for rick, jon, hazem, max, and mike
WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PAIR OF RAGGED CLAWS SCUTTLING ACROSS THE FLOORS OF SILENT SEAS. t.s. eliot
WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN WAYS I AM LIKE A CRUSTACEAN
HTTP://WWW.WEATHER.COM HTTP://WWW.WEATHER.COM HTTP://WWW.WEATHER.COM drinking is all about the part where my teeth go numb i like when my feet go numb because i stop realizing how far i’ve walked i’d walk from 62nd and lex to washington square park at 1am just to sit in a diner with you while you drink chamomile tea when i get back to california people will ask how i’ve been and i’ll say i’ve had a “prickly” semester prickly as in too depressed to keep even cacti alive as in shaving my legs irregularly as in the guilt of still shaving while also recognizing the oppressive patriarchal nature of female body hair removal as in 11° weather scraping my alcohol-soaked lungs while i fail at not crying in dreams there is a meteorological experiment where i gauge the pressure of the atmosphere by merely inflating a balloon. the balloon inflates inside my chest. sometimes it is your breath that inflates it. sometimes it is others. i use tinder as a weather forecast each girl seems to me a different kind of cloud each brings a new type of rain some makes my skin feel like glitter others turn my mouth to mud every morning i check the weather report every morning i ignore it i dress according to how transparent i want to feel not to the color of the sky the best kind of music is the kind that feels like a panic attack ways i am like a crustacean: lobsters only scream when they are being boiled
STANDING OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW BEFORE I WENT INSIDE STANDING OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW BEFORE I WENT INSIDE STANDING OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW BEFORE I WENT INSIDE i wanted to stay there and let it engulf me have the snow plow come take me even further away from myself instead i crossed the street and texted you to let me in and went upstairs and closed the blinds so i couldn’t see the snow took off my pants because i wanted you to see my scars but you just turned off the light and asked me to go down on you the day i broke up with my ex i found a strand of your hair on my lapel the month before i broke up with my ex they asked if i was in love with you i said “no” i said “i am in love with the snow” but i compare you to snow in every poem i write when you came downstairs you found me standing in front of your door with my head up and my mouth open catching snowflakes on my tongue it was the most naked you will ever see me i eat handfuls of snow the way i ate you out my face hurts so much this stopped hurting hurting my sister told me i shouldn’t go out in the snow without my coat on what she meant was “i told you so” but i never asked her to tell me anything i did this knowing you would crack open my scars like expired eggs i did this knowing your skin would give my heart frostbite i went sledding at midnight on the night before the snow day where you were ignoring me but still looking at my snapchat story i texted you “i think i am in love with the snow” which is the closest i will ever get to saying “i think i am in love with you” which is the closest i will ever get to feeling in love with you
FLIGHT DELAY FLIGHT DELAY FLIGHT DELAY when you look at me i think you’re gonna fuck me up like thinking about quantum mechanics and particle physics fucks me up like moving between houses every day for thirteen years fucked me up like noticing my reflection for the first time in a few days fucks me up you’re a notebook i really liked when i bought it but messed up by the third page you’re black ice, wet books, and marzipan in a body you’re breaking kosher on shabbat you’re my favorite tea with sour milk and three splendas i think about parallel lines a lot. and going places. i think about hyperboles a lot. and leaving places. i think about math a lot. and being places. i find most of myself in pieces on airplanes. when i was 8 i saw an airplane magazine in the back seat pocket that said IS YOUR SEATMATE YOUR SOULMATE? i wanted to ask the middle-aged man in the aisle seat next to me if it was him if we could build houses in each others bodies i never did but i developed a habit of looking for him everywhere i went asking every stranger, will you call a locksmith with me to switch out all these locks? will you put down a security deposit plus two months rent? will you look for paint chips to match the colors people call my eyes? it’s not about kissing it rarely is it’s usually about wanting someone to care enough to put me in a car on the nights the insomnia is at its worse and drive around the block until i fall asleep
