she, a willow wisp gone sour in the sunlight.
she, they said, a wide-eyed one time choking laugh
she, a too-bright moon with craters only calloused hands could read
she, they said
she bit her tongue with their teeth wrapped around her like spikes
she.

here I am to tell you that I am not she, I am not your word or prayer or curse. I will no longer let you confine to the the lower-case, huddled down, back room existence of she.

I am I, Me, Woman.

I am.

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.

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.

i cannot stand her wealth of knowledge
or the way her cheeks ***** down to her neck
i hate the way she speaks in multi-syllables and similes
i hate her teeth
and the way she curves her mouth to grow wealthy in attention
the way she reaches out with slick palms and ears disgusts me
i hate her anxiety
and how she thinks the way she holds a cigarette is special
i cannot stand the rumbling of distress under her bones
or the way her eyelids close, laden with anticipation

it's like when you squint your eyes and
what's in front of you doubles
each form hovering in synchronization
moving in and out of focus

i have run out of words and
well-formed sentences
to describe to you how my skin burns
and my bones are knives

what used to be talent
is now a mess of pathetic
failures hidden inside tangles of simple metaphors

and
i cannot stop telling myself
that the safety and balance that i crave
is the lining of the coffin.

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.

for a beverage i find so conventionally unattractive,
your whole milk movements
make my insides cream in the way that elicits a sleepy,
satisfied smile from your furrow.

see, that's a joke that might make you smile.
enduringly grateful for a companionship
overrun by giggles in such variance.

you see, my darling, you are such a unique
You i am eager to reconsider the habits of my I.

loving you has fallen into my lap much like
a sticky, nap-seeking toddler,
and all i want to do is wipe sweet cranberry juice from your cheeks.

let me work the expectations and necessities
from your bones in the hum of my bedroom.
jersey knit and dust and candles.
you never mind my mess in the same way I cannot
mind the delectable tang of your sweat,
and i know how you like to taste mine.
all the ways one person should love another: simply and humanely
are strung between your fingertips.
let me untie you.
you write me on graph paper,
crooked teeth and vivid nightmares scrawled
between the rigid blue hue.
you write me in cursive, poorly, and i am shivering
imagining the ways your l's loop between the squares.

since our convergence, i drink less.
no inhalants burning my lungs, less meat on my plate.
cosmetics sit and gather dust because
really, who has time for such things and
i just might be bursting with the tender way
your lips brush against my cheeks. such a
warmth.

i despise to give you any credit, my love,
but assurance in my person only grows
by your guidance, patience and example.
nauseating, perhaps.
but luck has graced me, and i am oh so very sure
i will never forget the shape of my face between your hands
because truly, and quietly, i am learning.
that's all i can ask.

your hands are always on my neck,
cradling my cranium like a moonstone,
instinctively sometimes, like your brain
hasn't quite caught up with the fingers rhythmically
kneading the tender flesh like my muscles are a problem
that your hands already know how to solve.

my head is held surprisingly high next to you,
you unorthodox preponderance,
and for the first time i am deeply touched by how
little a Them can scratch the surface of such a
transcendent and radiant Us.

you are fluent in languages i am sure
i will never wrap my fingers around,
yet every phrase slipping out
between your swollen lips
seems just for me.

we make love like music and i would sing so softly
to the hush and grunt and ache of your body when it meets mine.
your rhythm is so nice beside my melody
and i want to keep hearing all your renditions.

i am only a little bit ashamed of how these words sing for you,
a collection of vowels in a way i find distasteful.
a language that is simple,
begs no extensive vocabulary and simile to express
how tender your eyes are, like my favorite moon,
and that i never get tired of talking to you,
or hydrating you.

i hope you never read this poem, or consider it.
i hope all this brilliance fades upon your departure.
i hope we lose touch.

if not i'll have to face the unbelievably unbearable uncertainty that
your You might be just as good for me as my I you.  

that i might want to be quiet with you,
for long drives and difficult times and
even nights that i don't want to be anyone at all.

that perhaps you hope for the same.

that we just might be the same kind.

