In California

In California, 

my cousin and I declare our own section of the sand

marked by our 75 cent woven mats from Walgreens

and impermanent territorial lines 

drawn into the beach. 

We consider poetry structures and Kant

and our inferior tans

as glistening bodies shimmer in the sun. 

In California, 

I want to stitch together

a mermaid tail from seaweed and kelp, 

braid octopus into my hair

and lounge aloofly--

like a supermodel--

in the salty surf. 

In California, 

I earn a sunburn I deserve for forgetting my SPF 15 at home. 

In California, 

being from the MIDWEST does not make you in with the WESTCOAST crowd, 

and I feel like a tourist as I am judged by the locals. 

But I feel sorry for them because they will never experience 

the magic that is winter

or drift asleep to the lull of falling snow. 

In California, 

I prefer evergreens to palm trees;

which would Jesus rather decorate

to celebrate his birthday?

In California, 

I cannot escape passive-aggressive coughs in my direction fro the fit, 

and cancer lectures from the lesbians as I sip smoke from my cigarette;

I simply smile at them and inquire about the rate of erosion, 

and if they're aware of the Golden State Sinking Theory. 

In California, 

I crave my boyfriend more so 

than I do when I'm in New York, 

and fail to account for time zones

when I call him at 11 PM--

Pacific Time. 

In California, 

we weigh a fraction less than we do out East--

something to do with body mass and equilibrium, 

and our relative distance from the tropic of cancer, 

and the moon's gravitational pull--my father says. 

In California, 

my heart is heavier, for in California, 

my grandmother passed several months ago. 

In California, 

I am intensely aware of my own mortality. 

In California, 

we struggle to refer to her in the past tense--

and my cousin has nightmares about traveling in airports

with her body. 

In California, 

I am searched by cold hands at the San Diego airport security checkpoint

and comforted by strange and gentle hands of my grandmother's dearest friends. 

In California, 

I move a woman to tears

with a song about birds at the memorial service, 

and she gives me the sparkling bluebird pendant 

hanging from her blouse. 

In California, 

I witness my father cry 

for the very first time in my life. 

In California, 

I toe the line where the sand meets the sea

and wonder what lies beyond. 

a return

I haven't posted here in almost two years, but I thought I'd resurface to share some of the poems I've been working on over the past couple of months; I'd like to get back into writing again. I miss it.

the crux.

I think I have an unrealistic and romantic view of how things should be:
I wield a metaphorical constitution of unattainable standards
that I know can never be met or plausibly satisfied.
And yet I have them, and hold onto them dearly like they are something sacred.
And I feel as though I might be setting myself up for failure with this mindset.
But is it wrong to want things to be right?
I want everything to be unrealistically well.
I want the state of my union to be well.
I want my affairs to be unrealistically perfect.
I want my pursuits in love to be unrealistically successful.
I want to be unrealistically swept off my feet,
safely falling head over heels.
I want an illustrious and chivalrous knight
of valor and class to unrealistically
come galloping over the hills
and save me from myself
and all those will ill-intent.

I am almost twenty-two years old,
and yet I want to be a young boy
who is taken in by and older and much wiser groom
and taken care of
and protected.
I want to nestle in the arms of another for safety.
I want security.
I want to be small and innocent and pure forever.

Except I am none of these things.

I have an unrealistic view of myself
(though, some aspects might be closer to the truth):
I feel incredibly daft and naive and unaware to
what’s actually happening in any given situation.
I like to pretend that I am quick-witted, clever and swift,
scheming and diplomatic,
but I wonder how often I am actually being played,
or unnoticing and unaware of the undertones
and unspoken terms and dynamics of conversation,
like the world is conspiring around me, not against me,
just around me,
and I am merely unaware of it all.
I am untrusting of people’s intentions,
Yet I give my brothers the benefit of the doubt in every instance.
But it is not possible to be both gracious and reserved simultaneously.
Can one be both selfless and selfish?
Vain and loving?

