get it out of your head
she says.
everybody knows i can't follow directions. everyone knows my bruises & my freckles; in fact, they know the parts of my body better than i do.
take your own advice
she says.
the rhinestones on her eyelashes are distracting. i keep thinking
they are going to fall into her eyes
but she knows this too
she knows about my ear piercings
she knows they are closing up.
you're such a *******
she says.
you're so ugly. you're stupid
she says.
i sympathize with hairy arms. i sympathize with her jawline. it doesn't mean anything in the end
except maybe that i cared a little too much
about things like crawling bees. or liquor stores.
i found your third grade notebook. you're embarrassing
she says.
we hold hands & in the process our bodies melt into each other
my right,
her left.
i feel her veins against my own. she is not very strong. she is all ribs & fat & cartilage.
sometimes i want someone else to walk beside me. she comes out of my body when no one else is around
we take the bus downtown. nobody notices
we are conjoined.

we are your daughters too! we are your daughters, have you forgotten that part? have you been gone so long that your memories have shriveled into space gaps and brain tissue and eggnog?

young stud, blue jeans. there’s a sister in the room, you don't have to worry about being dizzy anymore. is there comfort in her hair. is there a mosquito green pond in her eyes. or is it just me?

some meadows are full of honey, like the one in san francisco above the trolley lines. maybe it was there that they walked barefoot, full of moon wedges. maybe it was there that the gravitational pull of the earth first began to melt.

we are exactly the same! closer than twins! womb-slick and half-closed, hands grasped together from the moment the first cells began to split. mitochondria. fibula. ozone.

i wanna hold your hand sometimes! i’ve been thinking of monserrat lately, her knee-high black converse shoes and her tulle skirt. i have been thinking of sitting behind the science building and tearing my history textbooks into strips and i have been thinking of the alley behind the safeway and how i pretended i was luxa for a few hours. all of that ends at graduation with elan’s red dress and her mom in pajamas.

i still wanna hold your hand, i am fifteen and dumb and you are seventeen and beautiful. the inside of her stomach was so long ago, it’s the difference between the beginning of a century and two years after it has begun.

maybe we aren’t so alike but i know that i still dream of water bugs and swamp gods. does your heart beat to pacific tides? does it float and gasp, like duck and pelican? because the ocean is still ready for us. it is gooey with patience and whirlpools and spongey with squid ink, squid eggs and krill.

the east coast is waiting for you too, ready to fold you into its hilly green arms and take you away. some places are too pretty for their own good, they are too much lighthouse red gas station not-oregon hot dizzy head sit down warm cement. i don’t want you to go. and i still don’t even know where you want to go to college, but probably not san diego because someone said she wanted to play there and you didn’t chime in.

it’s so funny about being postnatal. blue and orange hands, umbilical cords in place of functioning intestines, young toothless mouths and cottage cheese. sometimes i miss it. that’s dumb because i am still postnatal, i am still conductive to electricity my body is still blue and wrinkled. we are exactly the same, don’t ever forget that. don’t forget we shared a body.

angel is at the door. / you don’t know what it means, but /
oh m, please pray for me. please / melt the dust off the doorstep, let angel in.
bring the bread to utah and eugene and atlanta and north dakota / the places he was in / the shows you wanted to see /

dear butterfly, i want to go to rome like they did. i want to be in monterey again, it sits in my stomach. / the ocean cemetery, the seaweed, the rain / i want to reach down into my small intestine and pull out seagulls, potato chips, the mist. monterey, please come back /

i’m inferior to the little girl inside me. / she is blue and unbreathing due to the strangulation, my cramped ribcage. we were hand in hand in eighth grade, i think, when my body didn’t end / when my memory wasn’t sticky from too many rewinds.
angel, come in / i’ll pick the fleas from your wings, i’ll shave your head for you

the brightness goes up and down, day / night.
girls with shaved heads, new york i think. i think you'll run the world, you with
a diamond grille and no eyebrows. sketch artist,
sidewalk chalk- it wasn't very fun, but it lasted-

the park in albany is full of love; last year was burritos and this year was sour cream and onion chips. it was swings and sky, the kids blowing bubbles, the girl who / looked just like me.

