Carson 3: more Bad reasons for her sorrow

what is it with blood on pages?
i read her and i knew that you
had been here first,
knew i had found you,
learned a little more what
being you is like.
i found the blue lines you drew
and all the scribbles on the
sidelines of the page that left
you lingering,
smearing your blood in all directions
to cover the tracks.
i see the somethings that i brought
here in hopes that you soon would
find me worthy of your jokes in my kitchen,
hear you tell me that things,
things, they will be fine, and show
me all the reasons we fucked up here.
i see the lady with the curves
in front of me, underrated from the glass
box she lives in on the wall
and the words i'd like to prescribe her,
and i match them to the way we both look
when we paint our lips unnatural colours,
the way our dentures lose their shine,
and the way we'd better keep our mouths shut -
the way our faces look when we box them
in glass like the lady with the curves.
we were prescribed this, given names
but who draws the blood, who lives.

We Keep Dwelling On These Moments

hold on to your childlike wonder,
but learn to articulate your self
you childish fool,

never mistrust the stranger,
yet find ones to be you and stay away
from all the others,

sha la la la,
he sings to me across the borders
of our broken love,
still looking for a place to park
the picnic we have been longing to find a
place to have,

(i've been longing to escape our child-like
love and fine someone more mature to hold me
but i still see the world through sparkling eyes
and trees lined with peaches and apples and
your love)

and i expand and unexpand
with all of the wonder that i supress and decide
is good enough to share,

sha la la la la la.

Nervosa

the first time felt
like prostitution,
sacrificing your body
for some unknown one
that would pay,

kept imagining what might
be floating in the bath
at this point,

what might be said when
one was caught bathing in
water like this,
so heard of,

but unknown here.
sticks continually washed
cleaned by guilt and sanitation
screaming,

eyes wrenched red
like the colour my insides
must be.

(came out feeling dizzy
but wise, knowing more than
the next one,
you've got to be tough,

you've got to be brave,
you've got to feel good after.)

He Doesn't Count But He Tries

he speaks not my language,
but he tries,
despite my rounded o's and
harshened consonants,
he tries.

and he leaves me left alone
once again.

what a sham -
i am left to find you on pages.

Green Plastic and Green Trees

floating over red vinyl
in the closet,

she said,
"looks just like art,
like someone should be
somewhere else with people
more like her"

looks like seven dollars
blue and plaid
and better than you expected
once again.

and where are you? thin
like furniture legs and still not aware
of the pictures our
childhood produced together
"you should always have it you said"
and i went down and brought it here -

love surrounded by green wood
and green plastic and green trees
and party green of all the green girls
and green boys who came here,

yet where are you my love,
my burdened heart sang only to your eyes,
blue like the birds my father likes
to name in backyards -

where did you get that? where is the
rent? you look great.
once again, where are you?

are you lost in vinyl dreams and girls
with squinted eyes? you should be here
posted on the wall beside
the photograph
you told me i should always have

and melted between the racks of belts
and tweeded jackets one cut short
of missing shoulder pads -
and a lifestyle that implies all that
it might suggest

and rosied like the sober girl
now happy once again
and the steeez she finds in places
you long to find yourself.

Foggy Corner Covered

who are we that meet -
on small corners covered in fog and trees?

small corner,
i have found me here
often
surrounded in thick fog,
protected well by light reflecting
glass into patterns
complicated by the matters
lost in warbled hands
made calm only by the renditions
you prescribed
before
and after
we danced under your window
hoping strange good might -

of paint and walls and floors,
what architect decided walls
built into small perimeters
could satisfy one like me,
on foggy days
when the sad escapes of
our time
together, leaves me
stepping over beetles
struggling to find

their way.

who decided eternal greens
and plastered stones could
satisfy
more the view
of withered trees
and common hands
wandering about like
beetles,

struggling to find their
way in the fog
melting harshly
on the way .