"Untitled" by Kevin Jones

I touch his back and he quivers. We talk about erogenous zones. I tell him I’m surprised he’s yet to find mine.
“I just figured it was your cock,” he jokes and we laugh.
He says, “My whole body seems to be erogenous.”
It’s true. I can make him hard by stroking the back of his knee or nibbling his earlobe. His skin feels like a silk worm, like freshly ripened fruit.
“I guess I’m just not used to being touched”, he tells me. I nod.
My skin has been poked and prodded by thousands of hands, seasoned and starving. I wonder what business I have with him. He’ll bruise so easily.

My (ex) boyfriend wrote this. He still makes me feel beautiful.

this summer

I'm going to get a tattoo, take pills, and play with my friends.

I cut out my tongue.

Articulation used to feel so natural.
I am out of practice.
I never considered myself a master of rhetoric and language,
but I prided myself in my ability to fluidly and coherently
translate my thoughts into words.
I was my own best stenographer—
dutifully and obediently transcribing
my investigations, analyses and conclusions,
passions, anxieties and recollections of time and place
into sentences, stringing my sentiments together
like pearls on a necklace.
With my metaphorical spinning wheel,
I would try my best to make sense of my situations,
spinning straw into gold, twisting wool into a unified thread,
and trying to weave these errant strands into a blanket of understanding.
This process used to feel so effortless.
And it was therapeutic.

These days, expression is like
prying impacted teeth,
like I’m grasping at straws, and trying, in vain,
to pull the unbudging sword from the stone.

Articulation was much easier when I was writing for someone.
I wanted to be eloquent. I wanted to be graceful.
I wanted to communicate matters of the heart
soundly, thoroughly and candidly.

Bereavement has yielded a loss for words.

A friend recently told me that he has an affinity for my art
because I don’t create for a larger audience.
I create for just one other.
He saw that my art-making acts as a quiet action waiting to be noticed
by an object of affection, and explained that the beauty behind my art
resided in my actions going unnoticed.

I fail to see that beauty.

The state of my union is not well.
I feel immobilized.
I feel alienated.
I feel alone.
I want to write for someone.
I want to paint for someone.
I want to sing for someone.
I want to nest for someone.
And now that I can’t, I feel frozen.
I don’t know what to do.

I don’t feel relevant.
I don’t feel poignancy.
I don’t feel like I have anything important to say.

I made love the content of my life.
Love is what kept me invested.
But when your mating call goes unanswered,
what are you supposed to do?
You can only sing for so long before losing for voice.
You can only spend so many nights out on the widow’s peak,
furiously scanning the horizon,
before losing your will to continue.

I hate sounding so desperate,
But I am desperate.

I want to do things for myself,
but it feels entirely too selfish.

I would feel the greatest joy
in having the opportunity
to make someone happy.

I know boys don't wear jewels, but I'd wear a string of your pearls.

I’ve whispered with the wild flowers stitched onto my mattress,
and gossiped with the wives living in the watercolors on my walls—
they know how anxious I am to love.
Sometimes, we’ll burn the midnight oil—
under a cathedral built from wooden chairs, broomsticks and old bed sheets—
sipping a sweetened whisky brew,
gathering wool and spinning his golden image
from straw and scraps of fancy:

Sturdy and steadfast, graceful and diplomatic.
Eloquent and sincere, protecting and warm.
An explorer with unfamiliar insights and uncharted anecdotes,
a composer of ballads, an inventor of art and poetry,
humbly eliciting beauty,
modestly emanating ingenuity.
A relic, a treasure, a lion tamer, a bee charmer.
A lover of the rarest form.

Not without imperfections, of course,
but who isn’t?

I do not care for furs or silks,
ruby slippers or parlor tricks,
just oil paint and turpentine,
velvet and veins,
our fingers interlaced,
my body folding perfectly into his.

I see his smoky silhouette
spindling from the tip of my cigarette,
He is luminous,
and my eyes light up brilliantly like chandeliers.
He has half-moons under his nails.
He grips my neck,
my cheeks are as red as his lips.

And he thinks I’m beautiful.