She wanted me
to be inside her
so I fed her my poems
and she swallowed.

Their house was

Pressing your nose into the crackling spine of an ancient novel –
Coarse pages and the small warmth of unraveling vanilla.
Nostalgia.

But there was another smell too, around the edges.
One that made it a different story.

A smell like rotten apples  hidden somewhere years before
And forgotten.
A heart-sinking, suspicious nostalgia.

She gained ten pounds of muscle the summer she worked in Alaska.
She’d have that slight tone for the rest of her life –  
a glimmer when she flexed to stock shelves at Vons the next year or to take a turkey out of the oven or to climb a ladder or to carry her sleeping daughter fifteen years later.
A flashing tight tendril of muscle in her triceps.

We ditched school that day to drive to LA to find her real dad.

We stayed in the desert and she got her **** pierced instead.

In my dreams I break the teeth out of my own mouth and then pray to go back
Back to the way it was before I went and broke my own back
My mind is a bull and my skull is fine china
Someday I’ll break
Break my way out
Til then I shake with no medicine
No holes to let the light in
My brothers are busy pretending to be soldiers
They don’t know that there’s no war
Just an endless realm of night terrors
That somebody told them were borders
My body went outside today and everyone I met asked it how I felt
So I lit their hair on fire
And woke up tied to my bed with all my teeth still tied to my head
In the part of time that isn’t dream
I’m obsessed with being clean
I wash my bones with salt water
And try hard to believe in a god
But mostly I just get sad about my past
I want the lilacs back
I want it to be someone else's fault
These waking hours are made of mica
They are shiny but
The pieces are always peeling off
From beneath all the buildings on my street
It’s happening so slowly
So slowly that we’ll all be dead by the time we get wise
When I’m young again I’ll learn to speak
I’ll tell the sky what it’s like to be a soul stuck inside a head
And I’ll ask my future what it’s like to be dead
I’ll tell the sun about dreaming
I think it would be hard to be always awake
I’ll ask these new gods where all the old gods went
And could I maybe talk to one of them?
How did my people wind up worshiping clocks?
I’ll keep asking questions until time turns around
She’ll pull my hair and kick my shins
‘Cause that’s what sisters do
I’ll just be thankful that she noticed me at all
Someday I’ll get tired of asking so many questions
And I’ll quit having such tiresome dreams
I’ll lay down tasty
Flesh is food for hungry ground
Someday I’ll figure out how to be awake when I’m not asleep
I’ll tell myself all the secrets I’ve been trying to keep
But I’m really only good at speaking in my sleep

The distance between what we say and what we mean
The difference between what I need you to hear
And what you hear when I speak
Between what you need and what you say

That's the place where it hurts
That's the place where love turns into poison
And weapons

It should be so simple because I'm your little girl and you're my Dad
Who took me for walks on railroad tracks
And let me bring home every rock that I thought was special
You filled your pockets with them, you never told me they were just quartz
You read me stories and had a pickup truck named Betsy
Who couldn't drive past an ice cream shop without stopping because she was special too
You took me camping and swimming and hiking
(I canoe, canoe canoe?)
And played the Grateful Dead
You were so good at being a Dad

I remember you sitting me down and telling me that I'd always be your number one
That you would love me no matter what I did
I was just a kid
And I believed

But I grew up
And you got older and scareder and sadder
Things got a lot harder

I stopped being little, stopped being a piece of you
That must have hurt
Because you forgot your promise
You built a world of expectations and as it grew
So did the distance between you, and the good in you
You can be so mean
And the worst part is that I feel guilty for being mad at you
Because I know that you're just scared
Really really scared
I understand
I do

It's terrifying to love things that are not you
What if they leave?
What if they hurt you?
What if they don't love you enough?
Or the way that you want them to?
It's hard to have faith
Especially if you're not used to faith being had in you
But can't you see how much weight your fears put on me?

I wish you had faith in me
I wish you saw my good intentions
And respected me for my strengths
I wish I could be who I am around you
I am smart and opinionated and unafraid
I think critically and see the best in people
But those are the things in me that you seem to hate
I never thought it could hurt so much to feel disliked

It brings out the worst in me

So I hide
Because it is impossible to take care of both of us at the same time
If I take care of myself, it hurts you
If I take care of you, it hurts me

When we talk you ask me about money
And school
And money
And my future plans
And money
Have I called the dentist?
Done my taxes?
Applied for scholarships?

None of those things have any bearing on me

We haven't talked for months
I'm not going to call you and say that I'm sorry
I'm so sorry, but not for the reasons you think I should be
I'm sorry we can't just talk
I'm sorry it's hard for us to be around each other
I'm sorry we resent each other
I'm sorry that I miss you so much, but am so afraid to talk to you
I don't want to be scared of you
I'm sorry that there is a room in my head that holds memories of you lashing out at me
I just want you to remember that you love me
If you could remember that and let go of everything else
I would call

That's a promise

Things have been strange lately
Devoid of feelings
I've been staying home more and
Eating lots of greens
Keeping my room clean

The other day I broke my ***
Fell down alone in the mountains
Now I've got a bruise like a galaxy
It would have been funny
If I'd had anyone with me

Sometimes I go out and talk
To boys in bars
They bore the hell out of me

I drink whiskey and practice my pretend smile
Excuse myself for cigarettes
That I don't smoke anymore

Where'd all my hell go?
I'm all balance and competence
Sunrise after sunrise
I ponder my insipid demise

It's been weeks since I've kissed or spit or sweat
Good god I'm bored
I'd love to meet someone who contradicts themselves
Half as much as me

Is this it? Is this what I want?
I confuse myself
Sometimes all I want is to be ****** up
On fire
Cracking knuckles and shedding clothes
Never satisfied with anyone around me
Never satisfied with me
Filling all my wounds with salt
Watching myself bleed

I can be so broken
I can be so whole
I can do it all by myself