Earth
    worms the color of
    bruised tongues wriggle
    out of sodden dirt and
    splay themselves out on
    gritty asphalt

To breathe.
    We bite our tongues as the
    sun returns to burn away the wet.
    Bodies shrivel from the
    desiccation until we can come out to

Air that smells like all that
    rainwater and blood
    evaporating to fill our lungs.

As if my insides are too pink
and new to reach inside of
and pull out anything of value.
As if, because my body was not
forged out of natural disaster,
it isn’t a world of its own.

Because I’m a fat ***.
Because I was already irritated.
The way you were hanging on me.
The work I need to do.
The food in my stomach metabolizing straight to my
thighs/hips/arms/face/calves/cheeks/***/waist/chest.

Who are you anyway?
My guts were black like charcoal and twice as gritty.

**** Sundays.
**** Valentine’s.
**** fancy dinners
**** new clothes
**** sleeping in
**** food anyway.
**** being nice.
**** being sweet.

Because you called me pretty
And I can’t stand the lies that are so sticky sweet
and make messes and gather all the dirt from the air
and somehow it’s still sticky and now it’s black and you can’t scrub it off.

Because you throw around things like “love” and “forever”
and “beautiful”
but they’re too heavy for me to catch and all they do is leave me with
bruises.

And bruises just remind me of fat.

Because you still don’t know that I’m
Stupid and fat and ugly and crazy.

Because you make it hard for me to feel bad.

Because you throw around things like “forever”
and this is the only way I can catch it.

I built you a home in my head
and in it I waited for you
day and night.
I wandered the many rooms I gave to you
and sat in the many chairs I set out for the waiting.
I watched out the windows of my eyes.

I decorated it to welcome you, and only you.
Every piece of furniture and hanging frame
was chosen so when you arrived
you would want to stay.

The light came and went,
I made sure it hit the rooms in all the right places.
Our kitchen was bright in the mornings
and the library glowed orange at sunset.

You didn’t come
and so I waited.

The weeks swelled into months
and seasons came and went.
In the summer it was airy and cool
the doors, propped open for you,
brought in the scent of grass and lemonade.
In the winter it was warm and quiet,
and smelled of cinnamon like your hair.

I waited and watched,
and you didn’t come.

Years rose and set like the sun
and the house grew dusty.
Paint peeled and the color lost its luster,
tired from years of expectation.
The walls settled and the floorboards creaked,
asking for you when it was only my steps.

The bed sagged into a frown
when I climbed in alone at night.
Even the windows grew cloudy,
muddling the light and obscuring my vision.
In winter the wind shook and it groaned with aching.
Still, the house was warm
and smelled of cinnamon like your hair.

Still, you didn’t come.
Still I waited.

One morning in midspring,
when the open windows brought
rose-scented air to rouse me from sleep,
I felt my bones were too tired to sit up
and resume the waiting.

The bed heaved a sigh in my loneliness,
curling around my aching joints and wrinkled skin.
I stayed there all day, listening to the house call for you
in all its creaks and groans.
It sounded tired like me.

I watched the way the light shifted from morning into afternoon
and finally to the peachy-purple haze of sunset.
Then, in the moment between twilight and night,
the house was quiet.
The light lowered below the windows
and all was dark.

A memory came to me
of a home I had built
with many rooms and many chairs.
Who it was for I could not remember
but its emptiness echoed through the halls of my bones
until my heart grew tired of waiting and finally
stopped.

Do you remember when I laid in bed with you and cried
because telling you about me hurt to do?
            But I wanted to tell you - because you deserved to know, because maybe I thought you would share yourself too, because maybe I thought packing you into my old wounds
            would finally heal them right.
And all that truth made me shake and the dark bedroom made me wild-eyed but
               your heart beating through my palm pushed me forward a step,
        a step of a step, and pretty soon I was falling for you.

        And I remember when you stood over me, revealing your truth about me.
And all that truth made me cry and the morning light hurt my eyes
        and you split my ribs and my lungs poured out at my knees
which were bruising from begging.
        But I couldn’t find you in your darkened eyes or your bellowing voice
as it gutted me and braided my veins in a knot…
          Some things I try to forget.

I dream of you and I imagine your face, your touch, the way you walk and
          hold my hand and we smile and you laugh and
I have you.
But sometimes the black comes down from the nightsky
          and seeps into my sleep
to darken your eyes and harden your grasp,
           just like that you flay me open to spill my tears and
I’m losing you.


          When I wake you are there, reaching toward me in the dark.

The bruises on my knees will fade.

River veins and the sun
for a heartbeat -
alternating with
the moon.

Rainforest tresses falling down
mountain shoulders with
redwood fingers, lithe and lean.

Bronze desert chest and trim valley waist,
with an iceberg smile and sunset peach cheeks.
Meeting those fiery volcano lips
and feeling the tremor of the earth’s plates
shudder.

Your eyes were always the ocean.

I feel it starting, like a prickle down my spine.
My rubbery lungs expand and push
against my ribs.
Organs start crawling
up my throat
leaving a hollow cavity
which I must seal.

My heart is pumping faster
but the only thing to get my blood moving
is to fill my emptiness.
Hands shaking I scrawl a haphazard
paper chain to keep me from floating away
as my love looks on concerned.

“Can I fill it with a kiss?
A caress? If I whisper to you
will my words fall through your ears and
weigh you down?”

But anxiety
is not like drowning
and a life preserver won’t reign me in.
The only thing to do is wait
for me to compress my lungs
and talk my insides off the ledge.

Let me close my eyes and breathe,
give me room to reassemble.
I promise I will come down soon.

When I can concentrate enough,
the Earth starts shrinking
until its mass rests on my pen tip
and I can write the blood back through my veins.