I need feminism
because men are more upset about people saying "all men"
than they are about the fact that 1 in 4 women will be ***** in their lifetime.

Not harassed, not catcalled,
*****
And that is not okay.

I need feminism because out of the four women
I speak to everyday
two of them have been *****
and all four of them can't walk to their car
without sticking their keys through their fingers to
feel the slightest inclination of safety.

I need feminism
because the other day in my math class
a student said "She was asking for it"
and the teacher agreed.  

I need feminism
because when my father wasn't drinking
he was telling me to be a man.

I need feminism
because the way my father taught me to treat women
was to get them drunk.
It's not his fault,
he knew no better.

I need feminism
because my father knew no better.

that you would let me be your harbor.

grass blades gnaw at my backside,
they don’t mean to bite, they’re just fervent in their suckling.

finger knotted
mirror palm

it always felt more complete when it was just the three of us.
you, me, and the vast, faceless

upon him, you and i finger painted all these parallels.
places we would never see,
rabbit warren cabins we’d never trouble ourselves to clean,

big, stupid piles,
bodies lie vine tangled,
but something halcyon, no more.

“look around the warren.
take what you can carry, because this is the last you’ll see of this room.”

over time, after the border closure,
after the parades of death squads,
faces of our brothers and lovers cloaked in ivory.,

we learned to condense three people into one.
we learned to say less, our words short and curt,
save for hours after, or in between,
when we could warm our skinny wrists over an open flame,
dreaming of the heavy, 72-hour lemongrass day
when it was all just painted doors and blue lights as far as we could touch,

“look around the warren.
take what you can carry,
this is the last you’ll see of this room.
we won’t be back”

I have not written a good poem about you since our freshman year in college when I was still a drop out and the leaves were this odd orange color that wasn't quite orange, but not really quite red either.
Frat parties are stupid.

I have not written a good poem about you since that time I curled up while puking on myself in my driveway after I said I loved you when I thought I understood what love was and that you were it.
Love letters are stupid.

I have not written a good poem about you since that time you drunk dialed me and said something about how you missed me or something and how I was great and you wished we could work out.
My friends are stupid.

I have not written a good poem about you since last week.
This is stupid.

what lingers wanted is the smell of grass,
and the bell-ringing laughter that cascades
over steps i’d fallen down minutes before.

and what i want most is for you
to tell me what you see when your eyes shut,
the places you are when our eyes shut to you,
the infinite mass and space quietly tucked away,
beneath your brow,
beneath tendon, vein, and tissue,

tell me the colors of indigenous, endangered flora growing in this world of yours

i tried to eat my whole heart raw once.


but i could not stomach it. could not stomach the noxious ventricles down my throat, could not swallow the bollus of unfleshly pink carnage.
so i broke it into pieces and i blamed you instead, because it seemed easier to say you broke me than to say that i ever loved you.


i.

this is how you broke me :

whenever i thought of you ******* her i would think of dying inside.


dying is a blessing.

dying is the movie that i am too young to watch but too old to resist. dying is divinity, it is paradisical death in slow motion, an entity mushrooming in between the eyes of a decaying rabbit. it is tears being ****** back into the eyes of a small girl, legs apart, ***** ripped, the fruitlessness of futility bleeding out like saliva from a mouth. dying is being idle, dying is being able to think without questioning existence, dying is a moth, paled by smoke.


it is that tuesday night i promised myself i would never write again
if all i wrote was about you.



ii.


this is how i broke myself :

whenever i thought of you dying inside her, i would think of *******.


******* is a blessing.  


******* is the reason an orchid can sing without a stigma. ******* is the malformation of your tongue when you say " i hate myself, because i hate you, but i hate you more. ". ******* is about three blocks away from love. ******* and love are probably secret **** buddies. ******* is saying you love her. ******* is saying you love me. ******* is that heart-shaped bruise that you left on my wrist, that tuesday night you ***** me and called it love. ******* is telling me i am not her.



this disposition of 'her', the realisation she plays a better 'her', than i play 'her', the realisation that she stole 'her' from me, when'her' was a dream both of us  could hope to fake.



iii.


why people are kept broken:

you once told me, while ashing out a cigarette on my neck,
*"it is better to stay broken so nothing else can ever break you again."