i am trying to remind myself that
i am the one who has always held
my skin together on the worst days,
the one who has sewed myself back
up time and time again. i have picked
my own body off the bathroom floor
more 4am's than there are numbers,
taken myself to bed. no one has cared
for me like i have cared for me and
yet i don't know when i stopped
thinking i was my own home.

i sit on the
cold floor
of the shower,
just me and
myself, and
i tell her there
are good things
in the world.
aren't there? i
know there is
a reason she
and i have made
it this far.
there are
beautiful things,
megan,
beautiful things.

my days fill up
like balloons
with forced breath

seeing light
shine through the messed up blinds
like a projector playing a movie across my skin
about something slightly nostalgic
but very far away

when i leave my house
my skeleton is magnetic
i feel nothing
but the push and the pull
the lack of choice
and a deep-cutting desire
to once again
have the world
and my body
belong to me

women don’t die,
they vanish into thin air or
they melt
into a puddle on the linoleum.
plath didn’t die,
she dropped the deadweight —
see: her headless body on the kitchen floor
bloated & ready for consumption.

All the **** that I said
about how ****** up your heart is
now seems to be stripped off
lying on the bedroom floor

And the clock on your wall
is tic-talking to me now
tail dancing to secrets
its cat eyes motion to the door

But your head on my chest
weighs me down like an anchor
keeps me under the lighthouse
drowning just off the shore

And the worst of it is
you know exactly what you're doing
and you know what it takes
to have me crawl back for more

Every so often, we
/ become fish out of
/ water on a dock

flailing about for a
/ bit, then right back where
/ we ought to be