She puckers her lips like they sting
from kissing strangers with cuts,
smoke melting out of her pouty-mouthed O’s
the window it escaped from
either cherry at the cheeks
or consuming the air
until it soured
like a bad storm of slate
clouding almost everything,
in hindsight,
before ground coffee black and hazy brake lights type rain  
once my eyes turned into a two-sided mirror,
and I became a new element,
and as much as I wish I could have been quartz,
as much as I wish it was beautiful,

-

It’s been thirty-six hours since I’ve slept,
the little black specks that decorate my life
blue lighting up my face
that is otherwise a broken bulb
at 200 kilowatts  
reminding me that I haven’t learned a **** thing
from laying here for five hours
but I haven’t learned a **** thing
from letting my blood pulse in my ears
and fishing for a breath
either.

When I have bad days,
it’s written all over
the wrinkles in my forehead
the folds around my frowns
all reading in glossy black ink:
“desperate to be dead very soon”
and I try not to think about
the way deer get caught in head lights
with dead expressions
a bulbous streak of white
like a firefly hitting a bull’s eye
like lightening striking God into hearts
and their soft brown irises.

When good days arise out of the comfort of the dust
I try to think of the way tall wheat
hovers over fields like awkward pearlescent angels
or fairy lights
and I love that alignment of the two universes
like it was the birth of the first thing that ever mattered to me
and the cobalt butterflies meet me in the middle,
the center of my stomach,
and I open my hands
and make a little space for you.

A plastic spoon trembles the way something so ashen should
sustaining the weight of a mountain of coffee grains
pointlessly arching a stiff back until its head can grace the cold counter
to evenly distribute the pressure of Everest
or to satisfy itself with the snapping of an artificial spine
like if it couldn’t be a knife it didn’t want to be anything
like she was born hungry and I was born an empty plate.
I contemplate how the smell of dirt and coffee ring in your nostrils the same way
thick and Earthy
like last night
digging up the soil and leaving it to bake beneath our fingernails.
She pours me a cup as if I’m staying for much longer
and despite the milky fog
I gulp the liquid in my mouth and let it boil between my teeth
smiling the whole time.

I try to remember this bed and how her skin blends right in
how coffee stains and blood stains and bleach can all hum in unison here
and the springs laugh every time she tells a joke
and her tank-top trails off her shoulder longingly
like it’s just seen something opalescent skirt around the corner of the room.
She dips her fingers into my hair briefly
asks what time my flight leaves again
asks if I can stay
and I notice how close the ceiling is
with its top hat and wand
to severing my chest in two
so that half of me can walk out
and half of me can stay.

We drag each other to the door
once half passed five is blinking red in our faces
screaming at us from every clock in the room
and how dare I take the time still
to leave lipstick on the side of her face,
in case she forgets,
with the sunrise rushing me out,
but when she lets the door open
and the air welcomes itself in,
chomping at nothing,
I don’t let go of her hand.

We give our weight to the ancient decay of this familial brick building
the blades of our razor shoulders just barely grazing it
all as a part of our clever façade of ice cold leaned back sunglasses on our heads attitude
cool radiating off of the sparse, tattered patches in our jeans
the walls still warm from the sweltering July heat
the moon watching us quietly, red in the face
the night still simmering in seventy degrees
smelling of dust and trash cans and our extra-large cerulean slushies.
She sets down her roller skates to divulge the little treasure she had been hiding in her pocket.
Do you want to try one? My mom let me have a pack.
In this uncertain instance, I decide that cool is greater than safe,
as I chew my lip and dart my head around every corner
to ensure that disapproval isn’t lurking somewhere in the dark.
I gradually slip one out of its snug packet with a shaky embrace
twirl it between my fingers as I watch her light one on fire
uttering and stuttering: are you sure we should be doing this?
attentive to the way the tiny embers glow and dance off the tip each time she flicks it with her chipped nails
the smoke turning pink from the neon sign that flashes above our heads
and I’m not sure if I’m sick with anxiety or sick with chemical vapor
as we cough until our stomachs are empty
and the street in front of our feet become drenched in blue.

We would both end up watering our roots just to see how far they could grow
how many miles they would stretch even from the dry dirt of our little Southern street
then drown them so that they would rot and forgetting would be easier.
She would end up in Washington state
where she would wear out her bright yellow rainboots
and I would end up surfing the wind of the Midwest
and we wondered how we could have gotten here
how our miniscule seeds could have blossomed into trees big enough to cast shadows.
After adulthood had kept us apart at more than an arm’s length for a few weeks
she would call me on the phone at one a.m.:
I think I found the one
her voice fluctuating like the sound waves of a child finding their first Easter egg
I would kick my feet up choking on my laughter and letting my tears have free range like we were twelve again
when we would sing our own rendition of “Chapel of Love” in Mrs. Peters’ class everyday
our biggest worry then would be tying our satin bows in our hair just right.
We would talk until dawn
until we would drift off into the dark of sleep
the white noise of the other end of the line still breathing into our ears
dreaming of pixie sticks.

