i’m glad someone is effing me this hard. tattooing finger trails along the spine of the universe.

just break me.
i don’t pretend to know.
i just puppet words and try to say
the stupid unsayable.

which is all so, sooooo....

much.

you know.
it is.

staring down stars
seeking signs inside the fire
I can't tell the color of my own eyes
anymore

just the bright whites
staring back into mine
flitting above the smile
that I struggle to give

where, who, what, when

why.

the Q’s transfuse into
plasmatic stew on spun plate
overfloweth

af.

seriously, the W’s
bend me over without even
a hello

with a mental drip
slick down my cerebellum
and sticky on the stem

I can’t remember
what this poem’s supposed to be

but it’s not important
and neither are we, just —

coagulate stardust frolicking
stitched in the mystery

(on repeat)

I am not surprised
anymore.

I expect people to be
who. they. are.

or, at least
have been, mostly

but, I will remember you
and how good that halo looked

upon your unfurrowed
however fleeting

this symposium of somersaults
synaptic rafter vaulting

if only i could swap
mind & body levels

ascendant acrobat
with still insides

I’m hungry
and want to bite things

set reminders for when I slip
down the steep and forget:

it’s all wretched and beautiful
as is plummeting onto
blue-black knees

it means I’m here—
in the land of breath
and flux leaves

a lot cooler
if you did restore HP
to old-school functionality
when things, like, functioned
consistently. reliably. simply.

there are so many
little things *******
that I overlook because
this place is part of me and
how I speak

it’s our mouthpiece for
soul love light dark scenes
so, just make it work
for our inners

and, plz -

do.
some.
testing.

kludgey af workaround:

save poem as draft
edit draft and save as public

or priceless, last night
when the couple at the table
next to us at this little pizzeria
unexpectedly paid for our dinner
after I was fairly sure we had been
disrupting them, being well, six -
talkie, wiggly, silly, droppy...
we thanked them and then he said
you have a really well-behaved kid
which was, like, a really big deal
as most days I feel like
an inept kitten herder
except my herd is one
or two, if you count feistypaws
think they both don’t know
I’m the legit pack leader
and are vying for alpha
against one another, but
maybe I’m not doing
so bad
after all

after that
we made penny wishes
in the fountain outside
which is something I
never do alone, because generally
way jaded re: assigning my lofties to
depreciating currency deposits
in chlorinated public fountains

his: for me to get a thousand dollars
(to share with him)
mine: for him and me to have
all the love in the world
and for everyone everywhere
to be happy, free and get what they need

decided to toss in another penny
in case that sounded greedy
to the public plumbing fairy

and still my
insecurity is processing
whether they really thought
he was well-behaved and
enjoyed watching us or just
felt sorry for me
two-top charity...

I should prolly
take out my bad brain
that made me think that thing
and put in my good brain
as my kid likes to say

look over at
the empty passenger seat

and imagine
you’re there and wink
as internal asides
chime out loud

showing you
eyes that go

where all the words
have fallen short

each dawn I rouse
increasingly light(er)
like midnight realized
she dosed me improper
siphoned back sludge
in the IV dropper
and daybreak snuck
pre-op biotics
that kick in as
I flutter

I feel
the veil

lift.

and guise of years inside
you’re sanitized from the outside
custom toxin bubble confined

pop
and deflate

I’ve been guarding me
for so long.

after you live in prison
upon your release, you still
put walls around yourself
don’t trust don’t trust don’t
believe

anyone

is.
safe.

your create bars
to stay that way
just like home
penitentiary

that tucked you in
told you howwherewhen
you didn’t get to
make decisions
you didn’t
belong

to you.

then when on your own
you still don’t feel you
belong to anyone

I was so used
to playing small
I kept shrinking me
habitually

but
I. am.

