You don’t know what it’s like to dig and dig and dig in the dirt with bare hands
digging toward fecundity
I am trying to find the honest words
Buried under our mother’s bones
But all I have now is the dirt under my nails, and
because I am a woman
I set my bucket of soap and water down hard
I scrub the blood out of the wood
My knees tear open from supporting my own weight and soak the floor
Every clean movement forward is erased by the brushstrokes of my own body
Please
Don’t tell me you know something about housekeeping
My body is an apology I can’t scrub clean

This is not a breakup poem
This is not me liquifying when I open my eyes in the morning
This is not my furious animal tearing at my chest to control the thrashing inside
This is not the bile that burns my throat
And this is not the hollow in my abdomen

This is not a breakup poem
This is not your static sobs and back-breaking voice cracks
This is not your acid apology
This is not your deadly uncertainty
And this is not the jagged shards of yourself

This is not a breakup poem
This is not the blood bursting from my scraped elbows and knees
when I went head over heels because you promised you would catch me
This is not my pavement-smacked stinging palms
This is not the gravel in my wounds from when you let go too soon

This is not a breakup poem
This is not your whiskey bottle on the shelf at the foot of my bed,
a gentle reminder that now I have nightmares alone
This is not the toothbrush and the hair gel and the speakers and the things that have more staying power than you
And this is not a breakup poem

So this isn't a poem, but I wanted to share the tumblr I've created to house all of my poetry.  My tumblr contains some of the poems I've posted here, as well as edited and completely new poems.  From here on out I'll almost exclusively post on tumblr, so if you have an interest in any of my work I urge you to check out the link, and perhaps even follow.  Thanks!

http://victoriannpoetry.tumblr.com/

He made me into a god; only calling on me before the impact.  
Did my lips taste like salvation?  
Was there holy water between my legs?
My body is not a place to be baptized in; if you want me, want the messy, fierce rush of blood that floods my cheeks.
We cannot be reborn, our flesh is not divine.  
Ours is slowly decaying matter.
Touch me like I’m rotting.

Let’s not make this pleasant.
I don’t want to sigh or breathe my memories into you;
I want to spit them into you.
I want to set you on fire with all that I’ve felt,
and watch you writhe in the burning pain that is me.
I will not put you out until I’ve charred your skin
and can peel it from the bone with ease,
just as you have done to me.

To be clear, I refuse to be pretty.
I want the blood to stay under my fingernails
and the bags under my eyes to darken.
I am not the daisy-freshness of spring.
I am grotesque.
I am skin
and bone
and blood
and bile
and spit.

Us in Stanzas

I sat down on the bench next to you and noticed you were smoking American Spirits instead of your typical Marlboro.  I asked how you were doing and in the middle of your explanation you told me you really just needed a friend instead of something romantic.  I smiled politely and silenced the scream in my throat as you read me two more of your poems.  Then we got burritos.

My friend hesitates when he confesses to me that he knows you, and you’re ******* crazy.  He tells me that you once tried to open your veins in front of him, and release all of the poetry inside of you.  I call you and you don’t answer.  I spend the night worrying about you in a way that makes me sick, but not as sick as all the beer and ****.  By the time I realize I haven’t eaten all day I’ve been on the floor of the bathroom for two hours, as my best friend holds my hair.  In between my violent retches I flawlessly recite Yeats’ “No Second Troy”.  It’s funny, the things we remember.  

I can’t help feeling that now I’m a stranger who knows what your twitching leg feels like on top of mine as we sleep.  Sometimes I wish I didn't spend those nights with you on your bare mattress.

The next morning I go to breakfast with my friend and her boyfriend.  I don’t like how uncomfortable their happiness makes me.  I order what I always do, and even though I’ve been so empty the first bite makes me feel full.

I never told you, but I still have pictures of my ex-boyfriend on my phone.  I’m sorry, but the taste of his name had barely left my mouth when you kissed me.  He was covered in tattoos and my parents never liked him anyway.  My mom asks how I’m doing, and says she really hoped you would be different.  I don’t tell her everything.  I tell her these things happen.  

There is still time for you to be okay; I’ve been good, I’ve only panicked in the time between seconds.  “Actually text me,” I said to you before you went home.  You were nauseous and wanted to sleep it off.  “When have I ever said I would text you and didn’t?” you ask.  “Once or twice,” I said.  “I haven’t kept track.”

I am made of saltwater and glass
and I am a hundred years old.
I breathe in your cigarette smoke
for a minute, you are in my lungs.
Stockpile warmth,
winter is coming to crack our hands.
The light trembles and dissolves
we are now in darkness.
When you left our eyes were still layered with sleep.
My fingertips still hum from the realization
that we are made less of flesh
and more of electricity.