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

easy visions of hopeful future days
boys with dark scarves and fingertips and
tongues carved like needles

unwound with blue lace
smoke like curling paper scraps

the sky is violet
yellow and gray and aching
the trees are paintbrush silhouettes

home stock draining roots
i caress your ball-bearing palms
like drawing lilies from water's edge
inside the sunbeam we cannot see

dreams of once upon a time late nights
held between bitten fingernails and chapped lips
of fourteen years old
a smoke hazy and ***** loss of consciousness

of movement
of loss

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

this languish is unyielding
ankles and bare shoulders are making me bitter
stop unwrapping my things
don't you dare try to take the tears from my cheeks
you have stepped in at the final moment of purity
and however you might try to
pry the gore from between my legs
you know nothing.

I am being suffocated by privilege
not enough to find me fortune, oh no
only that strangers afford leisure
and i am burning, slowly

brunch is taunting me
afternoons spent quietly,
a night out with close friends,
one, any activity alongside the sun
in the real world, there are days off
and dreamless slumbers
and friends.

all the evidence supports that i am doing everything i possibly can to do the very best anyone could ask of where i am right at this moment,
so how do i feel so behind?
and out of place?
and worthless?

the shade is being drawn back from my eyes now
my happiness was a glitch
to think that i deserved it, an error
my personhood, a mistake

i am so capable, and so angry

a letter came for a dead man today

and i was certain, if i looked down, i'd see a ******, mangled mess beneath me where my heart sputtered and dropped right out of my chest cavity
as  i watched, through a stranger's eyes, the pad of my thumb smear the ink of your name

the serrated p's and t's slicing open the makeshift stitches i used in vain to yank close the gaping hole left by your gravestone

five hundred and eleven sunrises I have seen without you

counting each one like I counted the letters you never wrote me

because I wrote you letters, but they never left the sweaty lines of my palms.

& i wrote you sonnets, couplets, painstaking metaphors like how my heart living inside your hands was like a telescope reaching for moons.

but that's the thing. you left mine unwound, dangling towards the ground and all that my lips held never reached your sky.

all ever i wanted was to make my stars and moons live inside your eyelids.

but my wishes were like flowers left next to tombstones, and you never brought me daisies.

five hundred and eleven mornings I’ve awoken
and found my hands disgusted with the way my body moves beneath me

and it wasn’t until you took your last breath that I started being grateful for mine

I hurt, do you see?

i could write you more than one poem about suffering, as routine as a heartbeat

the things i've done, the mistakes and places and the ways i've lost my pride and grace for the sake of sanity

i've spent too many hours weaving windflowers between my fingertips
hoping the stinging vines stealing circulation will bleed safety
hoping if I say your name enough times it’ll lose its incantation

but you were a magician
and I’ve still got too much pride to admit that I thought I could get rich on the lies you pulled from behind my ears

you told me that you loved me
you told me that you understood me
you told me that you needed me
you told me that you wouldn’t leave me

five hundred and eleven days ago I learned that the things you told me were as worthless as the promise you made to keep breathing

and now I’m second-guessing myself on the corner, begging strangers to tell me i’m worth something more than the words you imprinted on my lips

all this time I’ve spent trying to make the pieces of my shattered self fit together in the same way they did before your eyes became the reason that I opened mine

I don’t care what they say
They can’t tell me I’m wise for my age when I let you redefine the truths of my own existence

But I’ve had 511 days to rewrite this one, and I’ve got enough modesty now to tell you the truth.

when you died, you stole all the ways I ever felt validated
you had my secrets in your pockets, my innocence like an offering on your altar
when you took your own life, you did me a favor

A letter came for you today.

i ripped it up.

