gutterbreed

today, i didn't chose to be sad lacing up my sneakers, my cement feet heavy with the probability of a bad day i picked them up anyway and i chose to skip until the weight chipped off and the chip in my shoulder lost it's hold on my on the way out the door i didn't chose to frown at the clouds, because they looked heavy too and who needs somebody's frown facing you when you're already ready to break and maybe they're just rolling through to wash away last night's bad dreams and replace them with the smell of wet pavement and to make the grass a little greener for tomorrow because sorrow can't stick around when things are blooming and your smil

I had learned how to pronounce the word Quixotic And how I used it, Pinching the blue canvas of the sky Pulling it down, taut between my fingertips To rest on the tops of the trees in our fig orchard And you spoke of long drives Where we would approach intersections And flip a coin to see Which way we would turn My hate for dresses was faded because they fit the moment The straps slipping down my shoulders to be pushed by up by the wind Rolling and licking along the edges of the car's window Forward on the barely-there highway That ran between fields that smelled of lemongrass and Mineral water You smiled. I wanted to peel t

Shy lamplight in a morning Rolled in fog and the sounds of waves from The road along the cliffside She could hear her breath steady, thrum and throttle Jogging up and down her larynx and rattling Like an angry snake I've never seen someone run Away from nighttime, away from The noises that skitter and skid across her ceiling to Trickle down to her ears She tells me in confidence, eyes wide and solid like The heads of African drums, that "The Murder of Crows and Mischief of Mice Battle for space in this house of mine But it never fails, the Pride of Lions It wins every time." Her voice is singsong, the snake in her throat is

They said Sunday mornings meant Sleep Not the heat through the windows, this wave of sunburns The dry crackle of flowers left on the counter Or the hiss and snap of trees as The fire ate them whole Everything was orange and fevered, and we Stood by the window in simple white underclothes and Watched the neighborhood melt The wood paneling and tar shingles Ran together and slid to the asphalt, mixing like paint, Like crayons on a hotplate I just wanted to drowse that day Fold my lids slowly, with my pupils pointed towards the floor And drip to the ground like the beeswax candle That was sitting on the bedstand Was I hallucinatin

so i woke up today in a new bed a new smell of blankets, a new kind of buzzing in my head of sunlight through the blinds so i'll creep out before i get your name i'll take note of the decor on the way out your front door and i'm sure that you don't mind there's a mild accumulation in this drizzled dreary week of a lack of stimulation our interest must have sprang a leak girl, you needed some slight of hand to keep you good and steady and we're saying let's get going and you're saying you're not ready grandpa's in the den, they caught him barking up the wrong tree like this whole generation, he's sentenced to euthanasia by

It was on a morning in mid July when the old Patelco building finally crumbled. We were sitting on the rails of what was left of the credit union, watching the bulk of the old pillars shrug and tumble. It was a stocky-shouldered beast of a thing, slung low and dribbled with blocky lettering like the broad back of a football player. The sunlight, weak and watered down for mid-summer, licked the air filled with cement dust and wrenched pieces of rebar. You rolled a cigarette with a quick wrist flick, dabbed your tongue across the line in a slow drawl and crinkled it shut between the tips of your fingers. "So what now?" "Fuck, man, I don't kn

there was a moment before the     lift where the flame pressed down as if the oil above me, alit and alive boiled the water and myself below and feeling, if you could call it that slowly slithered down my sides and crawled out my fingertips     to drag its belly across the ground where i couldn't see i broke through cellophane, melting through a tasteless surface, my feet leaving the ground my gravity leaving the rules behind ringed in halos, i was glowing and bold and bleeding,     stretched thick against the cool, supposed to be cold, wind from the edge of the garden and guiltless, i hung my doings undone until i r

hey, you in the background tell me your name in this cheap corner party that's all scene and all talk we could take this small chance and be gone to the street corner will you kiss me then, or think about it for a while while the wind whistles wanderlust through my ears, i need to up and go and spin and be lost in a place that harbors spur-of-the-moment sinners like us heaven must be a drab or dull resort with flat harps and gray clouds and blank angel faces, why would i want to work towards that sky when hell has its parties with tacky confetti and hands on bodies in all the right places? i was a freethinking bitch for a w

It's not loneliness I fear But the idea of being alone It's being in the parlor room listening To the ghost on your end of the phone It's not a different future But that we can't change the past It's what happens when I stop panicking Not will the panicking last Or if when everything dies down Will the intensity follow along It's not what the lyrics say But a tempo change in the song I miss you but it's started to shift Into something in which I can live But I love you, I love you, I love you That's all I had to give