8-30-13

I raise my hand
I'm begging for help
My veins are like wind chimes
Dangling in the wind
Begging to be let out
To be visible
To make music
Music of the weak
To be vibrant sparklers
To run down steep banks
It's their fantasy to be free

my life is a sweeping motion
of fleeting moments and
sweet whispers

i fell in love with you
as swiftly and slowly as a dream
and into the abyss we settled
together like sediments
in rain puddles
and you told me
i was beautiful

i fell in love with myself all the while
examining every line on my face
like they would fade out the next day
i came to memorize the ***** of my neck
the crook of my nose
and the bow atop my lip

my beauty is resonant
it sits on every word i say
shines through every glance i give
shocks those whom i touch
exuberant, blinding
i am sweet to the senses
i am fierce
fearsome
fearless
i am beautiful

Someone in a dream gave me a gun.
Five seconds, a dog, and a man.
Asked me to shoot either the man or the dog.
I shot the dog, paws nestling on my knees.

When I walk at night,
my mom tells me to watch for strange men.
Sometimes, I come across a dog,
paws wet with snow,
the man yielding it lurching back.
Men do not love easy like dogs do.
They have their standards, or their mothers,
but dogs only need five seconds.

One mile deep,
he says.
It could be 100 miles deep,
and I would still want to jump,
feel how rose rocks kiss ripped skin.
While my uncle suffers from vertigo,
we look over the edge,
and I must be the only one thinking
how god loves these ridges
and how he seems to ignore me.
I am trapped behind national park barriers
and the canyon stays untouched.
Falling as deep as it wants to.

My mom helps her best friend dump her mother's ashes in Lake Michigan.
She tells my mom how quickly this came.
How young she was.
When my mom gets home,
she tells me the air whipped the burnt body
takes a drag of her cigarette,
flicks the flame off her lips,
tells me she hopes to never get so old people are relieved when she dies.

I steal my mom's Reds.
Sit on the porch and pretend to be her.
It makes it easy that I have her nose.
I imagine dumping my mothers ashes into Lake Michigan when I am her age.
In my mind,
she is not burnt young, or hoping, or 54 years old,
her ashes tumble into the dark with the rest of the mothers
who's daughters sit on porches
taking their ashes and their stains with them.

i want you to imagine standing in the middle of an already collapsing house, and having everything suddenly flip upside down; or after years of homelessness, picture yourself being told you had somewhere you could stay for good, only to wake up just before being handed the keys. these are some of dangers of making places out of  people.

1. don't ever turn a human being into a home unless you are prepared to be evicted without warning.
2. when you start to notice their arms taking the shape of a roof over your head, you have two choices: run, or wait for it to cave.
3. if they ask you to stay and burn with them, you have the right to say no.
4. it is not your responsibility to save anyone, and it is not your fault when you can't.
5. salvaging the photos from a house fire will only re-break your heart every time you pull them out to look at them.
6. when the basement floods, hold their hand.
7. if you are not a strong swimmer, remember that the difference between love and codependence is that one of then will drown you.
8. love will never drown you.
9. i knew this from the start but let you hold me beneath the waves in spite of it, just so you could stay afloat. i can't do that anymore.
10. i don't think i'll ever set foot on your hardwood floors again, but i'll pray that someone new moves in soon.

- m.f.