the morning light is fragile
i am soothed by the hum
of the water under my fingers
and the birds telling lies outside
the window

even in the reaching chill
that envelopes this drafty
house

the ****** and pulls of my flesh
in the cold

hold no comparison to the ones
that bloom

under your supple hands

if i hate myself, just look at the skin of my palms
about the matter of my skin, and the translucent hair
if and when my eyes waver, softly, just for a moment

you, you, you don't even

i am all a mess of words and fragrance that doesn't have a label or a real taste. just a sticky, angry smell. i am all the frayed socks, every ragged hole and i keep ******* the circulation from your toes.

it's thursday, the children are doing that whooping and hollering like they never expressed a real pain between then and right now. where's the pain of tomorrow? do you think their baby fat has ever trembled in the face of all the evers and wonders and hows, all the wretched aches of "not yet" and "maybe"?

that seems a simple question, and all the dreadful needs come wheedling out of the woodwork like maggots. i can taste them, their want and flush and wish and scrape and oh for the love of all that is holy, i would like to be the plaque on your left-hand incisor. let me crawl up inside your cavities, taste all your stagnant air and need like maybe i'll save you if i can just fill my lungs up fast enough with you and all your rot.

last call,
she wrote, with her fingertips still tangled in the wire wrapped around her faulty heart.

each breath laced with shards of glass, an aching pull that was simple in the darkened sheets and quiet. an answer that seemed too simple because there was no question.

i'm dying,
she cried as her hands slipped on the tear-slicked phone that couldn't quite convey the way that she was trying to be so, so brave with each labored breath.

there were no words in the screams that pounded off the yellowing linoleum.
a desperate, hoarse cry pleading that she needed someone on the other end of the static to wipe the sweat off of her brow and call an ambulance.

when are you coming home?
little bouncing ponytail of four is grasping fingers and trying to fix injuries with whole-wheat goldfish. her pink salt-scuffed snow boots are breaking hearts down the hall.

and i'm here again. once cheery monkey slippers worn through the toes shuffle down hallways lined with trepidation and antiseptic. this isn't old-fashioned, white-apron clad matrons grasping hands and adjusting crisp peaked hats. medicine is doled out in plastic sheets like candy, accompanied by bent knees and scanned bracelets.

privacy concerns, signed waivers, no liabilities. hospitals are less for healing and more holding cells, storage lockers, fraught with too-thorough questionnaires and grasped pens like swords defending trustee boards from lawsuits.

my mornings are finger ****** and sunlight that seems empty without those sweet trills and a whipping reach of wind. stagnant air, the faint smell of ***** hiding under regulation bleach wipes. this is what i wake up to. soft chimes aren't rousing, nor soft, at eight am lulled through too-new loudspeakers.

the ***** mint green trays never lose that sickly smell of rotten food like the undergrowth of a fallen tree. the only coping skills i've mastered this far are how to effectively channel all my breathing solely through my mouth. hospitals never lose that smell, the ache of death and sorrow that clings to the floorboards and plays cards under the bed, waiting for its turn to reach corners much further than the cleaning crew can.

eyes draw to the torn edge of my sweater, revealing the milky white skin that lost it's sweetness. i've been ravaged by needles and rubber tubes and electrode pads full of gel that shouldn't sting, but does. i spent fourteen hours climbing the walls of my subconscious while gloved hands made adjustments flanked by heavy shoulders and eyes that seemed to never shed their bitter tears.

fourteen hours, i spent with my id. it passes in jumbled snippets of emotion that are still lost in that haze.

i was a creature,
without reason,
or cause.

what made it all so magical was the snow fall. with squinted eyes, you could spot each individual flake, lackadaisically trailing its brothers and sisters to the ground. they all seemed to travel together regardless. an entire world of movement, and i loved the way simon shed his coat, smiling at the wind. savoring each chilled breath.

skinned knees and reddened cheeks. fingers curled up into sleeves to prevent the kiss of the wind, and ears blushed when met with snowflakes. in this way, the easy cries of the girls, the sound of bodies hitting the packed snow, it was romantic. how the adrenaline bound us together like a drunken pack of fools.

i started to feel the dissonance, the gnawing urge that was dragging me away from the wide pleasure of the snow and companionship. fingers fumbled for damp cigarettes and eyes turned to the sky, hoping to find the answers written in the milky patterns of the clouds.

i turn and turn and turn and turn away
from this ache.

aching to smother this pull with another, something that could possibly ground me to this moment.

i always feel like i'm floating. disconnected from the words and hands and laughter that encase me.

