I used to sit in midnight rooms
lit by dying cigarettes which glinted
off emptying champagne glasses

I used to scrawl sonnets at the bar
amidst rowdy afternoon daytrotters

Tucked soundly into solitary daydreams
I beat drums with palms
burned by the failing sun,
shook my head releasing
glittering hairs onto dusty footprints

At sundown I would paint my lips
and scorch my hair in perfect loops,
imagine myself a half-starved woman
with the most incredible appetite
for words that drew blood
and secrets that dug graves

I’ve spent a thousand hours
floating in your silent sea
filling your ocean with words I swallowed to keep afloat
waiting patiently for you to send me a raft
or a lifeboat
anything to let me know you remembered
I was out there all alone

Somewhere along the way
I managed to convince you that I basked
in your quiet waters, felt warm
in the dark waves which wrapped their arms around my torso
All the while I waited for you to wake
from your tidal slumber and see me gasping for air
beneath the lonely waves

I spent the month of November filling my lungs
with synthetic smoke trying to exhale
the smell of ICU chemicals and gift shop flowers

I drove too fast to the wrong destinations,
wrapped the wrong arms around my waist at night
I covered your scars with battle wounds, and slept
in half my bed to make room for the demons

I watched you become human, a creature
filled with tiny fractures that could trace their lineage back
to invisible grandparents

I worried that you would only ever be mine
in memoirs, that my mother
would lose her name
and feel too small in that ocean of sheets

You spent your birthday in a wheelchair, silently praying
that your fingers would remember how
to press down on metal strings

And when you sobbed things broke in places
we didn’t know existed you said
never and hopeless and
for terrible moments we believed

Every seven years
each skin cell in the body is renewed.
I can't muster the patience to wait.

I stand under angry faucets for hours,
hoping that the scalding downpour will wash you away.
I rip and tear at my own arms
my own *******
my own lips,
like you did.

I take razors to my hair
till every strand of golden silk lies beneath my feet,
ready to be swept away,
joining gin bottles and day-old untouched dinners
maybe even the remains of a pretty girl
like me

When I can almost make believe
that you are no longer sticking to my skin
I can still feel you seeping out of my pores.
Taking off layers wasn't enough
so I tear you out of me from the inside.

I shove my fingers between my legs,
clawing up and inside
till red warmth drips from them
I scrape my insides with monstrous hungry fingernails.

Once I've gone too far
I keep going,
puncturing liver and lung,
finally reaching the carnivorous red thing
I want out of me more than anything.

I grasp it in two hands,
seven pounds of ripe, contorting muscle,
sending blood through arteries and now to the world outside.

I want to show this creature its own sins;
I rip it from its place behind my breast,
severing vein from vein.
It continues to thrash like it knows what's coming.

I carry it to the kitchen table,
find your knife in my hands
and press down gingerly,
sweetly carving your name into this demon which betrayed me.
Squirming, writhing, it tries to get away,
but it is me and I am it.

I destroy it as it let you destroy me,
relish the sight of you rushing from my own veins.
Satisfied, I walk to the sink
and rinse you off of the metal blade.

I watched you lose yourself that summer,
heard you curse as you stumbled through brambles
and blindly crashed into trees.
I saw you fading from the map you had drawn for yourself,
forgetting which direction was North and which was Nothing.
I felt you move further away from the center of your earth;
I fashioned a compass with my hands,
the needle pointing back where you'd come from.
I slipped it into your pocket as you blindly passed me by,
then wandered off my own path, mapless,
no needle to point me back to myself.

I’d like to run my fingertips through thickets of dark hair
rest my head on the soft rise and fall of your earth
plant kisses in the soil of your neck, repair
tiny fractures in your branches, grant a small rebirth
I’d like to water your roots with whispered secret words
to nourish the pictures moving through your mind as you sleep
hoping my face might materialize behind eyelids as you stir
my leaves would weave a blanket, my buds would graze your cheek
Someday you’ll wake from the wintry slumber of her arms
take timid first steps through autumn-fallen leaves
you’ll grasp at my voice whispering like the wind, race toward my charms
where my branches will stretch out, waiting to receive
For now you’ll stay encased in an ice-age dream
and I’ll wait for you just out of reach, taking root downstream.

1.
Inhaling poison like it’s a sweet spring breeze,
an antidote to the pounding heart and aching stomach empty of comfort or substance
Meeting with pavement in a tiger’s crouch
fingers float toward parted lips
awaiting the taste of relief in the form of smouldering leaves.

2.
One tentative epidermis approaches another
tendons and ligaments straining, aching for contact
attempting nonchalance in the lamplight privacy of early morning,
cocking ears to detect voyeuristic insomniacs
who would disturb the disorderly expressions of early experimentation.

3.
White lady dusting the concrete path, sterile and unconfined
laid new before careful feet making their way to shiny metal boxes
bundled in seasonal expectations they trudge through stardust
on their way to blood borne obligations,
leaving behind careless tracks in ****** flesh

4.
Blazing sun presses down on shoulders hunched behind compact table tops
peddling penny prologues to unabashed strangers
bartering unwanted pocket change for rejected trinkets
haggling over half-dried finger paints and unfinished chess sets
rescuing garish afghans from dusty closeted life.