what fear did she feel when she was told that her womb would carry such a deity?
did she feel the fear that my heart did,
after he used my body as a play thing?
how heavy did her chest feel at the thought of loving a holy human being?

how long did she spend deconstructing her own virginity and actions?
mulling over what she may have blocked out of her young memory

did you feel violated, my dear, while you scrutinized what had happened to your body?
did the lack of violence scare you?
how frightening was the son of God, lodged into your fragile womb?

oh how i long to hold you
reassure you that you are not the grime that you feel deep in your gut
you are merely a girl, carrying the burden of the world’s greatest gift
but you never as much even volunteered

My mother told me
I was a fool to go after you,
but I thought it poetic,
to be foolish for you.

Thought it was romantic
to rush and jump in
much too fast,
thought it was fun to be dragged.

Thought it was endearing
to love
someone who didn't love back,
thought it'd be fun to see,
how a bad idea would end,
so I slipped you
an invitation,
sent it as a joke,
but then you showed up,
and I don't even know.

So go ahead and choke me,
I'll cry on my birthday,
dreaming of faraway.
I feel like I'm drowning,
I feel like I'm sinking,
deeper and deeper
into a bad something.
I should start listening.

Shouldn't have had you at my party,
wouldn't have stopped me from falling,
wouldn't have stopped me from sinking,
wouldn't keep me listening,
but maybe my mascara wouldn't smudge,
even if my heart wouldn't budge,
I could have cried some other day.

Other than my birthday.
Other than my party,
could've cried in the backseat,
of a random taxi,
on a random Tuesday.
could have ate my feelings away
right beside a driver who didn't even know me.

But I didn't cry in a taxi,
didn't cry in the backseat,
I cried in the bathroom,
at the big venue,
I messed up my makeup,
we didn't even break-up,
we aren't even dating,
so why did it matter,
why did my baby heart shatter
on my birthday?

Over nothing?

Oh why did I have to cry
on my birthday?

I’m in a Target parking lot
wearing his sweatshirt
and a sash that says
'Poet Laureate of American Mistakes'
because I won it in a landslide
against every girl
who’s ever texted
“you up?”
knowing **** well he is,
but not for her.

I didn’t cry today,
but I did stare at a peach
for ten minutes thinking
about death,
and foreplay,
and if any of this even counts as research.

I think about texting him
just to say
I’m sorry I made you a metaphor.
But the truth is
I’m not.
He was the only thing
that ever meant something
after I wrote it down.

I came here for toothpaste
and left with a bikini top
I’m too emotionally haunted to wear,
and a notebook I won’t open-
because if I do,
I’ll make art again,
and I’m trying to quit,
but I never really try that hard.
I don’t even know if I want to get better.
I just want someone to notice.

A man honks behind me
because I’m not moving.
Because I parked
but forgot to arrive.
Because I’m not really here,
I’m three texts back
and one year late.
You don’t know it’s the last time
until your hands feel stupid.

I wave like I’m sorry
but I’m not.
I’m just poetic.
Which is worse.

This parking lot’s a stage.
I’ve died here six different ways.
Once in June.
Twice in sweatpants.
The fourth time I thought it was over,
but the music kept playing.

I wear the sash like I’m in on the joke,
because it takes a hint of genius
to be this stupid,
because when I said
“I’m okay,”
no one fact-checked me,
and when I said
“I didn’t learn anything,”
they gave me
a crown.

I take the sash off
before starting the car.
Fold it like evidence.
Leave it in the front seat
like I’m done with the bit.
But I’m not.
I just need a break
from being clever.

I should’ve bought the peach.
Let it rot on the dashboard,
at least then
something would’ve gone soft
without making it my fault.

The sweatshirt still smells like
whatever I was hoping he’d stay for,
(mainly, me.)
And the notebook?
Still closed.
Which is hilarious, really.
Because you’re reading it.

(This poem is a lie.
I opened the notebook
before I even left the store.)

Heat waves rush my body,
Warming my skin,
Threatening to blind me,
But I just breathe it all in.

Sunglasses on,
Two hands on the wheel,
We’ve got somewhere to go,
And I want something to feel.

She plays in the park,
Discovering more every day,
And I watch her quietly,
Realizing I’m the same way.

I thank the moon
For all the guidance she’s given,
But I want to live now
That the sun has risen.

So I’ll play the monster,
And swing on the swings,
Chase my daughter around
For the joy that it brings.

It feels so good,
Being free in the sun-
I can assess my thoughts later,
Right now, I’m having fun.

I touch things I’m not supposed to
and call it prayer.
mouth open,
spine bent,
tongue tasting the fence line.

They say longing is holy
if it stays quiet,
but mine doesn’t—
mine breaks the jar and drinks the oil.

They told me I was an open wound,
festering with verse and girlhood.
They weren’t wrong.
But wrong feels a lot like worship
when done slow enough.

They say impure
like it’s a curse,
but all my favorite girls
are made of swampwater and sin.

I’ve never confessed
without turning it into performance.
My mouth was built
for poetry
and plea deals.

I was thirteen
when I learned to ache
without making a sound.
Seventeen
when I turned it into scripture.
Twenty-five
when I realized no one was coming
to carry the body but me.

I keep trying to write
the right-sized truth
but it never fits in a single poem
or apology.

I want back the girl
who ran barefoot into fire
because she believed
it might be heaven.

I want someone to touch me like I’m soft—
even if I’m not.
Even if I bite back.

I want to grab
without apologizing
for how hot my hands are.
I want someone to look at me
like a threat they’d die for.

