i only write in the dark in the night in the moments when i feel my eyelids fall heavy and my chest grow empty. it is only then that i can untie the bird from my sternum and let the creatures growing in my small intestines wake. the sky will rupture and glow pink and i will be none the wiser because while white elephants sing and paper mache dolls rise i will be here, in my final form in the sea with those who tried me like i tried myself. i am my own worst enemy.

my body shivers as i curl up next to her. we whisper and cry as she claws through my hair—this is our nightly ritual.
i am crawling into the shell of myself. i am allowed to be held here. i am safe now but there is still creaking from this bed and dandruff under her fingernails and my dog is barking at the wall that i will not knock down.
here i have learned what it is to be a woman—
to give everything save for the bones in your body so that your love can mean something. to look unto her, that beautiful woman who hates herself, and only see your own outline.

You really need to eat something before you leave for work, Gena.
Do you want toast?
A hard boiled egg?
What can i get you?

(as the years pass, i find more and more words for the things my mom never said to me—the moss and the trees, God, the window in my bathroom that faces the street—i know what she really means now. i see all her flaws in myself. the feeling suffocates me; coats my skin like humidity. the guilt pierces like frostbite.)

You won’t get any skinnier, Genavive.
You look terrible
You look sick
Your clothes don’t look right on you anymore
What are you trying to do?
I want you to come home after work tonight.
Come home tonight please.

(i know now that no one else will protect me. you need to be selfish, and i want you to be. you only ever cry when im in earshot. i just want you to be happy. i will never forgive myself for not being able to make you proud. i will never become a mother because im just like you.)

I love you Gena.
Let us help you.
It's hard work but once you begin the journey you feel so much better.
You’re better than this.

(i show myself to my mother in my purest form. i show her all the ugly parts of me, the parts of me that are mean and awful. this is one of the few ways we’re unalike—she hides herself from me as best she can. she wears a mask that only i can tear off.)

(when i was younger, she always told everyone her only goal was to make me smarter than she was. she accomplished this quickly, and did it in a very literal sense—she prioritized knowledge over comfort. she made me smart; and paranoid, and vile. we creep around each other in the same way we both creep around mirrors. know she hates me like she hates herself, like her mother hates her.)

     we used to have a compost
     but the mice got bad
my mother and i have a conversation about hunger and wanting. i look at the menu for the pizza place they’re ordering from, open every tab on the website and look through every word. there’s not a thing on it that doesn’t make me sick to my stomach. i tell her i feel malnourished and lightheaded and afraid all the time, and i got some vitamins that will give me the nutrients i think i need, and some ensures, and i realize ive become a bit obsessive about that stuff. i tell her that it’s not on purpose. she tells me that at least im trying. she doesn’t say anything else. she picks a cucumber from the garden, one she grew all herself—the produce came up from dirt she packed with her own hands, the dirt where she planted the seed and watched it sprout and grow, watered it like clockwork. she cuts it longways and puts it on a plate, ends and stems and all, halves a lemon and drowns the cucumber in the juice. she puts it in front of me and walks away without saying a word (she has things to do, and she is nothing if not simple). i take it whole in my hands and bite it slowly. i take my time with it. i feel all the seeds in my mouth, getting caught in my teeth, feel the fatty fruit of the center on the roof of my mouth, the thick skin crunching between my teeth. i sit in front of the cucumber for hours, it feels like. i only end up eating half. the other half will rot in the fridge for weeks.

i believe my fatal flaw is leaving things unfinished.

saying the word female feels like spitting out garbage. it feels like the thick anticipation of swearing and waiting for a slap on the wrist.

my mom says there are some things i got from him i can’t escape. my mom says sometimes my eyes go black like my father’s.

i find myself wanting to create distance between myself and the soft parts of me. i inherited my violence from my father but my rage is anything but masculine—referring to myself as anything other than a woman feels like betrayal.

Fri, Jul 15, 2:54 AM
I've done all I know how to do gena...I'm sure you will figure it out and I will always be here. I'm going to take a step back for awhile...I will be out of town anyway for a few weeks.  Hope to see youbat breakfast at 10am tomorrow.  Of not enjoy your day.

Thu, Aug 4, 12:34 PM
It has to fucki g change...it has to...
It so heartbreaking

Sun, Aug 14, 4:04 AM
Can you please let me know you’re okay?..

i can see it
feel it, even
if i pinch it, pull it back,
roll it between my fingers.
and all of this is entirely your fault.
and nothing can be salvaged.