"i only smoke spirits because they're organic."

as if the acrid curl of harsh smoke in my lungs is any easier to swallow.

i turn and turn and turn and turn and eyes draw, mouths form the scarlet color that became my identity and i pray to god that they follow. i pray to every and any deity that their palms won't lose their hold on my slipping form.

my heart murmurs in waves:

if i walk far enough, maybe i'll disappear.
it's not always your job to fix the things that you broke between your hands.
if i walk far enough, maybe i'll disappear.
red. red. red. red.
if i walk far enough, maybe i'll disappear.
i spent six days in that hospital and do you know who called me every single night?
if i walk far enough, maybe i'll disappear.
six days, and only one person called every night.
if i walk far enough, maybe i'll disappear.
every. single. night.
maybe i'll disappear.

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

please tell me something
am i true?
do you see me and understand that
i a m r e a l
i can only see your face
but whose?
OFF MY CHEST
off my soul

tell me how you want me
make me understand what lies behind that sanguine smile

i want to understand where the content of my soul lies
am i content? honorable? confused?

the way you touch my ******* contests
with the way you tell me
you're my world
what's a world?
what's a truth?
whats the way to tell you how i feel about you?

this isn’t a poem
just a rambling of rhymes by a drunk girl
veins full of whiskey and a home that hurts
i want you to hold me
why wont you understand?

this makes sense
i want you to understand that you are to me and
we are a pretense
please
hold me
tell me that the creation of the sight and
the movement between our eyes is true

i forget that i'm pretty
does my face create need in you?


i miss you
it always explodes
like a hope.


i want to take a nap and fall asleep to you the sound of your heartbeat
do you think of me?
in the night?
when you can't understand your feelings but you know its right?

this brand of  anger boiling inside my bones
makes me lash out because i feel
wronged
by what he did

took my innocence like a twig and snapped it in the wind

i'm sorry
i just want to be something to be proud of

TELL ME I'M WORTH SOMETHING MORE THE WORDS HE IMPRINTED ON MY LIPS

if everyone knew
the things i've done, the mistakes and
places and the ways i've lost my pride and grace for the sake of
sanity



help me please
words i despise but cant help but bleed
one more moment
maybe i'll become something i can stand
but good luck
even the drunk can't recreate again



i guess that's what i thought about him too
“too good to hurt me, that’s why i love him’
GOD WAS I WRONG
HE RUINED MY DEFINITION OF TRUTH
AND WHAT I THOUGHT I KNEW ABOUT
EVERY FACET OF MY SOUL
MY EXISTENCE
WHAT THREATENS TO BREAK AS IT QUIVERS AGAINST THE WIND
WHERE IS MY SAFETY


i’m still drunk
it's because my little girl body is small
the illness makes me weak
and the drugs make me not eat
i drink because it makes the rush of
my thoughts okay

and i can hang over that porcelain without regret


so i hide
in the end

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

sometimes it feels like
the rush of voices
like a screaming river

are too loud for me to hear you
i have fought for safety for so long

sometimes it's in your arms
sometimes at the bottom of a bottle

but some quiet days
i feel so blindingly empty
that i have to seal up my eyes
from the fear of that **** window


i want to scrape off my skin with
the constant gnaw of my own demons
because regardless of my appeals
of my endless pleas

are heard by no ears

the night envelopes
me in its heaviness

the air,
so tricky in its whispers,
tells me i can breathe.

i don't believe it.

