Andrea Jane Kato


Ephemera

Try turning a gun inside out. See what happens.
Perhaps you will find love there, around the bullets,
or a story about love in a way you've never experienced,
but you somehow know exists.

Try turning a paper crane inside out, or a thousand.
See what happens. Reversed, they just make other animals,
butterflies that refuse to eat for an entire lifetime,
wounded elephants, and spiders that feast upon sunbeams.

Try turning your house inside out, like it has an eating disorder,
and purges your books and CDs and unwashed laundry onto your lawn,
the neighbor's lawn. See what happens when you try to talk it out of
destroying itself, tell it its windows are not too small, it's kitchen
not as big as it looks in that particular color.

Saw into your own skull and turn your brain inside out.
Is it dead-colored silly string beef?
Is it a litter of scattered Polaroids of your jumbled subconscious,
glowing brighter and brighter as they absorb daylight for the first time?
See what happens. See how powerful color can be. Dig through the mush
and see if the mind really does have an eye.

Try turning your birthday inside out. See where it gets you.
An alternate dimension. Two hundred more friends. Jumping
on your own coffin, alternating between the glee of a girl
on a trampoline and a stormy amphetamine anger.

Try turning our love inside out and see if it is some kind of
twitching glittery fish. See if it has arms and wings and stripes.
See if it is a stage of insects performing Shakespearean tragedy.
See if it feels like mixing opiates with amphetamines. See what
you say when I tell you I think we should get married again,
because you put bright gaffer tape on everything and
because of this green rope I ordered from the Internet.

Turn the universe inside out and see if the planets
shed their rings like snake skin. See once and for all
if aliens exist. See if God exists. See if you are God.
Run your fingers over its train-wrecked edges, and see
if you feel remorse.

Turn your pockets inside out and see if there is charity
or greed. See if there is a collection of deer, starved
for weeks. See if there's a mirror to check yourself in,
to see if by the end of the night, your face is just one
large red wound. See if self-consciousness is
what's keeping you from utterly destroying yourself.


Photovirus

The daylight latches onto things
finds its quiet way into
animal bowels and I
am just going to push
as hard as I can
until I hear something break.

The modern world is tearing us apart
like love, piece by piece, it is shoving us
into crowded warehouses and
getting us high on E.

Should I warn you I will destroy you
and enjoy every word from your mouth?

I require 20 of whatever you have.
I require a diamond box around my heart.
I require the scalped trophy manes of horses
brought back to me on golden platters.

I do not require batteries or food.


Interstice

Probably a lot of organs. Probably all of my
parents' organs. Probably things like keys & locks.
Probably the hot valleys where there is nothing to do
except play in your meth lab and sell popsicles and
shoot cats and dogs.

Probably small mountain towns with drunk people
and crazy people and small creeks to play with
your blood in. Probably the South. Probably
jazzfest and a hot shotgun-style house, which
is probably one block from the Mississippi.

Probably space & time or earth & sky. Probably Fresno
or Modesto or Turlock. Probably the Rocky Mountains
and all their snow that I do not care about. Probably
Lockheed Martin in the Ken Caryl Valley where boys suck
dick for people to like them and girls try to commit
suicide with one hundred Tylenol then have to drink
charcoal in an ambulance, and they do not even lose
one drop of blood or break one sad bone.

Probably lots and lots of blood. Probably blue blood.
Probably a messy bedroom and a lack of contraceptives.

Probably paradise. Probably a homeless shelter.
Probably eating fruit straight off the trees
or a forty pound box of bananas. Probably several
watermelons and bags full of bell peppers. Probably
eating olives for breakfast out of a can at the bus stop
staring at a model waiting for the zero before the sun is up.
Probably an eating disorder and a stomach ache. Probably a handful
of blue pills & a green apple.

Probably a psych ward and a small bed. Probably a river
of tears or an ocean of meat. Probably living in close
quarters with strange men and mentally ill children.
Probably a small room with padded walls, wearing someone
else's clothes. Probably an emergency room, or two.

Probably not the military or anything war-related, except
broken vases and hearts and ears. Probably not a functional
house, and probably not one in New York.

Probably not two parents, and maybe not even one, maybe just
half of one. Probably not many shoes or best wishes or Christmas.
Probably not a basement or attic or garage with lots of things
you forget you have. Probably not your neighbor's cherry tree.


Andrea Jane Kato was born in the great state of California and was raised Buddhist by a gypsy-like artist mother (deceased) and a Japanese farmer who currently grows pineapples in Hawaii. She is a Capricorn, Dragon, INTJ, HSP, Atheist, singer/songwriter, abstract painter/ artist, iPhone photographer who likes yoga, fasting, and smoking. She has been published in magazines such as The Blue Jew Yorker, My Favorite Bullet, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Beat, Ditch, Pomegranate, ReadThis Magazine, and Alternativereel.
 
 
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