i love that it took 30 slits for you to realize I needed help. Thanks for leaving me at the emergency room by myself. Don't you ever ******* dare touch me again. I just want to die.

If you just ask me to out my blades on your nightstand while casually checking your email on your iPhone, it won't happen.

If you offhandedly remind me to eat while heading out the door for a few hours, it won't happen.

And if you tell me living is worth it while slapping me in the face with a ton of mistrust and coldness, it won't happen.

Trust me.

i'm constantly reminded
of the love i tried to coax
from a blade.

it reminded me
that i was real.

that no matter how empty
i felt,
i could still feel something.

i got more love from a razor blade
from broken glass
shattered cds
(anything sharp as his wits)

than i ever got from him

and yet somehow,
i'm still clean?

maybe because both of the loves
weren't real.
no matter how alive
they made me feel.

sometimes you just need someone to
tell you that it's worth it,

that living isn't a game
only played
to lose.

i lost everything in moments
i couldn't count on my fingers
and toes.

all my blessings are coming,
i'm sure,

but i'm so blind
that i don't really see them anymore.

sometimes you're sad for no reason
and people ask you
why?

and you cannot answer.

Some nights it
is alarmingly
imperceptible:
an exoskeleton ascends
on iron rivets and steel;
unseen scaffolding tapers
to a steady pulsing point
of phosphorescence—
a mechanical heart
circulating red light
into leaden clouds.

Some nights the air thickens
with cordite, grief, and snow.

Tonight with winter here
we can see the tower’s
beacon blinking through
a tangled scrim of trees
half a mile across town,
and yet even with our
bodies squeezed together
like radio dials in the dark
we are unable to tune it in—
the signal that would calibrate
our estranged transistor hearts.

Two days
from now
you won’t remember
how I laid you down
delirious,
my six-year-old
daughter
swooning

spoonfuls
of purple
medicine
sickly sweet

your body burning
up beneath
pink sheets
you kicked
to the foot
of the bed

I swear
you were
dreaming
of mermaids
saddled on pink dolphins
like bejeweled rodeo stars
mermaids
swimming closer
mermaids
with long yellow hair
bucking waves—
sea girls with
one hand raised
in salty air,
orbiting
in circles
overhead,
wee galaxies
of ocean mist,
droplets
of sweat
on your lips.

At dawn
your fever
broke with
the sweetness
of candy glass
mason jars;
fireflies
escaping
as embers,
a dimming
delirium
of stars.

Two days
from now
you won’t remember
how I came to you
in the middle
of the night
when you cried
out for me,
your voice
unfamiliar—
a song sung
by a small girl
burning up
beneath
the sea.

At last the autumn
wind has stripped
the branches bare.
Even insubordinate
trees now stretch

their naked limbs
along a leaf of sky;

timber ledger lines
compose a staff
where birds rest
as quarter notes,
the nested chimes
of winter’s song.

You and I unlace
our leather boots.

We wait for snow,
white and absolute,
to change the score,
to blanket measured
roots, a silent chorus.