I rolled my ankle last month,
but didn't pay much attention
to the swelling because it didn't feel
like nougat flesh with a pushpin
center. It felt like skin, tendons,
and fishnet bones.
But now, when I make my bed,
I have to waste two or three
soft pillows at the foot of it.
So, I'm left with the burgundy ones
from the couch that I tried to patch
with boot liner and an eighth-grade
comprehension of sewing.
I stuck a rat's thimble on my ring
finger, so I could push the straw-thin
needle through the beefy seam.
No such luck.
Finished the stitching
with a Band-Aid beneath
the thimble. And I left
the cheetah-print liner hanging
off like a piece of skin,
hoping it'd fix itself.

Okay.
Sure.
Play victim.
Play with drugs, cigarettes and alcohol before you can even legally drive.
Play with knives and fire.
Play with all those things you swore you never would.
Play with the bad kids.
Play unloved.
Play overdramatic.
Play this game you love so well.

...because no matter how good you are at it sooner or later you are going to lose.

I can't wait, I hope I'm there when you do.
Because you wrecked me.
And I am STILL healing.
The scars on my wrists
are all your fault
the reason I sometimes can't eat more
than a yogurt and half an orange for lunch
is because of YOU
the reason I hate myself
the reason my mother can't trust me around blades anymore
the reason my mother cried for so many nights
because you broke her
you broke me
you SHATTERED my friends
and loved ones
you triggered her
you led to her eating problems
you contributed to the slits on her arms
the scars are STILL THERE
you made us genuinely want to **** ourselves
and HER
the one who was so strong she never drew blood
you even drove her to trying to with a pushpin
a f!cking pushpin
thanks to you!
we used car keys when we got desperate
scissor blades
safety pins
needles
construction paper edges
nailclippers
the ends of wires
circle makers
the backings of earrings
so many more things
sitting alone
you turned everyone against us
everyone
all of our friends
the whole school
our families
EVERYONE
you wrecked EVERYTHING
you killed us.
made us want to **** ourselves
now I just want to **** YOU

so go ahead
PLAY.

I've tried to record
The way your name falls out of my mouth
When I drop glass onto the floor
Like my mothers list of forbidden words
In spreadsheets
Counting with fingers and letters
Every time I pass a red pushpin in a map
Of where you told me
"You're so young and immature"
Like a compliment traced with
Sobriety and melatonin
I've picked up pencils
That end up in pieces
After scrawling your dialogues
Onto "it's your own fault" paper
I've scrubbed myself raw
With people who wont
Look me in the eyes anymore
With your goodbye words
With the flashbacks of
Your hands manifesting
The uncharted areas
Of my brittle hips
How my ****** syllables were
Dinner party jokes
There's nothing that can hurt
A god of power
And business suits
Someone who's never told no
Holds a child
In a way that erases the thought of comfort
And now
I lack the maturity to refuse requests
And you tell me
I'd make a good corpse
At a funeral catered towards
Twenty-nine year old men
Who never learned the difference
Between property and personality
And my promises
Tighten around my throat
Gratefully
Like your hands
Fostering the
Aurora Borealis of love
In a way that
Makes me choke on
The things you've shown me
The things you've ruined for me
The words I will never get back
And I sit
With you surrounding me
In and out of every crevice of my body
You've claimed for yourself
Helpless
And defeated
Like a child
Just how you like me

Chilling, to think
"social media" (whatever that means)
is really just building up halls
complete with old tattered wallpaper
for our ghosts to haunt
like a rickety Victorian mansion.

You,
Pinned to a wall by his van,
like a packet of paper
pierced by a preposterously red pushpin,
a coward is now getting off on being scared
shitless,
and overwhelmed with intoxicated rage,
because he was trying to claw his way home,
no matter the cost,
like a fearful animal,
and excuse
and excuse
and excuse us for our lack of pity.

You,
taken prematurely from your infant son,
your infant marriage,
your infant life,
you're still around, frozen.
Immortalized as you were,
tagged in photos.