I want the kind of love
that makes funerals nervous.
I want to be written about
by someone who isn’t me.

And I want to want less.
But I don’t.

You want a softer girl?
Tell that to the altar
I keep burying her under.

I watched a grainy film once,
through blurs of a stolen light,
words dropped like crumbs.
I picked them all up,
kept them safe
tucked away in my mind,
until I had the puzzle pieces
to give them back their shape.

years later, I etched
a number on my hand.
not for him,
but for the girl,
who mimicked the words
before knowing what they meant.

now I wear his language
like a second skin,
slightly flushed
from the heartbeat beneath —
pulsing with all
once chased,
and incomplete.

I didn’t know it then,
how far that ship would sail —
how it would anchor me,
then leave behind a trail
to places only dreamed,
with a way back for when I was ready.
I didn’t know it then,
how it would lead me
to chart entire lives
into maps of unfolding,
guided by a compass of poetry —
all of it
once borrowed
from a screen.

The suburb’s still a skeleton
but now I wear its bones.
I was backlit,
bored,
all drywall and divine punishment,
first names shouted through screen doors,
ceiling fans spinning
someone else’s damage.

I kept saying I'd leave.
I kept writing it down,
spending my stories on soft drinks and scar tissue,
but
there’s a difference between
nostalgia and necromancy.
Between naked and naive.
Between full of stars
and just
falling.

We said forever
like it wasn’t
a curse.
Like it wasn’t
already dissolving in the pollen.

I wrote hymns for mouths,
sloppy as mascara in rainlight,
that made meaning feel like a dare:
the emotional oversights
we let ruin us twice.

Flannel soul,
face like unfinished business.
He touched me with all the guilt
of a borrowed god.
Begging,
but never burning clean.

A slippery little eulogy
sprinting toward a dawn already
in someone else’s rearview.
He didn’t kiss me,
but he almost did.
And I’ve been sick about it
ever since.

An ode to night
that chews at the hem
of what we thought we were.

Being here now is
already retroactive.
Already haunted.
Intertwined
like seatbelt bruises.

A small canopied disaster,
still posing.
still pretending.

I was a rooftop girl,
and I meant it.
Which is worse, I think,
than being believed.

The sky never answered,
but I kept
sending poems.

The suburb’s still a skeleton.
I’m just better at burying
what I mistook for light.

My pocket of the world is filled
Of women who know the sound of wisdom on their own tongue
Like stick knows stone like
Honey dripping backwards from the the comb like
Planet knows patience like
Honest-to-Goddess-truth and nothing quieter than that

My heart lives in the home that is Girl and Mother
Wonder and Womb  
Made of all that is alive and
Built by sacred hands

And I want to swim to the Moon and call her my sister
Drink wine with Dawn and
Tell her the myth about Eve
Just to hear her tender laugh
Tell her she is what makes the tides turn
Tell her
I belong to Love!
And Love is a woman!
And there has never been anything more beautiful than that!

AUGUST
I saw you in class today for the first time,
You walked in and I thought I would burst into flames,
You sat down next to some other guy I don’t know his name,
And I think this must be what falling down a hole feels like.

SEPTEMBER
We passed by in the hallway today,
I think I might be going insane,
You were walking and so was I and I was so focused
On being normal–
That I forgot to say hi.

OCTOBER
The teacher grouped us together
And my heart skipped–
That’s called an arrhythmia and you can die from those,
Anyways,
Now I know you know my name
Even though I’ve always known yours.

NOVEMBER
The conversations began on a Tuesday,
At first about the project but then about me
About you
About school,
Did you know my favorite color is blue too?

DECEMBER
You texted me happy holidays,
And even though you have other girls
I imagined ice skating and cookie decorating,
And it was really
Really
Nice.

JANUARY
When school began I saw you and you saw me,
We were talking at lunch and I could have flown away,
You said something–funny but not enough to make me laugh,
So I only smiled, and then you stared at me for a moment,
“You have dimples.”

FEBRUARY
The project is over has been over,
And I think I must definitely be insane now
Because I took the long walk to class just to see you,
And then later when my phone buzzed and your name was there,
I thought this was torture but I loved doing it.

APRIL
“You like korean food?”
“Of course–”
“Maybe saturday?”
“What?”
“We can get some?”

MAY
In class when I saw you and everyone else saw you,
I wondered if they knew
That your smile is lopsided?
That your brow furrows when you’re confused?
Or that you hold hands tightly but not unbearably so?

JUNE
When we were in the parking lot
And the sun was setting
And you were there and we were eating and laughing and smiling,
I hope you know that all the insanity was worth it,
If it meant I would end up here.

JULY
“I might be crazy.”
“You’re not crazy.”
“Maybe a little.”
“I’d love you even if you were crazy.”
Quiet.
“I love you now you know.”

is it something in the water?
or the way they’re taught to win?
“if she tells you no, keep trying.”
as if love is a door
that needs to be kicked in.
even my father
with his anger
loud, burning, and red.
as well as my brothers
one who inherited my father’s anger
and the other
who thinks **** jokes are funny.
and the boys i grow to love
with gentle hands
and painful ignorance
they are all evil in some way.
not always with cruel intentions
but with neglectfulness.
in making promises like they’re disposable.
in the way they leave
without calling it leaving.
i used to think it was just my bad luck
how they are raised
how they are forgiven
or how they aren’t
how they are never told they’ve hurt someone
until she tells them.
until she weeps before their eyes.
and asks them what she did wrong.