uncontainable
and part always
of the all

as love culture multiplies
in open air beyond
illusory bars

I look up so high
level with my own
open eye

realize I’ve been
sitting under a table
in the broom closet

when I coulda been mingling
in the party just outside
where lights don’t chase, just
reflect iridescent cocktail dress

and there is laughter
with not one nanosecond
false, forced or choreographed

for the bones just know
and move
in song

tummy turned queasy
fraught patterns carbonated
think it’s too much brains

this skin and under
to the electric wind’s
seventh spectrum

to aerating icicle
lagtights of dust
clinging below
dichrotic glass
in thaw, like

blood flooding
arms gone numb
braced for cave
of ceiling

now gifted full
with rush of needles
reminding live
and it’s OK to

breathe
this

as the cube
evaporates
it sparks

cutes me all
electro

with flickering green
between silhouetted ribs

of underling
arising

viewing
of

past preceding
swirling now

it calls eyes
and demands
walk-thru of heart

I knew
the other night
was gonna be
intense

when I put
the chemicals in
the ones that tend
to make elate

it’s what
they’ve done
every time
since
you

to varying
degrees

they’ve become
therapeutic purge
leaning lone

just sit
in my ****
under the gloss

you are not alone
in thinks
in feels

they want air
and mouth
and hands
to catch

you know...

facing you
was the hardest thing
I’ve ever done

harder than
walking
out

of that
dead-end

it summoned
every shred of every
insecurity ever felt and
every failure face-planted
every inner negative creep
and ear-jammed program
the toxic false news
of six long years

to think I
get something that’s good
and not just good, but like
made special just for me
with this secret switch
somewhere that goes
glowy unknown
like too few are
lucky to know

after sucksessive bad
it just didn’t compute
when I looked
in the mirror

if you had not been
so ******* stubborn
I would have
never

returned.

I can spin
the webs in mind
so thick, my stories
my characters
and how I’d
painted
self:

plain, dim
undeserving
unduly inadequate

it comes up
for processing
not to road-block
but be cleared...

thank you
for what you said

I needed
to hear

precisely that.

the residue
of smoke remains
but I know

soon

I will
breathe deep
get meshed with
dodecahedrons
trickling down
my walls

whispering
the things, all

My Abandonment Issues cordially invite your Abandonment Issues to usurp their lack-of-****-togetherness with a fusion of festivities!

What: A.I. Fusion Fest
Where: Sunny Padded Land
When: Now - You Can Never Leave

Activities Include:

- Acro Yoga
- Tandem Biking
- Graffiti Affirmation Wall
- Cuddle Puddle Grotto
- Synchronized Trust-Falls
- Sock Puppet Heart-to-Hearts
- Fear Archery w/ Custom Targets

Don’t miss the main event!

Three-Legged Race

Utilizing all the greatest affixing technologies (including, but not limited to: rope, Duct Tape, Super Glue, Gorilla Glue, wet cement, bungees, resistance bands and all variety of *******), the race will begin by the Fountain of Unknowns, ascend over Mount Paranoiac and finish down in the Valley of Chillax AF, where there will be infinite punch and pie.

No need to RSVP. You’re coming.

:)

the night before
the moon grew bold

I felt the darkness
move in from above
in ominous grey
opaque

it reached for me
half asleep, I
acquiesced

relinquished
pillowy clutch
splayed sheets
like legs

for his
chatter bones to chill
where my sallow
is tissue thin

his hail knuckles
affixed to wet tongue
drug me to the floor
raking my hollows
over and over

reeling terrors
on sepia filmstrip
some scenes repeating
some to-fro rewound forward
some hovered gory ending:

frigid tools cutting
to expose my insides
stirring entrail with bone
tugging ruddy strings
to see what sounds
they made as I
buckled; choked
on my leaks

I closed my eyes
tried to escape body
but he projected on
my shuttered
darting

knotting esophagus
around the backbone
fingerpainting my end
on worn flesh walls
in char-red spectrum
choreographed in
perfect harmony
with rote fear
chanting

this is how
you die -

alone

I felt it all
happening.