Bricks and Paper on the Wall

let's not please get our finger caught
in the bricks up on the wall,
break fingers between the cracks on
up on the wall,
the crack between the bricks on
all the walls

people are the best ones those
that slide their fingers here, there,
up down,
through all the mismatched cracks
between the bricks on all the walls,
can't keep up!
running fingers along plaster between
all of the bricks, running eyes along
spaces hoping breaking my finger
will feel as good as it sounds,
the gritty unraveling of sandy stone,
and my finger sliding perfectly
up and down mismatched lines of plaster
fill,

impossible but then -
keep waking up cross eyed
staring at the checks on the paper on the wall,
the perfect perpendicular lines up on the
paper on the wall
jump out, unlike bricks, but patterned perfectly -
no difference, unbalance, jumping out from the wall,
those lines are the best! otherwise
there is no illusion to shake free from.

You Look Autistic When You Wear That

no stupid.this is the line i was thinking of while i drew you on this paper.

Love like hooded wind

rotting roots or
dirty ground:
the difference
doesn't matter
when the air gets
heavy.

leisurely mondays
leading to love
like mud gone
hard in the cold,

delightful like
footing under the
steps once trodden
down by water,

and have you
been here before,
tapping shoes
along the hardened
ground.

Beauty Girl Queen and The Afro Woman

hand cream
is for the artificially glamourous,
unscratch your hands, your arms, your face,
cut your nails,
your hair is starting to fall out
(like the black woman with
too much weave in her hair,
too many times to the chemically
straightened salon in her hair -
black girl lost it,
came back with curly hair,
an afro: what a beauty).

are you one of those hand cream junkies?
one of those
coming into classtime late with sunglasses junkies?
where'd you get those star girl?
are you one of those
pretend to act like you can't see me junkies,
threw this on in the morning,
change the colour of my skin type junkies?
pull out your hand cream in class,
at the coffee shop,
spend your money elsewhere;
this is getting obvious.

gross like the bald spots
on the front of your head,
over twenty and still not sure,
how to be a beauty,
like the afro woman head.
you're a beauty.

sunglasses are made to shield your eyes
from uv rays,
protect your cornea,
keep your sight together for old age -
like sunscreen is made to protect
your skin from the burning,
from roasting hot and red,
cooking, nearly boiling -
they were not made for vain endeavours,
like walking in late,
what a star.

The first time gets overrated, and we got a bit too drunk.

i bet you're so glad
you can keep me

now
and forever,

i wish buttershop tar
had never fallen between
the bottles of tequila on the top shelf.

(my mama's only plan
was to get me rich
so i could buy her things
she can't afford)

we knows, she knows, we know,
and i'm tired of camping out here,

and i am tired of being your friend.

I Like To Blow My Money

we want to be catholic
school kids,

or we have to be at
least if we're going to make
this happen.

we've been drinking
and snorting lines
since dawn occurred
and we realized

there is nothing left
for us in common,

why do we come here together.

why do we come here together
so often hoping to find
something

other than cocaine lines
and hangovers.
(and big arms and kisses on the
forehead and "thanks for having
me" and "those are ugly shoes")

we need to be catholic kids
so we go to church
still buzzing from the lines
that we sat up all night snorting
"do you know how much cocaine
we went through last night?"
and we sit in the pews
and listen to the priest

and think of sex,
almost worse than doing it
at this point,
because we just did it and
we will maybe do it again
if you think that maybe i could
think you were hot without
the cocaine and the alcohol,

and we smile at the priest
so he will evaluate us as
fine children
(we are fine children)

our reputation over rumours
will save us, along with our
newfound faith, and jesus
(i have a feeling there's a
lot of cocaine at parties like that)
we are the best kids in town,
one might say,

and we're going to be catholic kids
soon (help them learn what is right
and wrong and be good people).

