i want a messy eyed boy to
drag his tongue upon my sun filtered skin
and lay me out in a field of wildflowers with
wide fingers and veined arms
wandering all over my aching body.

i want him to whisper things to me
in a light voice as wavering and deep
as trickling water
and windblown leaves.

i want him to feed me vines and fungi,
psychedelic plants,
and watch me trip into the
winking sky,
a wandering abyss.

i want him to growl all over me,
holding my bare body in his arms,
fitting his skin in every crevice that is possible
in these mundane bodies.

i want sweat sliding off me,
and the feel of bodies in motion. i want
him to
stroke my skin and paint it lavender
with crushed flowers and
put soil in my hair, while i
wiggle my naked feet
in the air.

i want him to swallow me
like i am overfilling liquor
in a crystal bottle,
desperate and excited.
i want him to leave
pink bite marks on the waiting flesh of
my collar bones,
and breathe into me;

i want him to write on my skin
in the fire of the dwelling night,
my soul is enigmatic and
it draws him in
like art.

i crave hands around my waist,
colors on my tongue,
the earth in between my toes,
and somebody to kiss me under
the lightning storms.

if "heavy" smokers are defined as smoking 5 cigarettes
a day,
then i will be the heavyweight
champion.

i remember when my mama took me up the mountain,
she told me,
"now, you are ready."
and pine and oak softly fluttered their leaves at my arrival.
there were yellow flowers,
growing wildly,
strangling the delicate blue blossoms,
made of flimsy roots and spindly bosoms.

i was the youngest in a tribe of
golden skinned people;
dreadlocks, tattoos,
moon cycles on the sides of their eyes,
and hair like cattails whispering in the dark.

with my stomach churning,
i entered the tall, dimly lit tepee.
the medicine man sat churning the ashes
in an empty fire-pit,
and women stood around me scattering
flower petals like
soft skin
all over the red-dirt earth.

his eyes twinkled,
and told me things that he would only let the
dusk unfold.
i took my seat on a white sheep-skin,
settling myself.

as the night grew older,
the fire grew larger,
shapes elongated on the fair skin of the stretched
tepee,
the flames dancing wildly,
smoke drifting up into the
starry dark.

the fire keeper stoked the raging
yellow and orange tongues,
and the medicine man sat with a bandanna on,
his waterfall nose moving,
and his leather brown skin creaking,
as he told us stories of the sacred medicine.

and we sat,
somebody started singing.
my mothers warm frame was close to mine,
and my step-father next to her,
shoulders touching in the close proximity,
intimate, smoky air.

they beat the deer-skin drum,
badum badum *** badum badum ***
in native languages like
roaring rivers,
they sang songs to the medicine,
for the opening of the heart;
their swift and strong voices
rising like smoke and flame.

when the drum was passed to me,
i didn't know any songs,
wasn't aware that i had to know any.
i started to hit the drum with the padded
stick, and
closed my eyes,
feeling the sticky sweat of my perspiring forehead
drip down upon my licked lips,
tasting of wood and dirt.
i sang something lilting
sounds coming from the deepest
crevices of my throat,
being gently pulled from the grasp of my ribs.

the medicine man put pine on the fire,
it sizzled and breath was filled with
sweet and sharp.

when the air was right, and
the night was thick with song,
he uncovered baskets of small,
green and ridged fruit-like shapes.
"buttons,"

the medicine was taking her form, and was cradled
as a native man took it around the circle,
along with oranges.
i'd find out soon why.

i took two, small and light in my fingers.
i closed my eyes and took the first bite.

my mouth was struck, eroding teeth
and erupting tongue
my face contorted from the bitter juices the small fruit
held within its delicate skin,
my stomach churned and i swallowed it down
biting into the orange, skin and all
begging for a shock of zest to take
down the intense flesh of the medicine.

i looked around,
some people were on their third, fourth.
the beat of the drums was constant,
along with the quiet,
restful crackle of the sighing fire.

the second bite was less of a surprise,
and i finished my first one.

it was only at the third bite of the second button
that my stomach refused to go any more without
heaving,
the astringent juices of the
small fruit working its magic on my stomach.

i closed my eyes and embraced what was around me;
slowly swaying in the deep voices of my
family,
mi familia,
'ohana,
and the heartbeat of the
mountain drums.

soon, i felt weary.
my mother rested her hand like falling rain on my shoulder,
and i lay in the warm arms of her
shawls,
twisting around me like snakes.

a traditional rollie was passed around,
made of corn husk and hand grown tobacco.
my eyes grew slow and drooping,
and i fell into the waiting arms of sleep
while listening to the music of
tobacco and wood smoke, hushed voices,
wilting night,
dancing fire, and alive laughter.

my sleep was deep and dreamless,
my body carried to other places by the medicine,
leaving my mind behind.

i woke to rough feet on the red dirt,
and my mother and father intertwined like red roses,
sleeping below the tepee's watch,
my mothers white skirt fanning out like
soft sheets in the summer
walls.

there were goodmorning smiles,
light spreading from one set of a skin to another,
as my family embraced me,
told me they were proud and grateful to me
for sitting with them.

a bowl of chocolate was passed around, along with a crate
of juicy, pink, dawn touched strawberries.
i dipped them in the dark, sweet and rich paste
and one after another,
felt myself expand into the universe even more.
only when my mother awoke,
to sprinkling flowers,
and lifted sky,
she told me that the chocolate held the medicine too.