dangling my happy
memoirs with nooses
ungraceful reanimating
decayed draggy dancing
Xs where bright eyes
were once upon
and wide

open

every ache and
smothered secret
chirped by dark faeries
too quick to swat

but when all
the pushed down
were given mallets
they crescendoed
into discordant jarring
and in its peak came
a piercing shriek:

so loud -

all stilled
to look around

I couldn’t tell
if the voice
was him
or me

but after terror climaxed
the hear ripped and
grip released

I allowed myself
to loosen, breathe
headthrob slowly
melded into felt
beats:

limbs and tips
all pulsing
relief

and I
could see
no one was there

but me.

wielding expertly
book in my own hand
thick with tested maps

to exquisitely torture
every tenuous strand
in my fragility

escort stress by the wrist
compound cravings caged
echoing faintly at hole bottom
where chalked stars summon
emotive salve revolution

my poetry was trying
to be something:

pretty, deep, unique

as if cosmic recycling
can ever be solitarily
special

that’s all just
suped-up vanity
lighting one’s own face

now I just try to paint
authentic real on
my vanilla ***

with crinoline skirts
flung overhead

I walked it
to keep me from
walking back into
the slaughterhouse

read renewed obit daily
spattered on asphyxiating
pulmonary walls when
you moved on in
an attempt to replace
our magical rarity

maybe it was for
the exact same reason
you put the gun in
your lonely mouth

preferring suicide to waiting
for unsuspecting heart
to get massacred

again

choosing instead to stroll
hollow self-made planks
with egoic illusions
of control

I won’t

walk it again
I’m stronger now

though it will hurt if
you repeat the bore
boring stale pattern
into open skull

starting
to flower

it will be no
surprise

and I know I
will be OK
this time

look
I know I
terrify you

quake your bones at
thought of home foreclosed
U-Hauled, stooped alone affront
cold locked door

too bad
there’s no one else
who understands what that’s like
who’d hold your hand and dive inside
your diverting fractured ice in melt
saying silently, as I turn to pools

me.
*******.
too.

while I was locked
and gagged
inside me

I took the time to
do some crucial things
enabling me to
face you
shakily

I went back
to the beginning
ate each and every thing
I thought was a no
and inked over
so hard I
ripped

the paper
with yes

I edited
our timedlines
inside my mind
struck thru rejections
Sharpie marked in insecure
pushpull bulls puncturing
red cloaked fear
with horns

I engineered
utmost empathy
by stumbling through
scenes I thought I knew
in your dusty kicks
forlorn and weary
in a bath robe

and I prayed
with heart splayed
between wide legs
whispering my truth:
your name

life is a video game
we are characters
there are levels
things to beat
to move up

we’re all 3D
when really real is all
4 - 11 D (+)

there are hacks
to level up, my loves
(as far as I can tell in
moments that trump
my everyday numb):

see your patterns
own your ****, traumas
choose love
over all

and make better
different choices

in the face
of torment taunting

then the
record skips
and you find yourself

in a new
orbit

ya, ya, i know
there is a King Koopa mf
at the end, but like
by that time

we will be
stronger

and not
alone

I felt something
pulling me

so I looked, back
over my heavy shoulder
as I lugged that broken seat
down the stairs on casters

it fell apart
when he grabbed it by the arms
and slammed it into the linoleum
with me in it

after I rolled it to the dumpster
and lifted it over the metal edge,
I remember the relief of letting go
of that fractured, useless piece

somehow I was
lighter

as if tossing that moment
and all the things
no longer safe
for me

latent ***** stripped
worldly bearings dizzy
not catching
spiral

then seconds
multiply

not dodge or burn but grow
where it all often slides
and I palm groove

it rolls inside as memoir
with new car smell
epiphanic brushed script
in hallowed blues
& pinstriped opal

