i want to
breathe
fire but i
fear i've
spent too
much time
drinking ice
water.

i sit on the
cold floor
of the shower,
just me and
myself, and
i tell her there
are good things
in the world.
aren't there? i
know there is
a reason she
and i have made
it this far.
there are
beautiful things,
megan,
beautiful things.

paint fingers,
jelly mouths,
katie's teletubbies
bike helmet.
mom said
now don't go too far
and the park was just
far enough to not be
able to see the house
but close enough to
smell dinner being made
and hear dad mowing
the front yard. no
skinned knees this day
just riding our bikes
through the grass,
down the big hill
that made us scream
until the bottom. wind
blowing through katie's
hair, too long then from
her refusal to have it
trimmed even one inch,
and capri sun's under
the weeping willow tree.
before the sun went all
the way to her bed, we
made flower crowns
from the dandelions,
picked an extra handful
for the dining table,
waved to donna as we
flew down the sidewalk,
ran hand in hand to the door
before dad had to call our
names one more time.

i am trying to remind myself that
i am the one who has always held
my skin together on the worst days,
the one who has sewed myself back
up time and time again. i have picked
my own body off the bathroom floor
more 4am's than there are numbers,
taken myself to bed. no one has cared
for me like i have cared for me and
yet i don't know when i stopped
thinking i was my own home.

i do not know how to love
softly,
i walk across this ocean like
i am from heaven
but my feet keep slipping through
the surface,
roughly
i try to hold my bones inside my body
but i have gotten used to the way
they look on the outside,
quietly
i hold my own heart with my hands
because i cannot trust anyone else but,
tightly
too too tight.
but do not tell anyone, megan
do not tell anyone.
i wish i could have loved you,
softly.

but what do you do when you're
a shell
a shell
a shell
of the being you used to be
i swear i thought i was the world
now i look at my hands and i
don't know them
don't know these freckles or those lines
i remember i used to tell my reflection
that she was strong and deserved
something good
but i don't know those eyes anymore
so how can i tell that to a stranger
tell them they're loved
how can i when she and i are all we have
and i don't love her