There is a steady drip of blood running down your chin onto the floor, crouched in front of the open fridge like an animal. The single light from inside the big white box illuminates your hunched back, plays over each and every vertebrae that pokes out of the skin. Too thin. Too much. So cold and alone in this kitchen, fistful of raw hamburger meat to keep that snarling beast under wraps. Your lover slumbers in the next room. So afraid of waking them when your skeleton twists into a new shape, this new form replacing the fertile blood that comes each month. Raw meat warmed up by sweaty palms, a sort of DIY choke-chain, holding back the sharp teeth and terrible snarl. Scrabbling claws to go with an empty womb that will remain forever barren. You are okay with this, preferring the purge of smaller animals from a human stomach than losing so much life-blood that your body counters with anemia. Your lover knows about this, sometimes rubs your back through the worst of it, runs gentle fingers through your sweat and dirt clogged hair. It is okay, this new normal, this exchange of one pain for another. An emptiness that will never be filled, and twin scars of puckered pink. Meat to mouth, lips pulling back to allow for sharper, longer teeth. There is a steady drip of blood running down your chin onto the floor, this you will sop up later with sponges and the promise of a warm bed where the person that loves you as a man and as a beast will open their arms and tell you to come back to bed.

this taste is one i know well
the sweet kiss of peach,
swirled pastel pale with cream,
so light on my tongue
pulls me backward in time

with one sip,
everything fades away
and i find myself no longer in
this campus bookstore,
running on too little sleep
and almost too much to do

a blink of sleepy eyes, a deep yawn
and i am basking in the smells
of roasting coffee beans,
rainbow display of donuts,
the warmth of familiarity offered
by this place that has not existed
since i was in middle school

the me now takes a quiet second
to look back at the me then,
just starting to cut my hair short,
hopelessly in love
with this girl,
and angry at the world

a voice calls my name,
the one i gave myself,
and i turn in barely concealed excitement,
having mistaken this voice for that
of the girl who made my heart sing

what greets me, though,
is my mother, and
she beams at me from behind the
counter of this hole in the wall
coffee shop in welches, oregon,
gestures for me to sit
on a bar stool that spins back
and forth with only
minimal protesting creaks

straw scrapes bottom of
plastic cup and a part
of me cries out for
this moment not to end,
being a little kid again,
hands cold from the drink
i am clutching

my mother offers me a refill,
but this coffee shop is already
fading out of reality and back to memory
and i miss it bitterly

i want that coffee shop back,
with the good food and friends and love
i want that girl to hold my hand again,
make everything feel more whole

but my mother still
beams at me when she sees me
standing near the bar
at her work,
and things are alright

Your boots are by the door,
my love. In hopes you will pick them up again.

I think of your feet, so small.
Toes curled up against holey socks, so cold.

We could have been a city of two, my love.
But you lost your passport somewhere along the way.

Sometimes it feels like your boots are
all I have left of you. Worn leather, whispered promises.

You said we would be forever, in the way
that kids believe that so wholly. But forever is a long time, my love.

And I put my boots next to yours, my love.
Tie the laces together like hands holding tight.

I brush the cobwebs off your boots, my love.
Head over heels for ten years, hasn’t quit yet.

Phone buzzes then, your name on the screen.
The text says you’re back, my heart says you’re coming home.

My father once said to me,
“good luck, kid”

there was malice
in his voice,
there were tears
in my eyes

and I didn’t understand
why we were fighting,
but this was a dance
I knew the steps to
like I knew my father’s anger
was a poison that had been
seeped into my very bones

even then,
his anger was the most
consistent thing he ever
gave to me,
and a broken part of me
craved it, because at least
then he was paying attention
to me

and my father,
he never knew how to
be a father,
moving an hours long train
ride away and wondering
why I was afraid to stay
with him, this man
that I hardly knew
and only ever saw
when I looked in the
mirror

and I can’t remember
when my father stopped
being my hero,
when I stopped wanting
to be like him,
when protector became tormenter,
but it’s been long enough
to make me fearful
and resentful of this man,
whose face and mannerisms
I so happen to share

and and and
my father once said to me,
“good luck, kid,”
and I almost said back to him,
“I don’t need good luck,
I just need a father”

but I don’t think that’s
true anymore, and if
there’s one thing my father
taught me,
I should never tell a lie

I say your name
and my heart becomes
a little kid
pulling me towards the
candy aisle with both hands
ignoring my protests
of no time
no money
and it’s been too long
since I last saw a dentist
so who knows if my teeth
could handle your sweetness

I say your name
and we’re just two
kids in love again
stopping in the middle
of an empty street
to kiss open mouthed
like you are an oxygen tank
and I’m at the bottom
of the deepest ocean

I say your name
and I’m looking at
engagement rings
while calculating costs
and telling the clerk
behind the counter
that I plan to marry you

I say your name
and it is like water
after a hundred year drought
sweet and light
on my tongue

I say your name
I say your name
I say your name
and it’s like coming home

sometimes i think of the girl i used to be
in terms of fish hooks
all these little barbs stuck in my skin
in terms of needles
an arm covered in scars
and two twin lines that i have been
waiting for more than half my life

but those are the parts of this
body that i can change
from the outside in
each one making this she
that still resides inside of me
even more of a ghost

and i can feel her in the dead of night
she comes to me and
runs cold fingers through my short hair
and it’s like she’s thanking me

for finally burying the girl corpse
that i have been carrying on my back
like a ghost that refuses to be exorcised

but sometimes i still feel so haunted
by what this girl self could have been
and she is there again
speaking in a voice that mine hasn’t sounded
like for months and months
and she says it’s okay
because i made it
and that’s all she ever wanted

i like to think that
i know you like the
back of my hand
but the only thing
the peaks and valleys of
your body do for me
is make me nauseous

this is a landscape
that my hands cannot
explore without shaking
fingers curling into useless fists
that only know how to
try and pummel this soft flesh
into a shape it was not
originally born in to

and there are no more
trees here now
because the force of my
hatred towards this body
burned them all down
because this body is not
a temple or a church i
feel able to worship in
since this is not a god
i want to believe in

because believing in a god
that would zip me into this skin
and just watch as i try
to cut my way out of it
for nine years
six of those being with sharp edges
and jagged nails
and purple hollows under my eyes
there is no beauty in that

it is hard to write beautiful
poetry about a body i
spent more time hating and
feeling trapped in than i did
knowing how to live happily

but my god i am trying
i promise that i am
even if my hands shake
while trying to hold
the her that i used to be
close