Waterfalls

I should've bottled up all that maturity
I thought I had
and saved it for moments
like these,
but there it goes,
down the stream and
into the river then
out into the ol' big blue,
better go swimming,
something about
staying afloat and growing up
makes sense together,
it's a message in a bottle:
it never gets easier, and sometimes
you need to be harder
on yourself.

Substantial World

Reconnecting with my emotions
like they're old friends,
it's awkward at first, but soon
everybody's crying
and laughing
and reminiscing about how long it's been.
If they could ask me how I've been,
what would I say?
I'm a material girl in a world full of substance,
I know what it's made of
but I don't know
what it's made
of me.

Twilight

I used to think twilight
meant something in the middle of the night
or after midnight,
I still wish it did,
something about the t and the w
twirling together,
clouds so dark that they're almost purple,
deep greys and blues submerged
in a void of black,
lit here and there,
nothing natural about it.
Here I am in the twilight, listening
to Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
and swooning over Chinese girls,
"They're so adorable,"
I say,
my words bumbling and bumping
into bittersweet
in the twilight

Conscious

I've begun to become
conscious
of myself
growing up,
I can feel it,
it's surreal,
sometimes it feels good, other times
I write about it.
Every poem a growing pain,
I've begun to become
conscious
of my poetry
and when I write and don't write, and
why.
Why, that's the big question,
how and why,
but there's something to be said
for the who, what, where, and when's,
I need to be conscious of them
too.

A few more notes on dreams

I remember when I used to have
"shower dreams,"
when I was so tired
that my head, still half-asleep,
functioned in a dream-like state
in the shower,
sometimes trying on
in vain to continue the dreams from just
minutes before.
I usually only "dream" when
I sleep in, and not when I stay up late
and sleep in even later, but
when I get to bed at a decent hour
and sleep in a couple more hours than normal,
that's the magic hour—
that's when I dream.
I've heard stories that
certain foods cause you dream,
but I've been too scared to purposely
try them before bed,
something about manipulating my mind scares
me, let it manipulate itself for all I care,
I'd rather there be some magic to it,
let dreams be dreams.

秘密

Should I call you Mimi? Or just
my little secret?
Dreams seem to have more intimacy and immediacy
than (my) real life,
I don't remember being this attracted to you,
how do these dreams happen?
Are people dreaming of me—
am I eligible for other people's dreams?
I can't find any good photos of you,
although I might have some memories somewhere...
Those memories transpose
into a dream, that dream into a feeling,
my feelings for you having nowhere
or no one
to go to.

CNN

Watching my ten minutes of CNN a day,
I want to tell Anderson there's a wolf
in the Situation Room, but I fear
he won't believe me.
Soledad,
I would've had your babies
if you hadn't already have had
seventeen,
ditto Andrea Mitchell, oh wait
that's MSNBC.
As for Fox, well,
I've never been drunk and gone to the bar
and picked up a chick
who I couldn't recognize,
but if I did,
it would be you, Judge Jeanie,
you could judge me all you want
and I would say I'm honored!

Not really scared but plenty of loathing in Duluth

My social circle consists of my computer, my keyboard, my mouse
and the cords that connect them.
Not so much a circle,
but a square—fenced off, top secret—
a myth yet to be busted
like Area 51,
a place where
paranoia doesn't run deep, it runs wild.

Buckwild.
Look there it goes,
running off in the hay of Kansas,
how'd it get there? Who knows,
not me, I'm still here,
my social life has become a zombie, self-aware
and self-loathing, more undead than dead,
an afterlife that haunts the living,
and an afterthought which haunts
me.

Nights with Lady Yunalesca

I enter the bedroom.
The Lady sits on the bed,
ready to read over to the scriptures with me again,
"How about we catch the sunrise?"
I say,
almost tripping over the rubble.
"Ha,
you're full of jokes tonight."
I sigh a small sigh
and shiver a small shiver,
the pyreflies wrapping up around the undead lights,
misgivings and fear spilling into the air.
"I'm not a necrophiliac,"
I protest, weakly, faint and final.
"Spectro,"
she says,
"it's
Spectrophilia,
and don't kid yourself."