short-handed love letters
written in the daydreams of a deliberate narcoleptic.

i send you the paper plane promises of summer
(sealed tightly in sweaty palmed envelopes)

you're not one to read poetry
yet i always manage to find feather light stanzas draped across your shoulders
held down by nothing more
than freckled thumbtacks

years fall away
like too heavy eyelashes onto cheeks

waiting to be brushed away
by the callused fingers of patient lovers

our slow and natural tendencies
our lips mimic the rate of gravity

you use a box cutter to lengthen the creases in my palm

but borrowed time
and fickle fate
will never heal heartbreak

“You’re overweight,” he says, tapping his finger against his chart of heights and measurements, thighs too big and fingers too plump. I already know. I nod, and continue nodding, listening to the word echo and then fall onto the ground, bouncing and bounding, restrictions that have surrounded my whole life, my whole curvy figure. If I could be like the girls with the flesh wrapped tight and the bones loose and caving in on one another, I would grab the chance before it had a chance to flutter away from my desperately aching hands. When I look in the mirror, I try to remind myself that flaws are flaws and yet they were made to be beautiful, but I see what I see and what I see makes me want to *****, makes me want to close my eyes, makes me want to pull and tug and rip until there is nothing left but a pile of rotting decay. I am stuck, I am back on the playground in sixth grade where the boys would taunt and laugh, point and gasp, as I tried to pretend I looked like everyone else, every other small, petite little girl who didn’t have to worry about these types of things. My clothes don’t fit, I’ve gone through seven pairs of jeans in the last month alone, I look back at the pictures when I thought I was fat, but I wasn’t, I was fine then, why did I think that? I lay in bed beside the man I’m supposed to be with, fully clothed and pushing his hands away from my hips, away from my lips, don’t touch me then if you can’t handle all that I have to give. I’m not her, and she never wished to be me.

Theres a theory
I hold onto.
One that says
every seven years,
each skin cell in your
body is renewed.

But
I cannot wait that long
to have skin that
hasn’t felt your
fingertips running
down my back,
or your tongue
dancing to the
rhythm of our
breathing.

I cannot wait that long
to have skin that
hasn’t felt your
sweet kisses,
that sent a sugar rush.


But at least
in seven years,
my skin
can forget.

When I rain, I pour.
But this year broke me.
Sank its fingertips
into my shoulder blades
and tore me asunder.
Nailed me to the
floors of this apartment
that weeps like a willow.
While you wrapped yourself in goodnights
I screamed into the floorboards.
I licked at your fingers
like a dog.
No matter how deep I dived
I never reached the ocean,
And I cried.
Sweet Jesus, did I cry.
But men aren’t supposed to,
so I begged instead.
At the age of twenty
I discovered shame.
I felt like calling for help,
but my voice cracked
like a frozen lake.
You’d tell me you were going out
with a few friends, and I’d beg you to stay home,
but my guilt tied my tongue down
with fish hooks.
When I rained, only ashes fell.
And no phoenix clawed its way out.
Only my naked back, flayed by the chains of the prison
I forged for myself,
bleeding out poems that I’ll never see
again.
******* out air from music notes
in order to survive.
This year I discovered guilt.
I could never count how many times I said I’m sorry,
but I tattooed it to my chest
so when I made love to you
I wouldn’t have to say it out loud.
I used to burn.
Burn so loud that
when spoke
smoke climbed from my lips,
I lived my life like a car crash
but sang like a music box.
I plucked smiles from strangers
and drank up the voices
of girls
like wine.
I played loud.
And at the age of nineteen I found myself unworthy.
I inhaled smoke instead of speaking it,
and never let the car
leave the driveway.
I cried ink from my fingertips,
and used you as a telescope to search for God.
With you, I discovered far too much.
I still feel that only shackles embrace me,
but I want to shred open my rib cage
and the let the songbird
out of my chest.
Pull the hooks from my tongue
so I can say
I love you.
When I rain, I want to ******* pour.
So the world knows my heart’s beating.
My wounds are canyons,
that I’ll stitch up with poems.
I want you to know me.
I want you to hold your breath
when you press your hand to my chest.
I want to scream so loud these
walls split open
to let the ocean pour forth from their eyes,
so I can swim to the surface and write my name on its face.
Sing the moon into my hands.
And free that fire from my music box,
so I can find my way
home.