I woke up to the sound of a train and it was raining. I might be dreaming.
My mom has always loved
the sound of a train and here I am in someone else’s bed thinking
about how much I love the taste of blood and the smell of sweat.
My plant has a pulse but my eyes might
be playing tricks on me, I have a way of forgetting to separate my dreams
from reality. Sometimes
I share too much of myself with people too soon. I told
him that my grandma had green eyes
and that’s where I got mine and that I’ve got nightmares that test
my patience night after night
with grotesque new realities on display before my eyes
and that my nails are stained from pomegranate and that
I got straight As and I told him to bite me because
I like it
but I shouldn’t have said it all so soon.
When I’m hurtling home in my metal death trap
powered by explosions I take pictures of the sky to show myself that
I’m alive and beauty is only here now and a deer
could leap or someone could swerve and ****
me or the airbag could rip off my jaw and I’ll
spend my life bearing my ******* way that I didn’t intend. I’m the writer
with no jaw that everyone reads out of pity and to get a glance
in the windows of a ******’s life.
When I wake up my jaw is still there
but I’ve been clenching it again.
No adderall, no *******, no caffeine, just the pressure
I put on myself and the weight of life knotting up the muscles in my back
until my ribs start to tighten and constrict my breathing so I pull at the ribbons
laced up and down my sternum
but it is too late and the bone corset pulls me in,
pulling pulling pulling until
my organs burst out of my skin.
He tells me,
“You’re hard to read, you know.” I giggle
but I find it tough to explain the rich cascade of emotions that are tied
to the lunar tides and make me crave coffee at midnight in terms
that don’t make me sound completely crazy.
Well, tonight I am eating dinner and attempting to read while the television
babbles at me from another room
about something I don’t need to hear but I hear
a cracking sound and my teeth are sharp and jagged and crumbling
as I run my tongue across them. I wake up sweating.
When it was sunny I bought socks from the little girl section and I drenched myself in perfume. Later on we were drinking chai tea
and getting *****, so I **** on your fingers
while you choke me and in the morning you make pancakes
and I eat it
but I’m afraid of the flour and the substance because it rises up
under my skin and collects in unwanted pools on my body.
I shouldn’t have drank any beer but
I had three
and I spilled my secrets the second I felt the warmth of trust.
God ******* ****.
I drive in silence.
The poster’s eyes have been following me
all night and I don’t know if it is a matter of perspective
or some delusion convincing me that I’m not alone
word vomiting on notebooks and textbooks and gushing
piles of words onto my comforter. I pictured
growing a human being inside of me and my heart
started trying to run from my chest
I scared myself into an anxiety attack
picturing years flashing before me. Before I told him
that I’m not like most girls
he kissed my forearms
and then he kissed my neck. Maybe I’m crazy for believing in astrology but
last night I was hearing your moans
as roars like the lion you are purring, nuzzling me
until you fell asleep and I remembered
being five and wishing I was Belle, marrying the beast. I don’t know.
I don’t know if I’m crazy.
I kept losing my earring in your bed like I secretly wanted to leave something more tangible than my scent or stray blonde hairs for
you to find and remember me by. I think you like me too much and I’m
afraid of what you’ll find when you get in my mind and see the battlefield
that rages inside of a pretty head.
I used to see the world with the eyes of a child but today I feel like I’m senile and looking at the world from the future and dissecting the past
because I lost track of time again and no one knew where I was for seven hours. I might have been wandering but I think I was asking
a fruit fly for directions when she flew into my pupil and laid eggs on my optic nerve causing the light to fraction
and my thoughts to be projected onto the wall ahead.
People passing by could see it all streaming out of me,
every emotion, every desire, every fear and every image,
even the smoking **** on the cement
from when he left got stuck on my screen
and the dream I had the night before
about a man with gigantic hands
and a woman shielded her eyes
as I thought about the way you use your tongue on me. When I finally
stumbled home the projection had stopped
but the maggots had started and I stared at the mirror
and branded myself with the word ugly.
The pill is folded in the dollar and I whack it with a lighter,
the white shards scatter out and I lay the bill flat and crush crush crush
until the powder is free of chunks. One two three
making ten perfect lines, five on each side and my nostrils are on fire.
I **** smoke from a pipe and get so high that my entire face feels like melting
off and I’m so determined to sleep that I can’t
and I anticipate
gritty dreams but I never drift off.
Three glasses of white wine later I drive to his house and I can hear the train hitting the breaks while we throw empty beer bottles at the moving cars
from the roof of a crooked house. And then, the willow tree
draped over the train tracks
grabs the wind with her branches and she summons
sheets of rain that come blasting down.
I’m afraid of heights and I’m not sure why but I think falling
from the apple tree at age thirteen was the first time I realized that
bones break and they never heal the same way and my hands are shaking but

I stay on the wet roof with you and I let myself melt into this
momentary reality.

recovery is not pretty.
it is not painless or simple or instant.
it is a road littered with backsliding and obstacles and doubt.
a path marred with reopened scars and sleepless nights and feigned smiles.

recovery is rubberbands and ice cubes and pacing and cigarettes.
it is phone calls at 3am when you can barely breathe and all the walls are closing in.
it is screaming at the ones you love because they love you too much to let you break your skin.

it is long sleeves and overly-cautious internet browsing and lots of movies.
it is eating way too much ice cream and taking walks in the middle of the night.
it is hard. recovery is hard. it is messy. it is painful and chaotic. but it is not impossible.