A Pet Name for God.

I make a lot of green tea and don’t drink it. La Luna, aka Moony is Jesus Christ in the night sky, telling me to brace myself. “Either study your math harder or start writing.” I’m supposed to write. I can’t sleep. I eat too much sugar. Thank goodness for my saddle bags, the only things that keep me grounded. I keep asking, “What am I supposed to do?” Moony says: write. I laugh it off. I keep studying math. I keep dancing in a window. Wildcat with a broken back. Too much cheese. Too much blue at twilight. A blue shade. A blue lemon. A blue fart. I kiss my boyfriend when I want my mouth to feel like a warm and crackled nest. The twigs we’ve gathered and put together. Kissing. When I want to feel close to the top of a spruce, I take a bath. A really cold bath, and cry. I write. I write I write I write. Numbers fall out of my ear when I sleep. I disrespect you. I spit. I’m beautiful trailer meat. White. Fucked up toenails. Always looking for a home. A way out. Something safe. Here’s to a road trip, somewhere they’ve never been. Follow me there. No, instead just fuck off. If money were marble how cold it would be. There’s no such thing as whimsy, it’s just falling and calling the shredded scrapes on your knee confetti. My clogs hurt. My dress is too short. There’s pine under my fingernails telling me I’ll never change. I’ve kicked so much ass in this life just by still being alive. I’ve eaten so much sugar. Kiss another girl if you want to, I want to kiss fish bellies. I want to watch your boots when you walk in the sand. I want to look straight up at Moony and present journal after journal. We searched for Lilly of the Valley , we searched for “beach bodies”. My thing is beats your thing, but what if it’s nothing beats nothing? My temples are lavender hearts, thudding. Math goes something like : one black cat × a moth wing – 14 triangles = Moony. Everything= Moony. After all this, part of me would like to call it quits, but I keep writing. Everything becomes so tender, and I love the feeling of losing. Losing so much. Losing it all. It’s a great big wound in me. The cold green tea to the right of my elbow shows the eclipse of my face. I have pimples. I have pimples and an awesome wound. A sore that I will drag down to the lagoon to try to heal with salt. I try to heal, I always do, but never can. Moony says I never will.

-JBird 4/26/16

 

 

 

Your hair was a mess. Some tough hippie kid had enough and beat the shit out of him for you. That felt good. You kissed him for it. Eyelids like eggplant ferns. Sweet 1976 cranberries. You have nightmares about taxidermy birds. Cool it off with blackberry smudging. We don’t cry over spilled milk here in the pines.

-JBird on, “Life in the Barrens.”

 

 

 

 

Sunday

Sunday is floral faced and for birds with one wing. Knee sock bound and clad in cogs for the girl warrior, a trooper of pine and cedar. Think of candle wicks, champagne light, and violet powder. Sweet smelling haystacks where a small head of petals is gonna push through some day. 

-JBird 

2/28/16

 

 

 

 

I am not petite. I have hands like you. Waiting outside of the station I stare at you, pig eyed. My tongue is a cobra lifting. Yeah my boots are crossed. Yeah I’m staring at you like I want to- and there’s bison riding between us, before we can touch, I’m gonna use my spurs to cut you. Cut you up real good. For a fistful of somethin somethin I can give you a run. You’re running, you’re running and staring at me, there’s a buffalo messing with your cool. It’s riding you out. I’m riding you out. The juniper berries explode behind me. Your eyes are flipping over like shot up rattlesnakes and I have you wishin’ you weren’t who you were. I’ve got you sayin “Oh Jackie.”

-JBird on, “The Boys Who Love Jackie.”

 

 

 

 

Note to JBird,

Be calm. Get trashy once a month and wear eyeliner on your bottom lid. Ask about their salary. Talk about the rain and make up how you got the scab on your left pinky. You were trying to save a turtle on the side of the road, or wait–better, you were trying to jump on a circus train and missed, unscathed except your pinky. Only drink coffee out of mugs with black cats on them. Don’t think twice about heavy cream. Crescent moons, on everything. Pick dirt from under your nails with a pocket knife. Only hold cigars, don’t smoke them. Learn how to ride bison and pick the wartiest of pumpkins. Only date professors. Think about teepees 12% of your day. Expect respect, but no one said you have to be the breadwinner. Love bread, especially with anchovies . Take off your sunhat only to mourn for fallen sparrows on the side of the road. Thank you. Happy New Year.

-JBird  12/31/15

 

 

 

We took our branch wands and raised them over our heads. We prayed for Ophelia, cut lavender and offered it to the spruce trees. No good. It did no good. “How about apple cider over the hearth and raccoon tails?” said Abbie. No, I thought, petting the cat. No good. “We’ll need something much stronger. Maybe a big pig, a full moon and some sewing needles.” Maybe. Just maybe. We threw down our playing cards and took off to the woods.

Halloween with JBird.

 

 

 

 

The Summer I Realized a Bird of Paradise was Not a Bird.

 

When you were young and I watched you fall off your bike near the market, I noticed your raspberry hair and my mouth started to water.                                                                                                                                                                                                     Looking up at me with your scraped knee you said, “Nothing is even,” and cocked your head sideways.                                   Since when was the world even, you beautiful thing? I thought. Since when did the color of blood match a woman’s natural hair?                                                                                                                                                                                                  “I beg your pardon, Miss,” I said “I believe I am the crooked one, not the world.” The barrel of lemons had fallen over from the collision and you kept swearing, as you collected them into your scarf, that the reason you had fallen was because the entire world was crooked. I walked nearer to you and leaned in as I helped pick up a lemon or two from the street. My god, how you reeked of the island’s flowers and anchovies.                                                                                                                                     Your scarf was full of the lemons and you looked very hard at the fallen barrel before saying, “If you are the crooked one, then I want to be the crook- take these with me.” And before I could respond to the violet pulse in your irises, You took off click clacking away in your Mary Janes toward the shore, your scarf of lemons thrown over your shoulder.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The balding owner of the lemon stand suddenly emerged from the market tent with his apron still on and his mustache sharply pointed. He raised his fists at me hollering, and his eyes shrunk down to poppy seeds. I knew you were my responsibility then and that scared me more than the lemon market man. So I grabbed an armful of lemons and ran toward the tiny flames of your hair in the distance in hopes to put the fire out before you could put more fire in me . 

-JBird  10/11/14

 

 

 

J Lee or J Bird? Two of the same.

Winner of the Carter Ross Fiction Award. A story book for for the seniors in high school, college, and those who forgot the magic in life choices.

 

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