the pulsing between my
legs won't quit

wound up, starved
ragged

the ticking of
self-depreciation

keeps my body

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

how do you cope
when the hands of beauty
are wrapped around your throat

and every way in which i
tell myself in whispers that
THE SHAPE OF MY THIGHS IS WORTH IT
is shattered by
the danger in the pantry

deciphering the truth from
what i've been told in monotone
is what keeps me gripping the sheets
at four am
while you're still asleep
and stealing the blankets

don't hold me hostage
by the way i love avocados
and the smell of boiling pasta
and iced tea
and peanut butter

don't hold me hostage
with the ways in which my
knees and hips do not conform
to what catches your attention


i won't let
the curve of your bones
tell me who i am

my fingers are ringed with green,
the sea foam tone of the rough ocean on a cloudy day

i miss the sea.
i long for its cool, salty sting

i enjoy it whether blindingly
bright, choruses of laughter and seagull
cries piercing the air, or chilled
and fog-laden, the stubborn water lamenting
its woes against the unforgiving shore

I’m wrenched awake with a swaying hangover, the kind that rumbles in the back of your throat until mid-afternoon. I know that I’m late without turning my head but the only movement is the whir of the box fan in the window and the sinewy muscle of my calves twitching near the end of the bed.

It’s hard to wake up when the world outside the door has been in this way, insistent in it’s painfulness, and part of me wants to succumb to the quiet hum of this bedroom, disappear into the sheets and pretend for a moment that I never met Jordan Whitaker.

A scalding shower and a thermos of lukewarm coffee later, the sun seems way too cheery for the way my insides feel and I want to scowl at it. I swallow the bile for a moment to toss a ‘good morning’ to the old woman dragging her walking cane to the end of the driveway.

She used to drop by with cookies from time to time, but it’s been a while. I can see the toll of age and defeat on her cheeks like a fragment of my future and I have to turn away from it, towards the blinding sun mocking me quietly.

“You done yet?”

I hear his voice before I see him, taunting me in the way only a man in a position of superiority can. Archie is filthy with the kind of grease that doesn’t wash off, and all of my tricks to keep unwanted hands away, even a stubborn and unyielding androgyny, has not deterred him yet. I spit at the sidewalk before his foot lands in stride next to me, and he jerks a bit but keeps pace.

“You know, I’ve got someone on the inside of the courtroom today. Maybe you scratch my back, I scratch yours, that kind of thing?”

These words are accompanied by a haphazard set of teeth leering in some semblance of a smile. The smell alone is enough to make me want to start sprinting, but I keep my tone and pace level.

“I’m not telling you again, Archie. My leads are my own. I’ll get in there just fine.”

“Oh, the *****’s feeling feisty today, I see!”

I watch a bead of sweat collect between his eyes as he watches me, like a pockmark. “You’re kidding yourself if you think they’ll let you anywhere near the trial with the stunt you pulled last week.

You should stop taking me for granted, you know!”

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.

"it's like
you're a popsicle
and he's the sun"

my little sister said
with a strand of ***** blond
hair wrapped around her finger

she said it with a smirk
and a smile all too wise
for thirteen.

your eyes are as fresh as lilies
cut in the morning
with a crimson smile

the way your tender lips
form security and safety
the ***** of your hips breeds
respect and trust
the tendons writhing under
your hands are warmth
every inch of your skin
is love

and your sharp, brooding eyes
are hope

i'm having trouble dictating the way
these emotions churn inside my body

like a sink drain
choking on the dish water

the languid, deep burning
in the hollow of my ribs
is creating a heavy fog
in my brain that makes
it hard to remember where
my loyalties lie

my lips tremble with your accusations
the bite of your stare makes me close up

i refuse to speak
not because the truth of my actions will hurt you
but that i'm terrified of the truth
of my heart.

i bought myself steel-toed boots for
christmas like it would matter
as if i could kick things like paranoia, fear and vulnerability

my whole head is making this strange, dissonant noise
it feels kind of like pressure building, by surprise

because i'm going, going, going with my
hands touching all of the things

i thumped my corroded heart onto the table and asked if he wouldn't
mind sitting with it for a while

did i know then that his body moves just like theirs?

