loneliest in the strange electric light of night
waiting incessantly for the cowboys i once thought i'd marry
and in the glow of these flashing signs
i see that all life is death
and all death is loneliness

years squandered away by pain
and understanding others will never know
a curse of unusable knowledge
and pulled in so many ways
that a life on the road
is the best escape

and even for that exodus
that great purging of all the confines life has taught us,
i can find no companion
and i am lonely everywhere
and everywhere i find no respite
and maybe it is better to be lonely alone
than among the grasping hands of others

clicks and blinks in the blackness of night
and all the acidity of the human soul piercing out through the pores

camping in the back of an old trailer
with green, moth-eaten upholstery
and a smelly cousin
who will never learn to spell
and whose teeth will rot out of her mouth
before her 21st birthday

i can lie there with all the wonder of the past sins
committed against me
real or imagined
dreamlike and created
like stories from my fantasy world
until they wash across me
and become another confused illusion,
another secret like so many parts of my life
i can neither remember nor understand

smelling that mustiness
half ocean, half old carpet
i feel young again with the memory
of hopes and loves and the mystery of things yet to come

and i know
i am safe
no one will look for me here
in the back of this rusted tank,
my only home, as far as i can tell

my body is profane already
though i have done nothing profane with it
my breasts trapped in a compressing bra
that binds and squeezes and makes it hard to breathe
my waistband digs into my hips
my underwear cuts at my thighs

my face is blank
but that is no solution
too much has been given away already
in the curve of my chest
under any shirt
despite bad posture
and high collars

my mind does not match my body,
which should be out flirting,
dancing with boys

inside i am a tomboy child
ready to fight and cry

back toward that land of dirt and wind,
the highway blends beneath you
and you feel the heat rising up through the floorboards

tonight you will wear yesterday's clothes
and contemplate the age in your pores,
amplified and sick-looking under the flourescents,
while water swirls and sucks around you
and music pumps through your glands,
too loud to recognize

and you will try to focus through the smoke and movement
and remind youself again that this is not a book
or a movie
and the gravity of reality will settle upon you
as your blood turns sour and
yellow bones grind and dissolve beneath your skin

but now you feel lost and light and small on the road
and the wind whips through the windows like it will carry you away

born on both sides of the tracks

my coal miner, cowboy, sailor
husbands
riding rails, highways
lifting the steel to build towers,
sanding planks, digging trenches

oil filling the lines in their hands,
taut muscles,
green tattoos

find me somewhere in my life of privilege,
of academics and books spiraling me into some world
so foreign to the grit that runs in my blood,
so opposed to the scars and sunburns i see in myself

husbands, saviors,
resotre my identity
make me genuine again

to my dark-veiled friend

no stranger to death
i've walked on your black stoned beaches
heard your voice calling to those who surrounded me
like moths in the night

i've ached for your dark promise
but knew, all the while
it was me you loved best
me who held your eye
as the spirits of the frail-boned
slipped out between your fingers
to some soft light you knew not of

you gave me direction
you drew me to places you were destined for
and you repelled me away when you appeared
and these earthen strangers you so prefer
these fleshy monsters who blind my thoughts
smother me and leave me
indefinitely, eternally

but i follow in your path
and you travel beside me
and i feel you in the shadows
holding me and waiting

borderline

nights like these i wish i had jesus
and a boyfriend by my bed
and you to call

some biological lonliness, desperation
muddies my blood
leaves me waiting, always,
for the next step
the final truth

for that warmth i only had in childhood
that warmth i lost in my youth