i made my way across swaying, long grass,
and sat in the sun, sipping tea with a sliced lemon,
making art with twists and curls of my pencils and pens,
listening to the experiences of last night,
the enlightenment,
the sense of overwhelming love,
that was not quite drowning.

i basked in everything,
let the heat soak into my flesh,
the lilting laugh.
somebody handed me a guitar,
and i sang with my chocolate tinted lips,
and let my voice float within and around the mountain,
filling the tepee and the empty fire pit
once more,
with the sweet and bitter tastes of
the medicine
*peyote.

like  skin  want  lips  night  words  love  soft  just  time  say  sun  hair  summer  know  eyes  morning  crave   burning   tick   way   life   long   old   smoke   moment   body   kiss   people   dark   small   voice   black   cigarette   face   hold   fingers  
ocean   little   breath   mouth   red   need   girl   sky   town   feet   new   stop   cigarettes    make    naked    things    feel   hands  fall  past  bed  tired  cold  filled  *******  softly  vie­  vivre  we'd  walk  dawn  left  air    
look    white   yell    good    thought    head    art    bodies    boy    rain  ­  wine     took    dry    drunk    road    snow    bottles    poetry   untitled  
you'd    light    nice    maybe    tongue    secret    kisses    ­warm    supposed    kissed    remember    touch  future   leaves    leave    music    ice    strong    wild    bones    sin­ging    couch    throat    sleeping    young    scream    
lovely­   mountains    eyed    coffee    golden    purple   inside    cheeks    world    taste    used    came  lungs  day  alive   room   sunlight   different  end  heart  letters  think  kind  open    distant    dancing    hearts    sweet high    knew   tears    blue    mother    water    freedom    wonder    painted    wind  ­  makes    read    told    heat   happy    
afraid    grass   brown  half  late  exactly  raw  large  hanging  whiskey   clothing  flowers  drunken  palms stuffed  there's   tiny    silent    moments    hot    dreams    bit    speak     dance    desire    dust    ready    arms    moon    run   drink    fast    trying    longer    slowly    darkness  
  real

when i die,
i will not be buried,
i will be burned and my body will become
smoke in the vacant skies.

ma vie a vivre.*
scream it into the empty night
with your roaring voice
clawing at your throat
ma vie a vivre.
yell it loud into the
black abyss
with the silent sounds of white
noise as a backdrop;
crickets,
4 a.m. freeway trucks,
your feet pattering, slashing the pavement.
ma vie a vivre.
yell it when you're drunk
with lips that taste like
spirits
summer
and orange cream popsicles,
whisper it in the roiling
and plotting storms,
bags under eyes hanging heavy with rain.
ma vie a vivre.
say it softly with
moist lips,
into the ears of a
boy with
hands like the husks of coconuts.
ma vie a vivre.
say it in a hushed
strangled
voice
at a mothers twisted face,
in the air that echoes with a
rageful slap.
ma vie a vivre.

this is my life to live.

finally you came back to me;
for good we thought.

we'd walk out in the dark, and sprawling streets in
the empty mornings
and smoke packs of our favorite kinds, we had thought.

and there was one glorious weekend when we wore
long skirts and smoked
rollies on
the white painted balcony.
we stole six bottles of wine from
an unlocked cellar,
fully clothed in our
indian dresses,
underneath were our lacy bras
and silky underwear.

we walked the path barefoot
to the Nest, and we tattooed the dead and dying branches
with the sharp art of our burn marks,
and under the bridge where we
jumped into the frigid creek,
and let the sun shine through our hair while
a blond boy played his guitar.

we stayed up late,
jumping on the soft pink carpet of my room,
making small earthquakes in the quiet town,
screaming the songs
that beat to our own heart.

we crawled onto the red shingled roof
and inhaled the
thorn filled
atmosphere of
November,
smoking newports and marlboros faster than
Olympic champions.

we were naked but for our limp hair, hanging at our sides and
shivering skin,
“smoke me like a cigarette”
we softly sang, with the light of my room
slowly slinking into the night.

we took a drunken shower afterwards,
a bottle of chardonnay
reflecting the red light overhead,
the water rolling off our bodies,
ash falling from our hair.

we woke up in the light of one another's
morning eyes,
with splitting heads and cracked grins,
we had more plans.

we laughed on the secret
flower hotel porch,
bringing out more of our wine bottles,
playing our music loudly,
unfiltered spirits
was slowly writing their tragedy on our
wilting lungs.

that night we stuffed our beds
and created sleeping bodies out of ***** clothing and
small pillows.
we ran into the fresh night,
trouble as a steel edge on our
summer filled laughter.

we danced to the music that filled our
murky brain,
stumbled into a smoke filled room and burned
our throats
*****.

we walked in the deserted hours
of four in the morning,
and stamped on the counters,
of some boys house,
voice hoarse from
singing Neutral Milk Hotel at the top of our
brimming lungs
and banging on guitars.

we broke ashtrays,
and hearts,
and we snuck back in
with orange-chai hookah fresh on our
dry lips,
when the sun was threatening to
rise.

we wandered around the sunken down
town
the next day,
unfilters again.

we smoked three packs in two days.
sixty cigarettes,
for the sixty days we've been apart.

my mother told me later that she could smell it on me
riding on my breath,
she could tell by our dry eyes
and bed made hair,
we were hungover.
we smelled like ashtrays,

Hydrocodone is no excuse for you to be
torn so violently apart from me,
everything is falling out of
place.