i have blades in my palms walking home
despite how i interpret my murmuring heart
mostly i think it's reminding me to live, i think
it's especially easy to forget

i'm choking, go ahead and tell me how much you understand it

i have blades in my palms, the boots and buttons up to my neck
i can taste their eyeballs anyway and the rotting is sand
it's getting underneath my toenails now, stop just a second
the boots and the buttons might as well be silk
the way their bodies are closing in feels like absolute reliable death
i'm thumping and shivering and their voices
the way everything shifts a little as my hands tighten around the mace makes me wonder if i had ever been safe to begin with because it seems like i've only ever been trembling in anticipation of your violence

my father is strong and firm and knocks at the window in the way that punches a small, undeniable hole directly through my windpipe

there are a lot of things about this canal that the probe cannot understand

clearly evident in the shift in your spine as the door slams behind you

did i know at eight years old that footsteps would come to sound like fists to me? i always knew the tenor of arguments would send me over, but at this point i've lost count of the ways through which my environment stands to strangle me

how many voices eked out, slowly do you have to
miss before you'll hear me?

they might as well be constricting my limbs on the spot with the
ways they graze my hot, sweating flesh

does it count as purgatory if you're burning from the inside?

it's tuesday and
the fog rolling along the damp
sidewalk is nipping at my heels
as they click

the air smells like the hush of
christmas trees, the nostalgic
wish of hopefulness

my mind is bouncing back
between the minuscule and
the extraordinary, the deadlines
and the christmas cookies

today is tuesday.

it's only a little bit like a toothache when your
eyes well over in that muted, melancholy way.

i had so sorely forgotten this place
the anxiety, fresh like a cresting wave
that languid boil in my throat
the therapist tells me that I have to take deep breaths and
hold myself where it burns, tenderly
but i always end up choking myself.

limp attempts to strangle the fervent clamor
my brain revolves a harrowing dialogue,
masquerading as novel thoughts

this afternoon i stood, back to the sweat-slicked masses
my own mess of rank and fear dripping from brow to navel
tears vaporizing mid-air before they could season the eggs

and i realized in the most painful way
that the pallid, grease-burned hands stroking my neck
in some strange semblance of comfort
might as well be his,



they should have cremated him.
i ache to hold reverence on the same ground in which he rots.



you were humming between my legs while i twitched and gasped and then i burst into tears. wracking sobs, really, the kind that make my chest hitch and your mouth kept hitting my ***** bone while i shook, orgasming and crying.

i want to say a lot of things about the why, how and of course and to be honest with you and i think

but my lips are too swollen with his death. his bloated corpse is hiding in my throat, slicing up my insides, and i'm so ******* allergic, can't you see in the ways my hands flail and my eyes bulge?

all the lengths of my skin are boiling,
your validation a soothing salve
for a moment, before dissipating in my wretched heat

can't you see that this all fell into place decades ago? from the very first time you had somewhere better to be, someone else who needed your time and space, i was already burning.
so small and slight, trembling just a little bit.

it was you you YOU

all of you, now dead and rotting or just as good as




i refuse to join you.

tear off my skin
with the acrid sting of your worries and concerns

things are safe, so rational in the afternoons, in the
tuesday mornings and in the lunches and essays due at noon

it's when the sun drips away behind the clouds
and the air becomes so thick between these walls
i'm choking on your schedule

i want the black padded backing of
the chair as you smile and tell me how
you miss reading the back of cereal
boxes

i want the tremor of your voice
as you harmonize with the radio
and i follow along
off-key

i've only ever wanted to be taken care of
i've only ever wanted to be alone

its the scratch in my throat
the goose flesh following your fingertips
your desire knotted in my hair

it's less the way i please you
and more the way our bodies curve and
mold together

the way your lips hum against my skin
whispering
baby girl
aching, like an oath.

the way i never thought submission would
mean safety.

the way the arc and fall of
your voice brings me an
indescribably truthful warmth

through my collarbones and eyelids and



i love you.

the nights contain all of the whispers of safety that are lost to
the harsh fluorescent lighting of gas stations and packed gray slush that lines the
sidewalks.

