When she held me, I felt like an earthquake,
shrapnel cutting quick to the bone.
I’m disaster, an unknown
kind of danger is the most dangerous

When he held me, I felt like a riptide,
all control ran out the door.
With the *** and cappuccinos
I felt out of place in my new home

When she held me, I felt disgusting,
every move my own betrayal.
Yes, she hurt like a gunshot
but I did this to myself

When he held me, I felt strange,
like I should give my whole self.
He never asked, I’m thankful.
I don’t want to ruin everything else

When she held me, I felt like a secret,
like I was something small and wild.
In a room of screaming children,
we were something invincible

He never held me, but that’s alright.
Someone tell him I understand.
Take it slow, like we’re new friends.
I’m alive for once

No one touch me, I don’t want it.
Stop breathing down my neck.
My throat fills with *****,
But the hands never rest

No one touch me, leave me alone.
Stop pressing on my back.
There are thumbprints on my wrist bones
and handprints on my thighs

Don’t touch me when you aren’t here.
So many years have passed.
Is it trauma? I don’t care.
The filthy feeling always lasts

Don’t touch me when you aren’t here.
Nobody ever has to know.
When you’re sitting by your lonesome
Nobody cares, you’re on your own

Nobody cares, you’re on your own

You look me in the eyes and spit,
          And I kick dust on the wet spot on the ground.
This is how we are, a conversation; you never cared to call me something like my name.
           I never cared to see you in any way but under my boot with blood on your teeth.
               There is no moon above us, even when the sun’s gone to hide at the nearest bar.
This is not a war that can be won with pickets and strikes.
The only way to end the battle
                                                Is that someone has to die.
        A standoff only ends when one is left standing, it’s the rules,
but you never did care for rules, and breaking is easier than bending.
               You never apologize and I never want to hear those words come out of your mouth.
            The sun’s gone to hide at the local bar and it drinks whiskey shots like water.
It has seen us fight.
            The moon doesn’t want to come out, stays tucked safe in its bed.
It has heard stories.
                         Only the stars act as referee, calling out which one of us died better.
            It’s all an act, a ******* contest, and you sure are good at wetting the ground.
                 I’m better at covering up where the bloodstains were,
                         stain chicken feathers red as the sunset, Please, I ask you,
Let him win one last time.

                               The hourglass broke, the sand mixing with the red clay,
And you claim to know that his time is up.
                 I claim to know that you’re a lying ******* who takes what isn’t his.
                        And you claim that I’m just a child,
                                           but children don’t know why their knuckles are
bleeding
                                           and children don’t get why their jaws hurt
                                           and children only bleed when summer is restless
                                           and children never pull real guns anyway.
          You brought a knife to a gunfight,
                 a gun to face the firing squad, a one child firing squad,
                    knees stuck together with blood and chicken feathers.

Please, you ask me,
Let me win one last time.

                     And I learn that breaking is easier than bending;
And I learn how my name sounds on your lips.

They always ask questions
                Over and over again, questions are asked.
My lips a constant question mark, my hands a fleeting moment,
                 my hair ******* in thoughts I never question.
whether I am asking for knowledge or release or death is uncertain.
                               The last two are not mutually exclusive.
                                                             My bones are restless.
When she dips into the spaces between your ribs, digs out flesh and words with claws
                   I often wonder if you can even feel it.
                                        But my hair is too messy and requires my attention,
      My hands are too chapped for me to do anything but lick the cracking skin.
We are not an answer, and questions are not lifeboats.
         The sea is not afraid to toss and turn in its bed, drowning nightmares beneath it,
                                                             ­             But who are they?
                            My lips think they know, but they say nothing,
pinched into silence by something different than us, but not bigger.

                                       When our knowledge makes manifest something like peace
   I return to my whetstone, press my teeth to the grain, and wait for the storm to put me to sleep.

Spitting cherry seeds by the roadside. Late night Rocky Horror on the back patio.
When we listen to jazz on an old timey-radio, we don’t hear echoes of the past, not our Great Depression.
We hear disillusioned violence, a turn of the century.
They want to turn it on you, rest your body on the side of the road, the world a sepia photograph.
It develops slowly, darkness clinging to monotone like the smell of gin under the juniper trees.

In the morning the world will seem so bright, flamingos on the green
screaming at the technicolor tv fuzz as teens gut them with penknives. We won’t join in.
When I look at my face in the mirror, all I see is radio silence.

When I look up at the sky,
the night glittering iridescent,
winking like a beetle shell,
I think I see you.
You, the unknown,
the fear of faithful men.
You, new knowledge,
wisdom beyond might of human minds.
You, the song of the universe,
harmonics echoing through the stars.
I stare into you.
Do you stare back?

I have no right to feel this way.
Everything is too loud, too much.
I want to cover my ears, but it gives little relief.
I tear at my hair, and the pain gives an anchor.
My patches are hidden, small secrets.
Mors ultima linea rerum,
a constant threat,
the sword above my head.
Not death itself,
but the inability to find peace.
Sleep is similar, but it is not death.
It is similar, Tarkovsky observes,
but it is not permanent.
Sleep is universal,
but so is waking.
The fool, shepherd, wise, and king
rise with the sun.
Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat.
Mors ultima linea rerum.

She leaves you a gift,
rough purple ribbon
with a wire rim to keep the shape.
She ties it in your hair,
fingers soft as they brush the curve of your cheek.
She puts a chain around your neck,
delicate and thin,
leaving goosebumps where warmth had been.