I dig my nails in and it feels good.
I wish you would hit me harder sometimes
when we’re joking around, naked,
I deserve it.

You bruise me but you don’t mean it.
It’s not your fault you’re taller than me.
The boys before you, they meant it.
They tried their best.

Has anyone broken your heart?
A boy once got a girl pregnant, she wasn’t me.
And another one.
Still not me.

I don’t want babies.
I don’t want to draw dole, smoke draw,
earn three hundred a week and blow it all
in the bookies.

I haven’t seen my Mam in a month now.
My brother might be taller again. I miss
the sea and my golden retriever.
I wish you would pretend to choke me for longer.

Sometimes I don’t want to breathe.
I think you’re just proof that home does not own me.
You don’t know me.
I can be arrogant as a priest.

A searing night. A price
tallied out and settled up.
I'm sipping down the size
of the smaller plights of times like these
in towns with bloodshot eyes.

Your coyote grin,
the gravel in
my creosote laughter were paving
the longest paths to saving graces
and filling up deaf ears.

I'm spilling every ounce
of all my guts
on your ears in the alley where I threw
               up last year
when I disappeared from your birthday.

Your coyote grin,
eyes glistenin',
you laughed kinda quiet while walking.
Familiar paths. We're talking crazy
through bitter whiskey sneers.

But I think, this hot night,
               I'm ready to believe...

Between the asphalt and the stars

Between the almost-fights
               and rushing cars

Between the blurring downtown bars...

We'll find some common ground.
The town's lit up, we'll trickle down
to a point of least resistance
where we can bid farewell to arms.

Or I'll find my way back home
to 1130 Longstaff
where my walls can close me in.

Precious child, your face
is all the boy I loved,
all I wanted, all I
left behind, mixed

up in a girl.
She thinks I'm ******,
I'll never hold you.
You'll be raised to hate me.

I am not your enemy.
Just know
promises are rarely kept,
please
see the human that I am,
my soul, my mind, I'm
not a hateful girl—
a mixed up kid,
not yet the person that I
want to be.

You're beautiful,
I'm sorry I am not
your mother I
would spoil your teeth rotten
with chocolate candy.