when he comes I hope i'm ready
I hope by then i have healed over
that my scars are just midribs and
my backbone the strongest flower
stem he's laid eyes on--

that i won't be the prettiest thing he's
ever seen but I might be the brightest
because maybe he'll see me from miles
out or maybe i'll be the dimmest glow,
maybe I will be the brick beneath a sheath of
Virginia creeper,  and he will have to pull
apart the vines to see,

i am not trying to hide I will say,
i've just been still for so long, i stopped
waiting, I was done hoping, i'd accepted
that you might not show up but lord
i am so grateful you did--

and maybe the rain will fall and
i'll stop being hidden without trying
and all the moments I laid in the tub
with the hot water running over me
will not seem so strange and I will
not shame myself for crying
so often.

he started sayin' somethin
about girls and cars and
that's when I tuned out
'cause i'd already considered
that,

not the showin up at his house
part, but the other girls who might
have kissed him in my absence

albeit something I've never understood
i'm not too good at cover-ups and my
libido only stretches for one person
at a time but
i couldn't blame him for things
he did when I wasn't his and he wasn't mine

who knows what happened in that time
but I can't care
and if other women
are on my skin then
at least i am on
theirs.

before the maroon 5 concert
chaz said his mom wasn't home
she had stripped his mattress and
put everything in the wash
and I only remember wondering
why it hurt so much
and the silk threads of the seams
catching on my bra straps--
I had thought it was
supposed to be so much more
than pumping and churning
like pistons in a truck,

the difference was you
stopped when I asked
shiverin' above me in
a warm sweat
and all i could do was
run my fingers through
your hair over and over
stay silent and move slowly
because no one has ever seen
me like that, wavering
and rocking, working my
way up, using your hips
like training blocks, stretching
my thighs out over your bed--
lord I ain't ever asked for more
never bruised nobody 'cause
I wasn't thinkin', he's got
these welts i don't even
remember, he sayin he let me
in like he left the door's open
during the storm and I was
rain, hail or wind, a noise,
a knock, just me.
but I opened the windows,
the basement, the attic
pulled out the chairs in
expectation, I have nothin'
to say for my fears, they're
there and sometimes they
shift gears and gun it
but that don't mean
i didn't look at you
and wonder about
things I shouldn't
or replace my daddy's
name with yours just
to
see.

we've pushed the gates of time a little tighter than they were
we've built our marble houses up on mountains made of words
as snow begins to melt, expose the fire of our tongues
there's nothing left to ruin, sow your silence back to Love
no not the kind that's fleeting, adding wrinkles to your skin
but One much lesser heavy than this cage of bone we're in

(bjo.) The things that would have happened anyway
set in stone, meant to be, sure to occur

i don't take much confidence in the things
set before me, the inescapable
yet unseen routine of habit or spontaneity
it is inevitable that I should end up
whereever i go or whovever i am
and should i break those around me
it would have been meant to be

it speaks volumes of characer, it was
unavoidable the people i hurt or the ones
i saved, the stirring and the turmoil swept away
I woke up in a panic, feeling *****
as if my heart had rolled through the rough
and my breath were swung around on a turbine
pumping air the wrong way
and instead of blood, dirt blew through my veins--
although I prefer to think of that as
evitable
or that
soil precedes the flower
that purity cannot just be had
but found, because it only exists
beneath a tarnish and we are not
born unharmed.

that is inevitable.

I think too much about you--
in the morning; when i roll over
into the pillows stacked on the right
side of the bed where I no longer sleep
(but I will)

and at night, 'cause for a moment I
was using alcohol to lessen whatever
need be lessened but now I can't
stand the thought of forgetting that way,
or forgetting at all
so at night I open my blinds and
leave the door unlocked--praying
things will heal and that this will buff out
(and it will)

there are things that I don't even know
that i worried about, things i never
asked or thought to ask because they
cut too deep--i shouldn't have to ask
if i knew, but that's just the thing, isn't it?
we had never seen these sides of each other
whether they were the
worst or not, both terrifying and hurt
better out than in,
i'm not sure what he thinks of me now, but--

he doesn't answer and I realize that maybe that is the answer--
the, no, i'm not good enough anymore, not after all this.
so i woke up this morning and made my bed,
called my dad, washed the dishes, put up my hair
and
      continued
        

   on.