my vibration outpaces
the weight of existence
cuts it off around
my bending

center stills enough
to catch glinting dust
before I turn
to it

the scars
and errors

is your name
singed
white

branded by
corona flares

when I feel like
you’re here with me
and that you will be, it
in some odd way star form
gives me this focus and clarity
to face the world that I never have
like hardly, ever, shrinking away into
this no one knows no one gets place
where I hang out and nod my head
at the rest who I don’t know how
they can’t see I’m pretending
this whole scheme is OK
but somehow it’s all
so much better
when I think
you’re with me
-really-
even just
in my head
you go closer
than anyone has
on physical planes
and I feel like my chest
gets less heavy and I can
breathe deep and not think
about my regular plagues
and it all seems so doable
like I can play the game
in order to get out of it
eventually
like I can be a better
everything
when I think we are OK
it’s dumb in a way but I swear
when I think you are mad at me
or don’t understand me or
confuse where I’m at
it’s like my own limb
giving me the finger
filing papers to sever
it feels so lost awkward
and I’m like, ahem, get over here
stop being silly
we don’t always have choices
as to what feels like home
because if we did
we’d have been there long before
we stumbled into it, my dear
at the first cozy thing, as if
one could stick a welcome mat at
another’s feet and make it feel right
we surely would have before now
but I won’t forget
and I won’t let you
forget who
the **** I am
namely, you

for the times
I said the wrong thing

for the gagged silences
I Iet speak for me

for poetic interpreters giving
insecurities creative license

for the things I knew
and didn’t say anything

for letting my fears fester
until they exploded

for the days wasted
and nights tormented

for my sudden releases
on this karmic rubber band

and, most of all, for
how it’s so hard to be

the one thing we both so
desperately need

you took my hand
showed me yours
and my jaw unhinged
you had me then & there
up against your wall
******* pushed aside
suddenly incapable
of mouthing anything
but yes

;)

I'm not always good to her
but she's always there for me

I pour my wretches into her white
and she just takes it
without flinching

I only come to her when it suits me
because sometimes it's just
so hard

sometimes there's just
too much to say
I don't know where to start
and it gets so loud
convoluting in minor keys

I leave her behind
because she knows
I can't lie

she ***** the truth
right out of me

I can't smile and nod
glaze over as disconnect severs
the feelings I'm fleeing

so I avoid the conversations
that are dying to get out of me
but it's just so hard
to say some things

even when you know
after there will be relief
and weights tied will unbind
and release

and you may yet float
and breathe

so thank you, P

for giving all the unsayable things
air and wings

of pre-recordings asking me
to STOP WHAT I'M DOING to hear
some uber-important message
like I owe some cookie-cut IVR fuckbot
my undivided attention, like whoooaa
HOLD. UP. let me sit-the-****-down
with a hot spot o' tea, bobber nodding
do tell, do tell... mmm, you don't say?!

you've got to be ******* me
how the **** these went through
an actual marketing department
not manned by evil narcissist toolfucks

oh, wait...

with fingers for lips
he slipped underneath
deboning human skin
strung up my ribs on the ceiling
under which we dangled
femurs and phalanges
on super strings
chiming 3-part harmonics
on black galactic wind
him, me, Everything
tender clinks silencing
floored motionless flesh
I was not bones, nor skin
but oms inciting orbital dance
spinning with him invisibly
with heartlids pinned back
pounding the key of eternity

one place ineptitude comes up a lot
is the presumed judgment
for my skill level at parenting

I definitely don't feel
like I fit in
there

I'm sure some of this is imagined
but some of it is definitely because
I still struggle with basic things
like remembering
and also I am just
different

it's weird how some letters
etch into my brain permanently
but then I can't remember to do things
like buy a shower curtain liner
after I threw away the moldy one -
it took me five weeks to finally
remember to put it on the list
on that device that's always in hand
and think to look at it at the store
and not after I get home
perpetually wetting
my bathroom floor

shopping is hard a lot
sometimes we have fun
and it doesn't seem stressful
but other times it's this covert panicked
mad dash to get what's required
and I'm always forgetting things like
toilet paper

it's really weird
what survival mode does to brains

I look at these aliens
who make me feel like they are
professional parents from a foreign land
where every item in their pantry is stored
in cute matching air-tight canisters
with custom labels and dates
and birds fly in the window to sing
while they fold their laundry
at dutiful intervals

