My hands look old.
I don't know what happened to their previous beings,
their soft, pale, younger selves.
My hands are cracked from the dry humorless days of anticipation.
I have hangnails, my skin so dry it's splitting from itself.
And they shake.
They shake along with my voice and my thoughts.
Trembling with excitement and worry.
When you're in the room,
especially when you're not, though.

I have stretch marks.
On my inner thighs, and on my sides,
they remind me of roads, of maps, of going places.
Each goosebump is a hillside,
each little crack in my dry skin is a riverbed, waiting for rain.
My body is a terrain of  imperfections,
and I'm just trying to keep still enough
as to not disturb the world that I harvest.

The tracks
in my veins
are violets,
lavender scars
pushing up
from underneath
porcelain skin

These angled bones
are fists, I'm
brushing the dirt
from my palms
after I've spent a night
buried in the garden
that grows
in your bed

Red blood kisses
burn against
my snowflake mouth,
each one different
never the same --

Hips blades of grass
darting through my thighs,
beanstalk limbs
shooting up from
the ground,
no one can tell me
when they'll stop

If it doesn't rain
soon, they'll stop
sprouting for good,
a stunted twelve-year-old's body
hanging in the balance
of years left unmarked
in the crater of my belly

Child's fingers
pause
against
the window,
waiting
for the sun
to fade

her tightrope
was a feather,
balance weighing
on the tips of wings
held suspended
above the ground

summer skin
taut
against her bones,
thousands of stars
threaded beneath
each of her freckles

she found solace
in satellites,
the man in the moon
winking from his place
among the planets

she felt
galaxies
coursing through
her veins, the Milky Way
bubbling up
from her belly

and
somewhere
within --

tiny heartbeats
mirroring the shower
of asteroids
falling
from the sky

I am twice the size of my mind
a half zipper from being undressed
They say kids with higher IQs do more drugs
because we’re looking for something
there’ve been studies but
I haven’t found anything yet
I’m just shivering dizzy confused lying on your bed
not going to puke.
In your arms you’ve got me safe for some reason.
It takes all my effort to lift my head “What?”
“You’re lovely” you whisper
that’s not what you said the first time I think.
“even now?”
“Sleep, baby”
I always had a thing for boys tellin' me what to do.

My insides are all rustled up.
That internal migration pull
of elsewhere travel adventure.

I'm getting sick of it here,
turns out I'm not all that bright.

My horoscope says I should tell him I love him;
I think I just might.
we can up and run away
Together.

My footing here is so uncertain
I think I might just jump;
I don't want to look back at this place
that laughs in my face.

What was it?
I was nothing, sitting on an ant farm couch.
We were all coming home drunk
In intervals
And taking off our clothes sliding into bed
With our respectives.
I was an ant on a farm,
Digging in lines of people
What will I do when my parents are gone?
You morbid little ****.
Lucky little me, born. Significant as
An ant on a farm
Or all alone where I'm just as real
As the people who talk to me
At parties or in my mind.

time,
like raindrops
bleating against the woodwork outside.
pattering against the windows.
i watch helplessly as each drop
hits
and bounces.
i work my way slowly
through
a case of beer
and a few packs of cigarettes
smoking, drinking
and sitting.
minutes are hours
i wait
for someone to come.
i begin to drift,
not into sleep,
but into a fog
a haze, the fourth dimension.
helpless
i see my life
happy moments,
sad ones, painful ones,
over and over, they repeat
in my head, skipping about
dancing playfully.
"Why do you do this to me?" i ask,
cigarette ash drifting into my lap.
there is no response.
the rain continues to patter
and i'm almost out of beer.
i drink, i wait
as time
slips away.