my stomach in the bathtub
folded over and wrinkling
like the skeleton of my grandmother

hands that look too much like my father’s
blanketing my stomach like those of a cruel mother

on the best days the window next to the bathtub
is uncovered and I can see out but nobody can see in

on the best days I look down at a body
that is nothing but a pile of snow leftover
a week after the storm has past
somebody has forgotten to shovel me whole

there is a damp hole in my stomach and I am
staring at it unsure if I want it to melt
wondering who might fit shoveled inside

Today the air inside of the C train
is as cold as a stillborn. Today
is the first day in a week that I am
riding the subway desperate to meet nobody.
A row of faces across from me,
some thin like my mother’s and some
swelling with ghosts the way yours
does. I do not love any of them.
Picture: us standing with snow pale
as the body of a grandmother beneath
our feet. Picture: bruises and teeth marks
lining my body like the passengers of this subway
lining the orange and yellow seats.
Your hands were strong enough to break gods.

i.

Kathy tells me about god in the bathroom stall.
She tells me about the time when he told her
that we’re really all just suffering together.
“I was at Harry’s basement party,
drunk leaning against a wall, standing by myself,” she says.  

She says she can taste the suffering the most when she’s standing in church,
eating one of those **** communion wafers.
I laugh without knowing; I’ve yet to eat a communion wafer.

ii.

When Kathy gets really drunk
she grapples at my hand
and forces it to her skin.
She says my hand sobers her up
more than water does. When I touch her forearm
it is as though I am touching a dead infant.

When I touch skin I am thinking about standing outside
in air that could only be so cold in the summer,
my body all bare, my body standing outside
of a loud and lit up house
with me whispering,  “please don’t touch me, just let me shiver,
just let me faint here peacefully.”

When I think of skin I think of my grandmother and her wrinkles,
of generations of wrinkles.
Looking into the bathroom mirror
I see the body of my grandmother and the face of my mother.
I am desperate for a toilet.

iii.

Kathy knows about the days when all I do is eat.
She knows about how much I like peanut butter,
about how my skin sags from my ankles,
hangs around my wrists. But still
she holds me when I must *****.

The worn out backseat of Benny’s car is where I end up
when ***** piles up at the back of my throat, my head
scratched as the hooves of a dead cow. The worn out backseat
is the best place to lie still, but only when it’s dark out,
the moon finally comfortable with people being out
underneath the broken streetlamps. At night, when it’s too dark
for us to even remember the faces of our parents, the broken streetlamps
are all that remind us that we’re still in a suburban town
(anywhere else and the streetlamps wouldn’t flicker).

When I’m with Benny it’s as though my head is bald again
and I’m crowning my way out from my mother’s womb for a second time.
The first time I was born I clawed my way out like a violent rat. With Benny it’s always summer, with Benny it’s always summer in the worst of ways: heat flashed across my palms, my throat bitter with god, the word “gorgeous” all around my teeth. Benny has hair

that is too short for his lanky body. Benny drives awkwardly. I see him
best driving across bridges built for rivers. The last night of July I dreamt about
all of us from the line of painted white houses, everybody still 19 years old, running
crookedly into ocean. Our bodies shook with salty water. In the dream I cried because
nobody drowned and I woke up still crying.

I’ll never get over the word “teen”; it sounds too much like a curse, like “gorgeous.”

In October we picked apples that tasted like the tops
of teenaged mountains, apples that were colored red
like teenaged brides.

In October, a reminder to self:
Don’t ever forget the teenaged years.
Don’t forget the boy with the tongue like slick arrow.

The school was painted white with green trim, and the two of us
stood behind it like a pair of stag deer.
Remember: there is a difference between grey and white,
and I am not colorblind. Remember: this boy’s face was grey as the robe of a young monk,
and I am not colorblind.
(Remember: This boy is not a monk.)

Don’t forget being thirteen with hair licked short like a small body.
I stood with five other girls, I was flat chested, I was lying
about a trembling kiss. When one girl cried I should have remembered
to mean well, when mother called I should have answered, even
after she died, even if sometimes

mothers **** children. It’s just that they do so without realizing it (usually).

(Remember that mothers often lack bodies).

Reminder to self: bathe,
wash behind the ears: the chalk that still rests there from grade school.
The teacher made me write
I WILL NOT ****** BODIES, then, I WILL NOT ****** MY BODY, then,
I WILL NOT ****** THE BODIES OF BOYS OR MOTHERS,
each statement ten times over on the green chalkboard.

There was a hunger in my stomach back then,
rooted down like a pit of shaking guilt.
We ate apples covered in teenaged blood.
I could not shake it, the hunger. I still cannot shake it,
the hunger. We continue to pick apples with bodies
that are meant to be sorrowful.

My heart can't take it, when I think about you
For I know we wont make it, a lifetime through
So, no, I won't get up, to stand by your side
The pain is too great, its too hard to hide
  
You swear I can trust you, you'll always be true
But so said my last love, and all before you
You may call me a coward, and perhaps it is fear
But the pain is too great, its too hard to bear
  
I wish it were different, that I could believe
That you will stay with me, that you'll never leave
I'd open my heart wide, grab hold of your hand
But the pain is too great, its too hard to stand
  
Perhaps I'll look back, and regret what I've done
Perhaps you're my true love, perhaps you're the one.
So I wish I could stay, with all of my might
But the pain is too great, its too hard to fight
  
So I'll now say goodbye: farewell my amour.
You'll find someone else, of that I am sure.
If I am ever asked why, I'll always state:
The pain was too great, it was too hard to take

I would in the fires of Hades play
Blind the night and dazzle day
Cage the wind and catch the rains
To look upon your face again

I would raze the valleys low
Fill the deserts up with snow
Crack the earth open wide
To spend a moment by your side

I would silence mighty thunder
Rend jagged lightning asunder
The jealous gods from their heavens rip
To place one kiss upon your lips

I would drink the oceans dry
Pull the mountains from the sky
Pluck out the stars and put out the sun
To hear you tell me I'm the one

Whatever may have come to pass
To bring this day of reckoning,
I'll love you 'til I breathe my last,
My heart forever beckoning.