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EDUCATED GUESS 

I hate hello the way you really hate goodbye, 

Veins in my chest blue, like the streets of Chefchaouen, 

I take a breath, bite my lip and look at the sky. 

Hazy days, strong mint tea: these days I glorify, 

Petals bleed like blood red koi fish in the fountain, 

I hate hello the way you really hate goodbye.

 

To miss something is in essence to testify, 

To better days and better suns and better things. 

I take a breath, bite my lip and look at the sky. 

I dream of monarchs and a royal butterfly, 

Smells of fresh couscous and cinnamon orange peels, 

I hate hello the way you really hate goodbye. 

Emerald, sapphire, ruby red, and tiger’s eye: 

Feeling full, warm bricks are heavy beneath my feet, 

I take a breath, bite my lip and look at the sky. 

My eyes fiend of traffic, the streets begin to cry, 

I wonder, I listen, and I ask myself why. 

I hate hello the way you really hate goodbye, 

I take a breath, bite my lip and look at the sky.

ONE LITER, ONE LITER, ONE LITER 

There are fresh stains on the aztec-wanna-be carpet, 

From too much sickly and sticky and suffocating red wine, 

The bags under my eyes make me feel like an artist, 

A baseline to define the uglier side of the grape vine. 

I think of pomegranate seeds and my most recent paper cut, 

And imagine one day I’ll tell lies that matter, 

I wonder if my ailments come from a who or a what, 

But for my own sake I always assume the latter. 

I hear the mat swallow the truth and smatterings of paint, 

Preparing to throw up shards of sea glass and turpentine, 

It is hard to tell if it is aloofness or constraint, 

I watch the clock, am reborn and so I start to redefine. 

Is the drunk Dalmatian rug I despise ruined or christened with age? 

Scrubbing until my knees are torn as if I don’t know I can’t undo the past, 

Everything’s fine, my genuine favorite lie of omission and rage, 

I remember when we had hope, dragged it in from the building’s trash. 

It is about an illusion of cleansing that makes me feel better sometimes, 

When I can’t fall asleep to the hum of a busted fan in the summertime.

SILVER SPOONS AND TELEPHONE WIRE NECKLACES 

Somewhere barely outside the Northwest loop, I was all 

fed up with the stories about your acupuncture 

hobby, questioning semantics and rolling my eyes 

back hard enough to feel it in my sorry fingers. 

We met, we split a cab and a bottle from O’Hare 

I was to Indianapolis as you were to 

St. Louis, the flights were cancelled but we didn’t mind 

until I did, per claustrophobia turned into 

tireless rest, your sweater vest, your empty closet and 

your empty closeness, your empathetic hopelessness. 

You stopped at a friend’s house by Garfield and I waited 

outside with a heavy brown paper bag for company 

the pulls I was taking made me clench my jaw and the 

men on the porch laughed at me, I was so young that day. 

I can taste you in my gag reflex, when I’m dizzy 

and acutely aware of the gum on the bottom 

of my shoe, I retrace our steps which are my steps now 

and I miss you in shades of car sickness 

in the hues of the Chicago Police Department 

uniforms, the umbra of burning citronella 

plumes only meant to keep July mosquitos at bay 

in your treasure chest and in my newly sunken chest. 

You loved those relics the way that I loved making you 

jealous: solo cups in shades of fire engine red and 

royal blue, a snipping of a telephone wire 

little silver spoons and needles with orange backings 

the crowded keychain that tethered you to nothing but 

the past, I swear I could feel it when every lock changed 

it was never your fault, the subway map on your arm 

or the misbehaving, I was misremembering 

Like honey your words were syrupy and stung like something 

I’d like to say: I had the worst luck with my first love 

but it might be on me for having no doubt when you 

were strung out, and I was alone in those crowded rooms. 

oh my god, on my youth, of my blessings and counting them 

when we saw that train car go off the track I knew it 

was over. I could not look, you could not look away 

my dark eyes were burning but there was no sun that day. 

I’ve noticed there is a lack of transportation here 

No buses, the coffee burnt in the pot this morning anyway.

19 CRIMES 

How do I despise you? Let me count all the ways. 

I despise you from the top of your arrogant bald head, 

To the bottom of your crooked, ugly fat toes, 

I despise the smirk that never leaves your dumb lips... 

And I especially hate the way you scrunch your nose, 

I hate how you actually think you know it all, 

Horn-rim glasses aside, you seem so blind to me. 

You can’t speak my language: I wish you’d let me be. 

I loathe how much I miss you after so much time, 

I miss borrowing your preppy maroon sweaters, 

Staying up spilling powder and all my secrets: 

I even miss that absolutely shitty red wine. 

If this is a joke, I’m waiting for the punchline, 

New corks on old bottles feel like a twisted sign. 

RED VELVET CIGARILLO 

You hold people in your hands like water, 

Shake me around until I’m motion sick, 

Forgetting, I am just someone’s daughter. 

Mind twists, erupts in our alma mater, 

Rosy cheeks, wishing to be anemic 

You hold people in your hands like water. 

Ruby red, linen smell, childlike slaughter, 

In bedroom’s comfort skins no longer thick, 

Forgetting, I am just someone’s daughter. 

Mirages say maybe you could spot her, 

Sensitive souls or paper cuts I lick, 

You hold people in your hands like water. 

Crimson sky, the local police blotter, 

Crocodile tears and smudged lipstick, 

Forgetting, I am just someone’s daughter. 

Living on my frail wrist like a squatter, 

Heavier and harder every knick, 

You hold people in your hands like water, 

Forgetting, I am just someone’s daughter.

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