i have tried to build a home inside myself,
one of iron and molten lava and red hot
brick,  but you have snuck your way
through my sealant and made
yourself a space in the very
center of my being.

i don't
k n o w
how to
rely on
anyone
b   u   t
myself.

88 by Lo-Fang is on repeat
the live version at WFUV
and I'm not listening as
much as I am wondering
how much water my body
d    i    s   p   l    a    c    e    s
displaces? a couple weeks
ago I tried to tell my mom
she was not her body and
that there was not a single
thing more beautiful than
a soul in waiting or a soul
on pause, a soul like hers
but don't source me
i can't even believe
myself let alone
that something
so beautiful
could be
me.

no, I'm not
l o o k i n g
not a single
peep, eye or
                                                     o u t s t r e t c h e d
hand, but I
do imagine
the crook of
your elbow
and a dozen
steel lanterns
hung from your
branches, strings
of cream colored
Christmas lights
framing your
shoulders
swung
around
your feet
and each
step you
take that
brings
you

clo        ser
to
me

I won't take you in
i'm unwild, unwild
wouldn't wind my
way though all of
your knots, my
pages are dog-eared
unalphabetized, uncapitalized
you can't hide behind that, no
curtains, big windows, small
door, free but contained, uncorked
but restrained, tied my hair down
for sails, a single breath could
******* away.  won't build
monuments in your name
or dress your letters in
gold trim, i've
idolized too
many men.




but i
could
love
you.

my mom tells me to
be encouraged and I
want to pry my ribs
apart and show her
my whitewashed
insides, how someone
went and took a matte
finish to my skin, I want
to show her the average
diary entry from 9:05 pm
and how I've stopped signing
my name because these letters
never get to God, I want her to
sit in on my conferences with
the empty chairs at work and
listen in on all the phone calls
I don't take, expect my showers
to be two hours long when really
i'm just filling the bathtub over
and over and      over and  
            over                  over
over



over

inside there was a
spat b e t w e e n my
bones, a wrenching
in all the sockets
every single
curl in my
brain was unfurling
but all I could do was
pinch the calluses on
my palm with a calm
ferocity, he does not
want me to c o n d e m n
myself but i was already
******* in, concave and
ready to collapse.

sometimes i
can love my
body from
t w e n t y
feet away

Biophotonics.

The study of living things
emitting light. Every few
months I take a salt scrub
to my skin and will myself
to believe that beneath all
the blood vessels I have to
be something m o r e  and
studies suggest that I can
be. That with an intensity
1/1000 w e a k e r than the
sensitivity of the human
eyes, I am glowing. Like
a jellyfish, someone
said.  So for a moment
I saw myself deep in
between the different
waters where the
u n d i s c o v e r e d
sleep and hide and feel
the floors that no one has
seen, a light so faint in the
ocean so black that you could
see me from miles, miles, miles
out.