The butcher in me
tears muscle from bone.
I say to my father,
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“This” being a project of blood and sweat
like the science fair project I stayed up all night to perfect,
do you remember?
But I am not a vinegar volcano
or a lopsided solar system
strong on needle-thin wire.
I am an animal skinning itself
in the face of a bear--
but the bear is invisible.
“Is it really even there?”
I ask.
You do not know the answer,
you do not even hear the question
because of the glass in my throat
and the powder on my tongue.
So I claw myself open and out
and you close your eyes and mouth
and the maybe-maybe not bear remains
as my bones break under the weight of fear.
“I wish things were different,”
I say
as the sun closes its doors
and my shadow sinks into the earth.

We are sitting on your floor smoking cigarettes
You ask me how my day has been
I ash my cigarette and say
In the most casual way
“I’ve thrown up seven times today”
You ask if I’m contagious
I feel my throat let out a laugh
That is half pride
Half shame
You barely know my name
And I’m already chasing you away
Because I’m too sick to hide my pain
But not sick enough to let you know how it feels
To speak in a language of violent expulsion
Where syllables etched in the fibers of food
Link together to spell out words
in toilet water
And these words sink into messages that tell me that
I’m doing the right thing
The necessary thing
And that this is the only way for me
To speak.

I planted myself in sandy ground
so I bend,
loose and unsupported,
roots hanging like alien arms
that do not grow.
My stomach drops to my feet
as the sand begins to swallow me.

There is a war underground,
a battle for growth that I did not enlist in.
I fold into the sinkhole from which I emerged
and pray that my hollowness served a purpose
for worms and microscopic beasts.

I laid myself to rest in my own womb
and swore to god that I was never human,
animal, plant, or pest
to begin with.

There are many things more intimate
than ***.
The closest I ever felt to you
was when we shared paranormal encounters.
We were walking hand-in-hand uphill
and you told me about a little boy
with coal-black eyes
pure pupil
who hovered above your bed.
His expression said “help me”
yet you hid from him
and his childish desperation.
I squeezed your hand tightly
with my own lovesick desperation
and told you about the time I was either abducted by aliens
or the government.
There really isn’t much of a difference anyway.
You squeezed each of my fingers individually
when I told you how it felt to be brainwashed
halfway between my bed and their headquarters.
We slept separately that night,
warm enough from this exchange
and suddenly unafraid.

It is hard to accept the truth
that falling can be a good thing.
Like falling into a pitch-dark room
to look for the things you’ve lost.
Like falling between the page and the pen
to pause the expression of the inexpressible.
Like falling backwards into the sea
to leave an imprint on the floor.
Like falling from a climbing tree
to kiss the concrete.
Like falling in love with your own breath
to slow the onset of death.

I am living with eleven dead women--
rather, I am dead with eleven others
just like me.
Even the fat ones
are all snapped bone
and skin so thin you can see right through
to the blue veins.
Our skin, our veins, our bone
come from one mother,
monstrous and controlling.
We sit like puppets on strings
but at night we lie with death like animals.

I guess you could say
that I owe my first gratifying ****** encounter
to Donald Trump.
The votes are being tallied
I climb on top of you
The analysts are shaking their heads
I place your hands on my hip bones
They’re calling for a recount
I let you live inside of me
The are calling it a night
We **** all night
Are we on the brink of another world war?