I’M SCARED TO READ POEMS WITH YOU IN THE ROOM I’M SCARED TO READ POEMS WITH YOU IN THE ROOM I’M SCARED TO READ POEMS WITH YOU IN THE ROOM i tattooed a libra sign into my skin with a sewing needle so i could remember that winter and how much my best friend loves astrology and how much i love her and how imbalanced i feel but how balanced i am if i drink too much i open itunes like a time capsule listen to the songs i loved when i was different people i want my outsides to look like my insides that’s why so much of me is scar tissue confession: i only update my snapchat story to see if you look at it this is a power game of who can care less my friends told me it took until the line about snapchat at the poetry slam for you to realize my poem was about you that was the line about snapchat every poem i write is the same but that’s because every weekend is the same four shots and scanning crowded rooms for you hoping you don’t show up but i still get sad when you do torii once said she looks for things to drown in like lakes i look for things to drown in like you and mosphits i claim moshing as a feminist action push these boys so hard they fall over push these boys so hard they stop pretending to be men
i hope if i push enough people in a moshpit they’ll push me back together like i hope one day i’ll wake up and not want to bleed like i hope one day these poems won’t have you in them like a million people have been in my poems you’re not the first you feel like the first she felt like the first you feel like the first you’re not the first seeing you in crowded rooms feels like a rollercoaster no— seeing you in crowded rooms feels like the first cut every cut feels like the first cut you feel like every girl i like being in beds with you but not many other places still i like you i like you like i like pop music i know it sucks i stand you up to hang out in the science library and you ask if we can work on this by work on this do you mean my tongue on your clit or your arms around me or our bad communication skills i have a lot of work tonight, sorry can’t talk by work i mean holding hands with strangers by work i mean putting on a show by show i mean smiles and funny anecdotes while i’m bleeding under my clothes by bleeding i mean it’s all about control by control i mean i can hurt myself more than you ever could
THIS CHAPBOOK IS ACTUALLY A CROCKPOT RECIPE BOOK THIS CHAPBOOK IS ACTUALLY A CROCKPOT RECIPE BOOK THIS CHAPBOOK IS ACTUALLY A CROCKPOT RECIPE BOOK tbh the MOST HONES T i ever get is on instagr am i’ll say it’s just for the aesthe tic i would NEVER post someth ing about you on social media i would NEVER comme nt on the OVER- INTELL ECTUA LIZATI ON OF POETR Y in the name of the academ ic field we call POETIC S who said poems can’t use CHTSP K who said poems can’t be PASSIV E AGGRE SSIVE you asked WHAT WAS THAT POEM YOU PERFO RMED ON THURS DAY ABOUT by way of saying I KNOW IT WAS ABOUT ME i said IT WAS JUST ABOUT LIFE by way of saying NO meanin g of course YES you said IS THAT ALL meanin g I AM ONTO YOU i reassu red you YES meanin g of course NO, that is not ALL that is NEVER ALL TOUCH ING knees under the DINNE R TABLE and using my THIGH S as an armres t while i teach YOU how to use photos hop is NOT ALL no matter how much YOU SAY IT IS and i may PRETE ND to agree or rather hold my tongue like a SLAUG HTERE D ANIMA L broil it in my HOT WET MOUTH for our dorm potluck
these POEMS will STEW in my MOUTH until all that is left of them is a few letters mostly Ns and Os followed by E-V-R-M-I-N-Ds that i’ll fork over when my EYES steam UP you wipe me clean whenever you lean against me more HEAVILY than is necessary smear me like grease on a grill when you say you were too high to REMEMBER that conversation where you said you—
