I walk into the thrift store yelling at my mother,
which is terrible because
1) I’m yelling at my mother in public and
2) I’ve always hated people who yell at their mothers in public.
But she just won’t stop
Dissecting every part of me that I hate,
Every part that is stripped bare for all the world to see
But is still somehow secret.

Somewhere between 12 year old me
With her short blunt black curls and bruised knees
And 15 year old me
With her blood shot eyes and broken back trauma
I’ve developed a habit of stuttering my words,
Of letting anxiety snake through me like
Early on set rigor mortis.
Somewhere things got seriously ****** up.

How do you tell your mother,
Who birthed you who raised you who loved you,
That you can’t talk to strangers
Because you once got too friendly with a boy
Holding garden sheers,
A boy who clipped your wings and left you
On a bedroom floor?
How do you tell her
Your poems aren’t just statements,
They’re stories?
How do you tell her
You’re like Sisyphus with the boulder,
Like Prometheus with the eagle?
How do you tell the truth?

I walk out of the thrift store quiet.
My mother doesn’t say a thing.
On the way home
She takes sharp turns and hits the brakes.
Hard.
My stomach churns.
This is my punishment and I deserve this
For yelling at my mother.

There is no I in denial.
They kiss in bed.
They roll around.

There is no I in denial.
He bought her flowers.
She placed them in a vase.

There is no I in denial.
They hug outside of
traditional thought.

I do not know how we got here,
but I know I don't want us
to stay.

There is no I in denial.
They **** in bathrooms.
They make love in gardens.

There is no I in denial.
She blew a kiss.
He caught a tough break.

There is no I in denial.
He holds a box of his things,
after being shown out.
She says they'll manage.

I do not know how we got here,
but I know I don't want us
to stay.

There is no I in denial.
They kiss in bed,
but it's not the same.
They roll around in bed,
but it begins
to feel
like effort.

There is no I in denial.
He bought her less.
She said it didn't matter.

There is no I in denial.
He feels like his father,
imagining things
she's doing.

I do not know how we got here,
but I know I don't want us
to stay.

There Is No I In Denial.
They don't talk as much.
They sit farther apart.

There Is No I In Denial.
She asks him what's wrong.
He resents her care.

There Is No I In Denial.
He gets drunk and
breaks the vase.
The flowers lay,
covered in wet glass,
sleeping in a puddle.

I do not know how we got here,
but I know I don't want us
to stay.

THERE IS NO I IN DENIAL.
They don't talk, they yell.
They don't remember each other.

THERE IS NO I IN DENIAL.
He drinks more.
She feels less.

THERE IS NO I IN DENIAL.
They were married underneath
an oak tree,
  She said, "I do."
He smiled and said,
  "I'm so lucky."

The flowers lay on the floor,
  dying.

I do not know how we got here,
but I know I don't want us
*to stay.

Green, stringbean bodies.
  Neon skin, the color of
a lime being crushed
  underneath a heel.

Tell me about earth,
  I could hear the voice
in my head. Like a
  radio being crumbled
up into a ball and
  thrown into my
train of thought.

Earth?

Yes, Earth. Tell us about it.

Us?

There are forty-million listening.

Oh. Well, Earth. Earth. Earthy-Earth.
  Earth is full of humans, like me.
People. Humans are people.
  And people are hell.
In No Exit, there are these--

We've read No Exit.

You've read No Exit?

We've read everything humanity
has published, in a matter of
  m o m e n t s.
You aren't as developed as you
seem to think you are.

What was the best thing you read?

We were partial to
Last Exit to Brooklyn.
Now, back to our question:
tell us about Earth.

If you've already read everything,
why do you need to ask,
let alone ask me?

You are the most
insignificant person
on this planet.
We are interested
in your thoughts.

I'm insignificant?

Yes.

