a hand.

my breathing slows
i fight back the throbbing in my forehead

"what's wrong?"

i bury my tear-stained face into his chest
he slides onto the bed
pulls me tight
rubs my back

"it's okay.
it's all okay.
it's okay."

Falling.
I close my eyes. I don't want to be seen,  don't want to be asked what is wrong.
I will suffer and die alone.
I do not even flinch as I am about to hit the pavement.

Every month when I have ***
It's like a hurricane ripped through my sanity
Tearing the curtains
Shattering the glass so I can barely see out the window
My perception of myself is distorted
I feel like a sandbag being carried through Arizona
Useless, purposeless
I lie in my bed staring up at the ceiling
My hormones are writhing, mixing, I lose my balance and teeter off the edge
Into the gulley below.

i don't want to flatten you out
put you on a frame in the hall of fame
where people would go just to gawk and stare at you
that would be so cruel of me, because you-
you
are so much more complex than that
you are the foundation of a house
something everyone takes for granted because they cant see it
how many times have you slipped out unnoticed
by those looking for the shiniest, brightest stars in the world
if you look for those
you miss the planets
you miss the way that you sleep with a shirt over your head to "block out the light" so you can sleep better
you miss the ridiculous, pleasurable conversations
"did you know that Louie Armstrong would cut off the callouses on his lips with a pocket knife?"
"we should write a comic strip about a starch that smokes **** and call it "The Baked Potato."'

let's keep away from the photographers, the paparazzi, the artists, the writers

you hate attention anyway
said you would rather "sleep on the roof for a week" than give a presentation in public

i have discovered you
but i won't ever tell

the books will not mention you
there will be no statues of us
but the ones we build with sugar cubes on the privacy of our own kitchen table
where messes like us can be swept away and kept in no other place than our memories
and the storage on my phone

i will memorize the lines on your torso and back
but children will never study you in geography, they will never be asked the year you were born or at what latitude and longitude your chest muscles meet your abdominals

a search on Google will pull nothing about you

you remain undiscovered
to all
but me.

Dress up like the ghosts
From your past and try not to
Scream when they come by.

Today is the day
We dress up like the skeletons in our closet

We will see witches
But we will not remember the normal women in Salem
Accused

Today is the day
We let the children dress up like goblins
Wrap their arms around our necks
As the demons from our past leer just behind
Breathing down our backs.