There was a girl
quite beautiful
who drowned herself
drinking they say
without blinking
like an infant suffocating
while sleeping without care
out where a lifebuoy
floats like a soggy rose
marking the spot
they last heard her
singing while sinking.

Blue as the geography
of footprints across the dunes
quiet as the white music
of a silent moon
like the wind blowing
the soul off the water
the shadows go out
and are lost in the evening
I conclude the hypothesis
of sundown making no sound
while night climbs the vines
where lowing sadness abides
the ritual of tides pulls me under.

rain
mud and grass
common prayer
good weather
good people
art
and umbrella bags
because who wants to
get wet?
unless it’s with you
I could
I would
jump into the lake
for that rock
sew
cleanse
initials made in sharpie
and unclamp
we run
around the park
the afternoon surrounds us
the woman in the bikini
passes
and we laugh
iced tea
decaf coffee
cake without teeth
and that airstream camper
you always wanted
I could live in your
backyard
I could live somewhere
not here
in silver
prostrated
with my back to the
moon
like dead
like a mummy
like a mirror
and life would make sense
life would be beautiful
like this run
with perfect amounts of sweat
and conversation that runs
waves in the sand
and tells the squirrels
goodnight, tractor
see you tomorrow
and the land that billows
is dug up
and chewed
like a goodnight poem
this run with you
takes rest
on my soul
and I crack my ribs
to take the spring’s
twilight
aroma

I don't cut my skin for 24 hours, then 48
Then a week
Then two.
Practise abstinence in all forms
No drink, no drugs.
I don't stop my body from jittering and convulsing.
I let myself cry in the shower
Shave my legs without thinking off bleeding
Rest my nose between my mothers worried eyebrows
Kiss her scarred palms
Rub ointment into her feet
And go to bed smelling of lavender and love.
I wake up early, walk round the greenery. I don't open my mouth for 5 hours,
Plant seeds in my mamas garden and meditate where they'll bloom.
I refrain from eating meat. I drink a glass of milk when I wake
A glass before sleep.
I listen to Beyoncé. I watch French films without the subtitles.
Plan holidays.
I whisper prayers into my sleeping boyfriends neck
I go a whole day without thinking about our dead baby.
Walk to the train station and read the newspaper and never once think about jumping in front
Of my oncoming train.

My estranged father posts a status on Facebook, a joke, about choking dominant woman.
I wake up drunk, my arm sticking to a puddle of dried blood.
Cut chunks of flesh out of my forearm and leave a trail from the liquor store to my fathers gambling shop.
The next day I have a sore head, a sore arm. I starve myself for three days and let myself throw up watery bile into the toilet.

I start again.
I don't pick the scabs from my arm. I let red circular scarred skin form
Draw badly designed tattoos and make empty plans to cover them.
I call my friends, tell them how much I adore them, how beautiful and special they are,
How I never want to live a day without them
They call me cheesy. We laugh and make plans but we're all so busy. We hang up.
I practise excessiveness. Make my boyfriend ******. Laugh loudly. Put on too much makeup and spend £50 to eat out alone.
I call my aunties in Guyana. Let them speak for hours about a 'home' I've never been too.
Listen to stories about my mother, and her mother.
They ask me hushed voices if I'm still ill, tell me my mother has spent hours crying to them over me.
I tell them my plans.
Tell them I have a boyfriend.
I am studying. I am working, and loving and laughing.
They sound glad. They put me on to my dying grandmother and she prays for me
Tells me in strong accent that her children show her pictures of me on the computer
She tells me I am beautiful, so beautiful, she tells me I look just like my father.
We pause.
Her voice cracks and she praises Jesus for my health.
We say goodbyes. I promise to make more of an effort. Tell her I will visit her soon. Send my love to everyone and hang up.
I start reading two chapters of a book before bed.
Revisit old poetry. Write new words.
Dream in colour again, sing in the shower again.
I drink a glass of wine with my sisters and fall asleep being held by them.
I mute my father on Facebook.
Now we can start again.

every night I go to bed and say
“just don’t”
every night I lay awake and say
“just don’t”
because two negatives make a
positive right?
and maybe if I think about us
long and hard enough
I can jumpstart my
water circus
and finally ******* cry
for once
but *******, birdie
*******
this is supposed to be a friendship
poem
filled with all the good things
about us and I turned it
into me
I turned it ugly
again
but you
sister
are beautiful

sister
I have this glass in my
hand
ruminating
glass
glass
without
sparkle
I found it under
the park bench
where I lay
drooling on the
bricks
sister
this glass reminds me
of you
this glass reminds me
of earth
blood
the shade where
sand melted
love
sister
I cut so
smooth
so correct
is this blood
I spill
for
you

