I’m sitting across from Feelings again.
she is painfully unpredictable
hardens like New Mexican dirt after a drought
not enough rain to cleanse the surface
her heart swings, ringing out the muck and dirt
she runs it under water
its red ooze, like a new tattoo
slips in the folds of her fingers.

I’m sitting across from Feelings again.
she is painfully unpredictable

Her grizzly hands claw
about my thoughts
tearing a whole in the map of my mind.
She stares at me shape shifts
sleek and seductive
prowling with her quiet paws.
I wait for her to pounce.
The cage around my chest
restrains her desire, but
Raven begins beating her wild wings
pecking wholes in between my ribs
with magnetic precision.
She is wild and unpredictable.

I don’t understand who sent them
or their purpose. My mother was
a lion keeper. She tried to teach me how to
live with wild beasts.

Feelings reminds me that we were told at a young age
that we didn’t need our mothers
that birds could survive in cages,
hippos in a pool of snot and snow cones
she uses this zoo analogy like its something we can understand
says we were asked to suppress her
using drugs and cheap talk
sticky sheets and sea foam
Feelings says she is tired of only being free in the dark

In the light of the sun, I cross my legs real tight
like a lady should. high collar and tight buttons
hair pinned back. yet nature is still
tattooed on the nape of my neck
and I can’t seem to escape the monsoon
pulsing through my pelvis
with electric regularity
whenever feelings comes around.

Why can’t we own loving ourselves?
like lips to ice cubes on a cold summer day
too hot to fight it
too hot to separate wind from bare skin
Why can’t we own loving ourselves?
like lips to ice cubes on a cold summer day
too hot to fight it
too hot to separate wind from bare skin

our own shark music
rampant in tear ducts
moistens us with water that
we finally dreamt we would taste
running down our cheeks

Why can’t we own loving?
like the way men’s eyes
follow those silver beads
that dangle turquoise dew drops
down my chest.
spread wide and extend
past the boundaries
of expectations where
rain can leak pleasure
soften the knotted chords
down the back of my throat
and open to the sound
of feelings strumming
on that which contains
the members of this body.

Feelings told me
she granted permission to sunlight
to use her taste buds as the bed for pleasure
dissolving what is left of her lead body
onto the roof of our mouths
and in her offering she reignites
a 4,000 year old desire to feel love
to be heard
to seek understanding in the depths of her soreness
to know that every human face is looking for its own reflection

and we will naturally gravitate to the way she moves the compass in our blood

we will learn to forgive her when she is too much
too unruly
even for the Zoo