sternum (n.)
a bone extending along the middle line of the ventral portion of the body consisting of a flat, narrow bone connected with the clavicles and the true ribs.
I remember taking an anatomy class in high school, we had to memorize the bones of the body - the skeletal system. Scapula, humerus, mandible all favorable to the tongue, but I never liked the word sternum, it sounds far too angry, nothing like the supple it actually is. Years later I would still find myself walking to work and naming them off. Bones on my mind. Tibia, ulna, femur, breastbone.
Breastbone rolls around my mouth, lulls my anxiety towards its twin like a boat in calm waters. I think of your breastbone as a platform to profess my fascination. I am surprisingly amazed every time I count the steady rhythm of your heart, it's sound conducted as though your breastbone is a soundboard. I feel the slight ridges of your ribs when my head lays in the valley of your chest. There's not a day that I wouldn't love to get lost in the formations of your bones, each crevice a new place to hide - lounging in the curve of your collar bone, plucking the muscles of your fingers like guitar strings, getting lost to the soft scent of skin, and memorizing the plush roundness of your *******, each sensation leaves me with a new obsession. I look for replicas in everyday life, the hunt almost as intoxicating as smoke from campfires, or plucking wishbones from hens.

In the worst hour of the worst season
    of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
    He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
    Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
    There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
    Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

Your cold hand against mine
we are frozen in time
with your breastbone against my body
and the darkness all around me
All I want is to call you my own
all day that's what I moan
but you've passed away today
there's no other way
to hear you say "I Love You"
or for us to gently woo
the other one to marriage
where the ledge stood
that you jumped off of
to the ground below and above
the birds sang as the sound
of crunching bones against the ground
shatter the silence with a scream
maybe I'm just in a dream....
But then I awake with an empty bed
beside my body and my head
I reach across and look for you to grab
my hand where my ugly, horrendous scab
from when I tried to **** myself
lives within the hidden shelves
of my lost mind.
Oh, lover, where have you gone?
I sing a sorrowful song after song
hoping that will  bring you back
but instead your body is cracked
and will never house another soul
your body is just a black hole
within my memories of us
you're now a once was
after your suicide
I've never been the same. a part of me died.

the words
are beads and gems
and hooks and strings

scattered in a box
somewhere in
the softness behind my breastbone

my palms are up to catch the key
whenever it chooses to land

a pandora poised
to make ornaments
from all she uncovers,
all she unleashes

1                                                                ­    4
she offers me,                                             a spot of dust
she raises me                                              under the couch,
on platitudes and warm bread                I know it’s
in return for my devotion                         there

she loves me like the boats                       today, I start spring-cleaning,
she keeps out on the ocean                      (this alone
she loves me to be molded,                      should receive
not to be unfolded                                     more recognition than it will)
                                                           ­           I pull out the couch
she bore me bones                                     the vacuum doesn’t quite
the lacrimal bone                                       reach the dust lying
the breastbone                                            on unused carpet,
all the cervical vertebrae                          the head
I use them to simulate                              keeps hitting the wall
her expectations                                        unproductive
­
                                                                ­     I put the furniture back
2                                                           ­        in place
I have names,                                             no one will see the lack
I wear them like badges                           of progress
inspired by something not quite
earned yet                                                   5
         ­                                                            while­ lucid dreaming
I assigned                                                   conste­llations were on
each name                                                  my skin
a compartment                                          and freckles in
of me                                                           the night sky
If I name them maybe
they will become                                       pollution drowned out
real, not just necessary                             two thirds
                                                          ­           even if most imploded
                                                        ­             before they were seen

3                                                          ­         6
with enough necessity                             were it not for shadows
anyone can tell a lie                                  I would surely learn to
                                                              ­       hate the light

I rip the Moroccan good luck coin off of my neck
bury the coppery metal in the string I have wrapped it in
and throw it beside the empty monster BFC
which sits next to the empty canteen that I filled with now sour blackberries this Sunday
the stack of losing scratch tickets, about $8.00 worth
and all the boxes that I have packed my life into and stuffed underneath that little card table
in front of the couch I live on in my great-aunts living room
which used to be my grandma's living room.