i tell myself that ragged teeth and claws line the hallways and darkened corners
but the quickened pace of your socks on my cold feet
dictates that my fears do not lie in what anyone believes
only in what we cannot see

listen to what i'm saying

i've spent too many hours weaving petals between my fingertips
hoping the vines stealing circulation will bleed safety
trying to discern where my body lies
and if it belongs

each time my fingers scrape the pavement and i stumble forward
the tender croons of the world sheds its skin with a reptilian ease
and comes into focus that i don't welcome

and the voices
crooning in my ear
coaxing me towards simple endings and undue explanations
towards the salt-crusted ground, towards the wind, towards the erosion

listen to what i'm saying.

my throat is caught around the blunt edges of the words i need to explain.

i'm sick.

build walls of dark blue sweaters and sweet frosting
tell yourself that the arms that bind you are safety
tell yourself that you deserve the quiet

i am a mistake
i am born of skewed accusations and dusty windowpanes
the words that keep slipping through my lips dictate that this end is the one that i belong to
my bones belong to the silence, and i to the ground.

this is my last call.

a,
you are so strong, stronger than i ever was. it's been the best part of my life watching you grow, and i hope you learn from all my mistakes. give the bunny kisses for me.

b,
i can picture how your face will contort the same way i can picture the flowers. with this hand i'm ruining all the chances you had for success, and for that i apologize.

m & i,
you beautiful souls. it was because of you that i made it so far out there. i miss you every single day, and it's because i love you so that i had to leave. you deserve the lives ahead of you.

d,
why did you have to hurt me so much? i was only ever trying to please you. i'm sorry that i kept making so many mistakes. i can't say that i forgive you for all of yours quite yet, but know that this is not your fault.

f,
you are the brightest face on this planet, and i love you so much. my sweet little baby girl, don't lose your light. don't let them break you.

c,
i was done for from the start, and i'd be lying if i said that i couldn't see the way i held so much hope for you. back then, i never thought it'd end like this. i wish i could kiss myself out of your memory. i'm so sorry.

m,
you are the last thing that's making it hard to loosen my fingertips. please try not to cry. you are my best friend, and you've helped me stay strong for nineteen beautiful years. but it's time to go.


i want you to remember how my eyes were. please don't forget my silly jokes and unwanted questions. hold them close to your heart and be grateful that the girl you love is now safe. then, please, let me go.



ag.

every morning,
everysinglerise of the persistent sun
since the days when your hands clawed at my budding skin
has brought this undeniable chill to my bones

every morning i've awoken
and found my hands disgusted with the way my body moves beneath me

the soft curve of my cheeks towards my neck is revolting
if I press my fingers to the hollows beneath my *******, i feel bones:
soft lavender flowers wrapped around my rib cage and blooming around my heart.

these flowers never bloomed like this, not even under your soft embrace.

with you, i found deep scarlet, choked petals curling
around my windpipe and setting my throat
afire with the passion burning in your eyes

roots a brilliant black weaved their way through my intestines and rooted themselves in the pit of my stomach where my mind but not my body knew that this was a desperate mistake.

your silent form
heaves with each somber breath
the curve of your spine
eased against my thigh

lover

the acute sensation
of your hips leaking secrets upon mine
the arch of my neck making
love to your lips

my heart, so hesitant in our movements
a pulsing tangle of misguided pleas for safety
has fallen for
the way your ribs whisper me stories
and the way your skin is woven and pressed
with such truth
and, oh god
the way your eyes ricochet and burn with  
EVERY WAY I'VE EVER NEEDED
ANOTHER PERSON'S HAND IN MINE

i am a grateful soul to the altar of the way you say my name and

i could fall asleep in the gentle ***** of your lips.

