I can't go home anymore
though home is blood, it's in my bones,
screaming: attend me
like children
chattering
missing teeth,
tugging, tits,
tearing, trees
down
my legs
ache from all the travel,
the endless walking,
this mind to itself, just keeps talking.

I can't leave my body
yet
I try
with green tea,
masturbation,
ibuprophen.

I can't leave my body without leaving it alone

but that's the problem,
I just won't.

Maybe it's because I can't
go home right now and besides:
home is not that rented,
five-bedroom condo
in Amherst.
Home is not
the big boys:
one who admits he loves me, even looks in my eyes,
but who I can't quite feel;
the other who
I feel too much--
as if my hips would split apart...

Home isn't the exes and whys
or whose
there or not there, but

home SEEMS as if it must be
Misha, the cat with walnut markings
on her forehead
or Simka, the blue front amazon
who loves me more than any human anywhere.

Maybe not, But
I still miss them
I miss the familiar
to shreds and it hurts
my heart
my face
my yoni
my stomach
my back
Butt
I can't go back.
Still
I can't go forward, at least
not until the sun shines again
and
the ache is eased enough
from these joints
and
the smog lifts
from Oakland in my brain.

I can't go back, or
maybe I could but
you know I won't
because
I don't believe in going backwards

you know
I will regret it if I try
you on again.

Cry with me if you love me
still
it doesn't hurt to cry,
only it does
to try not to cry

It doesn't hurt
because you choose
not to be a stone
Be with me,
even if
you feel I've thrown
you from my home

Only I am
the stone
in that far flung place,
feeling unsettled and lost as space.

I have felt alone all my life
When I left Massachusetts,
I'd finally felt
I'd had community but
I'd left it just when it got good
because
I could not take the cold,
or the uptight New Englanders
who didn't know

me
I had to go
and so I went and now
I just don't know anything
anymore
except that everything
changes.