I throw that coin there
remembering just a minute ago seeing the dried tear tracks down my cheeks
which, at this moment, scream her name
my most recent temporarily failed obsession.

In this moment she is just another attempt for me to try to feel loved
being there, continuously, for her
wearing on my joints
on my mind
every last thought turning into paranoia
as I spill my heart out over a text, a ******* text, again
and she doesn't reply
again
and again
and again.
no reply.
And in those moments, this moment
I thirst for the glint of silver in this lonely, cold lamplight
for the feel of the knife I threw over the cliff and into the cold waters of discovery bay
in my hands.
I thirst for the feel of the tip pressed into my skin
the blade pulled, quickly, but never fast enough
slicing skin and hair and letting her name
(whatever her name is at the name)
spill, a thousand times across me
warm and somehow relaxing
as if telling me I was always right.

I thirst for that feeling warmth as I tell myself
that she doesn't care enough to keep me warm
that nobody does.
That I'm just a lower lip to bite once and forget,
just a sea of words bubbling over and reaching out for those closest
those who have ever even looked in the direction of this endless ocean and smiled,
reaching for them, grabbing them, tearing them to pieces, and drowning them,
or trying to, accidentally.
And then, when they escape, turning into a sea of rage
of warmth
of blood
that consumes itself and stays at low tide for days, weeks, months at a time
alone
the words having no sand, no skin, no mind other than their own to spill out upon.

I throw that coin there
on the carpet
where the TV used to be,
it now sits in my forgotten fathers bedroom
in the house I ran away from.

I throw that coin there
in the shadow of the empty monster BFC
hiding it from the glint of the dying lamplight
that makes my head scream
and my teeth clench
at 1:02am
as I wait for her
as I wait to somehow be remembered
to somehow have someone give a ****
and realize it's never going to happen.

I sit here, at now 1:04am staring at that coin
that she took out of her cars cup holder and gave to me
that I have worn on my neck for four days
leaving a white line through the redness of a sunburn.
that cold metal hitting my breastbone continuously, making a hollow thumping sound
reminding me of the hollowness in my chest
that even that heart,
which is beating faster than the off tempo drummers in the park in Leschi,
wired on 800mg of caffeine,
is hollow;
pumping less and less blood into my body with each disappointment
with each innocent passerby who finds herself buried under the words
that are floating there
close enough to see
close enough to hear on nights like this where they just want to break forth.

I sit here staring at that dull copper in the shadows
and dreaming of silver glinting in the lamplight.

I think I would like to make a home of your body
Like the dens I used to make with my siblings,
Before I started saying "no thanks".

To take a doctor's scalpel,
Clean and new and never used
And so very, very sharp
And to rest it in the hollow just where the breastbone ends.

Then to push it in along your soft smooth shiny skin
So unlike the mottled scarring that covers mine.

Down, down, down
To where you wear the waistband of your jeans.
A horizontal swipe at the top,
At the bottom,
Like making the fold of a window in a paper house.
Shh, is anyone home?

Lifting the heavy, wet flesh,
Your rib cage is so very white
And so very perfect
Like special cutlery for special occasions-
Births and weddings and funerals.

They hide your lungs,
Bloodshot and tired of the
Eternal
Moving and moving and moving on and on and on

Your stomach, soft
And vulnerable in its hideousness
Yet it hides the despicable necessity
Of human life.

And your heart,
Plump and fresh and young,
It is restless and strains
But for what when all that lies outside
Is incomprehensible and unnerving and unwelcoming.

So I will leave it all behind
And with damp heavy fatigue crawl
Into your torso like the unborn child
We have all been and will be again.

And your ribs will cradle me like a birdcage
That has grown so sick of the world,
And your organs will cushion and comfort me
When I feel that I do not want to live.

And blood will cover everything
Just as I have always wanted.
Flooding my eyes and nose and mouth and ears
And bathing me in the warmth, the constant gentle pounding,
That would make me feel alive.

