my brother born blue
you'll never know exhaustion
but you still sleep-in

there are apples in the cafeteria
shrink-wrapped like they were
meant to be shipped off to outer space
but ended up here somehow

they asked me what i wanted the headline of my life to be
at a time when it took everything in me
to keep my name out of the obituaries.

how i like my people emotionally unavailable. how much trouble they are. how much trouble i am. how i’m not trying to be difficult, i’m trying to look out for myself, because nobody else is going to except, maybe, my mother, but she can’t really do anything for me. how she asked if i was drinking because i was sad and i said no (i don’t know what i am. the drinking is coincidental.) how i’ve felt 21 since i was ******* 14. that time my friend said “i used to be a person” and i said “me, too.” how procedurals take advantage of people who don’t know any better, how they use them to explain things. the girl who had chad’s baby. diego && all the other names i love but can never use. feeling like someone’s inverse. intelligence. how tired i am; too tired to do this, to do anything. how to tell someone i’ve been preparing from/recovering from monday for whole days and i’m still not ready. how there has to be more than this, there has to be more than this, there has to be, there has to. my happiest moment, my saddest moment, the worst act of violence i have ever witnessed: katie in the bathroom with the butcher knife. a day i would live over and over again if i could (i don’t know what day. not today.) the word no. no, no, no. how that is the only word i can manage now. no, i didn’t sleep. no, i didn’t do anything. no, i didn’t get out of bed today. no. blow. a metaphor about my ribs turning into seatbelts. that time cameron drove without a license. something a man says in the street “she was young, wasn’t shah?” how he wanted my body so badly he took it from me. this sentence:

baby, you can get it back.

she says report, report, report it
i’m trying to tell her
how difficult it was
to even disclose to her
how my ribs
turned into seatbelts.

i go to the hospital because thats what you're supposed to do. because everyone seems to change their minds about their ******* dads when they seem them lying helplessly in a bed for invalids. but i don't. i look at him and i don't feel a **** thing. until the machines shut off, he's alive. as long as he's alive, he's the man that grabbed my wrist so hard it still doesn't bend right. a terminal diagnosis doesn't change that.

all thats left keeping him alive is that life support and all the people in this room, people he's hurt, who are crying over him like he said a kind word to them in his life. *******.

when the doctor comes in and tells us its time, my sister starts wailing. i think its a stalling tactic. so i pull it out myself.

stop crying, its over.

maybe you were right: i never brought
home flowers or chocolate
cleverly arranged in the
shape of a heart and
i couldn't afford a day at the spa
but i'd always sit with my bare ***
on the cold bathroom tile for hours and
feed you toasted bits of cheese on ritz crackers
while you cried in the bathtub i'd
braid your hair as you
let your fingers wrinkle until
the water cooled off too much your
******* got hard and bubbles
stuck to the cut of your shoulders

because you were there when
my mom's little car died on a backroad
under the old black tree
that scratched up the sky
you pulled your pants up
over ruby knees and asked
me to fix your bra
smoked a cigarette lying upside down
across my damp chest
facing my feet and
made me make a promise
while i traced music notes into
the soft flesh of your back with
my ***** fingernails and found
the cracks in your porcelain ankles
with my tongue

you said my love for you is
something that will never make sense
and you never know what to do
with your hands when i'm kissing you
but you moaned the chorus while
i sang verses into your bellybutton
and tied a couple fingers to the
soft web of hair behind your ears
we were like two locusts
fighting in a gossamer heap

two weeks later you were dancing
in my kitchen like a daffodil drunk
on robotussin wearing only striped
peppermint legwarmers and
authentic dreamcatcher earrings
so i bought a theremin from
your favorite pawn shop
and taught you how to tickle it
and as the wind picked up
whipped your hair into a
crucial comet's tail and rustled
the caterpillar from the windowpane
back to it's home in the wormy grass
i could hear the warm whistle
it made when you played with it
alone in the bedroom

i am crying now while
driving down highway one
recalling how your nose crinkled
when you smoked crushed roaches
or the way your hair tasted in the morning
and how you used to spit a
little bit when you laughed
and i can still hear that haunted echo
even as the saltwater swells
and splashes past the rocks

that sun machine is just
a distant memory now
but it left burn marks on my skin
and the floor where we tumbled
and fought the first time
i called you beautiful

if he asks who i was to you
glance sideways & lie a little
exaggerate my mistakes &
laugh with him about my shortcomings
then feign bewilderment at the question

if he asks why you skip that song every time
lie a little & say it doesn't play all the way
through anyway but don't
tell him it was our lullaby for the rainy nights

if he asks how big it was
don't hurt his self-esteem
lie just a little bit & tell him
i had chapped plump lips carved from **** roast
a long curved nose like the scroll of a violin
& a heart like a busted squirrel cage
but omit the weeks we spent sprawled naked
on peyote friction furniture digging
our toenails into the floor

when he asks you what you're thinking
don't hint at the nostalgia
buried in your eyes & throat

if he asks what you're writing
on the edge of the bed first thing in the morning
lie a little lean down & kiss him
but never show him the dream journal
you stole from me & are keeping
as your own now

if he wonders aloud how you got those scars
after months of seeing you naked
tell him a little lie & never whisper
the names i gave them that first night
when i kissed your whole body

don't ever show him the tearstained
underside of your pillow &
act like you've forgotten my name
when he claims you say it
in your sleep most nights

if he corners you after work one day
& demands to know who i was
distract him
tell him you love him
& **** him right there in the kitchen
so he forgets to ask about the extra toothbrush in the shower
or the old flannel work-shirt hanging on your side
of the closet that smells like nothing he's ever smelled on you before

when he forgets your favorite flower
on your ******* birthday just shrug &
blow him in the car on the way to his parents' house
so that he never wonders about
your finger on the trigger of the gun at his head

let him fill the spaces i left between your fingers with his fingers
let him plaster the hole in your chest with new promises
let his toned shirtless testosterone replace my warm soft flesh beside you in bed
let his brass belt buckle be more comfortable for your angelic head
than my bare waist
let him replace the lingering scent of my insecurity with the new stench of his over-confidence

eventually he will learn to ignore the way you
twitch when he says my favorite curse word

eventually you will forget how my
bare feet used to tie into yours on the sofa

i am half priced but
full quality.

you told me we weren't alike
because when i sit in the sun
i feel sick.

but here we are
alike and touching
my hands hold yours but
mostly yours hold mind and
i am very scared.

i want to eat my arms
devour my legs
my heart
every bit of my body
so that i can be a morsel of my soul
so that i can be tiny
tiny
tiny tiny