it has taken many swallowed words, wretched nights, boiling blood
too many staggering revelations left behind, the moon at sunrise
clarity needed so fiercely, choked to death in a greedy embrace

wicked, wicked fingers ache for liberty from stagnancy
raucous throats wail for gesture
throbbing spirit ponder change

i am seeking enlightenment,
almost gets caught on an incisor on the way out
shrewd minds hail benefits of repetition
a recommendation worthy of a busted record player

rapid internal revolution is fraught with instability
sanity skulking out the side door while you
try to keep your needle straight (and narrow)

there's a silence at the window, whiffs of modulation & hesitation
contemplate the purr of pavement underfoot
if only deranged carnivores counting your steps  
kept you off the streets

there is humble grace to a hung crown
a fickle tongue swollen with repose
to listless, tranquil limbs

forthcoming, bruised lips
never quite as pleasing
in the mourning solitude

a trembling reaction
to every way you fought to keep my hands in yours
a fickle name to how your eyelids only leaked promises
and how i only ever met your lips with broken glass
you tried to pry the answers from my cigarette but you forgot that I buried your baby teeth in the backyard last summer
one, two,
count my fingers out the window like your swans almost in flight
every creature passed under your embrace learned how to curve their wings up like forged protection
from your spitfire

our teeth leak venom and motor oil, it tastes like how your fists feel against your children's skin
when you wrap the women in chains made of expensive gifts and shattered promises, sometimes they clean their teeth and fight back.

maybe i won't remember to draw the curtains after you leave

but i'll always leave a key under your pillow.

it has been one year, eleven months, and four days since i last saw your face
since i watched your hand raise to your lips like a nun in silent prayer in a farewell
just for me
through the ***** window
as i held the folded up note in my hand like my heart that was drawn with the words i needed to explain to you that I was scared I would forget how to breathe with you gone
that i still needed you
and then you were gone, your body disappeared out sight
it has been one year, eleven months, and four days since you left
and now i have something to say
i was sixteen years old, and my eyes were bright
i was sixteen and the way you dragged your fingertips across my back as you walked by like mice scurrying across the floor made me feel more than i ever thought it was possible to feel
how naive of me
i was sixteen and when your rough lips grazed my ear like an animal stalking its prey my heart exploded for every single possibility that your words held
i was sixteen and every time my father struck me i could feel it reverberating through my bones because my tender mind hadn’t caught up with my aching body yet and i knew  i knew that you were wrong
but when you stroked my hair and kissed my fingertips and your hands grasped my waist like you were holding on for dear life the only truth i could hear above the frantic beating of my heart was that you wanted me
that you validated me
you weaved your hands between my ribs and slipped your fingers around my heart and when you left YOU RIPPED OUT MY HEART AND TOOK IT WITH YOU
YOU SHATTERED EVERY WAY IN WHICH I THOUGHT I WAS WORTHWHILE

i’m not sixteen anymore
and i spent one year, eleven months, and four days trying to make the pieces of my broken self fit together in the same way that they did before your eyes become the reason that i smiled every day
i’ve spent all this time trying to tell myself that it wasn’t my fault, wasn’t my fault, wasn’t my fault WASN’T MY FAULT
I DON’T CARE WHAT THEY SAY BECAUSE YOU CAN’T TELL ME IM WISE FOR MY AGE WHEN I LET A MONSTER REDEFINE THE TRUTHS I THOUGHT I KNEW ABOUT MYSELF
it has been one year, eleven months, and four days
I want my heart back

once again,
curved fists and clenched eyebrows and your words are venom in my mouth
MY LIPS ARE BLEEDING, BROKEN THAT I'M ONLY TRYING TO HELP
little baby, little boy curled up in your accusations
he reaches a single finger, gnarled and unsure
your violence and insults and broken hands are turning him from boy to
m o n s t e r.

"you're the only one who understands me"
watch as my heart crumbles and falls into the ocean  in every single
way i've ever wanted to save you

i'm sorry
the telescope lens is still cloudy
i have to cut my knees and crawl back through the ******* dungeon
find my way through the bramble and glass and barbed wire
I'M TIRED OF GOING BACK GOING BACK GOING BACK
i want the safety
of the muted nest and momma's lemon tree
i promise
i won't eat all the broccoli
if you'll let me come home.

On the floor of the river styx, frogs burrowing peer over muck duvets to watch me press like a violet between the cookbook pages of the water and the land. I went overboard-

I am addicted to the darkness between worlds.

Somewhere above me, I see the moon. She doesn’t try to warn me, she doesn’t bother reminding me that I can’t breathe. Heavy currents like snakes blur her face into fractured crystal tears that wash me over with sweet exasperation.

Sedated by the salt toward the other side, where the ferryman flips my coin and hums a tune without words about all rivers rushing toward the sea.

He doesn’t ask me why I chose this route, just grins a toothless grin
And winks
And tosses my coin into the water
without

So much

As a wish.

last night i had a nightmare

your car backed up to and through my front door
dumping broken computers and monitors and machines in my yard
dumping out your trash at my mother's doorstep
like you did to me
(you tell them i left, but we both know your cold eyes pushed me)

last night i had a nightmare

i walked into my darkened room and a man fraught with danger and uneasiness left his breakfast dishes on my bedspread.
my mother did not hear my screams of concern, as to why, why a man of such disgust had chosen my bedroom to have his breakfast eggs.
the ketchup and stray pepper he left on my pillow was a violation like hands between clenched thighs

when i woke up this morning,
i wanted to cry.

my (enter degree here) doctor slipped me slight pills of green and brown, guaranteed to rid me of these visions, these haunts that grip me like dramas played out in technicolor across my eyelids.

now i take two under the tongue, caught between a lover's fingertips.

i wake up having lost and died only moments before.