Sometimes,

I think of taking my hands
And ripping - splitting - cracking,
My ribcage in two.
                                                            ­            
The breastbone splintering apart,
My torso opening like a rotten tree.
The inside hollowed,
Like a lake that has been emptied
 
I've convinced myself that
Fragrant flowers
Would grow there.

That they would grow feverishly
In the gnawing gap
I had created.

And that time would preserve
What I had done.

i found a birthmark shaped like Alaska
on the inside of your kneecap,
and i only saw it the day you
let me cross the border;
it was sensitive to my touch,
the moon-like ripples leading
to the needles on the pine tree
in your back yard.
sometimes i can read behind the
lines of DNA makeup,
like the lonely biologist you seem to be,
but your lingo is foreign to me,
tattered words and language deficiencies,
i can hardly follow along the braille
carved onto your outer layer,
the marble you worked so hard to
weather on your own time.
yet, somehow its turned to rubble again.
sometimes i hold an out of order sign
against my breastbone so i can set eyes
straight and wish anyone would light me on
fire,
           (but not literally, i'm absolutely against abuse)
i want the sticks but not the stones,
since wood won't leave my body bruised.
use my transitions for kindle,
and my organs for the flames.
i want to be colored red,
like ambulance lights, stop signs,
painted like a signature to warn others
how my frequencies can only be heard
by animals.
maybe some other life forms,
or god,
but i have never hoped more that
you would pick up on my signals,
my freckles scream out samples
of how this could be
or what we could have known.

I’ve begun “The Wasting” once more.

That ragged uncovering of bones and peaks and ridges that crop up along my spine and shoulders.

My scapulas revealing themselves like the bed of a lake as the waters recede.

Indents beside and under my kneecaps, hollows that match the ones slowly sinking themselves back into my cheeks.

And the hipbones…the things I truly crave to see through the paper thin layer of my skin…

Those…I’d starve myself to waifish proportions just to graze my hands along the mountaintops of those things, those sharp little things.

I lose my hair and my colour and my shine just to dig my fingers into the hardness of my breastbone, just to know that my jawbone is an overhang, just to plunge headfirst into the thrill of being thin.

“The Wasting” and I are friends, and I want to drown in her.

Be careful little one

You have the frozen globe of existence at your Fingertips
Marking Tracing Melting  oh so slowly much too fast

Diligently your dead eyes glance gracefully into infinite bright spotlights
Your fragile razor-edged smile’s tearing the corners of your lips

Insecurely holding yourself excruciatingly precise

Marking repugnant lines down your too young face
Spine’s held ram-rod straight pretending to keep your world afloat on a

Butterflies listless fluttering wings

The tiniest misstep reverberating inside your hollowed breastbone

In.. In… In…. Inconspicuous

Comparable in the manner of a lamp bumping the floor two houses up
Breath hitched tattooed pulse brings life to your porcelain pores

Tip-toeing on egg-shells of yearning aspiration

Flinching at the cold intangible fear that’s grabbed your hand
Makes you come to life a stones throw too freedom
Diamonds ruthlessly rip into soles and ****** toes imprisoned in silk

Wine stained lips sneer at rows of red velvet

They grasp everything you've strove for, they are the power
Passion, adrenaline, up most urgency sweeping you away

The most elegant anguish rushes out forming awestruck wild abandon
Waiting your whole life for this moment boiling down to now

Day after day year after year

Pupils blown wide it’s do or die spread your arms and take your bow
Self-loathing narcissist

You only dance as if the the sky is falling when you feel all is beyond repair

Never have you been more *beautiful

Your eyes touch the back of my mouth. Make it so hard to swallow.
I never breathed so evenly, my stomach feels so hallow.
I'll bury my face in your neck. Allow me to sink my tongue, and
Drown my teeth into your arms. Your breath fills my lungs.

Everything is easy now, since we simply let it be.
This is anything but sarcastic, the way our colors bleed.
I love your golden irises, I love your sepia skin.
Wrap yourself around my bones and melt into my ribs.

I feel like our arms glide through each other,
Like dancing lovers, after years of familiarization
Predictability in every step, but for once
Comforting to know what's going to come next.

