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.

i spread like butter on the sidewalk.
sessile;
like the moss that took root in the cracks
in the pavement

i decide too late i want a little girl.
i'll name her vada jane,
and you can kiss her when im gone instead

metal screeches
drivers stop to
rubberneck.

they don't see me.
they see my vada jane.
she's kneeling over me-
she's beautiful, right?
she shines like oil on asphalt

im dull like blood on moss

(when i think of you
i can breathe
you are real)

2. She died a few days ago. I went to the funeral, saw all her terrible friends with all their moon sized pupils and cracked teeth. The body didn’t even look like her—I wouldn’t have known it was her if it wasn’t for the scars. They didn’t cover them.

Mosses persist, despite their size, because of their biological resilience. They are structured to survive in the most extreme climates, able to retain enough water to keep them alive even for years of drought. Even a 50-year-old dried moss can be revived with just a splash of water. She reminds me of moss. I kept thinking, if I could just sprinkle a little bit of coke in the casket her carcass would soften and shoot up like a tulip in spring.

This whole thing has made me realize that humans are not as resilient as I’ve come to believe. Things are different when you bleed. The last drought killed her. Once you dry out, you are dry forever.

there was a short sweet wait before the worry.
why do i miss you when youre next to me?

i try to fight
you take me back:
warm plaster walls and obtrusive matter. a mirror made from bolts and metal sheets, the taste of ensure. bathroom wall etchings, comfortable silence and silence that isn't so safe. hiding your hurt in the hallway and bleeding it out after bedtime.

i deflate-
i combust.
why do you make me feel like this?
i try speaking to you, but im just pulling the string
on your back
that connects
to the voicebox,
you say sorry in the way you always do.
i memorized your automated response.
i'm thinking i can't do this anymore.

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?)

The sky was grey, and the clouds hung low and kissed the trees with tongue. This was smog-in-your-lungs weather. She took note of the ambiguity of the tree line. She paused-

              the soil became

              painfully aware of the

              drip, drip, drop

Has it always been so warm here? So vibrant? Is the scent of the flowers always accompanied by an ache in the stomach? The plant carcasses crunched beneath her feet, sighing as they turned to dust. As she walked the crunches got louder, louder, turned to whispers, turned to voices.

              the overwhelming whine

              will you deny it?

              the plants extend their leaves

She forgot her destination. The colors swarmed her senses, breathed hot air on her face. She is unable to ignore any longer.



              Hunger overcame the girl. A piece of fruit falls in her lap, everlasting.

your heartbeat quickens,
a rainstorm in my ear.
(what don't i know?)

a quick glance at the screen
the house talks
(why don't you respond?)

i'm next to you
i think about
the things i'd say,
the things i'll say.

it's cold outside
i hesitate.
does this even really matter if you
love me in the little ways?
i hesitate.

i know im not the only one.
i think you know i know.

it's only a matter of time
your mouse-paws pitter patter
when i leave the room

something is turning, turning. it unfurls and bloats before me; unrecognizable, aside from the eyes. they were always the same. she looks healthier, i say. healthier half beat to death. i let myself grieve.

quiet, as always.
there’s never anything to
worry about, seriously.

(the dog inside me growls, thrashes and whips his chain, splits his maw on his confines.)


Anyway, it wasn’t that dark out yet. The moist, hot breeze licked at their shoulders as they walked home. They oozed in through the back door like smoke, sweating and cursing, I appeared in the living room like an apparition. The curtains were drawn. The TV was just static. It all happened in slow-motion—I see five skeleton fingers clutching cigarette butts, someone scuttles on the porch, the screaming door bursts open

And, yeah. That’s all I can really remember. Looking back, I feel like I should’ve remembered something like that, right? Yeah. That’s the type of thing someone remembers.

again, this vessel bursts and turns to bite me like a dog.
an open palm connects with the doughy skin on my temple;
repeat the action til it satisfies.
i pray for my skull to give way at the soft parts,
implode at the seams. it smiles in my mind's eye,
tickles my nerves from the inside.

i'll still feel the buzzing inside me, the boil-bubble-brew of this rage,
i wish i could tell you. i wish i could tell you.

this is a poem about my violence and all the glittering ways i self destruct.

