i am inside her skin, expanding to fill every fold and vein, everything stiff and taut and thick with pressure. i am her fingertips, her kneecaps, the back of her throat—and i can feel everything. like liquid i pool and congeal where the surface gives way—a hand is on the back of her head and suddenly her skull is a quarry after a long rain. her tongue meets something hard and becomes a root in damp soil, heavy and swollen and pregnant with water.

i want to feel how he touched you, exactly as you felt it. i want to know where you slept on this bed—i want to lay exactly where you laid. i want to watch every movement on his face in real time, study every twitch, follow his eyes everywhere. i want to hear every word he said to you—i need to hear it like it’s being said to me, i need to feel his breath in your ear. i want to know what the room smelled like. i want to feel your ***** rising.


a forearm, frantic and blind, reaching; submerged shoulder-deep in freezing wet, disembodied at the surface refraction. a fist finds the small of her waist at the bottom, latches on like a pitbull with lockjaw, so desperate and helpless, so violent—she is reeled in like a world record muskie. the pressure suffocates—the tension breaks and she bursts on impact, paper-thin dermis ruptured and insides spilling all over; virginal and spongy, even through the hardened rural water. there is nothing left but pieces, deflated: scraps of a water balloon on the pavement. a starving fisherman left with loss and waste, defeated by his own panicked desperation. he throws what’s left of the body overboard; lets it float dead and weightless, belly up, embarrassed.

a glance is a puddle of spit on the floor; whatever you did is a school bus-sized ditch slick and deep with black water.

her nausea becomes me.
i can’t even imagine you doing something like that.
i can’t even imagine why you would.

and, again, i am wide-eyed facing the wall.
again, i feel this same deep-belly despair, betrayal, gnawing and beating,
filet knife in between my ribs again,
and again i will feel this.
and this will not be the last time.
(you will protect me from the world but
i have to protect the world from you?)

-

the fish is gutted,
mealy flank flayed clean through and removed--
nothing soft or fleshy wasted.
the fish remains with her structure; bones fixed, exposed yet intact,
viscera still-trembling,
eyes alive and unmoving.
in the sink are two neat cuts of meat; one from each side, each about the length of a pocket bible.
the trash outside the shed is full of bluegill waste tossed whole,
bodies robbed of flesh and scale but still moist and twitching,
tiny mouths still quivering, gasping silently for something.

you make me nauseous now
and your mouth tastes like fever.
you look me up and down—
you almost tell me i look skinny but you catch yourself.
you just say that i look good and lay down on my bed, waiting.

i don’t miss you anymore. i don’t want anything from anyone, for the first time in a decade.

all i need to know is that i can still be in control sometimes.

she says it’s obvious—that my whole body shakes and my eyes glow like moons. she says she can tell as soon as i sniffle. she asks me how long it’s been and i lie.

i convince myself i can be in control. i convince everyone else too.

the air is never truly fresh anywhere
it gets harder to breathe by the day
and my chest still hurts, but i can ignore it a little better now,
and i think i might be starving but i can’t really tell anymore.
(i go to the gas station i always do to ****. i get an apple and some cranberry juice, just in case—i check nutrition facts and choke it down, convince myself this is enough nourishment to keep me conscious. i know all the workers here—i wonder what they think of me and i can’t get it out of my head. i fight the lightheadedness and eventually it fades; i’m used to looking through a lens with black around the edges. i make it home before daylight tonight, somehow. this is peace, i tell myself—true peace means succumbing. when i get home, i throw it all up.)

I’ve been forced to learn to be comfortable placing my life in hands other than mine.
The truth is that I’m not clean, and never really have been since the beginning. In whatever capacity that may mean. I’ve always been chasing.
It is over when it’s over.
There is something about this that lingers.

(the sirens came before the storm. the air was blistering and the sky was clear as swimming pools but you knew it was coming, you know it when the leaves turn their back on the sky, when you can feel it thick and hot on your face.)

18
this moon, everything bloomed. the forests got so dense they obscured paths and openings, sprouted lungs and limbs, grew a head of hair so full that rainfall never kissed the dirt. this blessed season, a saint returned to me—i was high for months and months. i awoke each day like i hadn’t seen sunlight in years, clawing at  window sills and locks on doorknobs; arching toward sunlight like a dandelion sprout. this was when i became part of it—grew roots deeper than the tallest tree and spread my seed as far as it would reach. and i was cool—i was so, so cool. you could smell it coming off me like a fever.
(the saplings i fostered bear fruit now; fruit that’s all pit and rind and meal and rots before it falls from the tree.)
(are you scared of me now? that’s all i’ve ever wanted.)

