Thank you,
I don't need anymore than this
just a deadbolt
and a locksmith;

To crack you open without a key.

Thank you,
I don't need anymore than this locksmith;
The bitter sweet symphony of just letting things be,
after letting you out to see the world beneath your feet,
I wanted to be the one to set you free.
Only, that wasn't good enough to me…

Thank you,
I don't need anymore than this
just a deadbolt;
and with a single pull of a kiss,
lock you up inside of me,
so you could never leave me.

Thank you,
I don't need anymore than this
just a deadbolt
and a locksmith.

I keep the deadbolt unlocked
Just in case you come home.

You don't.

!!!!!!Trigger Warning: ****, domestic violence, abuse, suicide!!!!!!!!



When I moved to your hometown, I saw your true colors.
I saw that power meant more, your dominance meant more, your ego and your assertiveness meant more to you than I did.
I tried.
I tried to leave you alone, but like a moth drawn to a flame, time and again I allowed myself to draw nearer to you, shocked when you burned me every time.
Isn’t that the definition of insanity?
Days later, I cut you off. I blocked you. And it felt good. Like I regained some of the control you took away from me. I was starting to feel like myself again until I got home that night.
You busted through the deadbolt lock on my door.
My backpack was missing.
I called your mom in a panic, having not connected the dots until moments after I hung up the phone with her and I heard your voice, calling me from outside my window.
I asked you.
I asked you once.
I asked you twice.
Did you do that to my door?
Your calm, unchanging face didn’t even blink when you answered,
No.
It wasn’t until I put two and two together, you being there, having my backpack, the holes in your story, your unchanging, unsurprised, unsympathetic face, that I realized what you had done.
And when I called you on it, you admitted it.
Why lie to me? Why lie to my face?
So I blocked you, again.
Leave me alone until I give you the word, I said.
Just leave me alone.
Two days later, I was breaking down crying over my inability to be alone, over my inability to love my broke pieces enough to pick myself up and put myself back together
Two days later, I called you.
You told me you were sorry.
And that you sent me roses in the mail, set to arrive sometime before I left, two weeks from then.
And I melted
I caved
I gave up being strong and decided to instead be naïve, oblivious, or simply in denial.
We can make it work at least until I leave, right?
What’s the worst that can happen?
But then the worst started to happen.
Your flashbacks took away your memories of me and replaced them with menacing, intrusive thoughts
Replaced me with other girls
Nameless, faceless, meaningless bodies for you to use as you please
Or a roadblock in the way of you achieving peace at last, kissing death’s sweet lips
The bad guy you worked so hard to bury deep within your subconscious became very, very conscious
Very real
I first noticed it the day we were walking to the park, I said you were less mature than I, a harmless quip meaning no personal injury
You walked on the opposite side of the street as me, refusing to look at me, refusing to acknowledge me, refusing to come back to my side.
But when that car full of guys rolled by me, whistling, yelling various unsolicited, uncomfortable things resembling compliments, you laughed.
You laughed at my fear.
And still wouldn’t walk with me.
It was that day, you got in my face and dared me to put my hands on you so you could lay me on the ground
It was that day, I asked you, why are you talking to me like this?
It was that day, you answered, if I don’t hurt you verbally, it will be physically.
It was moments later, through tears, I begged, why do you treat me like this?
It was moments later, with cold eyes, you answered, to feel powerful
Is it a switch?
Can you flip it on and off?
How can the one who caresses my face so very gently,
The one who calls himself my protector at all costs,
The one who rushes to my side at every beck and call,
The one who opens doors for me
Walks two hours in the rain for me
Spends all his money to send me roses,
Be so cruel?
Three days before I’m supposed to leave, you come spend the night with me
We’re laying down, whispering sweet nothings to each other in the darkness
When I suddenly admit, I’ll miss you.
Don’t go, you say.
But I have to. I have to, my love.
It was then that you grabbed me by the neck, and told me I was not going to leave you.
