the gas station
down the street
is never dry of fire

this is where
the neighborhood boys go,
usually, when they are tired of being
viewed as cliffs
on the sides of highways.

(when i was younger
i had a brother.
sometimes
at night
i can hear my mom
bruising apart
in his old room.
i stand in the doorway
& watch her
& wait.)

(her medication
works best
when she sleeps.)

My family
rents a house
on a lake.
My first day there
I sit cross-legged in the water
until I have completely finished
picking apart my bones
as though I am a fish.
I hear my mother screaming
from behind the screen-door,
but I ignore her.
I shut my eyes.
When my eyes close terrifying shapes
flash across their lids: the first time a boy calls me beautiful
I run 6 miles,
because it is easier than turning my legs into trees.

I’ve never swallowed
this type of burning before,
but now here I am, late at night,
with my skin bridling itself open
like chalked lungs.

The hardest parts about this are:
learning what it means to no longer
be half of myself and waiting
for the day when I can look
into the mirror without firing
apart the deep wells of my gut.

Now I am carefully inspecting
my casualties, teaching myself
that I cannot be casual without
turning away pieces of myself
until I am small tornadoes, i.e.,
no waist and no fire.

On February 5th :
I am learning
how to drive
in between
metamorphoses
of snowy colors.

On February 5th :
If you look closely
you can see my
mother with her
legs firmly planted
onto the passenger
seat; she is silent
until we pass
a collection of deer.

We pass a collection
of deer and my mother’s
arms look the same
as mine do when I
am angry. Her face
is the Atlantic, full
of irritable little wrinkles.
(My mother’s face is always
the Atlantic, full of irritable
little wrinkles.)

When I was younger
her wrinkles screamed
at me with over-used lungs
until my body grew limp
like radish roots -- it’s just that

when I was younger
I had trouble seeing
the large gap between
snow and static no matter
how many times my mother
would try to emphasize
their differences.

But both dripped onto my
prickly face like newborn wine
onto sidewalks; both looked
just like my mother’s old wedding dress.

I get an email from you January 10th also known as the day on which we were supposed to drive to PetSmart together to buy a fish. We were going to name the fish Wendy, we were going to buy Wendy a bowl with a small castle, a moat, even a footbridge; her lifestyle was going to fit so eloquently with the color of her scales. You sent an email to me January 10th. The email was empty space, like the air that sometimes curls itself between teeth and moons; your email against the screen; the screen glowing like some faraway whispered death prayer. I don’t remember what you wrote but I remember feeling like a forgotten alphabet; not once in your email did you use the word “adore.”

There is a line that curves across
the middle of my stomach like the kitchen
of newly weds. Its twin is only two inches
above, rests right below my *******, which hang
like empty carcasses. I am still embarrassed
by them, even after a girl told me that it is ok
if they are not so full or small, in fact it is normal.
I remember that hers were full and small, I remember
that all of the boys loved her. I remember her complaining,
too; it was her skin, I think (its color). My skin falls from
the wrong bones like sinks or manmade waterfalls, both
of which I have learned are the same only nobody will
ever admit it, least of all my father. My eyes are the same
as my father’s, my hands are his hands, and then there is my face,
which rounds like a mountain range. My nails grow dirt easily.
My belly is the most vulnerable in that it corkscrews out
like the bottles of wine that my family drinks at holiday
dinners. Last night in the basement a boy touched
his hand to my gut and I had to move it away, I had to move
it again after he let it ground onto my waist. Today I
am afraid that this is why he hasn’t asked to see me tonight.

You: but without the face or the stomach.
You have hands made of baby teeth. I keep my baby teeth
in a jar like glassy coins. Here, you may take them. Here,
you may give them to your daughter. She is six
years old. She is clamping down on your fingers and telling you
how sharp they are and telling you that you need
to shave. You are thinking about how the last time you
shaved you began collecting bits of your fifteen-year old skin.
You are with her for another three hours. You spoke your
first word when you were two years old. You have never
worn a wedding dress. You are thinking about her mother, you
are watching your daughter drink a milkshake; chocolate. She has
bones that look just like your face. Everything now is so full of salt, even her small body.
She looks folded in half like a mantle piece. She lacks certain fire.