it’s Passover and my boyfriend sneaks wine
from a Gatorade bottle in a neighbor’s dorm,
gets a pack of vanilla scented candles on loan
and a Bic lighter from a friend who uses it
to smoke their **** behind campus on weekends,
and we light a pair on a rain soaked bench where
the wind keeps blowing them out and the lighter
burns my fingers as I cup them around the flame.
it’s Passover and I sit in the campus café, listening
to two girls on guitars crooning into the mikes
“If you’ll stay with me, then I’ll make it worth
your time,” while my iced coffee melts and
the spotlights turn their hair red and blue.
outside the April rain drizzles down and I
wonder how old I was the last time I went to
Confession as I smell the wine on my boyfriend’s
breath while tasting the coffee souring on mine,
and I think- are these are the best days of our lives,
then, Passover on a rainy Monday night while
guitars hum and our reflections in the windows
flicker and warp, faint like candle light.

Dry white pills rattle
in their dark green chamber.
Large and hard and pure,
they leave soft dust
where they clack together.

The cap spins free easy
when I fumble the bottle
and they trip eagerly
into my hand, so that
I must select my savior.

It takes hold of my muscles
and releases their grip on me,
fills my hanging head with its
whiteness rather than my red,
and gives my grinding teeth peace.

It ushers in sleep,
who has circled at the door,
smooths the sharp edges
of my breath in the
darkness, and tucks me in.

I consider words,
dwelling
on how they move
your tongue
and shape
your mouth.
How the word
“snarl”
pulls your lips back
to bare your teeth
and leaves your jaws
agape
just so;
how the word
“whisper”
starts off soft and blunt
and hisses on the ‘s’,
pouring out of your
mouth like smoke.
I think of the word
“love”
and how it drops
smooth and round
from the tip of your
tongue,
like a stone falling into
a pond,
disappearing at once
and leaving ripples
in its wake.
I think of the word
“hate”
and how it makes you
square your jaw
and wrinkle your nose,
and leaves your tongue
pressed flat
to the roof of
your mouth,
like a viper
rearing
to strike.

I spent my fifth grade year in school in my fourth new district
writing timed multiplication tests while blood fell from my nose
in hot fat drops splattering my papers,
a rusty brown organic counterpoint
to the red ink of my teacher’s note
“Emily- see me after class”
and my stomach dropped faster than the blood
or the bobble-headed Care Bear that my Social Studies teacher
threw out the window during class
because she once mentioned that she hated Care Bears
and so we covered her room with them.
I spent my fifth grade year at home in my parent’s bed
with blankets tacked over the windows and towels stuffed
into the cracks under the doors
while my parents tiptoed through the kitchen
and I dug my chewed off nails into my scalp trying
to claw the rot and smoldering ash out of my head
and flinched at every creaking floor board.
It was an old house.
The mourning doves called sycophantic dirges every dawn
(and noon, and dusk),
and I grinned when the dog chased them off to hide
with the one-eyed tom in the barn.
I tell you these things not to make you feel sorry for me,
but because I am confused how I can feel sorry for me
and yet miss that time so much.
In the end, I am left only with the firm conviction
that timed tests are every child’s bane,
and mourning doves are just country pigeons.

Stumble on the ragged bones and fur of a deer above the spring,
choke on fear and grab your dog, drag him (and you) away.
Three years later, come upon the picked over corpse of a button buck in the upper field,
notice that there’s only half of it, back away and shudder.
Older now, pass half a dozen bloated carcasses along back country roads,
sigh, swerve to avoid the bloodstains on the pavement.
Meanwhile, your father’s got a doe in the bed of the truck strapped down still warm,
step back to keep the ****** snow off your boots, smile.
There is blood dripping from your nose and your brain feels like it’s rotting,
a blight of molding fur in a fallow field; picture fire, not bones.
Before, herds crept from the tree line at dusk while you sat around the flames,
grazing the lower field until they bolted at the howl of coyotes.
There is a bottle of pills and a carved antler whistle on your dresser;
one could save you, one might **** you. You know which is which.
Stagger through the woods with blurring eyes and a hanging head,
trip on a mouse-chewed antler and pick it up, smile, list right.
There is a white fawn standing plain in the bottom field that will disappear come winter.
Pull the arrows from your eyes; you can feel them, you know they’re there.
When the pain leaves you will run, fleet as deer, and outstrip the exhaustion that
howls at your heels. You will be alive again, and stop rotting.
Meanwhile, try not to trip on your bones, body trying to drop as though from a headshot.
Don’t lie down yet- the blood will scrub clean eventually.