Your hands hieroglyph the language of my fingernails
Decoding a sensation that belongs to something bigger than us,
And finally understanding that it's okay to touch that.

Contentment for war. Trading pity for empathy.
Trading sympathy for care.
You were always in the confines of my aching head,
Your name is in all my search-bars.

If I had the right fingers, I would create you in marble
I would design a statue and have it be gilded
In your honor. And if there was a temple for us,
It would be in the shape of a man, aimed at the earth.
He would be bowing to a large evergreen tree.
And our initials would be carved on the side.

Let's finally spraypaint our faces in underpasses
Eyes like this deserve to be gazed into.
Eyes like yours.
Deep breathing, my face in your chest.

Breastbone meeting skull
Dripping my lips onto your skin
Like candlewax.
If you kiss me with finality,
"I promise, darling, I'll kiss you back."

Kaleidoscopes
pushed the music
through our bodies
in triangles of ebony,
purity,
hope
and confusion.

I could lose you
in the music,
you could lose me
in the bass
and destruction
of ear-dums.

What thumps
inside us?
as we thump genitals,
and ride
against each other
over interlocked
thighs.

Put me in your lips
more than your
put your own tongue.

Wet me
with a burst
of love so jarring
it could break my mind.

Because I like to put
*******
on your breastbone
and pull down
your shirt
so that I can see more.

And you like to grab me
harder
than
anyone
has
grabbed
before.

And the pain
of love
is all about grabbing,
about having
possession
in the middle of a club
hopping on mushrooms.

We get closer,
judging our distances
by how little we see
the kaleidoscopes
of broken light
and reformed blues, reds, greens and
yous.

We judge distance
by our stale Colgate breath
and drunk tongues.

We judge distance
by how close
our hearts have become
when we know nothing else
but drunk love.

Start with a picture.
Any one will do.
Names rattled off, like
Stars, constellations—
Screamed into silence.

Blink. Close your eyes; imagine
Red ribbons and blood floating
Through frigid air, in the snow.
See this tall, dark, frail body
Consumed by snowflakes and cold
Laugh like a choir in the
Middle of the stage (bright light)

Start with lips. Eyes, nose.
Start with clavicle
Breastbone and a thigh.
Start with oxygen
End with a human.

his lips are on your pulse point and
his hand is spreading the ribs in your chest,  
you never realized that being this close to
someone meant opening a door.
welcoming them in. they make
their home beneath your skin and you’re
not sure if you want them,
their laughter and their touches.
their bare chests and their breath.

you are a building so many people
have tried to wound their way into.
there are fault lines in your breastbone
and a falter in your pulse and
these days your palms are more
scar tissue than skin.
every breath hurts and
the walls of your heart are covered
in graffiti you can’t stop yourself
from reading. this night is just another
room in a hallway that smells
of wet paint.

burn this house down.
leave the cushions on the carpet
and the dishes in the sink,
smash the mirror with its smudges
before you get the chance to think.

this has nothing to do with forgiveness.
this is how you wake up next to him
and tell him to leave.
make some new graffiti.
sign your name on every surface,
fall in love with the contours of your shadow
kissing the floors.
you are made of smoke and dust and ashes,
you are ready to face the day,
and there’s no room in you for anyone
who doesn’t want to stay.

i release secrets hidden behind a breastbone
that cracks under (pressure),
when gin and tonics enter my achy bloodstream.
i only remember her on the floor.
i dance like broken bottles upon cement floors
when fairy dust kisses foamy glasses.
i was in a mental hospital. yeah, basically.
i forget the people i supposedly love and blame
it on the alcohol,
because i do not have the courage to blame it
on myself.

Lovers trapped
in flourescent corners.

Skin shimmers underneath
loose tees,
beige with the kind of sweat
that blackens
Levi's in the crotches.

Her fingers *****
at his mice-sized ears
which hunger
for the acrylic traps
she lays with her fingernails.

If lips had tongues
his lips would say:
"I've had plastic flesh
and mercury is in my veins
cooling me
until I'm frozen
in the arms
of death."

