The house smelled of vacant parking lot gasoline
it always had that odor, the one where things are very seldom touched
and the flies build their nests atop the sweaty ceilings
my footsteps were perfectly carved into that carpet, like snow angels
when we had first moved in the floor was a soft white
with time, it bared resemblance of an old man who hadn’t shaved in two
days and wore the same tweed jacket every day
coming home was like a war kissing a forest fire,
those days the air felt colder
the television spit into the raw eyes of a man who called himself a father
this could have meant something had it been years later
and it would have been important had it happened twenty years before
I will say with confidence that in those days the earth was colder
specifically numb in those people whose hearts are like plastic containers full of
marbles, however, the world could seem like a refrigerator at times
to a 15 year old girl with the eyes of caramels
You could say that the poetry started with the dead houseplants
or the mother that secretly smoked cigarettes inside the laundry room
but the beginning starts with finding cherry trees in the
mouths of two twin girls that lived across the street, the
one with the lawn intestines spilling from their front porch
there is no one in the universe like you, that holds true especially
with people who play with guns and the boy that was born with fins
but, there is a difference with identical twins
Siamese children who lick each others’ spoons
and never have the correct name assigned to them
spending all of eternity looking in the mirror
******* telepathically, and who can blame them
2
Peppermints.
All of my memories have the taste of peppermint being
rolled around the tongue on an afternoon
and my mind waters.
I am especially reminded of this when I walk up the subway one night
and the shadows seem liquefied and I could be anywhere but instead I am
in a city where no one makes eye contact and
my jacket still has the tag as it bites into my skin
I can hear the clatter of my shoes on stark concrete, the wobbly way I never grew into my own shoes
as a man approaches, jogging quickly carrying with him a suitcase
I notice he has a slight misstep to his walking and suddenly he sprints into a jog
rushing, he slams into my elbow throwing me off balance
and the smell of peppermint is stronger now, resilient,
powerfully filling my head like nicotine
as he violently slips his hand into my pocket
darts quickly back and starts running ahead, never looking back not once
Within seconds he is gone
I don’t realize what has happened, afraid that someone somewhere
in the dark distance, inside a car with tinted windows is watching me
observing my movements, wondering if I will call out to someone
My mouth is dry as I feel into my pocket and realize there is a note inside
it is a metallic sheet of paper with an address inviting me to paradise
in the back of the card, there is nothing but a meticulously engraved
spider, sinister in its appearance and yet reminding me that I am no longer a child.
Suddenly I remember; it’s Valentine’s Day.
3
In those days the screams of crickets were louder, much heavier.
Like the dew couldn’t stop them from rubbing their legs against their backs.
As if summer was an aphrodisiac for the mentally suave and the utterly alive.
Such convictions never last, I was an insect that year
an everlasting metamorphoses slowly molding my body
an eternal cocoon coating my veins and never shedding
these nuances of growing up, despite all this I was still a child wrapped
in a blanket that didn’t cover my feet anymore.
My mother used to go down to the basement on a regular basis,
I called it the swamp because it always made me feel as though I was
trudging through quicksand in a valley down below, separate from our own house
but that place was heaven to her I realized, the carbon monoxide clouding her head
the grassy windows, the way the clothes shrank in on themselves, like lungs but
never actually breathing, just inhaling
I don’t think she ever knew anyone was watching her, but I always was.
I would wake up at exactly the time my father left for work, or what we believed was work
and I would take my red binoculars and glide through the living room causing friction
with every step I took, passing the rooms of my older siblings down to hell
opening the door carefully, I would walk down two steps and stay there motionless
pressing my eyes into the glasses and staring
These endeavors proved futile, and once I had the ability to leave the house I never
looked back with nostalgia, never missed the coughs or the curled fists
but in those moments, I felt time move slower, I could have stayed down there
a shameless spy, a trustworthy confidante
But life had better things for me than looking in on death, thought it more
suitable to touch horror than to always be catching glimpses of something
As boring as suicide
There was a day when things didn’t match the rest
I can blame this on naïve intuit or the childish way I chose to see things
It was Saturday and it was the 14th of February
Normally, my father was home by noon but today it was different
the air was stale, there was no movement in the house
It was beautiful outside and the only rarity was that there was a
taxi car parked outside our neighbor’s house
I stood up, poised as ever in the middle of the hallway
Had I looked deeper outside I would have noticed a strange man
next to the taxi car looking into our house, nodding his head with the
Rhythms of the grandfather clock, but I didn’t and who was I to know
As I gripped my binoculars walking into the place I knew so well
I didn’t know what I was to expect, there was an uncertainty
Behind the door that I felt what I had never felt before and have never felt since that day
However the long pause was it didn’t stop me from opening the door
walking down two steps and peering into my treasured binoculars
I didn’t know who I was supposed to find