up before the sun,
walking under the softening
glow of a dotted moon,
already light down on the
street, yet still dark where the
light pollution can’t reach

and i want to be there,
almost desperately,
let’s go back to that spot
near the powerlines and
gravel roads, feel that
buzz in your molars

there’s a crackle in the air,
and we’re not far enough away
from the rest of it to find those
wild horses just yet,
but the bird call and chatter is
a **** good substitute

and i want to take a snapshot of you,
silhouetted by splash of sunrise
across the sky, something to keep
in the pocket of my jeans like a
polaroid, creased from running my
thumb across the surface

my hands do not shake this time,
firm grip on the shovel and
graveyard dirt on my boots,
sweat stained leather jacket collar

but i forget the thick gloves,
like i forget the bandana,
and that dirt clogs my lungs
as blood drip drip drips from
the torn skin of my palms

and i’m still not sure if
all this digging,
and digging,
and digging,
is to unearth or to bury

haunted by the ghost of the
girl i used to know,
the girl i used to be

breath comes out harsh,
a dancing ghost amongst the pines,
and i am rot waiting to happen,
washed in gold by the sunrise

i am the choke-chain,
and the tender hand,
the dog that bites the hand
that both beat me and loved me,
and i am rot waiting to happen

and i lived through who i was
to become who i am,
but sometimes even that looks like
asking myself what harm just one
more time could do, and remembering
those six years, where i started as a boy,
and stopped as a man

and i am a sinner,
with this shovel in my bleeding hands,
not quite stigmata, though the stained glass
in the skin of my knees begs to differ

and i am a sinner,
because i lived,
because i am both the haunted,
and the haunter,
the girl that grew into a man

and if we’re going to sin,
then let us sin wholly,
then let us sin holy

i put on my cooking bandana,
the black and white one this time,
blue fabric gone soft and threadbare
from the cycle of wash/rinse/repeat,
and i make pasta

my hands do not shake,
using serrated knife to carve
chicken breast, maybe thigh,
into small chunks

tofu, broccoli, salt go into
a small *** together,
chicken in the oven,
water for spiral pasta boiling

i briefly wish for good crusty bread,
salad greens, maybe a bottle of
cheap, sweet wine, split by two

this love language with nowhere
else to go, no one readily available
to nourish, and i resent, fleetingly,
the day or two of leftovers

belly full of good pasta,
lump in my throat,
loneliness like a promise,
like an old friend

and i do not cry into the sink
full of ***** dishes, hot soapy water
and the music turned up real loud

i don’t cry into the sink
full of ***** dishes,
i don’t
i don’t
i don’t

heartache, grief, longing,
that ache of want, of wanting
mostly empty flask in hand,
too much of one thing and
not quite enough of another

cast in shadows against the
brilliance of the setting sun,
this wild thing in the shape
of a man goes out into the
vast desert to remember his
own name, again

there’s a choke-chain, and
perhaps worse, a tender hand,
still trying to puzzle out
which he deserves more

tattered long coat like the
wings of a black bird flapping
behind, voice stolen by the
howling wind, the snarling of
beasts wilder yet than him

finishes off the last drops
in the flask with coffee from
a dented tin mug, wonders how
far he must go, to find that
which he yearns for

still trying to puzzle that one
out, too, but feels like it may
be somewhere beyond the
horizon line, like taking a step
forward and tipping into
something that hurts just
a little bit less

wonders, still, if he’d even know
how to deal with that, now,
wonders if he’s allowed to want
something else than cold desert
nights and that black boneyard dog,
nipping at his heels

wonders if there’s a metaphor,
within the choke-chain and
the gentle hand

and maybe his name is where
it’s always been, tucked behind
breastbone, nestled in sinew,
in that feeling of walking up
creaky porch steps, just knowing
that light will have been left on

and maybe he’s not doomed by
the narrative, hell, maybe he’s not
doomed at all

you leave the clothes that
i loaned you, folded neatly on
the bed, and i buy you
a toothbrush

for the first time in
almost two years, i have
someone to text that
i’m on my way home from
work, and ****, i missed that

and the door is unlocked,
this time, but that’s okay
because that means you’ll
be there to grin up at me
from the blanket nest on
the kitchen floor, and ask
me how work was

i thought about you,
while peeling potatoes,
like taking you out to
dinner and a movie,
walking you to the door after

and i’m not writing a love
story here, just trying to
convey that you are known,
and seen, and loved

and my hands are a little shaky now,
but i’m still pretty handy with a needle,
so won’t you let me sew your most jagged edges down?

for one, maybe two, years
after, i play words with friends
against one of the women that
sexually assaulted me

i was seventeen, and i
******* begged for them to stop,
please stop,
you’re hurting me

no one else at the wedding
after party heard me, music too
loud and champagne flowing too
freely

and the first person i told,
before she dropped me off
in front of the wrong house,
said, ‘i’m not calling you
a liar….but’

(her ******* husband
groped me, four years later,
and let me tell you, that’s some
irony i could have done without)

and the second person i told,
looked me in the eye and said
i was making the assault into
something it wasn’t, and i
needed to forgive those two women

i stopped telling people,
after that, choosing instead to
bleed out how wrong being touched
in that way made me feel

i don’t remember what i
was wearing, and i suppose
there’s a certain kindness in that,
my brain closing off that particular
memory so securely

i don’t remember what i
was wearing the first time,
either, but why would i, after
more than twenty years?

i lose count after the third time,
telling her to stop touching me
that way, looking around at other
patrons in the restaurant, that know
both of us, begging them to
say something, to help me,
but no one does

no one does
no one does
no one does

and this is a bandage, wrapped so
tight, that i do not pick at,
nor do i lift up the edge to
see what gangrenous ruin
lies beneath

and still, some nights i find myself
standing on the knife's-edge of
that dark abyss, haunted by the
ghost of something forced upon me

but i do not rage,
i do not drink until i am unable to stand,
unable to remember how all of
those hands felt on my skin,
i do not bleed over those ghosts

i do not bleed over those ghosts,
but sometimes the noose of that
trauma is so unforgiving i can’t breathe,
and i am seventeen again,
and i am twelve,
and i am five, maybe six

and these wounds, they are
open and screaming and bleeding
and so ******* hungry and i am
just so tired of being haunted

i am just so tired of being haunted

remake me as a fish,
this time,
let the knife calluses on
your fingers catch on the edges
of my iridescent scales as you
tenderly place them,
one by one

peel back my eyelids
to gently place shiny
river stones, polished smooth,
into empty eye sockets

and i do not fear the
knife with the curved end,
this time, as you open the
tender skin along my neck
on either side into fluttering gills

dunk your arms into the water
until it kisses the ends of your
worn shirtsleeves, and let me
loose to swim among the lily
pads, burrow into silty lake bed

and i’ll wait for you there,
letting the gentle lapping of the
lake against the rocky shore
lull me into sweeter dreams

maybe you’ll shed that second skin,
one of these days,
remake yourself in your own image,
just this once

and though the hook tugs,
buried in the meat of my inner cheek,
i know this is also a gift

and i won’t come out of the
water in a hail of droplets and
red, red, blood, thrashing and
choking on the fresh air

nay, this wild thing that lurks
behind my breastbone has been
worn away to make room for
how the sun looks arcing out across
the waters, how the knife calluses
on your fingers feel on my scales,
and how gentle you are with every part
of me, even those that still catch sometimes,
as you remove the hook from the
meat of my inner cheek and watch as
i slip back beneath the waves