snowflakes like fingertips

the deep crimson stain
of desperation on my lips

your eyes hold safety

and i
with the ringing syllables
with the easy smirks
and the way my hands
hold change

i've carved you into my sallow skin
saying thank you with each notch
saying yes

it's when my fingers slip
the fragile bricks packed through with mortar
lose their hold

i really hope
you have a good birthday

it's 9:55 and i haven't taken my medicine yet
(green and white pills caused by hesitation)
the way that you hold my skin is like a reminder
that i

tell me i burn like the sun
(and close your lips when it comes to the aftermath)

you shake your head when i tell you that i wasn't made to be touched
you try to deny one of the only truths i still know about myself
because you are scared if my ******* aren't there for you to hold

i'm so tired of
imitating the girl you love
holding her hostage
in favor of my ***** cheeks
seeping heat into the pillows

we've found our stars
in the way our tears leak from
the corners of our eyes

with lips pressed against cheeks
every breath is a prayer

the most truthful way to articulate this
intensely painful exploding of my heart is
i've never experienced
the sudden onslaught of passion and warmth
and emotion
for another human being
and their presence in this
terrible, aching journey

i thank every god, every soul and
deity that this gracious and searching
universe has ever encountered to have
the extraordinary pleasure of having you as my own.

are apologies required for the way
my veins pulse and burn for you?
for how your lips gracing my forehead
creates rivers of happiness and safety
within my skin, tentative drops of warmth
cascading down my skin?

it's some kind of shame that the only
way my words spill out is for your
hand in mine but

i know in the hallows of my heart
and the marrow of my bones that this
love is true.

the ache is so bitter after the
sun has kissed the horizon
sometimes it feels so bitingly hard
to breathe without your
body next to mine

things
have changed now

years later and i have these
violent, tender things
strangling and
blooming simultaneously

my pale, thick
legs and bruised arms
and the hollows under
my eyes are fighting
a vicious war against
the desperate, wide-eyed
pleadings of my head.

these desperate, cheering lavender flowers.

petals sprout from your fingertips
and they move across my body
in waves of longing and desire
bright blooming in the cold hollows
between my bones
where light has never shone

the way sparks fly from your
eyes sets me aflame from the
sweat of my hair, to the
crooked edges of my fingernails to the
soft sinew of my calves

you’ve created a world anew
in between the
whispers of my fears and insecurities

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

my fingers stroke
the curved flesh
so aching in
its movement

our breath held
static in the space
between my heart
and yours

my longing
a primal dissonance
finds serenity in the way
you graze my lips

the pull of your
hands against my
whispered doubts
is hope

a tender, fleeting flower
once so stoic and tightly furled
is learning to breathe

i can tell by the way i betrayed you
that my words and silences
that have always been held so
sweetly
are now the source of the anger rattling
your teeth

after every smile and unwanted touch and way in which my heart has leapt for what stings

i think one truthful murmur is overdue

we all know
that my heart strings yank and pull and
i really do this on purpose

because when your tender eyes wash over the guilt and shame that stain my hands like ink

(i wish with all of my heart
that this was over-dramatics)

you and i both know that
i don't deserve this brand of happiness

it's much easier
to ruin it.

i feel like my form is hollow.

no organs pulsingandthrumming, my veins drained.

empty.

the emptiness left behind after you weaved
your fingers between my ribs and slipped
your hands around my heart, only to leave
a gaping hole when you were wrenched away
from me.

every day I wake
and look at myself with utter
disgust
every inch of my skin,
every pore and strand of hair is
dripping with the grease and slime you left behind,
coating
my ears
and my eyes
and my mouth
and my heart
altering my perception of reality.

you.
you built me up with
your sweet, slick words
and melting eyes
and rough fingers at my waist

the taste of bitter coffee and cigarettes ringing in my ears

your presence, so near and secret, created a world
outside the struggle and need for validation I fought through

a world built up on glass spires
of innocence
and desire
and longing
and secrecy
and need.

these repetitions
the sound of my voice reverberating back
sometimes it feels like I haven’t spoken at all
because the static that kisses my words feels unreal

i crave the way you move as my fingers write novels across your ribs
the quiet hush of skin against skin
whispering
safetysafetysafety
whispering
home