Baby, please, I can’t breathe.
You’re not leaving. I don’t care if I have to take you away
Then you jolt out of it, looking at me with confusion. Your head hurts.
Just lay on me chest baby, it’s okay
I stroke your hair slowly, softly, calmly
Why is your heart beating so fast?
It’s not baby, close your eyes.
I hear it. What’s wrong?
Nothing, love, I’m fine. Just anxious about the move.
You know, you could stay here with me.
Baby, I already got my plane ticket, I’m leaving in a couple days.
No.
No?
No.
You grab my wrist with one hand.
Baby, let me go.
No.
Babe, you have to let me go. It’s okay.
No. Stop saying that.
Baby, I-
It’s too late. You’re already on top of me, grabbing my other wrist and pinning me down, your dark eyes beating into mind.
Baby, please let go of me, you’re squeezing too tight, you’re hurting me.
Your grip grows even stronger, and I feel the panic rising in my chest again.
Then you jolt out of it. Your head hurts. You need to lay down.
This time, I don’t let you lay on me. This time, I simply watch you lay there.
You reach out for me
I flinch
Concern flickers in your eyes, babygirl what’s wrong? You haven’t flinched around me in months.
It’s nothing.
It’s something, talk to me. What did I do?
You… um.. you pinned me down. You h-held my wrists. You wouldn’t let me go…
You laugh.
I wouldn’t do that, unless you were trying to leave me
Baby, I’m leaving the state in two days.
Your eyes turn cold. You yank my hair, pulling my head back.
You what?
I don’t answer.
You WHAT?
I-I’m leaving in two-
You yank my hair again, harder this time, before letting me go.
Your head hurts.
Really bad, really, really, bad.
Lay down baby, it’s okay.
I kiss your forehead tenderly
You’re okay.
My last day there was the worst.
By far, the worst.
Laying down, we’re past the stage of denial over me leaving.
I’m leaving tomorrow. And I’m so horribly sad to leave you behind.
You’re depressed. You don’t want to be here anymore. You don’t see yourself living without me.
You’re the only thing ******* keeping me here anymore, you say bitterly.
You’re gonna have to be strong for me when I leave, my love. I know you can.
Just die with me, you plead, it’ll be quick. I can choke you to death and **** myself. We’ll never have to be apart again.
We don’t even know what’s on the other side. What if it’s nothing? What if we don’t find each other?
You insist. You beg. You plead. You cry. Until you finally give up convincing me, your hand creeping up towards my neck.
Let me go.
Baby, let me go
Your hand is around my neck. Tightening. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe. There are black spots clouding my vision, like when you stand up too fast after sitting for too long, except they’re everywhere
Please, babe, please just…
Shhhhh babygirl it’s okay, close your eyes, go to sleep
So I do. I close my eyes and you slowly remove your hand from my neck, kissing me tenderly on the forehead, before getting up and going to my window. You open the window and as you’re looking down at the two story drop, my eyelids flutter open.
I reach out for you as you go to climb out the window.
Baby, stop, I whisper weakly.
You’re supposed to be dead.
But I’m not. Just, come here, it’s okay, you don’t have to do this.
I stand slowly and come to you, grabbing your arm to pull you away from the window.
Now it’s your turn to demand that I let you go.
Just let me do this. I need to do this. Leave me alone.
No, you don’t, just come here.
Before I can even blink both of your hands are around my neck and squeezing, lifting me off the ground.
Leave me alone before I make you leave me alone.
Unable to breathe, I nod, and you drop me.
Gasping for breath, I see you going towards the window once again.
Please! Just use the front door. Just walk out the front door, if you go out the front door I swear to god I’ll leave you alone.
You turn towards me, reaching once again for my neck, and I grab your wrists.
You back me up, twisting out of my grip and grabbing onto my wrists.
You keep backing me up, until we’re almost to my closet. I stop and rest against the open door, and you ask coldly,
Why’d you stop backing up? Keep going. Since you don’t know how to leave me the **** alone.
I don’t have much of a choice. You push me into the closet, and turn me around so I’m no longer facing you, placing your arm around my neck in a choke hold and tightening your grip.
I hit your arm once, twice, three, four, five times, and you finally drop me.
Your head hurts.
