The apartment is messy again.
A never-ending pile of clean underwear,
stained laundry,
and in-between pieces
toeing the line
between passable and gross.

it's not that it's bad,
it's fine.
it's enough to get by.
like wheat-based cereal
and watery coffee.

I guess this is our life together
jumbled and messy,
with piles of good intentions
and tomorrow projects
but that never quite find
their way
into a proper time
or place.

I look out the open window
for an answer,
a sign,
some kind of assurance
that this time is different
and this place is where
I'm finally supposed to be.

But all I see is grey.
No thunderclaps
or burst of lightening
or enlightenment
come to me.

You blow out
the lit candle
on the coffee table,
its smoke
curling itself
into question marks
that dissipate
as quickly as the rain.

Maybe tomorrow
will hold more answers
or more sunlight
I can use to see
our path forward.

But for now,
we'll go to bed
in crinkled sheets
and warm promises
for the day yet to come.

Somewhere out in another universe,
I'm 12 years old
and I'm sitting on my bed listening to something through
a hopelessly tangled white headphone string,
flipping through the dog-eared pages
of my favorite book while everyone is sleeping.

The sticky, syrupy air of summer floats through an open window
and nothing bad has happened to me,
no scalding words or hot fingers
etching their prints into my skin.

I haven't menstruated or fallen in love or  yet shrunk myself down
or any of the things that made me a woman.

I am warm in my white tank top
and the blue satin shorts with the printed clouds
wondering about trips to the beach
and sticker placements on my new notebook from Borders.

And I hope she's always able to stay like this,
that she never knows of the kinds of stains
that won't wash out of her white tank top.

And that every once in a while,
I might just catch a second of her laughing
from the room next door.

And another morning happens,
awoken by the oxidized groan and stretch
of the lumbering machines
that live in the dirt pile
in front of my apartment

there used to be a farm there,
and there used to be someone
in my bed and darker curtains in my room
but a lot changes in a year

there's still a tiny hole
in the corner of my bathtub
that greets the curve of my foot
every time I step into the shower

i can't tell if it's gotten any
bigger or not
or if the water i hear dripping
is from some other fixture
for me to look at another day

i know my kitchen sink still overflows
not with bubbles
not anymore
but with the dishes i've put off
for almost three days

i wish the men in hard hats
across the street would do the same,
tell themselves that they'll get to that
concrete patch, hole digging, pipe laying,
belt grinding, beam building, horn honking,
sound of trucks backing up
tomorrow
so i could sleep in for once

but they've got a job to do
and sandwiches someone wrapped for them
in aluminum foil
to eat at lunch

and i've got to do the dishes
so i can have a spoon
for my cereal

your floor is ******* filthy.

i can hear you in the background behind me
saying my name the way you curse
hold it in your mouth, hot
spit it out
watch it burn,
embers flying through the smallest gap in your teeth.

you stare hard at me,
maybe to see where the sparks catch
hoping one lands on my face
or in my eye,
whichever will move my gaze from the floor
to you.
but i can't.

i'm still looking at your gross ******* carpet.
it's all i can focus on,
a stained oriental with crunchy grey tassels
that i can only assume used to be white.

i'd like to ask you about it,
but it's not my turn for questions.
i'm not sure if i'll even get one
before the curtains catch flame.

so i sit there,
silent, fireproof
waiting for you to finish using
each and every wrong
ever done against you
as kindling
for the anger you feel towards me.

i think it upsets you
that i can't get burned anymore,
but you still sit
white hot,
ashen gray rings around your eyes
asking why i just won't catch.

you're breathing smoke from your nostrils,
but you're no dragon.
you're a book,
451 pages of relation
and situationships
and drunk texts
and missed calls
from cleaning ladies
and therapists,
angered that you
ever caught spark
from my ashes
and burned.

you're heavy today.

like the ropes you'd ask me
to pull up onto the bow of the boat.

that was last summer
when my knees knocked together
and my ac didn't work right.

the sweat still sticks to me.
the smell is strong.

like your scotch and
your tobacco and
your scent.

the warm one
with the sweet undertones.

the one you wore to every dinner
under your jacket.

the one in the half-bottle
that was the only thing
on the whole of your bathroom counter.

the one i think of now in this weird place
between remembering
the searing heat of your voice
and waxing poetic
over the veins in your arms.

and since i'm being honest,
i've always been jealous
of every glass
you put to your lips.

where they found
the soft of your flesh
i found the grit of teeth
and the sharpness of your tongue.

and for a second,
i almost miss that iron taste,
that tangle of ropes
and the hard spots on the pads of my fingers.

down on my palms,
the callouses have faded.

my hands are soft now,
but tough.

strengthened from the burns
of braided rope
and pie pans
and you.

made hot by the grip of july.

This winter, I find myself raw,
chapped and tender like the skin
of my over-chewed bottom lip.

My mouth is always the one
that takes the most damage.
I catch myself on my front two teeth,
both with cracks on the side
from where my face kissed
the floors of roller skating rinks
and the frame of my grandparents' bed.

The help me bite my tongue
in moments of assurance
and bite my lip
when I falter under the weight
of my own name.

I am not a carnivore, nor someone
who wants to take you in,
and scrape the meat from your bones.

I'm a woman, with pink gums
and a sharp tongue that stabs me
in the roof of my mouth
and hurts me more than any of the hands
that have ever struck my face.

It's not because I'm weak or submissive,
I'm callow still,
constantly falling in love with
every person I touch,
not yet cultivated enough
to give them the words
I once promised.

And even now,
I can feel the sticky
sweetness
of last September
run down my fingers.

It trickles dark red and wild,
like the vine-ripened
grapes,
hanging from the white
picket fence,
I see from my window.

It flows down my arms
and abdomen
slowly, slowly, slowly
sinking into every inch
of my skin.

It colors me,
tan shades
from the summer sun,
and white-hot highlights,
from toothy smiles
and squinted eyes.

But summers were never
my season.

They were yours,
warm and shining,
always pushing
for more light,
longer days,
and just a little more time
than originally bargained for.

I can still see that fence,
proud, weathered,
criss-crossing with
vines and
birds’ nests
and the remnants
of a season since past.

And as the
harvest comes to
an end,
and the placid
cool of night
chills my bones,
I’ll learn
to be content
with the time
that’s gone by,
and the autumn
that is yet to come.