In a picture of me at my parents’ house I am cradling my rib
and it looks bruised and boyish and apartment-like. In another:
I am sitting on kneecaps, praying to the first boy I see, a boy with
simple body, body like pinecone. When I was younger I listened
to radio stations with a snake in my lap. Looked out windows at
tops of buildings. Watched the tree branches falling onto concrete
ground when it stormed, my legs from top to bottom naked like smoke.
Cigarette smoke in my mouth but I never inhaled. My father and I
were the same in that we didn’t have lungs and both liked alcohol.
Every Saturday him taking me out and us drinking sake and my stomach
churning like a bathroom sink. My face like large sky always changing color,
always blushing. The first boy I kissed smelled like french fries
and in his mouth I licked heavy broken heart. The first boy I kissed
always wore white t-shirts so that whenever you saw him you could see
when it rained. Kissing him my stomach turned upside down like
a weighted storm. He touched my ribs and my stomach even when
I cried. Parents are a lot like a childhood boy. Parents and boy all standing
on my childhood porch. My childhood porch looks like a giant rib,
or squid in the sky. The first time I smoked I thought I saw a squid
or whale in the sky.

when was the last time you rode the subway without inhibition? there are city streetlights throbbing in your stomach that make you want to *****.
a father’s nightmare. a mother shrinking as you expand. a mother gives birth to three children all in the wrong places. a mother rides the subway. a mother rides the subway. a mother rides the subway.

a mother rides the subway & sees brown splotches dripping from the ceiling like crown from womb dripping onto pavement. hitting pavement like a cemetery. buried in a cemetery with grandparents. you knew your grandparents for a year before they died, or so you tell yourself; you did not know your grandparents at all before they died.

ribbons of newspaper cover the floor & litter your legs & your bulging stomach. stomach swollen like a stung ankle. stomach tastes bitter like rat’s blood. rats crawl around your feet, creating a set rhythm.
where is the f train & should i even be taking it. a subway rising in the dark like a mountain, like you driving to the adirondacks, catchy acoustic song playing on the radio. a song like the one you listened to when you were three years old on your parents’ bed, faces of peter paul & mary gleaming out from the television screen.

in this black jacket you are overheated but also you are too afraid to take it off. you are overheated & afraid & you imagine that this is what a death must feel (like). when a subway station roars it sounds like ocean.
(a body, a body, a body. bodies echoing in your head, your body all soft - too soft - your body crumpled on the floor)

When I stand in the bathroom with these girls it is 4am and I see them as ghosts and my stomach is churning with too much salt (too many fritos), churning like the fields from back home that carry more wind than they can burden. My head feels like too much heavy space and all I can think about is a bathroom stall with a toilet bowl like a burial ground.

Lately it’s been getting haircuts and eating too much in a desperate attempt to keep the boys away, then food becoming the graveyard in a desperate attempt to draw them back. But my body still smells of ***** and my hands are still teethed and I wonder how many people know what I’ve done. I wonder how many people I can get away with telling.

Later when I sleep there are dreams of a mother dying with flies and the girl from camp hanging herself and the boy from down the street only 21 and dying in his sleep (and missing the memorial service). Every January it’s tallying up the deaths and every January it’s my brother asking me how many people will have to die in my poems before I’ll finally be able to make up my mind.

I can’t stop seeing blue faces against white lakes; a father who yells and then asks what’s wrong; a mother who takes baths with her daughter just to compare the way in which their bodies wrinkle like water.

Somewhere hanging up is a picture of us taken by some boy, in it we are singing songs to graves about breaking bones and bruising nail beds and now we wonder why we no longer speak to each other.

my stomach in the bathtub
folded over and wrinkling
like the skeleton of my grandmother

hands that look too much like my father’s
blanketing my stomach like those of a cruel mother

on the best days the window next to the bathtub
is uncovered and I can see out but nobody can see in

on the best days I look down at a body
that is nothing but a pile of snow leftover
a week after the storm has past
somebody has forgotten to shovel me whole

there is a damp hole in my stomach and I am
staring at it unsure if I want it to melt
wondering who might fit shoveled inside

I am in awe of the limitless nature of the human mind
How it stretches infinitely inwards
Containing a private universe that would be forever in isolation
Unless that individual chooses to launch out shooting stars
Rocket ships from other worlds in the form of music, poetry, art
We are sending satellite signals out from our galaxies
Desperately holding cups to our ears
Tightrope walking on the string theory

Listerine fountains are falling,
breaking through the roof,
shingles like helicopter blades,
scratching up my face.

Your mouth is making violent motions
and I can see mirages between your teeth.
It took me a long time to master,
but I can't here the news on repeat;
I don't want to anymore.

I don't know what you thought
mismatched socks would accomplish,
but those mixed with an heated face
sorta make my scull feel like
marzipan.

5, 4, 3, frozen in the moment,
right before a scream.
2, my iPod crumbles in hand,
just like the game I always lose.
1...one, one, one...

I blocked that out too.

Sometimes I think about the last time I saw you alive and almost told you I loved you. But when I almost said it and you looked at me and said "what is it, babe?" I lost my nerve and squeezed your hand tighter and said "you have beautiful eyes." Instead, and I just stared at you and hoped to convey what I couldn't say. But real life is not a romance novel, "you have beautiful eyes" was not heard as the "I love you" that it was, and even if you had heard it, I guess it wasn't enough, because you killed yourself anyways.