how am i supposed to write about being delicate when i am a pressurized ball of rage, coiled tightly like a snake reeling to strike, how am i expected to
write about the soft parts of myself when all i feel is this ugliness within me, swirling like a swarm of flies, dark,
dark like peeling away the layers of my skin,
imagine what i could do to myself uninterrupted.
imagine what i could do to myself uninterrupted.

how am i expected to love you when im overwhelmed with this hatred,
this loathing, ripe and so so so so close to erupting,
like a brain swell, and
how can i
explain this violence inside of me, so gory, so beautiful,
imagine what i could do to myself with this rage.
imagine what i could do to myself with this rage.

i am not beautiful. i am filmy eyes and dirt crusted nails and i want you to know that i am not beautiful. i did not appear here in a swath of light, all oozing with virginity, i appeared here with my mother kicking and screaming. my life has been years of lying in wait like a dog. i cant afford to be patient anymore.

i promised you i wouldnt do this to you and i did.
i wait through crying. i watch you as your knees kiss my carpet ever so softly and i wait for the deafening sound of your hands against my ears to stop making them ring and i
wait for a break in your tears to mutter a backbitten apology before everything goes silent again.
through all of this my ghost remains sanguine and
he kisses my carcass with wanting and
i think of how i could never regret this,
not even if you lost your ****** job in the projects and
not even when you stop going to school or
stop pretending like you mean something to the world and
i think of his perfect smile and the way his hair falls into his eyes when he ***** me and i will never regret hurting you.
i promised you i wouldnt do this to you but i did.
i never meant to hurt you but i will do it again.

your intestines are malevolent, plotting. one day they’ll mutiny and **** themselves to get rid of you. this is the most selfless thing you will ever do. the smell clings to everything in the room.

you’ve set everything into motion. it spreads like an outbreak, you can see the romance in the epidemic. the sound fractures like light, a splintering, a prism of ignorance. you press your body up against my lips and i press back harder.

im torn. i feel my body warping in two different directions. it’s kind of sad, isn’t it? the holidays are full of, are you driving yet? are you dating anyone? what school do you go to? i remember when you were THIS tall!

i hate the way my skin ripples, clothed in snot soaked rags and knowing the difference between a variable and a weapon. you kiss my neck and i shiver. i love you. i miss my brother.

what have i become?
its grotesque inside of me;
endlessly rotting flesh

i. i think i could make you real proud.
   i hate who ive become,
   all molten wings and soundless
   footsteps; i am a ghost in this house.
   i think i could make you real proud,
   real proud if i tried.
   smoke-smelling cave-dwelling
   teenager with nothing to do except
   weep for the victim inside of her, oh i
   cry for the ******* the outside too.
   oh how much you’ve grown,
   oh how much you’ve grown,
   oh how much you’ve blossomed,
   sweet girl,
   i haven’t seen you in so long.

i sip gasoline
like its medicine and i
taste the cough syrup

ii. i can explain why you haven’t seen me,
    i am too small for anyone to look.
    i am large in my mind. i fill up the room.
    no one notices.
    inside my head i kiss rooftops as i
    hover, small-brained and
    numb-minded like a bird or a
    teenager and i
    belong in that back seat, on that
    pavement making love with the asphalt.
    i nest amongst the darkness and the
    empty monster cans like
    a dragon hoarding its wealth.

i'd get high all day
if i could. but i must bleed
for the girl i lost

iii. we must fulfill something or else
     we wouldnt be here. we would be
     sick with worry if the birds migrated in
     summer; just like my mother
     cries herself to sleep over me
     every night.
     she chose this life, she chose me
     swollen and thick skinned, they say
     pregnancy changes your whole body.
     (i would know, wouldnt i?)
     i lay back, teary-eyed and red-cheeked,
     i forget my mother, i forget what
     she stands for, i forget my father and what
     he never stood up to, i forget that my heart
     is still beating, pumping, i
     forget that i
     am alive and
     i have so much
     worth left in me and
     i lay back, i lay back, i let them take me.

he was vile, laying there all pitiful-like with his arms spread. "what happened to you?" i asked. he never responded, just spasmed and bled from his mouth. after everything i sat beside him.

the dawn was breaking then, and the grass was cold and slick with dew and ****** fluids--this was before northwest indiana set her cattails on fire. he looked up at me, not pleadingly. his gaze was full of understanding. his hair was knotted and covered in silt.