"Desiree liked this"
bears an odd resemblance
to moaning from the basement
or footsteps down the hall
**** the bed
call for mom

Getting daily horoscopes
as though you still need
to figure out every detail
about your personality,
who you’re compatible with.
Virgos don't like spontaneity.
Scorpio is sensual.
Taurus are stubborn
in the way that
flowers at a tombstone
seem more sentimental
than script on a screen.

But then again the soul owns no
defined location,
no cage.

But, even more grim,
blow out the candle,
One day I'll be there too,
Plastered in white and blue,
When sleeping dogs should lie.

sometimes
i pray for you
not to god,

but to all
the dead poets
we love,

they are all
pretentious pushpin
ghosts, gapping out

of skin
and turning around
to devour,

rumi always asks for me
to listen, and i see
why i pray in the first place

not for your salvation,
but so you can blossom
into the warrior

i know you are

Draw a map of the world.
Draw it straight onto the walls
of your bedroom
(or your cell, whichever you prefer)
into your favourite notebook
(so you always have it with you)
onto the palms of your hands
(so you never forget it's there)

Press a pushpin
into the capital cities.
The ones with names like
Most Beautiful View
Him
That Song
A Few Tears
and remember to translate their titles
to the local tongue.
Maybe
they'll read
You
Love
Feel
Him
or maybe not.

Trace the lines
of the coast on which
you faced your first ocean
or your second
or your twenty-ninth.

Doodle a hollow star
onto the hilltop where the two of you
made the same wish
on that strange streak of light burned into the sky.

Draw a map of your world.
Fill it with all of the beautiful things
that you have ever and never seen.

"we're going to
sarah's church
this sunday"
you said.

"you're
going to sarah's
church this sunday"
i said.

and you gave
me that fishy
look you've been
giving me every
saturday night
for the last month
"why don't you
want to go to church?"

well i have my reasons
tucked up with abstracted
pushpin waves on
bible class corkboards
and poked into the corners
of empty white rooms
where abrasive carpet wore
my feet into odd patterns

sitting on my splintered
windowsill and listening to
things i wasn't invited to
something with singing and all i
really recall was sawing off warts
with a pocketknife while i listened

those early days
before the roof was
fixed were when the
trouble started.

"because
i'm not."

that's not much
of an explanation
but neither is
the truth
which by the way
i didn't mention

i didn't mention the
way i felt last night
when i looked at
year old photo effects
or the hitch in my chest
the last time i listened
to dan's cds
the way i ***** shut my eyes
and try to keep breathing
every time you drive by
what used to be woods or
someone else's welcome sign

"i like this song"
you said in the car
and i felt the bloodied swallow
of mismarked communion wine
like my first taste of hate
so many years gone now
surging down my
closed and slit throat

tim mcgraw was wrong
don't go to church because
your mama says to
don't go to church because
anybody says to
it won't get you into heaven
but it might get you
anxiety and a hospital bill.

(maybe i'm so critical
of christians because
christians were
critical of me
but hey that's just
a random thought)

and i don't talk about
how when i see the faces
of strangers that i
memorized between
the lost references of
out-of-context verses
all i see are reflections
of white words i typed
into their irises
i typed too fast.

and i was just too
tired to say that
large-scale screens
drive me over the edge
too tired to imply
once more that i
have turned into a
college-student statistic

one who has
more behind her
motives than
pure apathy.

so having thought all this
i repeated myself
"you're going to
sarah's church this week"
and wished you could
understand my reasons.

our deaths are usually
a collection of hours
and mundane decisions
uprooting our pushpin
from the place marked
You Are Here
We Are
until that fateful morning
or unexpected night
or plane ride
or gunshot
We Are Here
sharp as a thumbtack
holding together
the very fabric of the earth
we are writing this in stone
carving our paths
with each yes and each no
in glorious stride
inescapable end
we choose to push our pins
just a little bit deeper
each step heavy
exercising our freedoms
and with each the refrain
I Am Here