Was it me all along?

explore the possibility of a grey area.
whatever’s inside you lives in everyone.
sometimes there’s no one to blame and sometimes there’s no one that’s innocent.
stop seeking repentance—you’re far past punishment. there are no lessons left to be learned.
you need to grow now.
you need to move now.
forgiveness can be enough, but you need to start with yourself.
you’re not enslaved to this cycle; you’re married to it. it will never love you back.
this will be all consuming. i don’t feel bad for you anymore.


I don’t think any of us deserve this.
I love you all but I hate you so much.

19
dissatisfaction creeps in
ugly ******* staircases
crawling
nothing glows like it used to.

i cried and begged for rain to come. i slept on rugs and covered mirrors with silk sheets. the most evil thing to be is to be pretty.

this was the hit you take after the first time—the second dull head rush, watered down. getting familiar with sickness. realizing you will chase this forever.

…
this month it will be a year since you died. i barely have anything left of you—a couple messages on a long abandoned instagram account, a conversation on my old flip phone, a polaroid, a few grainy videos so old i barely remember the stories behind them. i’ve searched for every shred of you i can find—i hoard memories of you like a dragon guarding its wealth. i have a video of us laughing in my basement that i’ll never show anyone. i want the moment all to myself.

your death ushered in a change deep in my core—something far greater than personal growth or character development. a pillar of my very being broke down; a rudimentary aspect of my character shifted. im afraid it changed me in all the wrong ways. nothing scares me more than disappointing you. ive spent a whole year doing nothing to make you proud. ill never stop being sorry, and id give anything to tell you that.

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.

there is something i must say before i can say anything else--
i have lost touch.
i have lost touch with myself. words fall dead from my lips,
dry rotted, caked in filth,
the conversation ended years ago.
it is too late to talk now.

i see a body. i see a body sparkling by the light of the tv, feet planted firmly on the carpet. i see it sticking to the couch, the boundaries between skin and upholstery merging, the face morphing, becoming unrecognizable. i see a brown carpet, spilled milk from 2018 that never got cleaned. a sully figurine on the shelf looks down at me. i see a hand, lifeless, ***** fingernails itching.
a light turns on upstairs.

i see a mother crying. i feel a father's guilt like a pill stuck in my throat.

i see the body now, again, sparkling under fluorescence on a metal table. a pair of white lips, the snaggletooth he always hated. i see them scraping dirt with their scalpels, cleaning puke with bleach and peroxide. i want to weep but i can’t blame them. it’s human nature to be rough with things that cannot feel.

there is nothing to be said anymore. he is never truly gone, he is in everything. he's in your ****** soundcloud playlists, in the mini ziploc baggies you never threw away from freshman year. he's in the mulch at beech park, the oil stains in parking lots, the writing on your shoes. you can still talk to him whenever. he won't respond, but he never said much of anything anyway. not when you wanted him to. so it's really not that different, is it? will it ever really be that different?

let me say this again--
i have lost touch.
i am craving an unattainable high, i am chasing it with everything left in me. if i thought poetry would get me any closer, i would write more.

i see a body, again, but for real this time. i see it lying in front of me, unrecognizable. i see this sadistic tradition for what it is, animated corpses parading around an excuse for them to cry and rage at anything else but themselves. i tremble like a leaf, i leave the voyeurs where they stand and i sit in the back.

your funeral is at the same church we went in to fill our **** in 2018. they're ******* playing "you raise me up" by josh groban. a woman i don’t know tells me i’m too pretty to cry, and probably thinks she’s a saint for doing so.

i see you sitting next to me, you're not a body anymore. you're holding my hand and laughing, laughing, laughing at it all.

you are not pretty, and you never will be--scratch the air in desperation one more time, one last sharp intake of breath is the cure for sure. the dog in my head whimpers; there is nothing you can do to fix this. isn't it enough to be wanted? does it even matter who the nails belong to when there's nails in your back, claw marks reaching like shadows, reaching and stretching and writhing forever and ever like your untied shoelace. the dog barks again; there is nothing you can do to fix this, nothing that isn't disgusting and fatal.

in sunlight she turns corners--in myths they call her old hag. when night comes, i refer to her affectionately as 'Something Terrible Is Happening To Me And I Can't Sleep Or Eat And Never Know What's Real And What Isn't'--she makes me yell this to her when we ****. she wheezes and scratches and ****** the bed, laying dead like roadkill, nothing left that isn't rot. when i'm just about to ***, she screams 'What's Wrong With You? Is Nineteen Years Not Long Enough To Heal? If You're Still Weak Now You Always Will Be'. after this, if i am lucky, she won't need to narcan me. when i wake up, she is back to floating in corners, kissing the edges of my vision, covered in claw marks, just where i like her best.