I once told a kid at my lunch table I had heard that Madonna
sang “fucked for the very first time” instead of “touched” when she did “Like a
Virgin” live, as if I had sources who attended concerts & reported back to me
about the good parts.

No one knows who hired Skeletor, or how long he’s been here.

Skeletor simply is, like the dying rubber plant or the grey
industrial carpet.

Or you, the face on the milk carton, the lingering lipstick stain on the cracked edge of a glass,
the squalid humidity in South Carolina, thick and teeming; something missing,

something fleeting, something gone.

I am not like other girls,
will mean that I have real merits,
boy merits, spunk, attitude,
but most importantly that I have a future

there are times when a thing as simple
as tea with too much honey, a joke told
in a certain way, can make you stumble
out of the now, how easy it is to forget

Kit Harington will not love
my posts on Facebook. The scent
of Kit Harington’s curls
will not leave me lightheaded.

and I draw on a piece of paper that’s next to the phone
and he says ‘aren’t you lucky to have a nice daddy’

and it was obviously a dismissal
and he says, ‘I’m going to have trouble squeezing my head out the door’

and we who wander earthbound ache ache ache to catch that
thin silhouette against the afternoon sky
blinded with jealousy

You will never be easy or beige, or able to wear white
without spilling wine and words all over yourself.
There will always be one hair out of place, waiting
for a lover or friend to tuck it behind your ear.

What if he should remain calloused? He knows the flakes he sheds
are useless. The callouses are beneath the skin.
Tarantino used to give a shit about art
but now he knows he won’t get paid for any of it.

On-screen The Killer is any active shooter
white boy with greasy hair, and I’m bored.
In the dream your hands are very large.
It’s 3 AM, and I’m on the phone with 24/7 customer support
just to talk to someone.

for us, no Santa's Little Helper
dashing through the door, no father
& child bonding at a race track. only
chinese take-out & mom popping pills.

When all I can see is the wreckage       &         everyone else has gone home   when the suburb goes back       to sleep

carrying manila envelopes
anxiously awaited by our parents,
eager to read the tarot
of the report cards inside

diane it looks like sadness inheritance
of bones and ghost hair
and she tells me near water