Running running running running
Bury him in the dirt
Bury him in the flesh
Skateboard wheels run along the ground
Shhh shhh shhh
A digger splits the pavement
Water spills into a dead bird's beak
Ten pressed to the power line
A chaotic mesh wings snarled in the air
For a second an eye emerges
But reality shifts
A man fails committing suicide
They remove the tie from his throat and blood cells rush through his flesh
But his starved brain remains dead
And his daughter can't stand his stupid bloated face
Red leaves the color of blood
A dog breaks its leg crossing the road
Gutters overflow with spit
And fish swim until their ribs shrink
There's a heart in the centre of the earth
Oil spills into the gulf
Fire seals the exits
And twenty families drown
Sprinklers carry their bodies to the heavens
A newspaper kid sees them on his morning run and bikes around
Reality shifts
I'm caught in the whirl of my motions
Tumbling forward unable to grasp my presence
Reality shifts reality shifts reality shifts
But I'm not ready to shift with it
There's a dead bird in my pocket
I cross a road but the road is endless
I feel sick
Head on my knees
Awake in my bedroom
Construction workers lift the tarmac and reseal it
The old pieces pile where no one sees them
Decay codified in construction
Jesus, what am I saying?
Is any of this even real?
I've been gone a long time
Hands stuffed in pockets
Eyes set on dead grass, raindrops and McDonald's wrappers
People gather and break like tides
But I'm never one of them
I thought the mouth was for flesh
But it's for rot
It all makes sense now
Why Sunday mornings taste like glass
Because I can't stand myself

I'm sorry you saw me lingering there.
I just wanted
To see you smile.

Someone told me talking to women was completely different from talking to men
Familial desire circumventing physical rationality
I don't ******* get it
Flesh is flesh
There is no separation between this body and the next
No delineation save for my own arbitrary ones
This world is chaos bound by imposition
And none of it is real
I'm not even going to say middle class conceptions of family are constructs
Everything is a construct
Knowledge is anthropic chaos
Don't pretend you can tell the difference between essential existence and our subjective reordering of boundless matter
A gap does not form between a molecule of air and a molecule of flesh
I am trapped in my own sensations but I am not defined by them
So back to the story of material existence reduced to reproductive imperative
Treating all of the other *** as a means to displace one's self beyond annihilation into temporal infinity
Who ******* cares?
Legacy does not carry on after death
Legacy does not even carry through life
Language breaks down the moment we open our mouths
No one will ever view your life the way you view it
Splashing through a pool, ripples morph all reflections into monstrous amalgamations
Hey, tell me
Do you even remember yourself that clearly?
Hollow triumph, grandfather's bones in a grandfather clock ticking past twelve
Sorry, I just don't see the allure of treating half the human race as a means to satiate your own lust whether physical or genealogical
Or even categorising humans into binary dualisms that bored philosophers a century ago
Haven't you heard? God is dead
And there is no meaning to your boring male existence

I’m not sure when
or if
I was
ever taught to love my
body.

I can certainly talk
about the day I learned
to hate it though.
I learned that I was fat
when I was six years old.
I was let in on this
secret
by girls that
will never understand
what it feels
like to take up
too much space.

I’ve been grabbing at
the extra parts of myself
for more than a
fifteen years,
trying to pull them
taut
trying to be small
trying to be soft.

I wish I could
talk to my younger
self and tell her
that we are all
on a planet
that doesn’t even take up
1/1000th of this
Universe.

We are almost
non-existent when
looking at the expanse
of everything that
exists.
I feel relieved for
a second
remembering this
but
I feel bee-stings
when the realistic
overpowers
the optimistic
“sure,
the universe is gigantic
but you
are still large
among the tiny”.

I’ve run into friends
I haven’t seen in
awhile
and
explained my body
to them,
disclaiming my existence.
“I’m trying to
work it off”

I’ve been
apologizing
for my everything
below my neck
for 15 years.

In the past year and
a half,
I gained 50 lbs.
No one told me,
and I held it
like a bubble
in my mouth,
as if it would pop
at any minute
and the world
could be as ashamed
of myself as
I was.

I’m down
20 pounds
and I wish I could
say that I started
doing this for myself.
To be a “better me”,
I didn’t.
Everyone knows
why I started it.

Despite my ever
evolving
state of mind,
I’ve learned self-love
15 years later.

I’m doing better,
I’m existing better,
I’m getting better.