Metastasis. Blood. Asbestosis. Tumour. All the other words for we don’t know. All the other words for dead. New routine – get in the car & go to school & get out of school & get in the car & drive ‘til you feel like screaming & walk in through some chrome doors and go up through an elevator to hold some bones in your hands. Luck doesn’t feel like luck when it’s like this: the day before it happens I am listening to the breathing of a man on as much morphine as I feel I deserve right now those

Painful       breaths   feel        than     beating
shuttered   that         louder   a           heart

What was I saying? The day before it happens I am spending my last thirty minutes wishing that I were anywhere else. C’mon, take my hand. I’m invisible now – watch me evaporate through the wall of the building down back to the carpark down to the creek near the chrome building down into the creek. Watch me shovel mud into my mouth so I can feel it too. Metastasis. Blood. Asbestosis. Tumour.

Mud. All the words for we-don’t-know-if-it’s-days-or-weeks all the words for it-could-be-months all the words for liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar liar

Hold my hand in this 1-2 rhythm. Hold my hand. I promise I’m not bones yet. I promise I’m not like that. watch me evaporate through my own life. won’t you please hold my hand?

it takes two to dance but it only takes one to throw off the rhythm and i for one am sorry that i threw you so far & threw myself along with it & it doesn’t matter & it’s okay because you found your own way back & i’m still out here without the rhythm & I can still feel it lurking in my lungs & I think the mud is genetic

And lately late at night when I find myself thinking of these things / of how much pain you can have / of how little oxygen you can subsist on it really makes me wonder why you won’t take my hand

does the mud staining my fingernails scare you? it’s only the ends of me that are ***** i promise i wouldn’t do that i wouldn’t do that to you please we can excise the rot from the tips of me / from the total of me we can excise it. Won’t you please pass me the next mouthful of mud before I start again / start to end?

What was I saying? Take my hand. Breathe in with me. Do you know who I am. Do you know why you’re here. Don’t cry. Take my hand. Breathe in with me. i’m invisible now. watch me evaporate through you /  watch me watch you not try to stop me / watch me tie the belt against the doorknob because i learn from the best. Watch me float down to the creek / take your hand in mine & press the mud back into my throat.

watch me climb into your car & by your car I mean / not / your car because you don’t know how to drive or you do and you’re a bad teacher or you do and you’re a bad driver or you do and you’re bones in a hospital bed or you – (Watch me Lose who You are)
(Are you still breathing in there?)

watch me climb into the car & press my foot down on the pedal that I know & go like i’m magnetised to your house because i know the way from the millions of bus rides to the carpools to the you or not you or doubly not you taking me & watch me drift through your back garden through your trampoline with all the exposed metal & over your pool with the tripping / scraping / whatever hazards & careen into your back deck through your second dining table into the den & finally & finally & finally & finally & finally & finally & finally & finally & finally & finally & finally & finally & finally

crash through your back glass windows into the couch that reminds me too much of the same one that someone has / had but not without the blood on it but it doesn’t matter really if i’m never gonna see you again & let me just blow a kiss at you with my mouth full of mud before I bite my own hand off –

AND

(0400 – No response. DNR)

won’t you please just take my hand while I spew all this bile at you?

you tell me
it starts small
you say
one spark
shame curled between your shoulder blades
really say
one flicker, all it takes
you never noticed you don’t remember it doesn’t matter anymore, really
     she apologised
     a house in seconds
     he didn’t do it again
i think of what it would be like
often

for you,
forgiveness something to share
i know you hate me
i tell you, i
can’t stop
say
it starts small
steam burning a hole in my chest
say
you never wanted it to start at all
i noticed i remember it mattered it did it
words can be a balm if you believe in them enough
i don’t know how you–
words can be enough to build a house
–live
from ashes to bone to home

i don’t know if i want to keep living like this

you are too easy
and i think
i fear i fear i fear because that’s all
i think often
i am all
of what you’ve forgiven
i learn and the spark
of what i would fight for you
the spark is too quick
and i think
i can burn down a house in seconds
i think often
i know i make you afraid
i’ve never seen you lit except
at me

1) i make lists in my notes app

staring at the page – struggling
something here feels wrong
pronoun use too direct? as though attacking –
perhaps a different one would work better

2) they spiral out of my (still wrong) thoughts, pale white bone on dark dark dark

3) you think (yes, that’s the one) surely it cannot be that much

4) i (no. go back) make lists for:

5) ways [ ] have hurt [   ] friends ; work in progress

6) what [ ] want to do when [ ] get older; if i get older

7) friends birthdays ; and

8) ways to annoy [   ] mother -

9) ways to make [   ]  father like [   ] again ; and

10) times [ ] have recognised that [ ] am poorer than most ; the first entry dated for the day i turned twelve

11) topics that cannot be mentioned at all ; ones that evoke ridicule / shame / regret or ones from aborted attempts at conversation

12) bets ; this note i label as the crux of this problem – it is cowardice in every form / a way of communication without vulnerability / only one bet has been made / this note has served its purpose

13) plans for days [ ] am left alone ; neatly segmented into one hour blocks / five minutes allotted between each

14) train routes and bus times and math ; thirty minutes early is better than on time / a statement that i am willing to die to prove

15) and you see the problem now, don’t you?

16) these lists are created as a means to an end

17) desperate attempts to keep this whirling mind attached to its base

18) because communication in a void is better

19) than no communication at all

20) here is a list of things that nobody else knows: i am slightly gap-toothed / when i smile it feels like stretching a cloth or mask or cover or slip or hood over my face. like a suffocation / i cannot imagine a future without you in it / this scares me

21) and you see the problem now

22) don’t you?

23) i have turned this poem into a list / i will turn you into a list / my acts of devotion are harmless words dotted in the corners of journals, sticky notes, widgets on my phone / they spiral endlessly from me / a besieged writer chased by their words

24) and i still haven’t figured out who to pin the blame on

the bathroom is an ode to violence

in the summer months, my hair grows long
i stand in the bathroom
twisting strands between fingers
my mother tells me
[I] [look] [beautiful] [,]
                                        [again] [.]
i hate how i look like someone that
i do not want to be

in the summer months, i see my friends
every other week
we pile into houses – always the same 2
sticky counters &
                                board games &
                                                            bad movies &
                                                                ­                      bad jokes
my friends tell me i look nice
                                                     (i need a haircut)
i like myself better when
i can be someone they like

in the summer months, i spend most time in the bathroom
staring at my reflection in the mirror
a million versions of me
                                           dig into my skin
i do not remove them
i just want to –

in the summer months, tupperware containers line
the sink-top/
counter-top/
bathroom cabinet
                               each one a sign of my failure
drip
        drip
                 drip
blood from my
teethtonguecheekgummouth
the containers overflow

[I will never get the stain out of the tiles.]

the bathroom is an ode to violence

I raise a container to my lips,
&
Drink.

i often think –  
that if i were not as gullible,
                                                   as trusting  
my Father would not hurt me.

it is never as simple as something like that.

my first name – chosen name, preferred name
kept the same initial  
as my dead one –  
                                  so we still had that in common
so He would still love me.

i will never come out to my Father
/
He will never stop hurting me

they mean the same thing, really