MANHATTAN HOROSCOPES MANHATTAN HOROSCOPES MANHATTAN HOROSCOPES the day i left i found a strand of your hair on my lapel i was laughing with my friends but now i wanna die again i crack my neck so often because it’s always stiff but i also hope maybe one of these days i’ll break it i compare you to snow in every poem because i like you until i’m knee deep and shaking in mid December i stayed up all night with a girl with sparkly eyebrows we drank cherry rum out of leaky dixie cups in an art school dorm in new york when the sun rose we went to dunkin donuts for hot chocolate she told me she didn’t kiss me because she didn’t want me to write a poem about it i don’t think you’d want that either but that didn’t stop you in the corner of a house on cross street you wouldn’t be as happy if you knew about these poems because they wouldn’t be platonic enough for you just like you texting me “you are everything” at 3am wasn’t platonic enough for me when i left the party without telling you after you stopped holding my hand to grab my ass before you turned around to dance with someone else i say i’m tired of being treated like garbage but somehow i always end up passing the garbage trucks at 5am on my way home from your dorm let’s compare your snapchat of that girl’s ass in lace underwear ft your sheets as a background to the one of me drawing an elephant with a sharpie on your wall which means more the fact that you want to keep things casual so you don’t hurt me or the fact that you already have hurt me
when you told me i was expecting too much of you when i asked you to show me some respect i console myself by saying you text and fuck like a straight boy in that you rarely reciprocate either but neither of those facts warms my bed as well as you do you told me you wanted to have more positive experiences with me did you mean ignoring me at that concert before leaving with someone else or did you mean eating refrigerated cake and talking poetics on my bed if i eat enough snow will i stop feeling my lungs trying to collapse when i see you in crowded rooms and you don’t see me in early February i went to a punk show in brooklyn with the girl who didn’t kiss me it was attended only by 30-somethings who probably graduated from wesleyan only one girl was dancing and everyone was holding beers but not drinking them it made me think of all the reasons i hate new york and how i always feel in love when i’m riding the f train everyone in new york is always cold but at least their coats are fashionable i feel awkward and short in my parka i try to avoid making sweeping generalizations in my poems but you are such a capricorn i am such a libra my best friend who didn’t kiss me is such a gemini neither of us care for capricorns. when we’re walking down 13th st laughing about astrology i don’t feel bad about reading horoscopes.
THE SIGNS AS CRUSTACEANS:
aries: crayfish taurus: barnacle gemini: shrimp cancer: king crab leo: lobster virgo: krill libra: hermit crab scorpio: woodlouse sagittarius: mantis shrimp capricorn: pillbug aquarius: horseshoe crab pisces: fiddler crab
(UN)APPETITE (UN)APPETITE (UN)APPETITE when my first real girlfriend left me i couldn’t eat avocados for 6 months without gagging. i’m excited to see what favorite foods you’ll ruin. you have already ruined some emojis and certain types of weather. my mattress is made of layers of sediment and clay full of fossilized bedmates they stop me from digging down to bedrock made of the real reasons i sleep with people who treat me like you do. i hate getting my hands dirty and don’t like to disturb the earthworms. when you ask what i’m writing i say i’m texting when you ask what i’m thinking i say nothing when you ask how i am i say good none of these things are true most of the time the answer is frosted flakes with vanilla soymilk for dinner starting books and being too anxious to finish them crying in goodwill while looking at sweaters low seratonin levels and messy desks let me tell you a fun fact about avocados to distract both of us from what is really happening in this room i’m trying to be less bitter that my flavor of girl isn’t your favorite flavor of vodka but they keep serving arugula in the cafeteria and you are what you eat. you eat dairy and i’m lactose intolerant. i know i should know better but i don’t.
