i know how to jump start a car and
i know thirteen different ways to light a fire and
i know that i sleep better when you're here.

i know how to make a pipe with an apple
and i know how to roll poplar bark into twine and
i know what you're afraid of.

i know that sometimes turkeys drown because they stand
with their heads thrown back in the rain.

i know all the state capitals and
i know all the books of the old testament in order and
i know how far you'd have to jump to be sure you didn't survive.
i know that my biggest fear was always the time stretched out between
today and the end and i know that
lately i am not so afraid.
i know it's at least a little bit
because of you.

i know that my lungs crave mountains
like my fingers crave dirt
like my hands crave yours.

i know how the world looks on your seventy second hour awake
and i know how thirteen tabs of acid feels and
i know how to steal things without getting caught.
i know how thirty-year-old hands squeeze
sixteen-year-old hips.
i know that "*******" isn't a compliment.

i know deep breathing techniques,
calming rituals,
and numbers for help lines i'll never call.
i know that frogs breathe through their skin
and that sometimes
they die when you touch them.

i know that i do not breathe through my skin,
no matter how often i forget.

Little girl,
be sweet.
Mind your manners.
Don’t forget to say,
“Thank you.”

Little girl,
be good.
Do not leave the path,
and don’t peer into the corners.
A girl should have nothing in her mind
but cake and wine and flowers.

Little Red,
out in the woods,
an hour away from the village.
Little Red saw a wolf,
and she did not know
to be afraid.

Little girl,
Be sweet.
Mind your manners.
The wolf will take,
and you will say,
“Thank you, wolf.”

Little Red just wanted
to do everything right.

my hands are not
soft things that you can hold onto and
even at my sweetest i'm less like honey and
more like old kool-aid and i'll
stain your lips and fingers blue
like the inky thing that slithers up my spine.

i don't remember what it's like to breathe easy.

i like the way your hands shake
and that's a weird thing to like
but i am much more cactus than flower
and i am not afraid of edges and shards.

you swallow smoke the way
i swallow metal and
wanting you makes me feel
sick again.

i want to string all the pieces of you into
something that fits
but
your edges are jagged and wrong
and
the spaces in my chest are not the way you left them
and
my mouth is too sharp for kissing

i am tired of wet wings and
wax burns

when i found out you were going to be a father,
everything inside me went flat and grey and
i spent the next five minutes remembering how to breathe.
it shouldn't have surprised me,
but i guess something in me just hoped
that no one would ever choose to procreate with you.
lord knows i wouldn't even trust you with a cat.

when i found out you were going to be a father,
some dark heavy seed plunked into my chest
and sank straight to the bottom.
i saw the announcement and immediately
i could taste in the back of my throat
the way you called me baby,
acidic and cloying and sticky.
it burned hot and sharp through my lungs
like every word of every promise i remember you forgetting.
the news hit me with a power you yourself have not had in years.

you are going to be a father,
and since the moment i found out,
i have been whispering desperate prayers to the universe
that you never have a little girl.
i think about your greedy hands brushing curls
from some soft little angel face,
and i feel sick.
i think about you picking up her pretty little-girl things,
little socks and bows and shoes and toys,
and it takes everything in me just to sit here and breathe.
will you sing her the songs i used to sing you
in my own pretty little-girl voice?
will you hear me in her cheeky turns of phrase
or when she cries into her pillow
late at night when she thinks you're asleep?
what if she's precocious,
like me?
what if her prepubescent body starts to carve itself
into the shape of a woman's?
will it be easier to remember that a child is still a child
when you watched her grow yourself?
if she picks out tight shirts and short skirts
and paints her eyes dark and her lips red,
and she walks and talks and moves like a woman,
will you remember that she is not?
maybe if she is your daughter,
it will be different,
but then again i think being your anything
can never be anything but trouble for a little girl.
i should know.

i hope more than anything that you never have a daughter,
because i know if you do,
i will never stop wondering.
i know that the questions will keep me awake at night
for the rest of my life.
i will will never stop worrying that it is
at least a little bit
my fault.

when i found out you were going to be a father,
i remembered
everything.

i was over you on thursday,
but then i saw you again
and i felt this jolt right through my chest that
reminded me of the time i accidentally touched an electric fence
(and it was awful and you're the worst) and i hate how
i can make myself forget to want you ten times before breakfast
and be over you on thursday
right up until i
see your ******* face
and i
remember
hard.

your mouth in my nightmares is sticky and warm,
but in the morning all i can taste
is stale cigarettes and the bars dissolving under your tongue