You have to stay in the same burrito we put you in.
You can’t fly angels up to the sky or catch anything
in a net that’s made of stars and holes. Don’t catch
the next boat. You’ll only suffer out there,
bumping along some honeycomb coast of a
godforsaken guano island atoll until the boat
splits apart, casts you out to be eaten by seals. Seals!
The betrayal, after how you cried at the cartoon
where they got clubbed and the ice went red.
You have to stay here until you no longer want to leave
and no longer have the right clothes, anyway–
for some people, that’s actually a very short time.

Let’s raffle off some business cookies,
a certain little dream house of the mind.
Cow spots and flying toasters everywhere,
like a ’90s computer, back when everything
was simple and the color of putty. Remember
those flesh-colored days (well, certain flesh)?
Let’s raffle it off, the continuing stream
of trout, a certain train that only stops
at certain stations where there are no seeds
of any kind, and nothing to be forgiven.
Let’s all wear blankets. Let’s all count mice
as if they were people, and ourselves
as if we were flesh-colored mice.

Dear ____ [Redacted],

I have your cookies,
and have had them for some time now.
I can’t bring them to you because of sadness
and because I’m collecting ways to fail,
hoarding them because they’re comfortable
out in the open like that. Your cookies, though,
are in our basement storage. Out of sight, out of mind
except that every day, I think about going down there,
and then I remember that I’m a terrible person,
completely the sort who hides cookies
while singing mourning songs
and waiting for rats–I hear they’ve been sighted
right there in basement storage, and I’m sure
they like Thin Mints as much as anyone else.
I might just eat your cookies, actually,
to stave off rats and because
if I’m going to be a horrible person,
I may as well be one that contains
your four boxes of Trefoils.

But never forget that you’re always still
a failure; the truth could happen at any time
as you reveal your tarnish, as everything becomes
rootless. Don’t forget failure. It rides in your back,
low, the spot that could always discredit you,
belittle you and cripple you, if we’re really using
words. This is not about positivity. This one
will not take a sudden turn toward grace;
it stays ugly, no matter how I try.

But the whole entire time,
he was looking in my eyes
one by one–which took a long time
because I am a spider.
I do spider things, you know,
and these are my fangs.
But anyway, you know how sometimes
a morning looks at you, and you feel,
somehow, acknowledged? And then
everything you weave for the rest of that day
is stronger, more catching, and you can
carry on your spider business for a long time,
just from that one drop of water.

She’s selling shit that she got as gifts.
I think I have lipstick on my teeth.
The sky pours out like orange juice,
pulp free, plus calcium and vitamin D.
We’re all a little depleted and pale,
a little bit like crusted salt-snow
between dogs’ toes or the hems
of dirty jeans, all prone to
faux pas, little gaffes,
February bruises.

Every character dies.
Some just die more horribly than others.
The little girl unzips
like a slug
to reveal a pair of orchids.
The old lady stubs her toe
on everything she ever achieved
or knew,
pirouettes over her unmade bed,
and breaks her neck.
The bad, bad man–
not just comically bad
or rakishly bad, but actually bad bad–
goes quietly in his sleep
because no one every said anything
about justice, or meaning, or beauty.
I have assigned some beauty to the little girl
because I am not insensate,
a mollusk incapable of pearls.

Maybe I can enable you to live
your wildest dream potential
in a forest of mushrooms
inside your own body.
You’ll never want to leave
once you’re safely tucked into
your armpit, there to rest, there to
catch the scent on every breeze,
to flehmen like the best kind of cat.
You’ll never know what hit you when
the pounds and inches melt away
and the money starts rolling in;
soon, you’ll be a tiny rich person,
a small butter cookie version
of your former fat self.

My head in a basket
My head like a tennis ball
My head bouncing over next to your head
My head opening like a cherry blossom or like a cherry, rotten
My head rolling itself down at night like a metal shop grate
My head trying to make its own sweetness, finding a lack
My head knocking on your back door
My head borrowing a cup of sugar from you, my neighbor head

If you believe at 5:00 p.m.
some pink light on the eastern horizon,
then maybe you are no longer sick,
vomiting out of habit, hot and timeless
under a Hudson Bay blanket
with its six slash marks
to show you are a queen. If you believe
the light in the sky, maybe your whole family
can march forward now, ready for life again,
no longer bringing the inside to the outside
in such disgusting ways. Someday, you’ll deal with
the bathroom
(and other places, too),
but today, it’s enough to be near a window
when the sky goes pink, and here you are,
a witness once again.