SOI(U)L SOI(U)L SOI(U)L love will come like bean sprout seeds sudden and overnight over smoothies and small talk but for now sleep
i have been so exhausted for so long
i have been looking for permission to cease fire to sit this one out to stop looking for a little bit to prop two sticks against one another in the sand and call it a house
i am not a pit stop
i am not something with a vacancy sign out front
i am not a boarded up building waiting for squatters stop climbing over this chain link fence of a heart! but i also never hung a NO TRESPASSING SIGN either
i am not a recycling center
i am not a real estate project seeking investors
i am not a hole someone dug waiting to have the soil dumped back in soil is only one letter away from soul both are synonymous with dirt both are ripe places for things to blossom from
the trees all decided to blossom on the night i was most wilted spring was late this year but i was later to the party, to the game, to asking for help flowers are better at demanding respect than i am we are both fragile but no one i know has ever seen a flower try to put itself back together to remain what it once was succeed enough to keep on growing for a few years always frame it in the context of a few more years makes not jumping in front of the train that much more bearable the weather ’s getting warmer
i’m boiling over
you’re still deaf as freshly fallen snow but the drifts are melting others are beginning to hear me SCREAM i’m so tired of hiding beneath stones walking sideways so as not to disturb i am shedding this hard cracked crust of a shell for something as soft as sod and that much better for planting
IMPORTANT LESSONS IMPORTANT LESSONS IMPORTANT LESSONS there were a lot of automatic toilets in virginia by which i mean there were a lot of cute girls in virginia by which i mean there were a lot of good poems in virginia by which i mean i was just looking for something to put my waste in, take it away where it wouldn’t stop me from getting out of bed in the morning stuck in rush hour traffic i watched a man beat his wife in the car next to mine the things we do while no one is watching using skin as whetstones, throats as pill bottles, stomachs as flasks, tongues as whips we are all just trying to be things that don’t need vivisection IMPORTANT LESSON #1: don’t ask people at house parties how they found a large body of water they might start drowning. i correct the typos in my texts before i send them; most of the notes on my iphone are either apologies or to do lists: make your bed I’M SORRY i text you so much call your therapist I’M SORRY i don’t text you enough check your email I’M SORRY i say sorry so much write essay about the intersection between sexuality and culture I’M SORRY i couldn’t make you cum go to rite aid to buy chasers I’M SORRY i didn’t pay you back for alcohol eat your vegetables I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY the chemicals in the water table are making everybody sad but what exactly is a water table? i didn’t learn that in high school thanks to the budget cuts no one on this campus knows what a budget cut really is they didn’t have furlough days at prep school
IMPORTANT LESSON #2: furlough days are days in which teachers have unpaid days off because the district cannot afford to keep the school open everyone on this campus uses their parents’ money for textbooks for alcohol don’t have to worry about empty fridges, overdrawn bank accounts, or foreclosure everyone can afford to say don’t worry there’s more where that came from so can i even if i’m not talking about money there’s always more: POEMS, GIRLS, BLOOD when i decided to come here i didn’t know i was deciding to become one of the people who evicts people like me from their homes i left because i wanted to learn how to fix things but my liberal arts education and student loans are only teaching me that there are more broken things than i ever thought possible and then keeps breaking new ones fifth grade taught me not to flinch when the boy pulls back his fist my mother taught me that if you piece ceramic back together carefully and with nice enough glue you won’t be able to see the cracks i hate this broken vase of a gender, this squashed bug of womanhood IMPORTANT LESSON #3: a woman is like a millipede so many hands and arms reaching and wrapping trying to simultaneously embrace and contain i came out of the womb as handfuls of sharp-edged porcelain so how do you expect me to put myself back together i was shattered in the kiln
i often wonder why the words womb and wound sound so similar i think i have finally found the answer: with both you must become accustomed to bleeding out both imply a kind of total, terrible, and terrific tearing apart IMPORTANT LESSON #4: sex is just a way to remind yourself that your body is capable of crushing someone else in a lot of ways we’re all really just hermit crabs we carry our homes with us and they’re not always houses my heart is the same shape as an east lake victorian i’ve been knocking down the walls one poem at a time in order to make one big chamber all the better to let the blood in and out all the better to host a party all the better for dancing in i’m having a house party in my heart and everyone’s invited.