She dropped out today.

Out of school, village housing, and our lives

and Mickey Mouse sat
on the edge of his bed,
a controller in his gloved hands.

They are swollen under there,
a gangrenous trap of envy and greed
and she saw those hands with the gloves off,
and as they slid down her face
I heard funeral bells from across campus
because she's gone now and there are too any girls like her
girls the school refused to help
because god forbid they help
if the **** rate on campus might go up
and Don't call it is what it is, Christine
There's nothing to be done, Kara
Just take it easy, he was just playing around
and we don't know what intentions she had with him anyway

Well it's good for them.
They don't have to deal with it anymore.

She dropped out today.

Out of school, village housing,
   the side of the world, the cracks of the law,
           the sound of clapping hands, grinning faces,
                  the coffee house music hour, the soaked sheets at the edges of  time
                                                       and out of our lives

sometimes tears taste like onion
cutting through the skin on your face
reminding you that you're still in mourning
and eyeliner gets in your mouth
half a year on

That morning, sound was a spear of melted glass
pouring down over the mountainside.

The treetops don't hiss anymore with crying katydids,
the bird songs even are beginning to dwindle- as they
cast their voices across the sky, pulling away.

And as the world grows quiet, the visions get loud
black trees cut blue and yellow skies
ice on the corners of your car window
a reminder of what's coming
in litotes

I haven't written anything in over a year.

My chest has risen and fallen with the track of the sun, like a neanderthal burial covered in flowers.

I have wept for myself, I have wept for my friends, I have wept for my grandfather now in my lungs and in the soil,

but still I haven't written anything in over a year.

I went to the zoo one last time with my confidant, rode up the long elevator so steep I would fall off with a sneeze.

I have felt the last rays of sun before winter, I have felt ice on my eyelashes, I have felt the length of winter, stretching out into eternity, stretching out way beyond what I can touch,

but still I could not bring myself to carry a pen.

I have heard a phone call I've dreaded my whole life, the stony silence of a room full of bad news when the ice cream clutched in my bird bone hands hit the ground.

I have met the ground and the hard concrete, I have met death sitting on top of a cherry tree, I have met a woman calling herself my Nana but half of her is dead,

And I guess I wasn't brave enough to grab a pen.

And I wasn't brave enough to see my grandfather in the casket.

I never saw the wreath of flowers, I never saw his wedding photo propped up in the corner of his little bed, I never saw his chest move and move no more, with the track of the sun, like a neanderthal burial, covered in flowers

but I did see the room full of people when I gave a eulogy
and I heard the lie I told that this wasn't an unfinished story, and I feel death and grim upon me like ancient flower pollen fossilized in awful crystals on my bones.

And maybe that is why I have been too scared
to write
for over a year.

it is no secret
i am the women in the grocery store with a skirt too short that mommies warn you about
i am hot venom and warm beer and blood from your forehead
i am angry
and i have earned this wrath
i am angry
and i will use it to move mountains
i am angry
and every man who has ever ground their boots into my broken ankles, any man who dares speak my name with anything other than reverence or good humor, and man who tried to stand before me
had best watch their ******* backs
i am a bull with you in the corner of the pen
and i will rip out your ******* guts
and you will feel me for all i am all at once and be no more
i will show you who i am
and i will build bridges out of you

when i see the foods
folded into little smiles
i remember how my okaasan packed my lunch every day for three months
and how we never talk anymore
and that bittersweet soba
makes me sad