I turn to face you, with fear in my eyes, cowering under you.
You look at me with confusion.
Why are we in a closet? What’s wrong? Why are you-
You reach out to touch me and I cower and flinch, shaking my head
Please don’t, please, please don’t touch me. Please. I’m sorry. Please.
I break down crying.
You realize what you’ve done.
And you sit in the closet. In your little corner, to punish yourself, as I cower in the corner.
Seconds blend into minutes as they pass by, until you rise from the closet, going to the door. You don’t know where you are. You don’t know who I am. You keep calling me another girl’s name. I don’t know who it is.
Now it’s your turn to cower in the corner.
I can only imagine what’s going on in your head, as you’re crying out with fear and panic over the voices screaming in your head. I let you cry, clinging onto my legs.
It’s okay my love, you’re safe now, you’re not there anymore. Let it out. It’s okay.
My jeans are soaked now. I gently remove you from my legs and go to change my pants. Your face immediately switches to panic.
No, please, I don’t want to have ***. Please. I don’t want to.
Baby, relax. I’m not going to make you. I’m just changing out of these wet pants.
As I change out of my pants and into your oversized basketball shorts, your face changes.
Come here.
I look at you, confused.
Now.
I slowly walk over to the corner where you’re no longer cowering in. I crouch down next to you.
Closer.
You pull me onto your lap.
I gotta tell you something.
I lean over, your lips grazing my ear as you whisper,
I want you
You begin kissing my neck.
Kissing, touching, gently.
I almost didn’t notice anything was wrong. It wasn’t until you looked at me and asked,
What’s your name, girl?
That I realized you weren’t really here. I looked at you, dumbfounded, and you shrugged,
Okay, I guess that doesn’t matter. You’re **** as hell.
I pushed off of you, shaking my head.
I’m your girlfriend. Remember?
You shake your head.
I don’t date girls like you. Why don’t you just take that off?
You stand, walking towards me.
Just relax.
No!
I push you off me, and you laugh coldly.
Babygirl, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. But I love it when they fight back.
You grab me by the neck, kissing me roughly, as your free hand pulls my shorts off.
I’m pushing you. I’m pushing you off of me but you’re too strong.
You grip my ******* tightly and begin pulling them down, but I grip them tighter and keep holding them up.
Stop. Please. Stop.
I use my most authoritative voice and you chuckle with amusement.
Guess we’re doing this the hard way then, hm?
You pick me up and set me on my back on the ground. I go to get up. You pin me back down by my throat, prying yourself between my legs.
You begin to touch me.
I flinch under your touch and keep pushing, keep pushing you off of me.
You pin my hands with both of yours.
You bring my hands together and hold them both with one of your hands.
Stop. Fighting.
You resume touching me.
My body betrays me as I squirm and leak.
You know you like that. Don’t you?
You enter me, and I cry out in pain as you use me for your pleasure.
Call me daddy
You demand, and I shake my head.
You grab me by the throat and begin going harder. Faster. Harder. Faster.
Again, you demand,
Say it.
The word escapes my lips and you grin with satisfaction.
I close my eyes.
I stop fighting.
I do anything I can to take a mental vacation somewhere far, far, away.
I’m not here. This isn’t happening. It’s not. It’s okay. I’m fine. It’s almost over.
You pull out suddenly, and look at me with horror.
No… no… no, no, no, no, no, no
You let go of my neck. Then my hands. You back up and stare at me as if I’m on fire.
Please tell me I didn’t just do what I think I just did.
I wish I could. I wish I could tell you that you didn’t just do what you think you just did, but you did.
Your head hurts.
So ******* bad.
You retreat to your corner in the closet, and I retreat to the corner opposite in the room. Now it’s my turn to cower in the corner.
The next morning, you’re helping me move my stuff out of my room, into your mom’s car. She’s taking me to the airport.
The ride to the airport is silent.
When we arrive, you open the door for me, and scoop me up bridal-style so I don’t get my shoes wet in the puddle you’re standing in.
I hug you tightly, holding back tears.
I kiss you gently, holding back words.
I love you.
I love you, too.
As I walk into the airport, leaving you standing in the rain, I realize:
The roses never came.