(i knew what i was doing when i did it--before i even knew it i was aged and fleshless. it hurts my stomach but i want more. i'm not scared anymore, and that scares me.)

to be espoused for years to your loss
referring to yourself as anything else feels like betrayal.
like fruit rot turned mold green,
displaying decay in real time
(a divorce is out of the question at this point. there is no such thing as a loveless marriage--there is love in pain. there is comfort in this hurt.)

a plant is only a plant when it sprouts
(if it even does, ever. do you get it?)

a worm finds its way into my apple.
i will never, ever trust anyone again.

my feet sink into the dirt, mud and grass and all things between my toes and in the cuffs of my jeans. it doesn't matter though, i'm where i'm supposed to be.
its the garden of eden, the apple of temptation. if only i believed in god, this might mean something more.

Thank you for your patience,
carelessness imitating restraint.

He mutters something.
Words stumble through the air,
delay at my earlobe,
they dare not climb inside.
I won't ask again.

(Heartache is ghosts in the walls. Heartache is socks-on-at-all-times 'cause the carpet is gummed up with **** and little empty baggies stick themselves to the soles of my feet as I walk. Heartache is a few days here and there without power, a bowlful of dead fish left to stew. Heartache is bath times in mold, never being clean, when you'd rather let the pillow suffocate you rather than taking it off your ears and hearing the screams--you say you know pain, how could you know? How could you even begin to understand?)


I say thank you for putting up with me
regardless. You know I keep it all inside--
I know why you stir in your sleep.
If I were you, the guilt would eat me too.

For the sun always sets in front of me,
and rises from the back--

(Have I convinced only myself that you don't want me? Have I convinced you too?)

i. it's a sad morning, but only i feel it. he wakes me up with *****. it's 5am again but still too dark outside to see so i take in the scent of his sick; i notice myself being pulled closer. i realize he thinks im sleeping and hope he lets me stay--he doesn't, but it's not his fault. it never is. he drags me out by the knobs on my feet; i dig my nails in the carpet, puke pooling under the fingers, the fibers rip the nails right off me--he starts to cry. i wonder why he's crying. he drives me home in silence, leaves me spitting in the snow, crashes the car on the way home. i'm through two pots of coffee already by the time he decides to love me in the morning.

ii. i wake, again, with my head on the floor; but this time it's my own. this 5am is dark as well, save for the light of my phone on the wall--it's ringing, the buzzing sticks knives in my head. i pick up and see his pale green eyes, deadpan and silent; i hear him crying in my head nonetheless. he asked me if he woke me up and i lie; i'm just thinking about the muscles on his back, the worry-lines, and our nicotine habit. he is unrecognizable now, but it's my fault--he looks so different under street lamps at 3am, so much softer when my vision is clouded by amphetamines. i find solace in the fact that, after all this time, he might be too late.

"we would've been forever," he said. "you and i would've been forever." i realize his eyes aren't even ******* green anymore. i thought you weren't afraid of anything? "i know," i say, and i hang up the phone for the last time.

the room is warm, so warm it chokes me. the walls are draped with rugs and greyed with dust; the lamp-light struggles to reach my eyes through the smoke. cecilia wields her blade and runs her tongue along the edge. she has to taste it, she says. to make sure it's right. her yellowed teeth meet the hilt and she leans in my direction; the point of her weapon reaches my temple, caresses the skin there, leaves a drop of her spittle on my cheek from the pressure. she looks up at me--i hate her expression. i hate the sag of her skin; the way she looks at me; her cloudy, flitting corneas; dead and sightless. she's wearing my shirt. it drapes her frame. she looks terrible. i swallow my disgust and stare hard, i close the space between us. she kisses her blade, one last time, for good luck. love is oppressive. cecilia carves me a new pair of eyes.

i imagine breaking each other's noses. i imagine the bone-crunch, cartilage on cartilage like a car crash, the feeling of the skin giving way. i imagine a nosebleed so thick, so clotted and deep-red, oxidizing in real time, warm milk on my face. i imagine a day without nausea. marked by stomach acid, snot pooling above my lip, the face in the mirror gagging into the sink. i draw anything and hate it. i go for rides and just get tired. i try to write and i feel nothing.

bits and pieces of the last few years manifest themselves in dreams: the feeling of handcuffs and hard car seats like playground swings; a six-by-six room with words etched into the wall; being sandwiched between linoleum and fluorescent beams. i revisit myself; she never cried, just dug her nails into the palms of her hands and bore the weight, i admire her stoicism. i admire the way she held her shoulders.

it's 2017 again. i clean blood off the walls in suburbia while a kitchen knife exposes a trachea somewhere in west virginia; i should've known back then that i was cursed. she skyped me with blood dripping down from her chin to her chest. i wonder if the scar's still there.