A girl with soft teeth
grinding cavities

*******
in confession
with five weeks of absence

wrapped up
in confusion
with five hours of evidence

she's got a new kick
tomorrow, she says

tore up
in weeping
with five minutes of dissonance

It feels like Winter’s fingers
and they’re pulling me under
by the ankles
once again.

I struggle but it is
never enough,

I thaw out from my freeze but it is
never enough.

I spend thirty days in a blast furnace but it is
never enough.

Oh save me, Spring,
that I might live,

as no matter my struggle,
or how strong I am,
or how well I swim
or tread this slushed and frozen lake,
chunks of ice
bump against my exposed flesh
splitting it as I am pulled,
choking,
down and under that frozen pond
where I am drowned.

How that camera captured the unseen rays of crystal sunlight,
it is almost 1990
but our young bodies
are stuttering in grainy silence,
spinning film on a machine that wasn't even made back when
it was almost 1980.

Look at you,
taller, stronger
sister
towering from that diving board...stronger, taller, older -
but I was always bolder.

Boldness.
Bravery.
A glamorous fearlessness towards the dangers of life.

You were always jealous of that,
weren't you?

Notice the toes.
Yours are so very close to the edge, aren't they?
But look at mine.
They curl down at the joints, peering over the edge,
ready to fall
pull my smaller body after them into a deep blue oblivion,
like the one you've abandoned
me to now.

The last time I saw my son
he was smiling
waving his little eight year-old hand
in front of his scarecrow-gold hair
shoulder-length

The last time I saw my son
he was joyous
at simply another day of school
mom taking him in her car as I stood by
unemployed

The last time I saw my son
he was blissfully unaware
of simply another day of sorrow for us
and the unatainability of life
missing

But I smiled back and the window between us
hid my welling tears
as I stood by the car that pulled away

The last time I saw my son
I knew he'd come looking for me
but I wouldn't be here any longer
just words written and songs made
photos and pictures and comments online
a ghost of electricity
a haunting blast of brain and regret
whose last thought was
the last time I saw my son.

You just keep on carving back my smiles,
elastic vowels you blanket me in,
drowning me, again, with smoke from your belly.
Gargle all the chunky bits
that remain in this blended relationship.
Strain them out through the cheesecloth
which splits apart,
like the split between your legs

The split of an insect’s back when it
bends, arches, reaches too far.
And I’m sick of that bird-****-yellow
oozing out from that crack there;
held in your scarecrow arms.

I don’t want to be your headache
in this migraine *******.

Scaffolding in place by those that value
a structure arranged and supporting,
housing community.
Community from its root of ‘commune,’
what exists from the efforts
of all those involved.
A building housing
opinions,
creativity,
debate,
and art.

What was once a poetry free-for-all,
now a pay to play disaster
crumbling down
at the swinging of a dollar-shaped
wrecking ball.

How easy my thoughts are lost
in you and simpler still my body pulled
into you held down by the weight
of the earth I’ve filled my pockets
with. I push my way into this welcoming
water’s body. I do not want to go,
but the ocean’s thundering applause
and its frigid love under my toes
sweeps me off my feet
as waking gulls
mourn the triumph of the sea.