And his lips never touch
hers:
neck,
breastbone,
cleft-chin,
chapped ear lobe,
crackling scalp,
fracturing spine,
splitting abdomen,
scarred heart.

his are never touched by
hers:
lips.

They finger the hills
of each other's skin:
velvetine,
innumerable,
wet.

Starships beep in the night.

Beep through receivers
from a place against the earth,
but not touching it.

THeir voices are intimate
and not there.

Cries are heard from space
and cradled as breathing
treasure.

Intimate,
but not there.

Their fingers touch each other,
infinitely
and not at all.

He feels her
as the earth feels
remote beeps
in remote intimacy.

De elevating power might
seem a futile task for a mere
earthling, disadvantaged by
stature, and of course due to
being under surveillance from
an altitude beyond reach, of
even, the imagination.

Such being the predicament
of an elderly Weasel inattentive
to the hidden dangers from an
intemperate predator soaring
directly above, just waiting to
profit from this evident dotage.

Down swooped the winged
carnivore, availing of surprise,
up-draught and velocity, it
quickly sank its talons into the
side of the disabled animal
and rose triumphantly into
the empty sky and high.

But just as possessions fall through
fingers, the winds of change were
about to reverse the tide of misfortune.
The stunned carcass, which only seconds
previously seemed as though was dead
as dead could be, suddenly posed a
problem for its captor (in flight).

Immediately, there was a notable change
of direction and a notable drop in the
flight horizontal, the big bird was visibly
in trouble, the Weasel had sunk its teeth
into the undercarriage, securing itself
from being released of the foot spikes.

The underdog was not going to go down
without a fight and there was nothing,
absolutely nothing The Eagle could do,
no negotiation, no solution other than
land, because The Weasel was not going
to let go and The Eagle was loosing fuel.

Efforts to dislodge The Weasel proved
nugatory, yet, The Weasel was prepared
to **** the Eagle in flight, a pyrrhic victory
is as democratic as one could wish for.
The Eagle had no option, down it came,
flew low along by the tree tops in an effort
to detach itself for The Weasel.

The Weasel availed of the Hobson Choice
and released itself from the breastbone
clambered on to the branches, making
its way out of the tree.
Meanwhile, The Eagle after a huge loss
of blood, left a trail along to forest floor
for The Weasel to follow


Ps.

The leech Eagle ended up in College Road
Sligo where it has a nest.
What became of it, is still unknown, but we
are sure, that The Weasel has not given up.

This is the Fable of Free Travel.
A pass given to the author by
a Government agency in Sligo
Ireland, and taken away with
no explanation.

something fit.  something aligned under the breastbone
ribs pattered out and gave space for breath
that didn't taste of anything.  

something clicked.  tortured poet keeping a journal
walks the south route instead
and sees the spiritual spin on life through the stained glass windows
of a shack church in need of extensive renovation.
she is inspired and her need bottoms out for the day--

praise is good.
good.
great.    
don't bother me when i'm sharpening my pencils.
i'm preparing for divine intervention
and the clarity i know i'm owed

something hit. my words, hey, i'm black and blue
and they? they're cut through and through
with flecks of tracts lent from life and beyond.

To open this box...
I'd more than like to know
What monsters it houses, what
Mossy, overgrown flora it grows.
Whether 'not it will
Blast me with fair, cleansing light, like
A sunrise through a painted window, or
Plunge me
Into dark waters
And run my eyes o'er with
Soaking ash and floating filament -

It's my weakness,
It calls me by a fond nickname, like
A too good friend after too long,
It knows me,
Knows I can't displace the
Imprints once they are etched
In my head

I have to uncover the rock the wrong way,
I have to
Lift it up towards me, brashly, impulsively,
And risk
The nervous snake
Right into my chest

That burning feeling,
Crackling in my breastbone,
Sets a flame and
Sends me back yet again
Scurrying into another lush, cool sanctuary
Somewhere in these woods, my temple,
In my center,
In my core.

