lala, split ends, and the bakers dozen.

a lonely plastic bag dances through a labyrinth of heels, rushed speaking, and noise. scared the wind might die at any moment, not realising the streets are full of life to breath.

pavements embrace the glowing embers of half-smoked cigarettes, hugging the wrath of theirs sparks to it's cracks. call her queen of the train line, or dancer of the night, entertainer who will steal your heart, make you crawl on your belly to the light.

i don't know where we are going, there was a splash, a slash then a clawing against the linoleum. a moan, a guttural groan, a gutter throat, he cut his own throat. his skin like ivory.

the city air made its rounds that night, through the living room ruined curtains askew, and curled around bare toes, slamming the locked door.car headlights licked windows and the wall behind the headboard; stroked the covers as if to aplogoise (but still manage to mutter, "you know what you were getting into")

everyone pretends to be something they are not, even before they can speak to lie, burning up the possibility of truth just like the shooting star this is Laura Baker in all her poetic masochism throwing up flames where ever she stands.

sorry if this was a little left of centre, but it was written for a girl, who stands there. it is her birthday soon and i wish her all the best.

lala, i love you.

yours in christ fox

i haven't been fucked like this since grade school.

tonight the rain becomes the earth falling from hidden places in the sky. i can hear it make mud of dirt, and lovers of friends. and i ask, quietly, where are we going but down?

i'm not all there, in the head, you're not all there in the head. my mother reminds me, im not all there in the head, and i repeat sometimes im there in my toes and fingers instead.

and now - in this downpour of a moment - i lie on the street, on the cement so warm that i thinks its where all the love's gotten into.but where is your shirt? oh someplace else, and is that a light flickering in the house across the road? should i hide?

i rush back home, soaked with rain, i watched fall (like stars), am i poetic enough yet, yet? leaving rain-prints on the carpet but mum won't mind. mind you she never minds anything if its mine

but then it stopes and a quick shut-eye stop (i wonder) is it dew now that is sits like jewels upon the grass?the wind is lovely in my ear, voice like rushing water. n not down; though, through.

make me move

i want to write a poem about sex, and that im not a terrible person/ speller.

-

i am disorded but not disorderly. i am broken up. i think nice thoughts like streetlight, and linens, and is there an instruction guid to happiness? i could write one for you.

step one, paint your eyes cobalt blue.

step two, hang fireworks from coat hangers

step three, turn into one of those white weeds, blow away

my heart tried to escape out my throat. okay, i am guilty in ways that you cannot tell anyone, ever, not even your imaginary best friends. or real ones. or myself, freud says i'm an iceburg, but i don't know if he means full of repressed thought or just a fridget bitch that will cut you open.

step four, there is no step four if i am an iceburg, i desperarely need someone to warm me in the palms of their hands. no one ever will though, i sink ships and tear them all apart.

once there was a boy who told people she was not terrible, but he could never get the spelling quit right.

as if they knew better

fucking without a condom is the main way to transmit HIV

i see naked bodies in the gutter as i walk queen street at 3 am. they make love, awkward but warm in the concrete curve. i don't place their clothes. i think it is wonderful though. the heat, the heat.
my entire body is rolling from heavy to light, like the shore. my head is humming and my limbs ache dull. there is a sickness in my stomach or in my throat. i think that maybe my stomach is wanting to force itself out my throat- but i won't have that.

i walk further. there are no straight lines to follow but i picture them in my mind and still cannot walk across them. i trip, tumble on the edge of the pavement and no one sees. the alcohol pulses through my blood stream and i begin to shouti love her, i fucking adore her! the brisbane night sky answers with an offset of bat noises and far off traffic. they don't understand though, they could never feel this. the sky may love the sun for lighting it each day and the moon for gracing its canvas with a milky glow, but it does not know the love i do. she is my sun and moon and stars and dew and, she is life. my head throbs. i am not well. the lovers are streets back. we could be them. but we're not. she has fallen asleep with music thrumming in her ears on somebody's couch and i am walking the city streets intoxicated, bowing to streetlamps. i am not well.heat, heat. i wouldn't mind where we were. just to have the bare skin, the nakedness of her. it's shooting heroin without the syringe. it's all i want, her, her and nothing but. she's too far away. i can't hear breath or footsteps or heartbeat and that is why she is too far. i will fall asleep without her but i wish i wouldn't. i can feel it rushing over me, tired mind, tired. there is a bench ahead and why not? home is so far and i can only walk so far before passing out. it isn't comfortable like she'd be. but i drift, rum blurring thoughts, into fogged and clouded dreams of us.us (not me and you, not you and i)us.

