I wasn’t meant to get this far but did
I skated by
I cheated death
I have slipped through cracks in promises
And taken 34.6 million last breaths
And I’m still breathing
Didn’t bleed enough, the times that I was bleeding
An alternate reality of many narrowly avoided
fatal wrecks

I have died, now,
At least 4 to 5 to maybe 7 times
And when I think of all my parallel-selves I often find myself in envy of their eyes
And how they’re closed
How they can’t see- just how bizarre the story gets
But I’m the strongest one
I am the Lauren who has not died yet

I’m grateful to her
The way I’m grateful to friends
When they save my seat

trauma drifts down through the branches of my family tree
like summer pollen

I always said the world was too small. Grain of sand on an infinite beach, as they say. So small, so insignificant, that you could get a reasonable understanding of its history and diversity in just one human lifetime. Know the world in 80 years- And people do.

It’s limiting- to be one person on one planet in a constantly expanding universe that’s full of planets.

It feels big now, thanks to you.

Too big.

Too big for the two people who matter.

I’m overwhelmed by the distance between you and I, I think about it and I get woozy, nauseous. Two little fish (but you’re a bigger fish- are you a shark?) on opposite sides of a big pond. The biggest pond. It’s salty- oh.

  Is this the ocean? It’s one I’ve never been in.

  I wish I could shrink it all down and make it small enough that you and I were next door neighbors or one town over or states over or at least, in this lifetime, the same continent. I want to step across the ocean like a puddle, when I’m tall enough, and then trip and you can catch me, once you’re strong enough.

You’re a world apart, so far that your sun rises and sets on a different schedule.

Is it the same sun?

Are you the same you?

When you’re there, I mean. Or on my schedule, my land, are you something else, the creature I met when I approached you on my knees, the thing that I thought was a god?

You are a man, and I was full of myself to think I could conquer you then- as a god- or to think I can do it better since I’ve realized you’re something more like an alien. Full of myself-

What am I full of, now? Now that I’ve swallowed your flesh and blood? Now that the god has trembled at my touch and licked the dew from my native thighs with his foreign tongue..

I worry if I see you again it won’t be enough. Did I do it for you then, lost and sad and untethered, unbothered, undaughtered? Dangerous? Did I do it for you with my ratty hair, the glitter in my sinuses and the torn up band shirt (memento of my last victim) draped across my skin like hearse curtains?

Do I do it for you now?

Will I do it for you then, alien, when I step onto the earth of your planet and bask in your different sun?

Or will I be a different creature? Will you take me from my pedestal and realize I’m not a god- will you be happy, when it’s my turn to be the alien?

I never liked blue eyes until yours, you know. How odd that they’re the same color as the thing that separates us

It’s not the cage or the perch but the feeling of being a thing that’s so smart and so social, surrounded by - ironically- an infinite misunderstanding
From beings who think that they know you
It’s novel to speak but not to be heard,
to have wings but not fly,
to be smart but not think,
to have the beak and the claws
but only if they’ve been dulled to a reasonable human comfort-
the saddest thing about being a parrot is to be loved only when you’re restrained, and desired/admired only until you are had.


God forbid she ever bites

I always said the world was too small. Grain of sand on an infinite beach type ****. So small that you could get a reasonable understanding of its history and diversity in just one human lifetime. It’s limiting, right? Like ****. We’re just one planet in a constantly expanding universe that’s full of planets.

It feels big now, thanks to you.

Too big. I’m overwhelmed by the distance between you and I, I think about it and I get woozy, nauseous. Two little fish on opposite sides of a big pond. The biggest pond. The ocean. I wish I could shrink it down and make it small enough that you and I were next door neighbors or one town over or **** it lll settle with driving distance. But this? It’s too ******* much. You’re a world apart, so far that your sun rises and sets on a different schedule.

I worry if I see you again it won’t be enough. The distance have driven me mad, I’d long to be closer even when our skin was stuck together. I fantasize about curling up inside the confines of your ribcage and resting my head on your still beating heart. It’s not enough to be close to you, ****, I want to be part of you.

The way you’re a part of me.

I never liked blue eyes until yours, you know. How odd that they’re the same color as the thing that separates us.

I was
different when you met me,
I had locked the other me away inside her cage
And I know you’d never met her but I’m sure you heard all of the noise she makes
Well, love, she’s out now
And I’m sorry, but she’s broken from her leash
I’ll try to tame her- but please realize
She’s still a part of me