I just feel like
a child with a child
in parenting world
even though I know
I'm getting better

when I first came back
I would zone out
from everyone
randomly cry

it was nice
to not have to explain -
my family mostly assumed
it was me detoxing from
that wretched hellship
and subsequent mechanisms
of control he was keeping up
(thank god that really seems to be
stopping, so good I almost don't even
want to get my hopes up, but he seems
to be seeing and letting go of all the ****
he was doing even six months ago...
I hope and pray losing me and the life
he could have had with his son
haunts him enough to break through
his denial and rage and heal enough
to be a decent human being for my kid)

but I wasn't crying over him
he brings me to anger with a speed
and skill level I have never before
and hope to never see again
so, there was rage for him
but those tears
were not his

they were for the shattered hope
of something loving, real,
waiting
for me

with open arms
primed with pacts and promises
that I thought meant

everything

but things change -
maybe not the love or connection
but the faith that good things
are coming

I get that
and see how my inability to speak
may have been a push that sent
this most precious thing that was
fighting, really fighting for me to see
straight into another's arms
because theirs went numb
waiting to for me to jump
while I repelled down the side in silence
petrified of all I ever wanted

because my lips were busy
shaking like my fingers
that forgot how to
hold things

ineptineptinept
not worthy
not good
enough
for him

nor was the stupid poetry
I kept trying to make perfect
because that's what I thought
he deserved

when my anything
would have been good
just a few words, like:
I did it
I'm a mess
I need you more than anything,
but right now I
just. can't.
read or speak
free

it's terrible how horribly effective
false advertising is when it's repeated
over and over and over, you know -
take ******, maniacal diabolical murderous despot that he was, was also a true evil genius of advertising -
you make the lie big, simple,
keep repeating it, and eventually,
they believe it

even when you know
it's all ******* and it's bad for ya,
it still gets in, writing on your psyche
and part of you believes somewhere
underneath the logical know
and defeated flippant eye-rolls
that maybe you are
a stupid ******* ****
a ***** *****
fat and old and ugly
that no one else would ever
want you

and that you
- deserved -
every last terrible thing
inflicted upon you in venom

do you think we could put aside the internal asides prattling past rapture gone rupture, table or under the table throw those scraps to the dog that's pawing in favor of what's under our noses, on the plate facing up at us smiling a reflection in a circle of ceramic glaze gazing past the imperfect ramifications crystallized in those times and bones that still do bind and also occasionally chafe when they chime, the fragmented fancies that danced behind eyelids then knocked back the whites taking unglued precedence while neurons sat back and just watched momentum pulse, so stunned to find where you stopped there I started, and the only push-pull was helixical orb tossed on linguistic winks kinking our forever-tied lines that plead underneath the jilted to stop slanty-eyeballing the looking glass crass, affixing shark fangs where one once only saw wings, though truth be told, I have both of those things, but drain you, I won't, and feed you, I will, leaving marked memoirs of my work, but it'll be your fault, really, evoking the majestic while summoning the animal that reminds me why I'm knees-grateful to be a woman

?

there were times
when I filled my lonely cracks
with whatever sort of fit

though I knew
it wasn't really capable of
meeting me on all my levels -
intensity, emotion, intellect,
oddity, creativity, curiosity,
carnal abandon

I've found matches
but those compounds
burn out quickly
sparklestarts
fading

it's terrible how lonely I am
yet, resist being appeased
with (con)temporaries

it always ends up making me
more lonely

after crave subsides
and short-lived chems exit
the self-loathings start chanting
we ******* told you so

when my heart says nope
which it almost always does,
at some percentage,
my body knows -
I'm there, but not fully
in it:
walled distrustful protection mode
no wide open uninhibited throes
it's aspects of yes, meshed with no

it's why
a majority of my encounters
have involved substances
my addiction is afflicted
with knowing
it won't be
the thing I crave

so I numbed
my persnickety heart
in order to keep
fever down

I can't just
open up for anyone -
unfurl rose spectrum
of precise art and language
that comes from heart
and dictates skeleton
to dance in ecstatic
primal possession

