i am not made to be the counterpart to your fantasy
slotting in where you see me necessary
falling in line like a shadow,
substance held only in light of your form

i am not made bent at the altar of your suffering
stagnated by the sulfur at your mouth
pleading, pushing,

i am not made to be waiting
for your apathy to dissipate
into twitching palms

i am not made of you
not woven of your neuroses
not built from your judgement
not felled by your weaknesses

you want someone to be you, fit you, please you, hold you, soothe you, be you, temper you, cherish you, enrage and excite you, be you, be you, be you

i am not made by your hands,
nor the sin of any before you

i am not made to be suffocated
in the shape of the woman
you want to hold

I bought you the last meal we’ll ever share together,
a far cry from all the other food pressed between our lips.

quietly shuffling damp twenties from my pocket
amidst your insistence to proceed otherwise

three months and twenty two days shy of our anniversary
I don’t have the kind of money you’d like me to
my bank account is empty and
hemorrhaging a nine hundred dollar debt to you.
you’re flicking silver cards between your fingertips
tongue like gravel
all I’ve got is cash

the day I leave you, I lie in bed naked
alternating my excursions between brushing my teeth and *******
sometimes both, at the same time
like I’m cleansing the filth from all my crevices
clearing out the decay and rot

It’s poetic to think of your absence
like the gap left after a rotting tooth
pungent and expectant
but in reality clearing my bowels
or the spaces between my molars
makes no difference to the dark
cavern that lives inside me

a space with no sharp corners or dead ends
but an endless death

one I know too well
and spent too many wet nights
trying to force upon you

alone in the dust and clatter I succumb to it
unable to distinguish between
the sore of an infection
and the sear of a wound

The pockets of our blistering love catch me by surprise, all of a sudden. It’s the hum of someone typing, greasy hair pulled back, the whoosh of a card that looks like the one I unwrapped for you.

A couple ordering breakfast like they practiced in their sleep, dancing circles to fetch fresh juices and sign receipts. How many breakfasts did we share together? Baked goods and fried eggs fall flat in my mouth without your fingers nearby, nimbly untangling hair from my ears and swallowing the last bites without asking.

Thank you for sparing me all of the reasons why. They burn well enough left dripping inside my head.

This space makes a home for a lot of grieving. What brought the riproar of tears from my throat and eyes felt so old, like it had been living inside of my body for decades I haven’t seen.

What’s hysterical is historical, the wound has been waiting for this flush long before the snow fell. Your words rose from the dirt and bones and spoke to me the apology clutched in his dead hands. Nestled next to my little girl heart. Handed to me now with patience and flowers, like I have ever learned how to accept things that belong to me.

i haven't forgotten the way you stole our first kiss from my mouth

or the way your fingers twitched at a feign of defiance

the way you've swallowed my voice
akin to the way you hold my thighs
with possession

in a sordid poem three years past I wrote the warm joy, tenderness and unbridled growth

i hate the way my mouth tastes under yours
the filth of stagnation

the lifeless shape i assume alongside yours
makes me wonder if a concept of partnership
was another bad, damp dream

yet i've got to question whether
another set of hands would soothe me
just as well when i wake,
begging **** me **** me **** me

my frantic offends you
my brain like a gasoline fire

your disinterest like that necklace
i can't take off

You might say I spend too much time on public transportation
Licking my lips and waiting for that dull reminder
Each stop is sticky on my fingers
A set of memories and ache I wish I could wipe off
Echoes of my childhood have me twirling
questions between my fingertips
Wondering why I can't remember
and why the ones that stick hurt so much

A man's eyes bounce off mine in the back row
Needling in that slick way that they do
Questioning me, really
What is your worth here?
Prove to me your flesh and blood
Lest I cast you out
Sharp bones in fist

My mouth is full of the lush green grass
Joints crackling and choking- just a little bit

How do I taste?

The feeling of your palms
jaded by the same stone I cut my teeth upon
When did you start to mean so much to me?

I'm tasting all your revelations
Tonguing your reasoning and experience
The way you say my name resting on my soft pallate

And I find myself unyieldingly grateful
for the way the ground moved
underneath our seats.

Talking about the feeling that your brain
is trying to implode and explode at the same time.

Everything is
crashing in on itself,
all the distorted pictures and sound bites
and flashes of all those faces, on jagged
repeat. There are spiders, large, twitching
spiders outside my window
pretending to be my fingers.

Their webs are wavering in the wind and
I’m wondering how long it will take for it to feel
like they’re not crawling on my skin, softly,
in a way that no scratch can appease.

I’m biking on the very edge of the curb
fenced in by street signs
and my tires are wobbling in the way
that tells me that skull impact is imminent.

Stop ******* laughing at my helmet when you
can’t even tell me what it feels like when gravity
shakes up your brain between the sky
and the cement floor.

You have no understanding of not recognizing your own thoughts.
You can’t imagine what a hostile body feels like from the inside. You haven’t a clue what traumatic brain injury feels like,
all the worst parts.

Stop laughing.

Now my whole body is wavering and I see the dark gray, slippery rear end of your car that is not your car.

I am haunted,
paralyzed by the model and make of your vehicle
in the same way that I have been by all the others.

I don’t know why it’s always the cars for me,
but even a glimpse of the possibility catches in my throat and I’m coughing, choking, frantic
on the side of the road again.

It’s the impact of the car but somehow
worse, because you can’t see these wounds except for
how damp the pillow is when I wake up in the middle of the night, nauseous and sobbing.

Maybe it was a dream.
Maybe I’m the dream.
Maybe I am just one long, tempestuous nightmare.

I can’t stop thinking about all the people I’ve run away from,
deeply ashamed of the desperate, wild measures I've used
to savor even a moment of validation.

Unable to face the need I teased out of their mouths.

Only brave enough to start the fire,
rubbing sticks together shamelessly,
but not strong enough to put it out
before the forest burns down.