obdurate, ******,
he fastened twine
tied to tarsals
around my
ventricles,
closed off
the vena cava

i am blue
in the breastbone

empty blood
can't reach
the lungs

but
i am equipped
with the tools
to deal with this

animal instinct
to fight off
infection
or to let it in
and cradle
me every
night at
2
when you
wake to
make sure
you haven't
missed

the tug at your toes
or
the platelets & plasma
or
a warm wavelength --
a chance to record a dream
you lost in rising

I wonder if you know yet that you’ll leave me.
That you are a child playing with matches and I have a paper body.
You will meet a girl with a softer voice and stronger arms
and she will not have violent secrets or an affection for red wine
or eyes that never stay dry.
You will fall into her bed and I’ll go back to spending Friday nights
with boys who never learn my last name.

I have chased off every fool who has tried to sleep beside me
You think it’s romantic to **** the girl who writes poems about you.
You think I’ll understand your sadness because I live inside my own.
But I will show up at your door at 2 am, wild-eyed and sleepless.
And try and find some semblance of peace in your breastbone
and you will not let me in.
You will tell me to go home

me? im a whole lotta broken. i wanna get fixed. dont know how tho - OR if its even possible. is it? i mean, the only antidote to the blah and blek and ugh and err is, for me at least, a blank page with a waiting blinking cursor. ahh, pure potential. infinite vistas of what-if. a path not taken is a beinglessness that feeds the imagination with pure uncut raw light extending back into the original whothefuckknowswhereitcamefrom wick that bore its birth... BUT i always manage to mess that up with words words words. so, what then? where from here? i dunno. and i am upsettingly ok w the the idunno, which, sadly is most likely going to lead to me being on the street. my ambition is err not good, at all... its way bad.. i swear to eff i once had a waking vision while nestled deep in meditation of all my previous incarnations - i was a sloth with a lazy eye for, like, ten thousand and ten generations. mmm, now THAT was the life. it was a comfy series of infinite expressions, till that **** ape-turned-human decided to exist and in doing so somehow managed to motivate my precisely calibrated aeon-long string of slothness into idk maybe not sleeping for 20 hours a day?? cutting it down to ohidunno 18 hours.. that was the first initial step. now, im a sentient ambling bipedal brain-heavy avatar that is oh so aware of itself, aka human, and tries to distract itself from the deep abiding blankness that pulses and pumps jus below the left-center breastbone by writing meh poems to pass the time. or maybe there is something there.. i dunno. maybe there is a wholeness. maybe the feeling i get when i can be weird in front of somebody else, and that feeling i get when i stare into the eyes of another person and know that they like me just as much as i like them, and that feeling of community, that yay burning sensation within that drums together like a kirtan, stoking stoking, stoked till all our very molecules begin to budge and shake and evaporate, rising like a riproaring pyre enlightening the nite sky, a light going on forever and ever, reaching past the final last outstretched fingertip of cosmos itself, back into the womb of Her.. and in doing so dimming the fake fluorescent light of ego which usually hangs over my brain's goings on, making me feel like i am not so small, not so insignificant, but central, mandalaing the the youme that burns burns burns onto the canvas of the abyss, creating life itself.... or i jus have a silly overactive imagination that ive never matured. idk. again, i seem to be ok with the idunno. indeed, i may even worship at the alter of idunno that doesnt even exist... "mental *******." that is what ive been charged with as doing by a shaman i consulted with at my mom's wedding. well, she didnt say it directly, but you know, hinted at it with that less-than-royal We - i had been talking about the difference between thought and language, and jus where in the hell thoughts come from anyway - a god? purely biological random shimmering byproducts of frontal lobes? some unifying infinite force? that spicy curry you ate? .. and she interrupted me ".. --- im gonna stop you right there" she intoned  ".. im getting something coming in right now from the Christ Mind, its telling me something.." dramatic pause. "... sometimes we tend to jus get stuck doing mental *******, instead of jus being appreciative of what we have, here and now, in the present - that is why it is called "the present" right??" i dunno, maybe she was right. but i hate that cliche.. the present is totally overrated imho... i hate my ego sometimes. or at least i hate not knowing if it is ego or not.. i hate feeling that feeling like somebody is trying to control me through indirect ways, because i dont know if they are actually trying to control me or if i am just inaccurately perceiving it. i think a lot of times we unconsciously try to control people, not even aware of it. i am sure i do this as well. we all have angles right? .. but anyway, speaking of self *** metaphors for describing the thinking process, i am tired of short skirt blonde bombshell anchors that have been under more knives that hannibal lecter's vics tell me about how scary isis is and how they are gonna take muh white and male murica from me, jerking off my leftover overactive monkey fear gland in my amygdala... its time to turn off the media and look outside. the sky is not falling and the birds are chirping. aright im done writing now. end. of. rant.

