic as you are
Tell me you love my display
You created it, after all.
Arched heel, vacant eyes ready to **** a stranger off
How did I survive this long as a woman?
How are there so many drag queen  David’s among so many misogynistic Goliaths?
How am I still smiling and nodding to life’s nod?
Probably because my bones are made of bruises and my thumbs are frozen on triggered trauma
Dare me to thaw out and pull the ******* trigger
Paralyzed
I keep smiling
Like the men on the streets tell me to do.