The sound of her body collapses onto the floor
as if she forgot how to fly
waking both of her parents as one treks the speed of God up the stairs
and she wishes the fall would have snapped her neck
that the flush of death washed over a face didn’t have to look so gruesome.
Before she could re-tie the noose into its perfect donut with slick and hurried fingers
her dad flings the door open and you’d think he left a hole in the wall
or a hole in her chest in the way he says
what the **** do you think you’re doing free-falling along with the thick saliva
foaming from his lips that were swollen with sleep
although he hasn’t slept since.
The first time she did it, she apologized
but this time she was only sorry for unstable ladders.  

At recess that day
I drew lilies on my hand with her sparkly pen and I realized later that I had lost it
as if it had grown shovels for arms and buried itself at the bottom of the sandbox.
I shriveled up my tiny face and spewed tears all over my dress,
I hadn’t known a greater tragedy,
but she said she liked the lilies on my hand better than her pen anyway
as the ink bled and into sweat and faded into something watered-down pink and abstract
she wrapped a medicinal arm around my shoulder and told me it was okay
that everything was going to be okay.

My hand has forgotten how to fall into bed with pen again
after the tenth year in a row of seeing a lake in the middle of road
it throws itself down in a thud
to plant half-moon flowers all down the avenue of tight flesh
but it had to learn how to walk again
or at least beg its way through the thick of the dirt
after this pyretic dry spell
that lasted longer than they'd agreed.

They used to share a queen
treated all dingy apartment flooring
like royalty
and my right hand
took the right side
closest to the window
then changed its mind when it rained for a week straight
and everything for three miles was grey,
the chaos settled between black and white,
and all that scares me,
because when my stomach does knots
it's only infinity
and when it flips
it goes ******* nuts
and you were so bored you started counting specks of sunlight,
each meant something big,
like the end of the sting in your step
while all of the opal-winged embers
that turned my fingers gold to the bone
were snuffed out under the rubber madness of my shoe
left me with just blue and stiff and lonely
missing that the quiet creaking in each knuckle
when my stomach empties itself out on the desk in front of me
and I decide I have nothing good to say.

My sister howled with the dogs at the end of the street
her teeth looking more canine than theirs with her jaw-hinged open and her gums shining
as she became every house in our neighborhood
fingers woven into a chain link fence around her ankle
as if to create a barrier between the throbbing and the cool stroke of the air.
I couldn’t decide if her ankle looked broken-hearted or dumb,
slumped over like it was on a bus, snoring and dreaming of the stop it had just missed.
The sky slowed down to melt into navy and rosy tie-dye at the same rate as her ankle, although her face got there first
and I swore I heard the sidewalk crack lightening into her bone as soon as she landed,
I brought it up every time someone knocked on the door or dropped a dish until she wasn’t there to bring it up anymore,
but her hands always kept steady when she said she never heard a thing.

In the car ride to the hospital my skull trembled at the high frequency of my sisters screaming.
I crossed my fingers that she would stop, but not too tightly
remembering that ripe carrot snapping into two sound
acutely aware that I had never felt my own bones living in my body until now
how every pothole made them tingle and catch fire
and I sat ghost-still until we got home.    

I am a spread of limp appendages on a cold metal table when I get my first piercing.
I imagined that I looked a lot like my sister when her ankle fell apart
or each time she made sure to draw out her goodbyes as our mother fell apart.
The piercer clamped down on my belly button with an instrument that looked like something you would use to snap stubborn lobster legs
my belly button dangerously residing only a few skin creases away from my rib cage
skin seeming too thin to protect bone when in the process of perspiring,
like paper that has soaked for days.
I hoped that rock won against paper in an alternate universe.
Breathe in he said, like my sister couldn’t that day,
breathe out and it was over and I was closer to understanding what it felt like to have a bone double over
but I knew this wasn’t it
it wasn’t even close.

When my sister died
I tried pulling back my pinky until it collapsed in exhaustion from fighting back,
but I couldn’t finish it off, couldn’t put it out of its misery.
I wanted to know if death or a bone breaking hurt more.
Sometimes my body flushes with the thick shade of shame at the thought
that a shattered pinky could hurt more than the empty spaces,
that I would trade my sister’s dead body for the safety of my own,
that if I hide from broken bones in the soft confines of cushy couches and toddler heights,
then what does broken feel like when it defines more than limbs.

Cupped in the belly of my palm
this grit-ridden
hand-held cave you gave me
right at three years
appearing on the outside like pale skin
after leaving sunscreen an oil spill in the pool
and burning
patchy and bronze
although I took silver
each time your voice rose a flame
in the gust of its crescendo
the gemmed insides of this Earth piece
looking too much like the shards of glass
that would explode iridescent
in fist-fights with paper walls
fragments gleaming like ice crystals
daring their toes over the edge of a roof
leaving accident’s name a mosaic of wine
all over the floor
and my jaw hung open
as wide as the geode’s
only its jagged teeth shimmer
rather than break
when in opposition with force.

This rock-body knows rock-bottom
replacing softer limbs
that had once retired themselves
like scissors that fit right in with my hands.
I am trying to relive a good day
the beach right before my eyes
this jewel-thing beaming white under the licks of the sun
glimmering like the salt of sand
and solstice iced over the delicacy of sea itself
reminding me for the last time
of when you were nice.

I swing my arm behind my back
and give this geode a fair chance to sprout bird wings and fly
make its place
amongst all other
shiny ocean fixtures.