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.

i don't want to make sense anymore
i catch myself thinking in fragments again,
i emote in pieces; react at the apex,
my head never lets me just be angry;
i snap but i just dent the drywall again.
if these hands were stronger i'd tear the whole house down, i swear i can tear the whole house down, i could

at least these few more months,
you could love me until then.
can you at least pretend

i can feel your itch to crash the car
from the passenger’s seat,
you don't have to say anything.
don’t wait until you drop me off.
id rather hurt with you

you tear cuticles off
while i beg you to stay without words
you don’t listen
there's no point in pretending if you're leaving anyway,
it’s never enough
there’s no one left

i think of you in bloom

in the morning my back aches,
the sun rises with you everyday.
this obsession like cheap alcohol in cans
we throw up when it's too much.

i know your hands will be the ones to **** me.
not used to being loved more than you're loving
you fumble every clasp and button.

i long for nausea in tongues and on couches,
the sick feeling of love in my gut,
drifting off to the hum of your engine.

in my dreams i let the door lock behind me.
the air is heavy,
silent.

i take a walk.
i'd like to imagine it's warm
outside but

i know
i'd be weightless in summer.
so, the snow falls

i make footprints--my feet sink down inches and inches.

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.

and after all this time
here i am wasting time again.
it's easier this way, me and my blistered fingertips,
squirming in the way that i do that you know when the
comfort's too much. the water's stagnant and the bugs will be out with
humidity. it bites the calluses--there's too much
scar tissue to feel it.

the feeling crawls in; house spider unnoticed. it has legs with claws and tiny hairs that scrape my skin; i take note of the brain-tingle, the alarm bells. i try to shake the feeling that

hiding something? no, this is supposed to be good. what don't i know? its a low pitched rumble this time, it started in the back of my head and my knees and not the top of my head like when love goes wrong or my toes when the blow is coming from the back. the spider tells me something's wrong. its voice is too soft to hear.

i ignore the gut-rumble and indulge my fight or flight. i can't shake the feeling but i try. i can never shake the feeling but
maybe i can
dislodge it
if i just-
one more second-

my poor spider's fangs probe my shoulder;
huh. i thought her mouth was too small to hurt me.
she's close enough now to hear her whispers;
i become the venom.

i ignore my sixth sense until im hanging on her noose.

there is no reason for anyone in the world to like poetry

why do i even try? you make me want to give up. you make me want to give up. i will never connect with anyone like that ever again. you make me want to give up. the more you make me do this the more i want to give up. im going to give up. im going to throw everything away. im going to throw it all away i swear i will. i will ruin my own life to spite you and i will smile doing it. you kiss the spit and pretend  i taste good, dont lie to me i know when people lie i can see it. i see everything i notice everything you think i dont? you think i wouldnt? i have trained my whole life for this and for the moment after you can never make me look stupid. you cant. you cant. im more like my father than i realize and my brother is more like me than he has figured out yet, i see the parallels, see the repetition, i dont want to be like my parents and i hate that my blood looks up to me. i hate that he looks up to me staring at me in the room we share when once a month i decide to come home youre nine years old and youve already lived in more houses than you can count i am so so sorry i love you so much please never pretend to be okay youre more like me than you will ever know if you love god god will love you and if you dont love him he isnt real nothing can hurt you i swore id protect you and i failed i failed i failed you and you dont know it yet but i failed you already i can see it in your eyes that are just like our fathers and i hope you look like me when youre older i hope i live long enough to see it i hope you do too i can sense it i miss you but you need to leave me alone

the room spins in past tense; i glance at the doorway. i could’ve sworn i heard the shift of the floorboards, i say the hinges whisper in my sleep. i let my eyes unfocus on the street lamp from my bedroom window and i follow the tracers; i befriend the ghosts under my bed. my mom only let me paint one wall pink. the memory drifts and gets replaced.

     i try not to let you see it but your
kindness shrivels me.
my whole life has been auburn
you think of me when the moon goes missing
i hold your spit-slicked hand

i can’t breathe
the carpet stops swaying, sea legs suffocating
what does it feel like?
i feel my pupils return to normal.
i scratch the ever constant itch
she sits back on the ***** of her feet

the road bends and curves. our skin is dewy and hot and we fog up the windows, your breath is humid on my chest. my head throbs, the tips of our pointer fingers just barely connecting out of sight, my stomach churns, i forget to sleep for a day. 2 days. 3. i try to force myself to eat and i get sick. you make me think of damp leaves, cotton and rubber, as persistent as a hangnail and as urgent as a hole through my chest. you ask me where is the logic in this, i make excuses for myself again. i think you can tell how bad it is. this itch will never let you love me, no matter how i scratch it.

