i imagine breaking each other's noses. i imagine the bone-crunch, cartilage on cartilage like a car crash, the feeling of the skin giving way. i imagine a nosebleed so thick, so clotted and deep-red, oxidizing in real time, warm milk on my face. i imagine a day without nausea. marked by stomach acid, snot pooling above my lip, the face in the mirror gagging into the sink. i draw anything and hate it. i go for rides and just get tired. i try to write and i feel nothing.

bits and pieces of the last few years manifest themselves in dreams: the feeling of handcuffs and hard car seats like playground swings; a six-by-six room with words etched into the wall; being sandwiched between linoleum and fluorescent beams. i revisit myself; she never cried, just dug her nails into the palms of her hands and bore the weight, i admire her stoicism. i admire the way she held her shoulders.

it's 2017 again. i clean blood off the walls in suburbia while a kitchen knife exposes a trachea somewhere in west virginia; i should've known back then that i was cursed. she skyped me with blood dripping down from her chin to her chest. i wonder if the scar's still there.