Oh. I see.
Earth... Well, people...
People are beautiful.
The Earth is beautiful.
What makes us gorgeous
is our growth and our
desire to progress.
What makes us dazzling
is our belief that
a collective happiness and
an individual happiness
is both attainable
and sustainable.
Now, **** me
and annihilate
my planet, already.
That's why you're here,
right?

No. We're here to
harvest your women
and to colonize
everyone else.
You just persuaded us
to breed with your women.

But, that's ****.
And colonizing?
That's slavery.

We've read everything
your planet has ever written.
**** and slavery has been
encouraged on your planet
since your brief breath of
e x i s t e n c e.

I will tell you when you're wrong.
I have no problem calling you out on your mistakes
because we both know you're better than that.

I will tell you when I'm wrong as well.
I can put away my pride and admit defeat
because there are things that matter more to me.

I will tell you my thoughts.
I can share all my ideas on the secrets of the universe
because I know you're the only one who understands them.

I will tell you my dreams.
I want you to know every little thing that makes my heart race
in hopes that maybe I'll find

it makes your race as well.

I will tell you of my past.
I will take you by the hand and show you every corner
just so you can hold me when the memories become

too much to bear.

I will tell you my fears.
I will whisper of them all night as we drink our wine
and I will shake at each syllable, but I won't stop.

I will tell you my secrets.
I have so many thoughts inside this wounded mind
that I can't always conjure into words -

but I'll try my best to share them with you,
if you want me to.

I will tell you anything you wish to know
but darling, you must understand -
there are three little words
that I just
can't
tell you.

My fingers weren’t made for fixing things.
I am an object of destruction.
Don’t get me wrong,
I am not deadly.
I’m a vegetarian, I recycle.
I just break everything I touch.
I am a backwards Midas.
These mausoleum museum hands
Are what destroyed Pompeii.
The Roman colosseum crumbled under my feet.
I rip every heart I hold
And bite every mouth I kiss.
I am a benign hurricane.
I cause enough damage to inconvenience you
But not enough to **** you.
I am messy and dangerous,
A giant desperately trying to be gentle.
Proceed with caution
Because i cant fix what I break
No matter how much I would like to.

I remember
when growing up
was desired.
We swung our lungs
upwards,
towards the sky,
so we could steal
the air of the
universe's river.

I'd call you on
my parents' red landline.
You'd call me on
a broken cordless phone.
Your father would yell
and I could hear your mother
knock over things
as she was either
running, hiding, or
fighting back.

You don't exist.
You're a figment of my
imagination.
You're a poem,
but I want you to be
a memory that is real
to substitute the ones
I wish were fake.

You don't exist.
Your name is not
Kimberly or June.
Your ears aren't pierced.
We never played games
or shared deep thoughts.
We never talked about
running the **** away.
We didn't grow up together.
We aren't close.
You were never born.

You are just a phantom
stemmed by an unoriginal
imagination. imagination.
imagination. imagination.
But I want you to be real.
Please exist beyond my mind.

In my head,
you confided in me.
In my head,
I wasn't so ******* alone
from ages 6 to 16.
In my head,
you're a phone call away.
I don't want to write a poem
to communicate to you.
Be born. Be born. Be born.

I have so much
I want to share.
I want you to meet
my girlfriend Rachel.
I want you to hear
about how everything
is going well, for once.

Be born. Be born.
Be born. Be born.

I wrote you a love letter today,

If you listen close enough
You'll hear the gentle drumming of my heart beat
Inside the envelope.

Don't drop it.
Open it gently.

Inside you will find
Chemical solutions, black
Ink on a page, a heavy handed mass
Of words, slotted carefully between each other,
Lines saturated in love.
Hand crafted works of art
An attempt to articulate and communicate
The fires you send swimming through
My veins, the tsunamis you send
Tripping of my tongue.

Scribbled confessions of just how much my body aches for your touch.

Don't drop it.
Open it gently.

It is yours.
It has always been yours.
I have always been yours.