tap the vein
the very flow
a fizzle-POP
the gears whir

dry-eyed in the garage
suckling that oaky rind
spin the clocks
if so inclined

the mothers plead
but She still calls for you
repo the lung
the liver too

this sickly sweet memory
this one too many
this cool kid
strutting streets in denim jeans

--
c

The only other girl at the party
is ranting about feminism.
The audience: a sea of **** jokes and snapbacks
and styrofoam cups and me.
They gawk at her mouth like it is a drain
clogged with too many opinions.
I shoot her an empathetic glance
and say nothing. This house is for
wallpaper women. What good
is wallpaper that speaks?
I want to stand up, but if I do,
whose coffee table silence
will these boys rest their feet on?

These boys…
I want to stand up, but if I do,
what if someone takes my spot?
I want to stand up, but if I do,
what if everyone notices I’ve been
sitting this whole time? I am ashamed
of keeping my feminism in my pocket
until it is convenient not to, like at poetry
slams or woman studies classes.
There are days I want people to like me
more than I want to change the world.
Once I forgave a predator because
I was afraid to start drama in our friend group
two weeks later he assaulted someone else.
I’m still carrying the guilt in my purse.

There are days I forget we had to invent
nail polish to change color in drugged
drinks and apps to virtually walk us home
and lipstick shaped mace and underwear designed to prevent ****.

Once a man behind me at an escalator
shoved his hand up my skirt
from behind and no one around me
said anything,
so I didn’t say anything.
Because I didn’t wanna make a scene.

Once an adult man made a necklace
out of his hands for me and
I still wake up in hot sweats
haunted with images of the hurt
of girls he assaulted after I didn’t report,
all younger than me.

How am I to forgive myself for doing
nothing in the mouth of trauma?
Is silence not an active violence too?

Once, I told a boy I was powerful
and he told me to mind my own business.

Once, a boy accused me of practicing
misandry. “You think you can take
over the world?” And I said “No,
I just want to see it. I just need
to know it is there for someone.”

Once, my dad informed me sexism
is dead and reminded me to always
carry pepper spray in the same breath.
We accept this state of constant fear
as just another component of being a girl.
We text each other when we get home
safe and it does not occur to us that
not all of our guy friends have to do the same.
You could literally saw a woman in half
and it would still be called a magic trick.
Wouldn’t it?
That’s why you invited us here,
isn’t it? Because there is no show
without a beautiful assistant?
We are surrounded by boys who hang up
our naked posters and fantasize
about choking us and watch movies that
we get murdered in. We are the daughters
of men who warned us about the news
and the missing girls on the milk carton
and the sharp edge of the world.
They begged us to be careful. To be safe.
Then told our brothers to go out and play.

white pink skechers follow brown-leather feet
padding down the stairs, nothing but fall leaves and
a generation between us

the older man glides the purple beauty into our front yard and
onto the sidewalk
gramps is a dedicated biker and will be years from now

polished aluminum gives way to the sun and
his eyes gleam along with it

he guides me down the pavement, conserving my speed with a trembling palm

on the handlebar

holds me tight and shows me how not to ride,
when to push through an upcoming hill and
when to brake

--
c

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful --
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

The light came first, it is known
Before the measured warmth of sun.

--
c

An open door
Green of day steeps into a grassy aroma
A familial air whizzing through shared city streets

The papers greet a house down the block and
I can't help but wonder if the news
Has reached them yet:

--The earth is wilting and
It will rain today--

I board the 91
Coffee buzzing in my lungs

--The house we've built is wilting and
Wigged men are lining us up--

A workingwoman sits behind me
A toddler bumbling about her lap
She looks past me, but I answer anyway:

"The people are wilting and
Time is sitting still"

--
c

Basement:
Temples riddled sick, the world seems small
In this room
Air thick and mischievous
Walls slick, closing in

A closet light in the dark
You take me in your arms and
We practice stable breath
Your chest a flower bed of roses

This was love--

Beach:
I slide down and down
Lapping waves envelope lungs
Gasping salty, green

Steady as you root into soil
Stronghold hands on my waist
Lifting me from oblivion, meanwhile
I latch on as vine and watch the world spin

You’ve saved me again--

Summer:
Love pads on
Easy as rain on a metal roof and
I am glossy-eyed, laying in your bed of roses
In a stuffy room in New York

The lights have gone out
Wind rushing overhead
The bustle weaves by outside yet
Time is still here

I am home--

--
c