i. it’s a sad morning, but only i know it. he wakes me with such tenderness, with a graze of fingers across my waist. i realize he thinks im sleeping and i wonder if he was awake all night too. the bodies in this place are still. i rouse myself from the couch and look at the people passed out on the other side of it, on the floor, in the kitchen. i try to remember what their names were and i can’t. i think of how i want to take a picture, the whispers of 5am light peeking through the blinds. i don’t take a picture. this home is unfamiliar.

i struggle to open the door. the girl with red hair lifts her head from the coffee table, “where are you going?” her hair is stuck to her face, sweat matting the burnt ends from too much bleach. i have to go to school and for a moment this embarrasses me, i don’t belong here with my 15 years. i don’t remember what i told her but it wasn’t the truth, and from behind the curtain of hair i hear, “make sure you be quiet going down the stairs.” my new love and i look for the cigarettes and realize we smoked them all last night. we leave this apartment for what will be the first of many times. i trudge down the stairs with the force of an earthquake.


ii. i wake, again, with my head on the floor. i’m facing someone’s bare back. i watch the muscles ripple through the exhales, i reach my hand out to touch him. he twitches before my fingers reach his shoulder and i recoil: this will be another sad morning. my sweat sticks my shirt to my skin. i throw off the blanket. two years later and my headache reminds me of my nicotine habit. i climb up to the bed, i avoid the boy as best i can and i sit there and sob. i have 17 years on my back and i know i belong here. i belong where i put myself. i bleed under the morning light and nobody notices—every house is unfamiliar to me now. the parallels jar me. i don’t have to go to school this time.

he’s top-heavy, he falls head-first when he goes. i think of trees in fall when i think of him, auburn fluttering when it hits the light the right way, brown in the dust kicked up when the trunk topples. i can’t seem to find ways to blame this on myself anymore. i love the sunlight but all your energy exhausts me—im thinking about my next high. i just want to geek out in my room.

my limbs go numb, my fingertips swell like moisture in the doorframe. it was a scorcher out yesterday, and the sun burnt holes in our skin when we stood still for too long. we bonded over the fact that we all missed that feeling, missed the glow behind our eyelids in clear skies. i let the dust cover me happily, crying through the eye-burn, swaying, falling, i’m a collector. my eye catches a shiny thing in the sunlight and i slip it in my pocket.

i sit back and feel the joints of my hips respond to the pressure, bones creaking like a staircase, a palm on my waist. you leave fingerprints, invisible, and bruises that aren’t. i breathe with the movements. i think briefly of trapdoors. my heartbeat slows and quickens to the tune of your vocal chords.

the scars resurface like bodies in the dirt after rain, orifices caked in sludge. the blood pools under the surface, nearly bursting. the expression makes it ******, i'm confused again. i cannot write anymore. i cannot think in sentences. i think in fragments and memories and thoughts of her sleeping with her jeans on. i speak through the crack in the closet door. i know she would've found it funny if i stayed, i think of his sandpaper hands and a stained duvet, i am 16 again with no one to hold me. i am 17 and this has never felt so right. i lust after senses, i miss cleanliness and remembering, i remember who i was when i was 15 and realize i cant remember much of anything since then. i imagine a situation where i never lost my love and kept my appetite, a situation where the drug abuse never stunted my cognitive functions, everything is so clear until it suddenly isn't, the last coherent thought i ever had i was 14 and the whole world was against me. i cant make **** sound poetic anymore. i feel like im 14 again and she sleeps with her jeans on

somehow these walls look smaller with the pictures taken down,
i havent felt myself in weeks.
i havent felt this way since
my foot-soles kissed 230 on the comeup,
since 120 burned a hole in my nose and made me choke on the pellets.
i miss addiction in the purest way.
i miss your bed but not your mouth,
i miss your hands but only on my hips and nowhere else.

imagine:
the dogs are barking again.
the years have not yet caught up with me and
my hands are still supple, uncallused.
my mother holds them
in her working palms, cups my fists with nearly
20 years of withdrawals etched on the knuckles.
my father dwells on the couch like an animal;
his nose bleeds in his sleep. the afternoon sun wanes;
soon, he will rise, nocturnal in all his glory,
the nail of his pinky finger long and battered,
scratching the air for his next fix.

these hands don't gush from love--i was an angry child.
when the sun shone i screamed and i flew through the
tall grass; indiana was still a prairie back then.
i cut the worms up.
i watched them writhe.
they wriggled, brainless, back into the earth,
the remaining tail end helpless in my sweating palm.

when i was 4 they put houses where the fields were.
i was never the same after that.