"youre going to die." i said. "youre going to die if you lay here like that." i always had criticisms. he told me so.

he rose with all the power he had left in him and ****** violently, separating the skin on his back from his muscles. for a moment i forgot to be afraid of him. with one last twist and twitch his bones

sliced through his pallid skin like butter and he extended his wings.

and suddenly i understood.

i left him laying there, all pitiful-like with his wings spread, on the pure homegrown indiana land.

he died, just like i said he would, because no matter what i always have to be right, dont i? he told me so.

everytime I shut my eyes I see afternoon, sun waning; a running creek, all shades of green swaying, sunlight shooting beams through the treetops and sparkling off the water, off your blonde hair, all silence except
the rustling of the trees and
the singing birds and the
sounds of your soft movements and
the song playing from your phone

you disturb the peace for just a moment
a gunshot. a mess of blood
and as fast as it started it’s over
and quiet again
and it’s just the birds and the sun shining
on wet rocks

(A square of concrete just big enough for the both of us to sit on
That overlooks the creek
that runs under the train tracks behind your house
We spent half a decade there together, in
that same spot)

.

We knew each other like no one else did
And I can feel my name on everyone’s lips

I saw you there dead with your mouth full of blood like the movies

.

To reach eternal
Beauty you must
Return to worms

in the summer her mother cries out her name,
as the harvest comes in.
rows of pure indiana corn,

swollen, pollen-filled and
waiting. festering.
in summer, she sits hungry and

wanting. like a sick dog she waits at her doorstep,
sweltering; silent; whining through molars
and drool.

she hears her mother call her name again and
through the spit she imagines
a billion corn-seeds

crying with her. she walks toward
the porch and sees her mama and
all her broken fingers.

she feels the pregnant stalks call after her;
they use her name and spit her mistakes back at her
like sunflower seeds.

she opens the screen door; her head aches,
she smells
of grain and pond-water and

baby powder.
she feels her arteries and
extends her elytra,

jerks her thorax toward the setting sun,
breaks all six legs on
impact.

her pollen-friends insist they're laughing with her,
they poke her limbs.
they watch her writhe.

"oh, isn't this beautiful? how gorgeous
you look with your
husk shucked off you."

she nods; silent. how flayed she is,
how vulnerable, how innocent,
like a pig led for slaughter.

i forgot her name but she probably remembers mine; after all i was her only friend. indiana heat, if you could call it that, sweltering sun in the summer makes the corn grow she said. chugging milk in our underwear on the street corner, i bleed and she bleeds with me like it’s voluntary but i know that she’s just gushing ‘cause we share the same veins and nerves and she punched the clot right out of my gut; i twitch, she twitches harder, conjoined physically and emotionally. i try to

signal at her from across the room, catch her gaze, try to communicate telepathically, i squeeze my eyes shut and pinch my fourth-grade brown bermuda shorts to my pig thighs and she turns to meet my eyes. i catch a glimmer in her face and she moves her hands in such a way that i know she’s understood me, i know she knows that i know that she knows that i

i know im changing ‘cause i haven’t felt like this in a long time, it’s been years since i couldn’t speak but only days since i’ve been vulnerable and i
hate it but ill
deal with it ‘cause
i gotta share a room with my brother now and
dad says he needs me, so he needs me, and

          i believe in words and body language, i
          believe in believing, i believe in love, i
          believe in things you wouldn’t even guess,
          because i used to be able to fly. i could

