I still don’t understand why my mother insists on eating meals at the dining room table
But I’m starting to realize why she likes windows in the kitchen, above the sink
Maybe there’s a piece of me-
Chipped corners on the granite countertop
(Where my teeth took a beating at ten)-
Carrying an overwhelming fear of being left out
Maybe, I am like my mother
And she is like me.
I can’t hear her calling out,
But she’s present in the spice rack and the memorized cookie recipe in my phone-
I’ve taken up her affinity for long articles and paranoid monologues,
But I’m struggling in keeping with her veracious consumption of innocence paperback novels
Maybe all her words were wisdom
And I just am foolish child
Maybe, I am like my mother
And she is like me.

A comprehensive list of fears
My mother always said
Make a list and check it twice
Beware unrepresented ignorance and under-communicated pain
Here is my list thus far
Heights
Religion
Confronting myself
Rejection
Chalk
Praying and hearing anger
Armageddon
Team sports
Embarrassment
Being second best
The possibility I am in fact unlovable and have destroyed the one good person I had through my own selfishness
Changing plans
Phone calls
Momma says
It can’t hurt you if you write it down and just-
Be aware.

I like this comfort in my body
The feeling of kindness
Soaking my bones
If only my flesh could be the net for the sea of swirling emotions
If only my mom could see me without my pain
If only my father would look at me without a ghost in his words
All the same,
I like the way you feel
I like the sweetness in your eyes
Being wanted is foreign
A friend waving across the hallway-
After years of lost contact-

Still
I like the goodness that exudes from your smile and the way you warm me right down to my stony heart
(Is that the sound of beating I hear?)
Once again
I will try to love.

I lost all of myself for a couple of pills
I lost all of myself for a year of bliss
I lost all myself for a while.

For a while I was out of my body
For a while I felt nothing but the endless death and rebirth
The stability of true love
I thought.

I thought I was whole
And I thought he was enough
To replace me

How little I thought I was ...
How little I thought of love

I lost myself for a while
And for a while shall I roam-
All alone.

I’ve become a believer in the gods of small rooms
And I’ve come to befriend the librarians in every town I pass through
I’m a firm follower of the books on my nightstand and the childhood that got away from me
Some day I’ll learn about the reality of the matters in the big wide sky
But for now
I’m a believer in everything one might imagine could possibly join the bindings of a romance novel.

Do nothing
Just staring at the walls
I know I’m supposed to say
I do it because I’m sad
Or I don’t like the way I feel
But really
To do nothing is my greatest pleasure
Putting on a record
Dancing alone
Doodling ******* that never gets finished
Books untouched staring at me
Homework and responsibilities ignored
Doing nothing
Perhaps in sitting alone
I find no expectations
(And no regrets)
Perhaps when I have nothing to do
I have carved my own corner of the universe-
One, I alone determine

You hit me and it was shocking
Being hit by lightning never felt so divine
Being in love never felt so real
You hit me and I could Feel
For the first time
But I mistook licking the floor at your feet for love
And I misunderstood that eating out of your ***** hands was bad for my health
When you told me love was a chain and a collar, I believed you
So when you walked away -
Where was I supposed to go but to follow?
And when I was whining at your heels
How you turned and snarled
“Back to your corner till tonight”
So when you were done ******* them
Then you crawled back to me
And opened my cage-
Only to push my head between your legs
Only to tell me how it felt
To have another for lunch-
While waiting for me at dinner.

Night pour into nights
I was your night
But you had made yourself my Entire understanding of light.

But hey, that’s love right?
We let them destroy us with words and pain
Till we stand up
Only to get kicked down again and torn into for asking-
“Why am I not enough?”