If you have something to say,
say it with conviction
believe in the words coming
from your mouth
because once they're out
they don't go back in
and no mouth to mouth
will resuscitate
a bridge that's in flames
and as long as you
meant every last word
every last volley
shot over the walls
built from years of
friendship
then no blame can be sent
your way
but do not be alarmed
when they come back around,
a little crispy around the edges
all shrieking like demons
faces black and sooty
and eyes red from the smoke
that rose from the fires
that only tears could put out
and they've got a hot coal
in their hand that they
don't feel and they
want to see you burn.

All that makes our demons
scary is who they're
throwing fire at.

What was the last thing you forgot?
I thought I’d forgotten about Chumbawamba
Their song about not remembering whether they had amnesia
And discovered the reasons we forget
There are three

Sometimes the memory is simply lost
I fail to record it
I struggle to retrieve it
I lose it through the passage of time
And I may as well never have learned it

Sometimes the memory was never right
A subtle hint overwrites it
A trick of the mind confuses where I got it
A belief or assumption filters and interprets it
And surely I learn to trust my memory less

And then, of course, I could repress it
Squash it into the back of my mind
Remembering Freud’s unproven theories
Hoping that what’s left behind
Leaves me feeling more positive

Why are your hands like the ocean?
Pull in, push out.
Come here, go away.

You learned to cry quietly because it's prettier that way. You hate that your cheeks get red- like transparent ghosts found a way to put handprints on porcelain skin. You wipe your tears before they touch your cheeks. Don't give any clues that you're breaking.

Remember the first time your mother told you to not look directly into the sun? You asked why and she just laughed. "You'll burn your eyes, silly girl." You remember this conversation each time she calls you her sunshine.

You were nineteen the day you were told, "you're so soft." It was the twenty-ninth time someone had told you this, but this time those words were coupled with soft eyes instead of a hard-pressed stare. Maybe you could have loved him. But falling in love meant jumping, and there were sharp rocks at the bottom.

You jumped once before. You jumped and swallowed seawater as you watched him standing on the bank scrubbing your poetry off of his hands. You remember water setting fire to the air inside your lungs as you realized that no matter how hard you screamed for him to just love you again, he'd only whisper, "you're just too broken."

You remember two months later- the first time hearing the pop of an orange pill bottle lid thinking that maybe you should write the time- like you're calling the last time you'd really be you. It was a "first kiss, first dance, missed call, last chance, yes, no, maybe-so" kind of night. The kind of night that puts your soul on a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean. There's no coming back from that kind of lonely.

"Be good." She told you. You remember this when you go to type "food" in a text and your phone corrects it to "good". Your ribs drop off into an empty abyss. There is no fulfillment to the kind of starvation your hands feel when you reach out to hands that will never love you back.

Those bones hold you enough for you to sit upright in a hospital waiting room. Spine straight and lungs held in a panic. This happens every time they put cold hands on the parts of you that no longer work. New mothers tell you that children are a blessing- that they'll change your life for the better. Hollow eyes meet the baby blues of another and your hands grow heavy with longing as you realize that your junk really is just junk and you'll never hold tiny hands.

You wonder why you miss someone from years ago. You wonder why it is that you cannot remember what their voice sounds like but you can remember what it smelled like outside the day you two met. The last time you picked up a phone, your hands knew to dial their number. But you haven't called in ages now. You quietly realize that you only miss certain people when your body becomes medicine cabinet.

You now know that you have hands like the ocean because people may love you, but no one wants to stay on the beach after the sun sets.

You remember turning the mirror around and telling you mother the sun didn't shine that day.