jump up real high and hover, lean my body in the direction i wanted to move and go there, float however long i wanted to, i swear it, but no one ever believes me. maybe i don’t believe me completely either but id like to believe that i can believe enough for it to be true because

          if i could fly back then, then that means
          my time spent on the ceiling
          was voluntary,
          and not some product of
          helplessness, avoidance,
          things are just so unfair and
          you’re so ******* stupid with your
          stupid ******* smirk and your
          stupid ******* ******* stupid
          laugh that makes my chest hurt cause
          your shoulders shake when you giggle
          and i think it’s so ******* beautiful and
          it really is so ******* beautiful and
          terrifying and
my dad asked me when we moved if i wanted his old mattress and i felt my insides twist and i
said no thank you with a smile but i,

i wouldn’t touch that nasty ******* bed if you ******* paid me to do it

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

i trickle where he
needs me and ooze where he
doesn’t want me, blistering

blistering like i always have on my fingertips,
swaying and tripping, pinching him when
he puts cigarettes out on himself—

relishing in the hypocrisy.
i feel his aura, resisting against me like magnets,
softening my skin like butter and

pleading with me to keep quiet,
he’d never admit that he’s scared but
he cries when the wind is too strong and

his shell walks beside me.
i cry when i'm scared
and i can't seem to reach him,

abrasive. abrasive, only in theory.
id let these fluorescent lights touch every inch of me.

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.

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.  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.

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.

i remember sitting, next to her, on her basement floor. limbs numb and useless, pathetic. i looked her in the eyes.
“im done with the pills. really, this time. im done.”
i used to let her touch my thighs, so in return she answered me with translucent sincerity. the kind of honesty that wears masks.
“you’re just saying that because youre broke.”
this was before all those nights swaying under bathroom lights, clinging to the edges of the tiles on the floor and feeling the rot from in between the linoleum squares collect under my fingernails. i nodded in agreement, because she was right. she was always right, about everything. i learned to accept this and it soon became a comfort.
i remember apologizing. i remember always apologizing. i remember how she pressed her palms on the small of my back, giggling, “are my hands cold?” i shivered and recoiled, sorries spilling out like buttons for the sudden movement. “yes,” sorries spilling out like organs for the lie. your hands were never cold, i just never learned how to deal with the pressure. i still press on my bruises. i still can never get the hang of a temporary tattoo.
if i had the chance i would tell her i missed her. i would tell her how it took me almost ten years to get used to another pair of blue eyes, i would tell her i see her face everywhere. i would tell her how leo died and how ill see her brother soon, isn’t that crazy? isn’t it crazy how i haven’t seen john since you left me? i can see myself now, standing in front of her, skin glistening like vaseline. i see myself harrowed, cut open with glass, insulation spilling out of my guts just like her basement walls and speaking so softly you can barely hear,
“see? i can be soft too, i swear i can be soft too!”

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. I FEAR BEING POINTLESS
     i understand what you say without words,
     i feel your energy,
     i feel it flowing, animate, extending his
     tendrils and writhing like roadkill.
     you stand beside me. retching.
     re-opening wounds in spite of the hands
     that feed you because you just
     don’t have enough teeth to bite with yet and
     you comment on how this is kind of gross,
     isn’t it? the way it oozes like that?
     pulsing in my eardrums, i say no, this is
     beautiful,
     because i can hear what you’re saying
     like a deaf barn dog hears dinner bells

II. I FEAR I WILL BE LEFT BEHIND
     i feel dust caking, dry as soon as it hits the
     sweat on my eyebrow. i try to imagine my
     flesh growing under the weight of it,
     melding together, increasing in mass.
     ive felt heavier lately anyway,
     i keep scratching my legs ‘cause theres
     something in those veins in there, im telling
     you, it breathes at night when it thinks
     im asleep

III. I FEAR MIRRORS AND SCALES
     i keep remembering things i shouldn’t,
     i remember all the daycares ive filtered
     through. i remember (her), and her gameboy
     color and physiological tremor, speaking
     to me through the fruit snacks she fed me.
     i tried telling her how this felt.
     i tried telling her how inhuman i was, how
     something just didn’t feel right, is this
     normal? is this part of growing up?
     do you become an adult when you notice
     what’s missing? no,
     you become an adult when you realize you
     are made to break apart, you become an
     adult when you realize your joints are
     perforated, you become an adult when
     being fearless terrifies you.

