Or all that you thought of her while stalking her social media.

[And all that is real.]

Girl. She’s so skinny.

[Her insides are a fast-setting cement…]

Must be throwing up all that food she eats.

[… a dead ant hill.]

Sticking that finger down the back of her throat.

[The real her is down there in the empty passageways.
Looking for a way back up. Looking for a way out.]

Sick girl?

[There is no way out. Every tunnel spills back into herself.]

Yeah right.

[She is a connoisseur of masks. She collects them like you collect shoes.]

Look at her…all smiles.

[Same face. Different mask.]

Here she is on vacation!

[Sometimes the old her comes and visits. They hold hands. Catch up.]

Look at those shoes she is wearing.

[And you couldn’t take one step in them.]

Another shot of her scars. Are those even real? Those can’t be real.

[Her scars are as real as train tracks. They rise up from her skin and circle her body. They terminate in the station of her mind. In the valley of her head, there are some things, like her disease, that she will never bury deep enough.]

Another hospital selfie? Must be there for the pain meds.

[She looks away when the nurse inserts the I.V.

She rereads old magazines.

Changes the sheets on her bed.

Listens to the beeps of machines.

She brushes her teeth.

Careful not to look at herself in the mirror.

She traces the veins in her arms.

Imagines they are highways leading out and away from herself.

She is tangled hair.

She is anesthesia slipping through hollow plastic.

She is rough, gloved hands - poking, prodding.

She is tubing burrowed into skin.

She is two eyes, closed, dreaming.

     In her dream she is healthy.

     Escapes the hospital.

     Slips unseen down a dark flight of steps.

     Emerges suddenly into a sun drenched parking lot.

     Raises her arm to shield her eyes.

     Squints until the road comes into view.

     Walks with bare feet upon gravel.

     Away into some field.

     Where she comes across her body asleep in a hospital bed.

     She is two eyes open, awake.

She is the curator of these images of her life.

She is …

the only witness that matters.]

At the edge of a farmer's field four crows rise in lumbering flight against a relentless wind that pushes one of the birds directly down and into the path of my windshield. I watch through my rear-view mirror as its lifeless body twirls and comes to rest on the grass. Some faceless preacher on the radio talks about the hands of God threaded through all things. I turn it off and listen to only the wind.

Engineers will tell you that all things can be measured:
Indiana is a certain number of miles wide.
There are instruments you can use to ascertain the exact thickness of a gun barrel; the ounces even in a bullet.

Then there are some things that can never be measured nor should they:
Your life as viewed through the eyes of the people who love you.
The speed of the bullet as it carries you between worlds.
The weight of two broken wings on the shoulder of a highway…
Both of you now cupped in the wide, steady palms of God.

In my dream last night

I destroyed the moon

and then feasted on the rings of saturn.

And my father tumbles now

like a stone

within my ribs.

I shall never return here again.

The scar crisscrossing your body is a road-map that will never lead back to the old you.

And so you run on a twisted and bent road. Hoping to be scrubbed clean beneath this blue, January sky.

The way back, simply, is to just go further in…one foot in front of the other.

I
[After surgery]

Your new skin is a flat, white stone washed up into the arms of the shore

you'll need to become the rough shoulder of the sea

and wash over it

rise and fall

over and over

rise and fall

until the seams split

until eventually it slips back in place over your bones

and folds once again over the two empty caves of your eyes

until it wraps around the base of your skull

and begins to sponge up your mind

which has been elsewhere

seeped out and spread

as an unbound ocean

through the dark void of anesthesia

until you once again become small and unbroken

II
[Upon waking]

The entirety of your mind is contained within the few ounces

of ice chips in the Styrofoam cup on the tray

next to your hospital bed

you'll have to crush the ice with your teeth

let it melt over your tongue

let it seep back down your throat

over and over again

until you feel yourself

climbing up

and into

climbing up

and just beneath

the surface of your eyes

wide and clear

through this final surrender

wide and clear

through this

long and drifting

homecoming