I am flint
crafted for
reciprocal ignition
upon inherent nature
of symmetric material

and you know, my heart
has never been blasted off hinges
with body in tandem, 100%

but I know that it
can and will

heal all the things
burn up the pain,
the unbelonging

wipe the slate free
of tormented cravings
replacing with gratitudinal awe

between my writhe
venerating milk
whole

my pink orchid sits wilting
next to the kitchen sink

I feared it was thirsty
and starting to die
so I overwatered

now the petals
are definitely
falling

then pushed into
grey matter *******
asphyxiating pump white
from red life

rising together
then falling
apart

I walk
through forest char
reminiscing, not so much
plumes of combusting hope,
as the feeling of
not alone
in core

you were my ooofo
come to wake me
home

300 thread-count tent
stars chart scars in shadow
overlapping bullet hole trends

in here
these wounds feel
something near normal

black rain plummets
drowning out
the outside

don't ever forget
to drop to your knees

and be

grateful
for opportunity
lowered by winged white
into laps lonesome

this chance
this life

yes, free will
is yours as well
but, these moments
the not-so-subtle nudges
and the whispers that surf the wind
after it stands still for - so - long

don't forget
to be grateful
for that

could-be bestowed upon us
marked, holy

we are pocket blooms
of clover fields
lucky

the fates toil not
this hard
unless

sacrosanct potential brims
not just for us - but, to share

there will be so much
it will overflow out of us
and we will laugh, humbly
at scarcity-fraught mentalities

so, thank you
for being exactly who
you are:

beautiful boy
with tarnished halo

(no worries though -
I will lick it till it spit-shines
and polish on my gold-flecked fleece)

and your basketcase
of trinkets blathering
contents crooked
and bizarre

(BTW, I still loves them)

if you were not, precisely
these psyche spatters
and glitch patterns

you would not
have given me
a second glance...

we will make picnics
out of our spastic baskets
finding we can dine on the grist
and feed the eyes
of our hearts

so, I say yes to us -
no matter what
we are:

friends, editors, syntactic twins,
long-distance synaptic co-captains,
creative cohorts rapping across easels,
and perhaps even, angelic mirrors
worshipping at bioluminescent altars,
getting minds, hearts, insides glown
w  i  d  e open by white splatter streaks
blowing phosphor all over this space

that definitely exists
in us

...

I'm cool with whatever
though

:)

when I'm five
next time

we'll skip
hand-in-hand
to the head of
each other's
lines

share some
psychedelic ice cream
before we know quite what
is happening on our tongues

no reason to fear
this mystical flight
OS fresh messless

and we will
like each other
before we know
how

or why

boring saucer eyes
through the other's skull
no drywall, no cement
no mortared bricks
just

staring straight in
and into

the place in the wires
where pulse currents
traverse higher than
power grid switches
flipped lit

messy hair
summer grass
skinned knees

laughing until
we can't breathe
at every nothing

and we run
into the woods
build a fort on the moon
brew lunar rock stew

you carve our names
on the side of our dome
with an asteroid
misspelling mine

and I decide
to write it
that way
forever

the other night,
I dreamed

of walls

bre   a k
in
  g

down

your grey ghost
gone live

and tsunami relief
washed my being -
held-heart breath,
inhaling deeply

then I
woke, promptly
finding myself alone
roused by TS Emily
at five in the morning

intestinal churn
as rains whipped my window
and I digested it was
not real

but the what-ifling
tapped my still tingling
with essence of other
and I thought, maybe...

so I,
reluctantly,
looked for you
in the sea where
I lost you
and you

were there

...

when dreams
start speaking ether,
underscoring reality,
I start remembering
how I know:

buried wires exist,
decorroding

attuning to united
stately R3EM station
with equilateral antennae

lock up
when anyone
seems

particularly disappointed
or demanding with me
not ideologically, but
in tone intensity,
conversing
forcefully

either I
turn off, go numb, freeze
taken over by survival mode

or I fight err flight it
usually trying to fly
with some fight
as I navigate
the exit

my 18-pound shewolf triggers me:
all barkybarkbark wanting things -
like ******* carrots after dinner,
and if I don't get them at first yip,
she insists, paws, jumps, getting
all super-***** indignant
(kind of adorably)

sometimes, I keep giving in
and get them (repeatedly)
because I'm a pushover

sometimes, I block her out
until she goes full self-righteous
and I feel bullied, get up and go
into the other room to breathe
and stop shaking

sometimes, I can extradite myself
before it gets all fullreactivejacket
like when my brother (drunkenly)
told me he didn't want my son
around his, because I told him
Santa is just a cultural myth
that we pretend for fun
when he asked

apparently, I'm an *******
for making decisions for my kid
that I'm comfortable with, not him,
and thinking there's way more magical
**** in this world to be excited about
than a random fat man breaking and
entering your house to bring presents
as long as you leave him cookies...

