through space and time
your thoughts like rockets,
red hot, misguided, overfunded

too busy orchestrating, calibrating, hypothesizing, re-caffeinating
stringing errant thoughts and business plans and lines of code like children's macaroni, haphazard and fervent and

you don't pay attention to anything
not the groceries, the gasoline, the grime
not quiet, murmured, shrieking, spat out reminders
not the sunlight moving through the trees
not your birthday, the laundry, your mother
not my face in the morning, hands reaching
not the directions, not your appointments or morning meetings
not the wishes and dreams I murmur into your pillow
not our dog, water bowl clattering and bone dry

eight years past and the rage blisters my palms white hot
some wicked amalgamation, a spiteful frankenstein
mothering until your skin is smooth, peaceful
unmarred by sounds of pleading
begging, echoing

and even if the noises reached an unwavering pitch
past rooftops and crowns of trees
it would not matter
for you don't pay attention

are you now?

I didn't realize that I had missed the rabbits so
til I nearly stumbled over one in the dark and dew

impossibly still and also bounding with movement, vibrating
a tenacious anxiety reflected back to me in more than one
lost, drunken, exasperated moment
memories inevitably left in backseats and waterlogged journals
the thorny irony of holding fervently what this life means to me
and for me
knowing I've forgotten nearly most of it
to trauma
and to time

why would I tuck away the times I've made myself the image of my parents?
why cherish and return to the slur of dysfunction and imbalance
why build myself on the moments I broke upon

each falter is palmed inside me
slick and pressed with dust
the life of every love and bond
I can't release
for fear that I will sink into the sky
for fear that I've only ever been a reflection
is it empathy? maybe it's a pervasive fear of abandonment
as you cannot leave me if you need me
as you cannot fear me if you trust me
as you cannot without me
and I, you

cuff my lips like the bile
you keep biting your tongue around

wrap up my limbs, painted pink
squeezing out the dissonance
and defiance,
oozing

the lengths you scrape my skin
sting like last week's argument
my throat's too wound to tell you
the soft you won't touch
burns

drenched and tripping over again for every man
who's set me on fire to keep his idea of my form alive
the sear of distaste like apathy

the bones of those who suffocated me with their suffering
don't fit inside this body anymore
i am bursting, every seam a corner to turn
sunlit, anxious, promising

watch me rewrite this flesh
like a salve

watch me reclaim this life
like salvation