There used to be a time when I heard the call of lonely trains

I would pull over

the car, would put it in park, and cry until my scarf was soaked.
Later at home I would wring it out it the sink,
rinse and cleanse my hands as if it were holy
water, the only things missing were rose petals.

The holiness in staying whole is something learned

I did not teach myself to dread the sound of a train

testing the tracks beneath.
I did not teach myself
that, somedays, there are better things to do than breathe.

I did, however, learn that knives aren't supposed to be
your friends-
they aren't good for sleepovers and they definitely do not belong
on either side of a conversation.

I did, however, learn that closing your eyes in the bathtub
and sinking to the bottom doesn't make me a deep sea diver,
even if I do enjoy the way salt stings my skin.

Those who have held meditation longer than it takes to skip a stone know that it is so much harder to stay, than to go.
Grounding yourself to the bottom in boulder fashion and feeling each bubble of air wriggle itself from your lungs
says more about endurance than any length run.
 
My English teacher once asked us what it meant to feel,
what the connection was to language.

He asked if there could be language without feeling,

the girl sitting next to me got up,
smiled a Cruella de Vil smile and said one doesn't exist without the other.

I got up in front of the other kids,

spread my arms into wings, and closed my eyes,

the train tracks on my arms left a silence that would have shocked the Mariana Trench.

I said, "Language cannot always do feeling justice,
some things you cannot say."

Later that day, I got up on my chair at lunch and yelled
"I am a victim of ****** assault,

it was not my fault,
I was not asking for it,

your ******* patriarchy won't tell me it was"

got back down, finished my sandwich,

only to look out to a calm sea of students
who hadn't heard a single syllable
over the sound of their own mouths.

I went home and asked my mother how she left my father,
"he did not love me the way I needed,

the way I needed to be loved,"
she said,
her blue eyes looked at me,
"he couldn't love that sometimes I needed silence."

Six hours later I lay awake in my bed, asking myself why
I couldn't get the courage to tell the highways
in my wrist to leave me,

open roads are too tempting to be explored.

That night I cried so hard I swear I could have
hollowed a boat from my own chest and paddled
that newly formed creek to your corner of Idaho.

Few things stopped the panic button from going off
like the sound of your voice finding its way to my room,
announcing over loud speaker
that my arms are enough map to explore.

I spent the Thanksgiving of 2011 sitting at a table
in the hospital cafeteria with plastic forks and plastic knives,
with three of the furthest things from friends,
wishing I had never decided to live.

The only thing I learned was to carry
my hurt on the insides of my palms and always
face them towards the ground-
****** palms are the easiest side effect of deciding to live.

You will find a panic button collector,

someone who knows how to soothe the sirens,
someone who knows how to keep bruise-free shins
and navigate in hollow of your dark.

Maybe they'll know to snip the blue wire and dismantle
your ticking, suitcased heart.

So when you see me stripping off my jacket
on a winter afternoon, it's only because that's an organic reassurance

I thought had forgotten my skin and arm hair

This is for you to know that someday

the sound of your pulse will not mean that you have failed
it will mean that you have overcome

the most grotesque,
sleep-depriving

monster in your sunshine yellow closet.
Someday you'll learn that the burning
furnace that radiates from your own heart

is heat enough to outlast any period of exile
or disagreement with the sun.

The red and blue of your blood will seem more like a blessing
than a burden
The creation of blood,
the intimate workings of oxygen
supplying life, of blood cells permeating cell barriers,

is no small feat.

There is biological beauty in lungs breathing,

in red blood knowing fire engine red to crimson velvet,

to that circadian clock that ignites
your thoughts in the middle of the night.

Tattoo the hope that you will no longer feel the need to open
your perfect skin onto your blades,
the feeling of pop rocks shocking your veins
isn't reason enough, there are other ways
to see your strong beating pulse

Because your breath, your repaved wrists,

your vigilant beating heart are so
so worth it.
Sew that fact into a crown made of velvet,
wear it everywhere you go,

show it to everyone you meet.