This door between us,
I can feel you on the other side.
It pains to know this only hurdle between us,
Deadbolt, I’m locked outside.
I hate to hear your cries there,
I smile when I hear you laugh,
The times I wished I could break it down,
But this lifeless bolt to me won’t answer.
One fear I have, that you hold the key,
And you left me out.
Worst, you lost the key.

Your smile is an animal that
still haunts me on
Rainy Tuesday nights.
When I'm feeling more fifteen than I ever did
at fifteen.
When my deadbolt ribs
slide loose.
"So that's what you're really like."
******* too.

Some people are just
too weird to love
and I'm done looking
for kisses.

Ethereal. That's the squirming quality of that health-hazard house,
where a byproduct of divorce emulsion slept in a bare room on
a bare air mattress, vacuously lying around with the blinds down,
vicious AM radio mumbling through the walls. Homeschooling was more like
becoming housebroken, given that my social network consisted of thirty feral cats.
I suppose some boys require a deadbolt on their room's door.

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean,
My fist got hard and my wits got keen,
I'd roam from town to town to hide my shame.

The apathy cloud that crawled the house led to a
(the deadbolt was to lock me out of my room; not in)
prison break; I awkwardly assured myself that I would
never be anything if I was still Pinocchio, and pleaded
to go to liberal-dominated-non-Rush-Limbaugh-approved public schools.
I did; I got into university, I got a grant, I do research,
I got a job, I got a girl, I got a job, I got a girl...
I don't know how to leave my room now that I'm free.
I still hear the crackle of conversative talk radio.

'Cause we'll put a boot in your *** / It's the American way.

Like trembling flotsam I drift into every class,
every party, every... A poem can regurgitate a person who is all
covered in spit and acid and memories. I still know that house
better than I know my own breathing body. I'm just going to keep running;
like a yellowed refrigerator housing second-amendment-upbringing-coleslaw;
like an overheating computer; like I always do; statically, in stasis.

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean,
My fist got hard and my wits got keen,
I'd roam from town to town to hide my shame.

I can remember the words “Don’t leave me” spewing from my mouth as you grabbed your wallet. As I heard the jingle of your keys.
I was never the girl who asked someone to stay. Not till you.
I was always pushing and shoving people out the door. Slamming it shut on their fingers, hearing the crunch of their knuckles as I locked the deadbolt.
My forte was leaving people behind.
Living on the run.
Loving for fun.
My mother left my father because he drank too much. She said she loved him but she could still feel the ache in her tummy as he pushed the couch to it when the two pink, parallel lines showed up on that stick. And there I rest, in that same tummy. My fingernails barley formed. My heartbeat slow. Not a hair on my head.
The strongest thing she could do for us was lock the deadbolt behind him. When he took the money, and the car, and that case of beer that tore them apart.
See I’m not strong enough to lock the deadbolt behind you. I will always leave the lights on, the welcome mat outside my chest will always hide the key to my heart. You know just where to find it.
I can’t leave you behind.
Because you’re my first taste of love.
So bitter, so sweet.
You bring out my greatest adversaries.
Everything I hate about me.
The things I try so hard to push to my subconscious.
You lay them all out.
I was always prone to flight in times of strife.
But with you I want to fight.
And I will fight till my knuckles are ****** and my knees are bruised.
I’ll fight for you till I’m black and blue. And I will keep fighting.
You are every hope,every promise and every reason to keep going.
I will sail your uncharted waters and even when the tide is high, and the waves are pulling me under. I will swallow that water instead of drowning.