This Plus Hippie Earrings

orange mocs
orange mocs

a bright blue sky
and orange mocs

oranges flying in
the air
against the moon

orange mocs:

fossil fueled
dinosaaaurs, eeee

Yeah, He's Fucked in the Head, But I Feel Like You'd Go For That

by part two,
i was bored.

by part three,
i wondered why
they kept it in there.

they all just want to know
where you belong.

how many women have you
seen wearing pearls?
on the street today
or in general.

the love of my life
he bites my necklace
while asking,

are these real?
no.

no they were seventy
eight dollars,
they are not real.

the love of my life
is wearing purple cashmere:

you may have seen it first,
but he looks better in it.

do you see the way we
touch each others hands?
the way we get tangled in
each other?

so, got tested today
for adhd.
came out positive.
(pearl earrings)
i feel like i'm losing
my personality,
because i haven't gotten
drunk (pearl earrings).

purple cashmere:
i can't believe you're gone.
yeah but what if i'm hiding
in your closet?
speaking of which.

can't we just get married?
no.
oh so you're going to marry HER?
no.
i can't get married to you.

so is there anyone special
catching your eye?
yeah, he's different though.
oh.
that wasn't a mistake.

are you kidding me?
can't you just kiss me once?
see what this becomes,

purple cashmere you
are taking my attention away
from the improvisation and pearls
on the stage.

so where do you belong then?
not in a book!

can you give me another chance?
i promise next time you bite
my necklace;

"Baby You Look Great, What's Your Trade?"

There is something unexpected
About the woman cutting off her skin
In the corner,

About the pile she is leaving
As she unravels herself
By turning herself around

With her hands held high.

There is something strange
About her empty cupboards,
Her floors covered in orange peels,

And the shape of the skin
She leaves behind with the clothes
On her front step,

Exhibitionist? No.

There is something familiar
About the bowls she leaves in the bathroom
Hoping not a soul will find them

About the words she uses to avoid
The subject all the time
And the hands she uses to rub her ribs

From behind her.

And especially the gold bracelets
Adorning her wrist,
The hours spent straightening

Her tight and furled up hair
Curling her lashes black,
And staring in the mirror

Not daring to touch the skin
she tries not to notice
falling quickly to the ground.

Pumpkin Yellow Apple Leaves!

you always get the last word
you!
even when you are not here.

and it was fine,
less perfect than expected,
but fine.

he smiled like,
where did you come from
and why?
he called like why am i
nervous and why?
where are you, answer
your phone
(forgetting that slip -
she will
be
the death of me)

he spat like
Noone Wants You Here!
and why,
such formalities
are spat, spat.

bump bump
rumble, rumble,
all over the skin,
It is back!

like air through the paper of the cigarette,
speckling freshness at my throat
with hazy air -
desire!

like air sifting through
tobacco leaves,
leaves? not a smoker.

i spat like whew
i lost myself,
through the filter, came
out -
and air!
i can breathe.

Mother, It Gets Cold.

I live an exaggerated life,
even colder than this page,

and my Mama knows it.

The winter got colder almost overnight,
its frigid heat is warming my pages.

She cries, letting words freeze to her
face, too fast to keep unfrozen.

I live an exaggerated life and I hope you know this
when your tongue sticks to the page.

She thinks it. Even they get cold, she predicts.
Tries to stop me, warn me.

She is afraid of the rape, because it happened
to her last winter.

If it burns your skin pink please know
how much frost there came.

Each Tree He Has Cut Down

Sixty increasing acres
Of birch tree losing its hair
In the heat of summer.
Not particularly suited
To dehydrated, insipid
Prairie conditions:

Burning in the heat,
Skin peeling from its
Limbs, around its wounds,
Its view over the world,
The wisdom it shares,
By being there.

He thins them one by one
Choosing stronger trees to
Represent the tangled mess,
He has made beautiful.
He runs his hands across them,
Peeling back the bark in choice places.

Thinning makes them
Want to flourish,
Gives them room to grow,
He says confidently,
He says,
Trying not to notice his legs,

Peeling in the same manner
Of the birch tree bark.
Birch tree roots,
Spreading themselves for
Miles under primitive ground,
Away from cemented buildings,

Where the trees and him
Must now reside.
Sixty acres
Of a man trying to walk again,
Trying to feel
His heart again.

Flesh cuts cause structural damage,
Nerve cuts cause structural damage,
Summer heat causes
The man and the trees
To unfold themselves,
Wishing only for water.

Forty-nine acres of thinning,
Of forming pathways through the forest,
Of keeping up appearances
(After a while a man,
Cannot live
Without the trees).