i don't want to lose my house. i'm scared.
i want to be set ablaze / pyre / sacrificial temple / knife /
i want to be there in new york with you.
lip gloss on our eyelids,
strawberries & liquor store croissants.

she remembers when everything trembled,
i only remember pond water & algae-

you started out big, i think. i think you started out with big lungs and a big heart and giant thoughts, i don’t think you were like everyone else

i wasn’t there for the rest of it. i was in
los angeles, i was
playing soccer with the cousins in white dresses in grassy backyards. the sky was plummy, my shoes were wet, i remember it like an uncut gem mined from my mossy mossy memory

but imagination only goes so far. it doesn’t cover things like lost keys or atlanta, you know.
i’m good at lies, but that’s inherent. we’re fluent in
self-hate, i think,
we’re liquidy like the wavy falling sky.

sometimes my mind’s blown, i feel like an eight-year-old watching aliens land again & i feel my hands start to shake
i suppose it was the same way for you. i guess u have the same little memories, the goopy mac and cheese from elementary school, the neighbor’s cats’ names, sore arms, bad bruises

in my dreams i spit blood & gum. it always seems to fall forever, which is weird because i'm standing on solid ground. / in my dreams there's so many babies, the tiny forgotten ones & the ones i birthed & the ones that died inside me. / i don't know what it means, just like i don't know what it means when she doesn't eat all day / just like when he sits behind me or when i wish i was / zaina. / do the ambulances haunt your neighborhood? is it like a wool wool wool blanket the way / the sirens keep going for hours? / she tells me she wants fries, or that she doesn't like her dad, and i'm there but i don't know what to say. it's not like last year, last year when i was made of metal & we were all / figments. it's better now because i never wanted to be dust. i think i just wanted to / **** my fingers & sit in the back of class / i wanted my heartbeat to sit down, to relax / babe, take a load off

I AM SUGAR WATER THE KIND THAT BEES DRINK THE KIND THAT IS MADE FROM BUTTERFLY SPIT I AM LIZARD I AM BEETLE
FROG LEGS AND RABBIT SPINES TASTE SO GOOD WHEN YOU’RE STARVING. THEY SLIDE SO FAR DOWN YOUR THROAT I THINK I MIGHT CHOKE AND DIE, I THINK I MIGHT PASS OUT AND I THINK I MIGHT SLOW DOWN.
WE ARE DRAGON HORN WE ARE MARBLE WE ARE HER DEAD PARENTS. I DON’T THINK SHE DESERVED WHAT SHE GOT. I THINK SHE DESERVED A HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND A BREATHING FATHER AND A SEVENTH GRADE.
NONE OF IT REALLY MATTERS WHEN YOU REALIZE YOUR HEADSTONE WILL SAY
BORED GIRL, DEAD GIRL, HUMAN GIRL DIED MARCH 2017. NONE OF IT REALLY MATTERS WHEN YOU NOTICE HOW BADLY SHE SAYS YOUR NAME
I DIED ON
TENTH STREET, I DIED IN
ALABAMA SOMEWHERE, SOMEWHERE WITH IV OR MAYBE WITH GEM. I DIED IN THE WASHING MACHINE AND NEVER CAME BACK. HE NEVER CAME BACK.
SHE PROBABLY CRIED, DIDN’T SHE? SHE PROBABLY DOESN’T LIKE TRAINS SHE PROBABLY DOESN’T LIKE FUNERALS BUT NO ONE REALLY DOES. EVERYONE IS
WAITING WE ARE ALL WAITING. NOTHING IS HAPPENING EXCEPT SHOWER WATER, CANTALOUPE, FERAL CATS. NOTHING IS HAPPENING EXCEPT PURGATORY AND CHEWING FAT WE WILL WAIT ALL OUR LIVES AND SOMEDAY I WILL KNOW ALL THE SECRETS