When the thieves broke in,
They broke my mother’s heart,
They broke my naiveté,
They broke my maternal lineage,

By making her closet bare,
She stood barely recognizing it,
Stared at her safe,
Her
Bulletproof
Fireproof    
Apocalypse proof
Safe
Code c r a c k e d,
Deadbolt door eerily open.

“It’s just jewelry,” she muttered,
        [Passed down from one generation to the next,
        Dating back to an invaded India,
        Surviving six hundred soldiers,
        Smuggled within folds of saris through seas,
        Stories etched in souvenir gold].

“At least we’re all safe,” she stated with conviction.
        [Yet I couldn’t help but feel,
        A physical furthering,
        From my immigrant ancestors,
        Who passed along secrets with every pendant,
        Who whispered hopes in every ornate hairpin,
        Who stored their aspirations in every accumulation:
        Real riches knit with poetic prospers from the past].

How funny
To imagine the thieves
Pricing a priceless object --
Ironically making it worthless
Because the burglary left behind
The heritage.

When he entered the room, she was naked. She sat stripped of her mythology and the bare curves of her hips made his hands shake. He hid them in his pockets like seizures in winter and told himself it was just the morning coffee.

"Jesus Christ..." His jaw slacked and tightened and he waited for a response; something witty like, odd time to pray or not quite, but maybe his cousin or oh, honey, he moved out years ago, but we still get his mail.
But soon waiting gave way to waiting, as waiting is wont to, and things became uncomfortable. Her deadbolt eyes. She blinked in slow motion, no lash out of place, and he felt foolish.

See, he never expected her to be a woman, and he almost said as much, had the look on her face not shut him up beautifully. Besides, at this point he was pretty certain that cities definitely don't speak--not English anyway--and even then, his concrete dialect was, at best, as atrocious as cracked pavement. He lisped with too much wind and not enough asphalt.

He looked around for somewhere to sit but the only chair wasn't even really a chair, it was a stool with a questionable third leg that sat over-turned and tucked in the far corner and he found himself at an impasse. Retrieving it would not only involve taking his hands from their linen hideaways, but she hadn't even offered him a seat and he didn't want to be rude; he being a man of manners with the cotillion lessons to prove it. On the other hand, there was a more-than-decent chance that his knees would buckle at any moment. He cleared his throat.

"May I?" he motioned and crept around her with a weird, dainty tip-toe. He would later reflect on and regret this odd step choice because it was undeniably ladylike, unlike this lady whose face seemed carved from marble and gave nothing away; she just cast her eyes slightly downward. He uprighted the chair that wasn't really a chair and checked the sturdiness of the questionable leg and shrugged in questionable approval and dragged it back to where he was and returned his hands to where they were and felt, aside from the girly walk, that went surprisingly well.

So it was in silence that he was left to sit. Sit and think. Think about small things, trivial ****. He thought about the small stain on his pants and hoped to God it was toothpaste. He thought about the itch in the dead center of his back where he can never scratch without looking like he has a severe case of cerebral palsy. He thought about his pockets, full of trembling leaves that fluttered with spare change winds and hung delicately from his autumn tree arms. He thought about bigger things too, like how if two people on exact opposite ends of the earth simultaneously each dropped a piece of bread, for a brief moment the whole world was just a really big sandwich. But mostly he thought about the difference between hard and mean.