I have a mouth on me, but I try
not to use it, because I am
quite accurate in aim
and loaded with
cutting truth

but I
don't wanna fight
anymore

because I lived
in a war zone

in the beginning
the fights would last for
d   a   y   s

or should I say,
the raging lectures
while I tried to reason
how and why
my thoughts
differed

he always had a way
of making me feel
solely responsible
for everything

he'd go onandonandon
until I acquiesced, agreed and
promised to give in to whatever
he believed the solution to be
(usually me cutting someone
out of my life or giving up things
I thought I liked)

and if I disagreed,
or picked holes in his argument,
he would start back at the beginning, because I must not have been listening

it stopping,
and subsequent silence
was such an enormous relief -
when adrenaline stopping pumping
and I could hear myself think
just grateful and happy
to be done
with it

I would disassociate
hard

sometimes
there would be
a traumatic scene
that was quite ******
but then a few days later
I couldn't remember
what happened
but knew
it was

bad

I started writing
some of those episodes down
so I'd know what happened to me -
for future reference, that I wasn't
crazy

so, I
latched onto
the peace and quiet
while it lasted

and as his words
had less and less effect,
the more crazy he'd act
to get me
in line

once when
I did not acquiesce at all, proud
in the face of his domineering storm,
standing firm, calmly disagreeing,
stating my case matter-of-factly,
he cupped his hands over my ear
and screamed as loud as he could
rage rattling me
into tears

I wish the imprints
on my psyche faded
as fast as the bruises

I don't know if I'll ever be
completely normal

but I do know

I will try
to tread lightly
around your triggers
and not take it personally
when they inevitably
detonate

I will learn them
like I know my own
and I will understand why
you do what you do

because when I say yes,
it's going to be
to everything

tethered dependent mental patients
and we've made a showroom
out of the waiting room
for distraction hacks trafficking ills
bought with souls sold off
straightjacketed addicts
aching to take the sting
out of this taut
existence

our ****-ups
even reek

of meant-to-be

it's all so
I can't even...

but
I will find
a way to say

how our
dominoes tripped
over each other

flicked from
the synchronic fated one's
luminous middle fingers

yours, left
mine, right

colliding in
the in-between

I've been knowing
for quite some time

and yet,
my brain still
tries to deny
it's all so...

no ******' way

but
yes way
it

- truly -

sure-as-Shinola'd-****
did

go down
like so

who you are
how you feel
what you
want

and how
to get there

but these

slit serifs
shielded wounds
and white knuckles
are some things
in the way

give them
fresh air exodus

the walk is through
never around

remember:

the quickest way
between two points
is always & forever

a straight line

blab fuckity **** **** gab
buncha tryin to be some-
thing real or whole

x-press(ion) squeezing pleads
into hypnotic hymnal
humming breathe

up my thighs
now, not numb
but tingling throes

I feel all the
nothings winking
at everything con-
tained therein

and I squirm
toward the right

where it
overflowed

inside my heart
and the beats blanket me
unrolling out and around till
my blissed-still tongue vibrates
all the way down to my bare toes
like the beginning of goosebumps
but I never get cold
just icy-hot chills
emanating from
thawed soul,

I remember
the whole

when most girls were learning
how to pose **** for pictures,
to be simultaneously ******
and innocence-baited Lolitas

I was learning (mastering)
the art of the keg stand
and jumping into pits filled
mostly with sweaty boys
at punk rock shows
how to hold my own and
not get knocked down