7pm:
january evenings are cold.
we know this place and all its weaknesses well;
we've spent summers spitting and nodding in the park bathrooms when
our parents yelled far too much and
sitting inside all day proved to be too much stimulation.
it's winter now; the third since my rebirth, in fact,
the bathrooms are locked
and our parents fall silent when we enter the room.
yet we are still persistent, perhaps more desperate, jaded yet still children,
so the strongest foot out of all of ours
connects with the space directly under the lock and handle
with a grunt and
the door thumps open without too much resistance.
like i said, we know this place's weaknesses well,
and staying in the house is no longer an option.
(however, we are still children in the end. i'm the only one who remembered to hide my face from the cameras.)

It wails like an infant. the silence completely deafens me, the noise makes my head ache. the Thing crawls down my spine, ever so softly and i shiver from the tenderness. the promiscuity, undisguised. i remember where i am and my eyes focus on your figure. i pinch myself, i cross my eyes, i distort you. i imagine that you are a terrible thing.

the snow leaves us speechless and comatose. you shudder.
i have always been obsessed with the movements of you, i sigh when you twist and you
****. the smell is ******. i
can’t feel my legs? i can’t feel my
can’t feel my
jaw or the
top of my nose or my
spine, i bleed inward, and i   i   i
i am TERRIFIED OF MY OWN BODY.
you swear that this silence is toxic.you
can’t get a word out of me i’ve been choking.im never fine but i believe it

you are collateral damage.

you look down at your hands, they are callused and bleeding in all the places your teeth broke the skin so many times, this is,

is this some small victory? is this war necessary? the sound breaks through the silence but it is still muffled. the bathroom door is closed. there are people on the sink, in the bathtub, you are puking and have no idea who is holding your hair back. you feel fingers shove their way into your throat. you bite down,

your hands are bleeding again. you don't know your limit, you fall in love again, it all just aches in your chest. you were pretending the whole time, oh my god, you were pretending the whole time. you are staring at your hands.

this death is inevitable and the artillery smiles at you with all the love of a new mother like the friendly fire is so friendly and these casualties are so casual. you are fighting a war with yourself. you are fighting a war with your body and you are fighting a war with whoevers *******
fingers
are in your
throat

and the body count is rising. the air teases your lungs.

there is something disgusting stuck in my throat.
the dogs are barking. i gnaw on the joints of my hands to the
beat of their dissonance; this is what got me sick in the first place.
me and my butterfly wings,
my butterfly knife and my
butterfly rash.
winter is always diseased.
i just want to be left alone yet i swell and secede,
i urge and i can't keep ignoring,
this death will be the death of me.
i hate me

you’re ******* with me. mom always said your eyes go black when you’re angry and i see it now, too clear, i’m Crying. i’m Terrible, right? like a boil i fester underneath the kitchen table. you can not touch me, you can not touch me, donttrytotouchme cause i haunt this place. i haunt this home and all the other ones i died in; i pull your teeth and make things go bump in the night

so here i am because ghosts cant leave the place they died. my blood is in the other bed ******* in snot. my hands smell like ****. i know your skeletons very well. we dance and bleed together when you walk down the stairs, when you give us that look, we cry when your voice hits the window, my little finger pushes all the bite behind me. we wail in unison.

everything looks prettier fragmented. i have pieces of you lodged in my ribcage, my lower back, the bottoms of my feet. all catching the light as i move. (i imagine myself in the back seat of someone’s car. i cant hear the music over the static.

it marvels at my lucidity. maybe i am more blind than i thought, i think too late.) i know exactly how your heart beats. i know exactly how you breathe and all your dips and hills and plains, and i think maybe i know you too well. (it watches me destroy my body.

it nods in silence. i imagine myself in the passengers seat of someones car.) i puke and pretend that you’re holding my hair back.

poised to take this punch in the gut, i stand like a statue,
weathered and wasting before you.
what is left will remain hard until i am nothing.
i am ashamed at the
stability of your flesh,
your unsure steps mean nothing when
your tongue is all steel and
my core is all worthless and i
feel nothing from you and
this infuriates me.

the blood rushes to your head and yet your
eyes stay cold?