Hard is the bottomless tumblers of American dream fathers, breathing scotch like fire and promises that were only ever half-way held true. But mean... Mean is a different kind of machine entirely. Mean, he realized, is one solid kick in the nuts past hard. Hard is when your ice cream drops mid-lick and falls in the cinematic drama of a-hundred-and-twenty frames per second to the unforgiving pavement, and even though there is a split seconds chance to reach out and catch it, you don't because, let's face it, sticky hands are gross. But mean is the little junior sonofabitch dog that comes a-waddling on in, laps up your deliciously sweet sidewalk treat and stares you right in the face while he does it. Mean makes you realize the sticky fingers would have been worth it. And before he could decide which category this Angel City would fit in, she stood, with a slight smile curling at the corner of her mouth and one hand behind her back. She slinked over to him with snake ankles and reached out and ran her fingers along his jawline and hooked his chin upward and kissed him.

It wasn't the delicate, thin-lipped kiss of embarrassed virgins and ex-stripper-turned-born-again-Christians. It also wasn't the Californication kiss filled with carnal tongue that he might have expected had the idea that she was going to do anything but intimidate the utter **** out of him even crossed his mind. It was somewhere between the two. Between shelter and apocalypse.  Viperous with a tinge of motherly protection (which, actually, gave him some confusing feelings). When she pulled away he felt the slight clink of metal against his teeth.

A bullet. Round and smooth, he rolled it between his thumb and forefinger and watched his fingerprint peel off and mark the lead skin with little, oily mazes. He looked up to her, unsure of what to say or what to make of whatever the hell just went down. She stared silently because, you know, that's her thing and he felt he had to say something because, you know, manners.

"I thought we said no gifts." He laughed. She didn't. He felt like an idiot immediately. Then, like the other half heart of a best friend necklace, she drew from her back a snub-nosed revolver. Her thumb flicked with outlaw elegance and the empty chamber rolled open.

"Let's play a game."
It was all she said. He didn't pay attention to whether she spoke in impeccable English or if the words were lit in the electric neon of Sunset Boulevard. It didn't matter and he didn't care. He didn't even notice when he took the gun and slid the round in until after he spun the chamber and slung it shut. When she lifted his arm without touching him and he felt like he was her marionette. When the snub nose found it's way to his mouth, he was certain of it. The feeling of the metal barrel against his bare teeth made his skin crawl and his stomach turn, yet even still he grinned.

He grinned because he saw his hand and his hand grinned because it wasn't shaking, not anymore.

He grinned and cocked the hammer back.

Hands that look sunburned
at first blush
count the silent ticks of a cognitive clock
grasping and releasing in stilted syncopation:
one-two-three-five (must avoid the four)
Did I remember to lock the front door?  Out
of bed—again—freezing feet tumble
down
     into slippers
awaiting the circular inevitability.  Again, again.  

Pad, pad, pad:
light shuffling accompanies the one-two-three-five
pounding in the head; that mind ricocheted with worry—
worry about the front door, the evil intentions of four,
insidious germs and subsequent scrubbing-scrubbing-scrubbing
in bleach and Comet.  Pad,

pad, pad to the front door.
It’s one hundred and thirty four steps, so take a baby-shuffle:
still avoiding the four.
Cold, unyielding brass ****.  Locked.

Deadbolt? Check.  Creeping black.
Chain lock?  Check.  Crawling germs.  Oh, god.

Pad, pad, pad to the kitchen.
Clorox-fume greetings in the sparkling sink
from twenty-three minutes before.  Never twenty-four.
Clorox on the cracked fingers, blistering
out that imperceptible blackness I know it’s there
blackness choking, bleeding in the bleach.

Scrub brushes, pumice, and fingernail files
wear down the nubs where the blackness may hide.
“Shh” the steaming water soothes
as it stings, scalds.  “Shh.”  Burn it all out;
conclusion so comforting.  So predictably round.

This is the last time I can do this tonight.  Pad, pad, pad
back to the bedroom.  Downey quilt beckons in lover tones,
pleading pillows nudge against that head, that infernal head
still panicking amongst the softness:
*Did I remember to lock the front door?