(you collect phobias and arrange them on a platter, born from desperation, you feed into them and they respirate knowing you are absolutely nothing without them)

i spit n kick like dew drippin off leaves,
i learned 2 b soft so i will b soft when i am brittle.
i think of the way i thought of u back then, lethargic at best,
pretendin like u were a god when really u just mistook all that drool for ichor.
im sure uve noticed by now im abrasive,
under the assumption that apples fall far from the tree and
“i swear that im soft, i swear my skin is thin and
i swear im bein honest,”
but ive nevr been honest, not even 2 myself,
cause i didn’t even realize i had walls up til u tried breakin em down and
i know i scare too easily,
its jus the way that i bleed,
im like a rabbit in the middle of the street and
you’re going 80mph and
my paws r 2 small to matter if i die again

im spiraling. im spiraling. im spiraling. i didnt think i had the fight in me to light a fire this bright, oh god i am relishing in hating so hard.
     i dont breathe easy anymore. every bit of breath i catch is milky,
     heavy like fog, hovering between the states of matter. i want to
     destroy this vessel.
i bask in this violence. i hate every inch of myself down to my guts and this is all my own fault. i love the summer but ill miss that winter glow.
     i want to destroy myself. i want to grind myself up into powder. i
     want to force all this loathing into my throat and choke on it.

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.

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.

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

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 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

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 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.

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.

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.

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?)

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

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 think i have shed myself of you.
for years i felt you stirring inside of me like a caged animal,
spitting on stale bread to make it soft again, hanging up your underwear with clothespins on my small intestine,
so innocent and sweet and painful like
how a cavity forms.
i sat slow and bleeding like a ball jointed doll,
i wanted to press my thoughts into your skin like thumbtacks.
i wanted to feel your breath on my skin just once,
just once,
maybe once again just to be sure of the smell im destined to avoid and i
will never, ever, never not ever ever let you hurt me again because
some things can’t be forgiven and
some things will always be forgotten
whether you have a choice in the matter or not

perhaps i have not been completely honest,
with you, or myself,
i lie so often i start to believe it.
the worst of me is in the detail.
1. girl, puking blue raspberry svedka in the backseat. covered in bruises and tripping over herself in the january snow, too drunk to stand.
2. girl, she likes it when it hurts. yours were not the first inside me, i lied about this too. the door didn’t lock so she pushed the chair in front of it, put her hand over my mouth, told me to be quiet. i closed my eyes and counted to ten; once, twice, until it ended.

i bound broken bones together in silence as to not disturb her sleeping, crunching adderall between my teeth and swallowing the paste with apple juice. i bandaged myself together every night.
i have been supporting this weight all my life.
“i never meant to hurt you, i
was just taking my share of the meat.”

you are as sick as i expected.

i can tell that you wish i was softer,
i want to make myself more docile. i want to
pry my fingernails off for you, offer them to you as a libation,
let the auditory hallucinations do their job.
although small you’re a god nonetheless,
speaking in tongues i will never understand,
drinking flat soda because the smoke has clawed holes in your trachea and the fizz burns just a bit too much for your vessel to handle.
you take care of this body like you take care of mine,
alive;
floating, and
     in all the dimensions,
counting quarters in the back of the car.
     you are my god, and i am your fowl.
i swallow pennies, let the copper taste
     fill me up and choke me and
crawl up my spine.
     mold me like clay.