we do look after each other.
regardless of any competition:
your body, hair, clothes
the angles you get in your selfies.
the comments you get on your instagram.
regardless of anything.
regardless of whatever persona you adopt on facebook,
however seductive you choose to be,
however much attention you seek.
we do look after one another.

so many women tried to tell me about him.
women he convinced me not to respect
women i convinced myself not to respect
merely because he chose to look at them
so intensely
my jealousy
turned to hatred
when really
the fishnets, the makeup, the cleavage
they are my sisters.
they are my protectors.
and i hated them.

it was never her fault.
she was never the *****, she was never the ****.
i don't give a **** what pictures she posted.
she was not to blame.

and i see now.
i see that what you did with me
what you said to me,
all lines fed through a machine
all carefully constructed
(not to each girl, just for each situation)
you got out of it all.
the ultimate yes-man
fine-tuned to say anything,
everything any woman wants to hear.

i see it so blatantly now.
and yes, i still shake a little.
my fingers go cold and my arms get numb
and i feel that dull ache in my chest
but **** any tear that tries to find a way out
i don't have any more for you.

i know how you loved them
how you gorged on my love-sick tears
but you will get nothing
loving
from me

not anymore.

albatross shot,
dressed,
hung around my neck:
you placed it
tenderly.

palms toward heaven, nailed down
your lips kiss like the metal bites.

crown of thorns -
falsely placed
driven into my flesh
where a laurel
once bloomed
golden,
trembling,
sacred.

i carry you with me
in the scars along my forearms
and the thighs you once worshiped
i bring you to every hill
feel your weight at every incline,
the albatross
you brought me:
dead weight
beating against my chest.

my second coming is half-through,
and i'm beginning to emerge
i stay up late,
sew my ***** back together.
let the nightmares pry my eyelids open
i soak in the fear
i draw wisdom from the grief -
while my laurel
regrows.

i struggle to stay awake late into the night,
painting.
fingers coated in jewel tones.

you're awake too, somewhere.
home from work.
breathing, sitting, eating, staring.
maybe holding her.

and i think of all this,
******* the holes in my sides, my palms
(even though they're healed over:
my second coming
tore through the both of us)
and i wonder
if she fills your arms the same.

if she makes your blood rush like i did -
if you kneel between her legs and beg
like you did for me
i wonder if every expression makes you exclaim, kiss her eyelids, pull her closer.
i wonder if you stare into her eyes when you
**** her
if it's as intense
passionate,
kind.

i
wonder.

i want to be weak.
i want to tell you i ******* miss you
not even the romance
just the friendship
i want to show you what i make now
the commissioned projects
the poetry
the non-fiction
the photographs.
i want to tell you what my professors say about me
want to send you music
tell you funny things i think of during the day
watch movies with you and rip them apart.

i want to lose this rigid, crystalline shell
that we made together.

i ******* hate the way people do this -
the way people tear away at each other
until they see bone
looking for the source
of the tick, the heartbeat
then get disgusted
once they find it

i hate the way people ruin each other
i hate the feeling of trying to yell
underwater
mouth open
eyes wide,
waterlogged words sinking between us
you're so
*******
out of reach -
*******
for being
disgusted with me

phonecalls on facebook ******* trigger me
transports me back to last semester
like some sort of sick boat ride
to the magic kingdom
perverts dressed as mickey mouse
asking if i want a selfie

and i get angry.
angry that i can't use those little plastic eraser guards
we used to make patterns on paper with
as children
to erase your fingerprints from my flesh.

i rub at them regardless,
smudging away at my own contour lines
losing contrast,
value,
scale
my repeating shapes are starting to look a lot
like a pattern my mother wore
reflecting off her red cheeks
as she laid on the couch late at night
her arm over her face.

and i'm terrified,
honestly.
i'm terrified of the damage i've yet to assess
once i make it outside myself
i'm on my way out
this month
and there's only a few days
of october
left

my mother spent the month of june watching fruit rot on the countertop
before she put it all in garbage bags and left
and that is how i feel
late at night
when peace evades me.

i slip back into my own skin after you leave
pull my scalp over my eyes
look for secrets i once held.

want to pull apart my scarred forearms but i let them be
let them continue to go white
and puckered:
little secrets in themselves.

should i have let you watch?
should i have let you observe my rebirth?
is it coming, after all,
now that i've blinded you?

these secrets i wrap and bind
and create myself.

don't cry, pretty girl.
those tears'll soak into anything
an' count for nothing.

don't leave dusty trails down your powdered cheeks -
rosy freckled bones that you held yourself
when mother left
those tears'll soak into anything
an' look like nothing
in a minute.

hungry stomachs burn fevers in our temples
and shaky hands try to bring anything green closer
and empty, sticky refrigerators taunt and sneer
but summertime ends
and those tears'll
soak into anything
an' count for nothing
in a
minute.