I had this sort of hard shell
though under the surface
I was raw yolk - so thin-skinned,
easy to spill and shatterable

we were drunken cultural rebels
sitting on front porches
of addict-strewn flophouses
******* about the state of things
but not really doing ****
about any of it

I was there, and thus
rather absent from
average female programming
and since then I guess
I've sort of mostly felt
like one of the boys,
not real ****

if I wore a short skirt
it was with combat boots -
just in case someone might
mistake me for some POA
and require a swift steel toe
to the shin, but that
never happened

though I'm sure my style did save me
from lots of ****** advances

in my senior year, I shaved my head
and the girl who sat next to me
in choir class said, oh my god,
what did your boyfriend say?!
and I laughed and told her
he's the one who did it

in all honesty, I really liked
flying under the radar of what
most people considered hot

because when I stopped dating
the guy who was basically
Jack Black from Orange County
(but less drugs, more alcoholism
and also sort of his doppelgänger)

and lost the weight I had put on
trying to keep up with his lifestyle
of perpetual malt liquor, lethargy
and terrible eating habits

and left my hometown
to attend that big name school
and experimented with identity
in a place that has a greater ratio
of young and beautiful people
than any other I've known,

and suddenly felt myself
wanting attention
particularly from a boy who
liked those hot girls

I became one

and got
way too much of it
from him, and everyone else
and I did not know
how to handle it
inside

after I started to wear pants that fit,
channeled my art onto my face,
learned to walk, run and dance
in 5-inch stilettos (like a boss)

though I know most girls
are trained to put themselves
on display from a very young age
to do and say and dress in ways
that encourage this type of
attentive objectification

it always made me feel
not quite comfortable in my skin
I didn't like walking into a club
and feeling every neck crane

I was pretty balanced as a kid,
but became a real tomboy
and then did a 180 -
making up for lost time
with a crash course
at ***** school

I sold out -
learned how to pose
**** for those photos
to contort myself
into what was
expected,
desired

but it never
felt right

and that attention I got
wasn't for what I was -
it was for becoming
a doll of sorts

the role never fit real well
even though I looked the part

and there's this vivid moment
of self-realization I can recall
where I saw it all as I stared
into the bathroom mirror of that boy
I finally won attention from,
tripping on mushrooms,
simultaneously seeing just how

stunningly beautiful I was
and this existential shame
at who and what I had become:
the plastic, the false, the trying
so hard to be pretty when I was
truly radiant underneath...
I think I cried a little
as the walls and me
both melted

and I could have let that marinate,
turned around and walked away from
that ill-fitting role-play,
but I turned my back on that vision
and returned to the living room
and my life of not being myself
with him

I wasn't the hot girl I'd become,
but I also wasn't who I was before
she was also a mask -
not one of ****** glitter
but of hard Rubbermaid
where no one could see
or hurt me

I had to pass through both
my false masculinity and
Barbie-qued femininity
to find what either
means in reality

and now I see
I wanted to be one of the boys
because I had a front-row seat
to how they viewed and spoke
about the hot girls

it's why I never
wanted to be them...
until I did

guess I felt like I was
missing out on something
and I was, but that
was not the thing

that was Sweet'N Low of feminine -
toxic, disgusting and unsatisfying

it is a very different thing
to unfurl in the balance
of fierce and fragile

it takes warrior strength
to be soft and vulnerable,
to follow your instinct when
it tells you to stalk and still
be able to melt in the safety
of another's arms
without feeling

weak

the beautiful strength
in surrendering

I would say I'm sorry
that I hid in faux masculine
and turned out my goddess
but if I hadn't done that
if I hadn't learned
what I am not

I may never have found how
heavenly beautiful and strong
I could feel when I stop trying
to be anything and allow for
my sacred F&M to flow
- authentically -
through me

and one day, I'll master it
and hold myself in balance

perhaps with help
from another's arms to steady
like a good friend supporting
an applause-worthy keg stand

to use string cheese
on a sub-calibur frozen pie

is to peel and
thatch that ****
like a gooey roof on a
cherry splatch wheat saucer

says my little
space-traveler

even when it goes cold
and pushes the pull
out into undertow