its about tapeing a plastic bag over your head, and waiting for jesus

in five years i want to move to sydney, arkensas, or atlantas and start a family, name my children after odd numbers and teach them russian nursery rhymes, and the art of manipulating the ones you love.

in five years i want to marry you, but i dont know if you like odd numbers, or even if you like me all that much. maybe you'd like me if i tell you that i'm a mermaid, but i'm not and you can always tell when i am lying. in five years i want to be seventeen, but wishes dont work like that. i tried. in five years i want to be on a plane, and i want the plane to crash and i want everyone to be okay execpt for you. but if you were a mermaid you would be okay i suppose. you could just swim away.

in five years i want to be out of this bed, in five years i want to be crowned king of all lower case letters, in five years i want to say "your the best thing that has ever happened to me", and mean it.

in five years i hope to either be a writter or dead. but i shouldnt get my hopes up.

once more, with feeling

I wanted to give up sex for lent, but somehow i find myself letting you spread my legs and whisper holy nothings into my sinful ears.

in my half-starved mind i imagine a danglinggolden cross about your neck that burns prayers into my collar bone, oh godoh god oh god oh godohgodohpleasein the morning i hide your mother's bible and try to tell you about renewal and purity and rebirth.

you just ask me if i've remembered to take my birth-control pills.i wanted to go without eating for forty days, but you take one look at my pale, nakedlegs and say, "honestly, if they wereany skinnier i would be grossed out."

here i am swallowing the world whole,all of its glory and chocolate rabbits and virgin mary statues and dirtied snow and azealea bushes. there is no confession booth left to save my soul except poetry, and as far as i know it cannot keep me from hell.

i ask you what the holy week is, and what each day signifies, but you are unsure.

i spend ash wednesday celebratingbeing alive, and wake up thursdaythinking maybe i've gotten it all wrong.

-i'm not giving up any one thing for lent.i'm just giving up.

the bad mother's handbook

i am folding you one thousand paper cranes because it is all we have left.

legend says that if i fold one thousand paper cranes, i will get a wish. i could wish for a pair of iridescent wings or an ocean in a teacup or just to finally be happy again, but i don't want any of that -with every crane i fold i am imagining you. once crane for the circles under your eyes, one crane for your jutting ribs, one crane for every seizure.i love you and you're dying and i will run out of paper trying to fold your broken pieces into birds.

you drew me a picture of us in the future.

our houses were next door to each other and a white picket fence separated our property and oh god, it made me curl into a ball and ache for hours. see, in a perfect world, the clouds would always be fluffy and our mailboxes would always be full of hand-drawn pictures and our smiles would be lopsided but permanent.

i hung it on my refrigerator as a reminder that there is still hope, but paper is so fragile and i am afraid that someday it might be nothing more than smears.

we both want to name our sons Archie and neither of us paint our fingernails. we have the same middle name and we finish each others sentences.

sometimes people tell us we are the same person; the only difference if that you're sick and im just guilty.

one night i asked my boyfriend what would happen, and he let me toss fitfully on the too-small bed and cry all over the clean sheets.

"we'll go to the funeral" he told me. "and we will cry. and whenever we are all together, we will think about her and how much we love her and we will smile. it will be okay" so i will keep telling you that until one of us believes it. it will be okay, it will, it has to. [it might not be, but i cannot imagine you gone. i want a white picket fence and graphite clouds and strings of origami veiling every window in your house]
in the end neither paper cranes nor stories will keep you alive, but i have to try.