2. his lips are all softened strips of flesh like mine,
lacerations in the callus.
the contrast is hard to ignore.
i stand before him like i'm made of sand:
he has your smile.
his eyes wash over me;
i crumble.

im twisting through this harshness in all my bare-brained glory. ill come to terms with this before i burn this bridge and that i’ll live by; i’m throbbing on this curb,
i know i’m dying on this hill;

i am blessed in my heart and my soul and your
ridges in all their perfection. i’ve become obsessed with your pliability, can you twist your hips like that for me again? i want to attract the doves, your god can’t wait to absorb all my sorrow, and



my eyes give me away.

i swear i have

knives on my

waist and they’ll

cut if you

touch,

the solidity scares you,

why don’t you intimidate me?

i pay the price for this stale air, and savor the quiet: this humidity sticks to my shirt, coats the skin in my nose. i go over it in my head like i will say it, but i don’t, and i
still get a rise out of you. i can just hear your heartbeat over the air conditioning and lil *** vert and the ear damage. i am notorious for making homes out of nothing; a closet, a hospital cot, the floor of your bedroom. i shall only grow to fit my space and yet i realize too late that this is no home for me sober. ill get drunk and eat these ******* moths, i'll [CENSORED] and i won’t even see them.

i have your mind, i have it squishy and malleable in my small hands, i have your heart and all that other **** that fills you too. i have you and you know it. i have you and it keeps you up at night, it keeps you texting me and it keeps you in my palm, wrapped around my little finger til the circulation’s cut.

i like it ****** but i always seem to **** the wrong way. your clothes are on my floor but i ****** it the wrong way. you gave my **** back cause i ****** you the wrong way, i wanna **** this up the right way. i do this for a living, i’m living as an actress; i ***** better than i lie and i lie better than i breathe.

i am a liar and no one is spared,
not even my love. i twitch and convulse and i
pulse like a sore, kissing my bandage with tongue,
professing my worth without words.
you melt into me like youre partly at fault when you
know that my fault is my fault and not yours;
i bite like im tough.
you snap like you’re not.

I relish in my ripeness, fertility dripping from in between my thighs, I’m this unchaste ****** Mary, I am. I’ve been touched by far too many and it’s obvious, obviously. He can smell it on me because it lingers forever, they say that dogs can sense the *** on you.

how unholy is this fornication, the irony of it all is so invigorating.
the hunger alone is enough to fill me, yet the act is carried out effectively:

he makes me *** like he’s reading verses:
the movements committed to memory.

i.  its feeding off my body,
    the emotions turned to physical symptoms: i feel sadness like an
    ache in my stomach. i feel loneliness in my chest.
    my whole body is a callus.
          (how many bruises do you have?)
    im jealous cause i want you and it makes you want me more.
    i get high cause i love you and it makes me wanna puke.
                                                           ­                  i'll bite all your nails off.
    *******, just **** me already cause it makes you want me more
    and you need that security. its a give and
    take, mutual reconciliation,
    symbiosis.

ii.       i never fall for the body count, this **** means nothing to me.
          **** your blunt, that's my blunt now. i think i have control.
          
          so, *******, that's my blunt, that's my
          bad. you can do whatever you want to me; my pride isn't at
          stake, that's someone else's problem now. i have nothing so i
          have nothing to lose, we both know that i only came to
          smoke and you only invited me because
          i'm fresh meat. it's a give and take, supply and demand,
          symbiosis.

i want that tall grass field,
i want that summer shine, the drone of the cicadas,
i want it all. i want that all for me.
i need to stop ending up in the hospital.

she said, the next time you try to leave i wont call the police.
she said, the next time you walk out on me i wont bother finding you.

he lost it. he lost it and she told him so, he said he felt responsible. maybe you are. maybe i am. but i ended up in the hospital again and

the little ******* my bus watched me sobbing on a stretcher from her window.

this one boy i know still lights his squares in his hand, still thinks two cigarettes in a day is too many, doesn't quite yet know the constant throat-burn borne from all that puking, but he still knows that

flying too close to the sun will melt you like chewing gum.

i want that tall grass itch,
i want that on my bare feet.

not quite over-the-counter but it works just the same, youre in way over your head, youre spitting and drooling and hacking out your lungs and you smile up at me in between the ******* and it makes me want to tell your mom not to worry,
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,
                    where did all this ******* saliva come from, for christs
                    sake, im ******* drowning in it. i think i want to be
                    violent now, i think its my time, i think ive been waiting
                    long enough for it. in my mind i still have my training
                    wheels on, you terrify me
you still wear that necklace, i saw it when you pulled up your shirt the other day in my room, on my bed, lately looking you in the eyes has been so ******* hard but i manage, i manage when i can, i pull you to my chest when youre on top of me because i miss the way your hugs feel,
oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,
                     i still love you, dont you know that? lately ive been
                     crying and puking at nothing, these are the symptoms
                     i guess. i want you to be rough but its too soon for you
                     to hurt me; my parents arent home, do you wanna
                     come over