sometimes when you disobey your body, your body disobeys you

the best thing i have written in college:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AaxAzGo3CISTZGZnZDJtbjhfOGcyY3Q3cWdz&hl=en

other things:

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sublimation

asleep and alone,
the quandary between
both snow and ice
as solids is resolved
by a mutual eagerness
to fill lungs as water.
schematic alterations
become coastline interjections
as the silhouette smell
of pennies clenched
in pocket fistfuls
attest that this
house could use
some utensils.
incisors gleam in
shields of useful moments,
and build solidarity
through emptying
the lost and found
-
underwater blind spots are
pinky toe pinching sneakers,
dental floss suicide,
the day’s news,
a remainder in
side-hand smudges
transferred onto
more personal business.
-
I never dreamed,
and instead laid
unconscious in bed -
should versus could versus want:
could becomes want,
but want is seldom should,
and could and should
rarely align
-
do-it-for-yourself and
sever the corpus collosum
with pruning shears you
find in the garage, but
wd-40 the blades first so
it is a single snip, not
a series of teething perforations –
it is impossible to nest
when everything
is so shiny.
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begotten, not made

you arrived in
a short circuit
of time that had
occupied the place
beneath the lines
of my face. my
teeth had grown
whiter and thinner
in your disappearing
half-life.
the neatness of
your cuticles
disarmed my pupils
into narrowing.
a gun held
to the temple
ignites circles
of candles.
inhales taste loudly
of hasty justifications in
the form of prayer.
our father,
who artfully wore
a silk necktie
over the hollow of his throat,
knew when to come
and when to be done.
let’s go let’s go let’s
go now into the world
with pieces
of imprinted love
remembered
with fingers to forehead.
punishment is
scar tissue rolled between
thumb and pointer
while begging for
time to pass and
stay the same in
a single pulse
of blood.
let us pray.
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slow dancing

I’d like to honk, just a single
beep, a bell for service brought
warmly to a halt in the continuation of
the ringing finger’s downward path.
it is almost Christmas. the mall has
looked the same since thanksgiving
and this day ten years ago. you are
unquietly miserable. your parents and
fourteen zen vegetarians will be hungry.
I had to leave when I realized you
were just realizing that gluten
made meat-like texture. roald dahl
appeared. the brick of frozen
soy protein seemed a potential
blunt weapon and if we expected
nutrition from violence we
would eat bleeding steaks. I
would be dead. you
would get off. no one
would be hungry.
in stepping lightly,
we knew how malleable a
fuck could be. the refractions
seemed always
inward. double sided.
being caught watching might
be worse than being caught.
like a flesh eating virus,
I never felt dirtier. rap once
on the window, hard. the yard
will clear. after the funeral we
didn’t stay to talk. I couldn’t feel
the carillon’s grief chattering
in between your ribs but I heard it
in your eyebrows. I will keep my
eyes on your elbow to ensure
firm contact. everyone likes a last
minute triumph. except the referee.
he would prefer to remain intact and
to make it home at a reasonable
hour. teachers feel the same way,
but fewer arrows, bigger target.
good lord somersaults hurt
and I have never done a single
cartwheel unless my friends
have been lying to me. it can be
hard to keep track of the sun.
perhaps I’ve always had something
lodged between my teeth. physical
contact does not ensure toughness
in locations other than the pads of
hands and feet. sometimes discipline is
as simple as a short whistle through
buck teeth. ears perk despite
best efforts to remain flatly ignorant.
in bed you thrash like drowning
but I never try to wake you
for fear of drowning in tandem.
absolute measures lose value in
unconsciousness. the comparison
of pain in nightmares to drug-
induced hibernation is beyond me.
maybe dreams are better than
real life. the clanging in my head
seems to subside with the
parking lot panic. their mania is
seasonal. yours is not. our mattress
doesn’t even have the heart to
creak when we lay down anymore.
my grandmother still says my
name like cashmere and roast
beast but I wonder what is left of
her lungs. I shake my clothes off
before I come back in, as if her cancer
is more infectious than yours.
when we talk about next weekend,
I worry about genetics. it has never
been comforting. for months I
have planned it. tomorrow I will
win the lottery. that will be that.
you will still be you. I will still be
me. we will not be we. when I go to
make my claim, I will not turn off
the alarm before I open
the back door so that
you will look up. as
you watch me carrying
the garbage out to the curb, there
will be no uncertainty that
it will be my wave goodbye
and the last favor
I ever do for you.
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