Blue lips
and I crashed my car on the on ramp
to the interstate

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.

I want to
Throw seeds to the wind
And hope they land
S c a t t e r e d
Amongst your
Scars
I hope forests grow
Where there once
Was pain
And I hope the roots
Grow so thick
Writhing
living
Roots
I hope they grow so thick
That you'll never be touched again
And in under this thick canopy
I hope to hide
Save some safety

However
Any prose,
eloquent
it may be,
Is inadequate
In describing
Why one's
Heart beats

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

a younger me would have swallowed,
but these days my lungs are so full of fear and smoke
that inhalation makes me dizzy.

my brain is epitaphs and popsicle stick jokes,
and i worry about trains.
you worry about nothing.

you worry loud.

i sit shredding a napkin,
head bowed so that you don't see my lips move
when i murmur to myself
things i wish i'd told you when
you were real and when
i still knew what freedom meant.
i don't regret anything,
except maybe missing that assembly.

i would rather do drugs
than do you.