nobody poets anymore

because to poet
is

to make it strange again

admit it - if you stare long enough

your reflection in the mirror tickles
the ribs of 1-to-1

turns a laugh into a cry
a real hard good cry
washing the world of wry

to poet is
to show

the sheer

terror

that is
alive

it's not outside
it writhes
under the molecule

it tumbles the tumult

dear you
your tools will not will forever

the unfisted wisp now blurred
beneath word is curtains
for your House of Horror Maintained

it beats like a busybody
muscling and torquing just below the breastbone

of your
you

the i is not it anymore

it is
othering
peeking behind
the beat-up chair of your so-called

real

there's wires behind there

they lead some
where

it wasn't your kiss that got me
it was the open hand
that covered, stroked and

allowed for

the white-knuckled fist binding
that broken muscle just below the breastbone

Your breastbone drum keeps me alive.
I’m not sure if I can make it out today
or tomorrow or yesterday.
You see, I try and when I try real hard
it’s like I’ve been cooked too long
and my clay just cracks.
In one full shudder, I shed my
whole body like a skin.

You send a message through the lines
“How are you today?”
My smile and shrug aren’t working for me right
so I try to breathe and say, “not okay”
without breaking you too.

I can’t write checks for the bills
or tug a sock on, or reach around for the blanket.
It’s too hard, I’m sad, I’m terrified.
My stomach hurts
and there are fists clenched up inside my thighs
and my chest that just won’t loosen up.
I can’t see past the seam of the pillowcase
two inches from my face.
I should mend it. It’s coming apart. Unraveling.

You give me a few words again
and I don’t feel lighter or fixed
because you can’t fix people.
We don’t come with system codes
or instructions for when we break
and lose our first-glance worth.

But I feel you like a concrete floor beneath
my palms or the old, pealing linoleum
in my bathroom.
It anchors me down, and I remember
to take a deep breath now and then.
It reminds me that I’m still here
and you’re still here
and that’s enough for now.

"God, you can be so sensitive sometimes."

I want to wear a rock-hard shell plate upon my breastbone, so words and dumb feelings would deflect instead of pierce straight through. If I could I would travel all the oceans and drown inside each and everyone of them until I had nothing but sea salt and a mermaids kiss. I wish instead of tears I would laugh because everyone always told me how crying is for weaklings.

Instead I let your words slice me into raw pieces of meat. Instead I struggle to find air in a room that is too humid. Instead I make believe that you are what I need to survive.

Instead I am too sensitive. And too weak to leave you.

i will bottle the sound of rain
and fold it
deeply
into the quietest recesses
of that muscle
just below your breastbone,
and make it beat chartreuse
soft taps slithering wet yesyesyes's

they start at my toes,
wings barely spread as they migrate to the north -
winter sent them south but now the sun calls them back.
they flutter and flap up along the ridge of my ankle,
to the side of my calf. their feathers tickle the back of my knee,
their wing span stretching to my thigh,
dipping down along my hip as they soar past my waistline,
following the swirl of my navel, the mountain curves of my ribs
and the valleys between them. they glide up my breastbone
and double back along my collar, perching on my shoulder
to greet the sun's first rays.

then they descend,
black ink blurs down the pale stretch of my arm,
nesting in the crook of my elbow, while some -
younger and darker and daring and unafraid of the sky -
soar further on to my palms and off the tips of my fingers,
wings spread wide for the first time.