transit
i’m standing on a train.
i’m standing on a train,
and the brakes are screaming,
or maybe— yeah, my mouth is open,
the screaming is me.
i can’t help it.
i’m standing on a train,
and i haven’t got a clue where i’m going
but i don’t think i could ever
forget where im coming from.
my knuckles are white
around the hand holds in the ceiling,
my balance has always been shit.
my hands are slippery from sweat,
but the air tastes like iron,
so maybe that’s blood.
please don’t make me look.
schrödinger’s cat,
if i don’t look,
i’m not holding my heart in my hands
that aren’t dipped in blood.
if i don’t look,
maybe i’m still alive.
drink it down
it's desire, sir, she's hunting me
she's been on my trail for weeks now
every time i turn a corner
i stare back into a familiar, violent hand.
places that were once safe
hold memory now, an overflown cup
i've long since carved my heart out,
and every day i drink it back down,
chased with doubt.
the rooftop calls,
the night sours on the tongue.
the fear, the fear, the fear.
inside, it rots.
i don't know how much longer i have left.
a list of things i wish i could forget
1. the way cigarette smell lingers in the air
long after the person smoking has left.
2. using my last breath to say
*you're hurting me*
with no reply.
3. the weight of you on my shoulders
while i supported you,
a child become object.
4. the first time i looked at
a bottle of pills and thought
*this could be my way out*.
5. the lines of light
burning into the carpet
inside of the closet,
showing the world
*I AM HERE*.
6. death by my own hand is inexorable.
7. the look on my history teacher's face
when i told her that i wasn't convinced
she was real.
8. lying to my friends mom
and crawling into the house
through the laundry room
window to avoid you
9. the grate of the waiting music
while my life was on the line.
10. the press of your hands
around my throat,
the way my feet kicked out
trying for the last time
to save myself.
i was ten.
nesting
you sat on my bed with me
the door closed softly behind you
like we were together, hiding.
i was a child in the way that it is a crime
to be a child, to know nothing.
am i crazy, you whispered.
to speak would be a commitment to the thought
so i whispered back, no
because lies were only lies if spoken aloud
and my voice wasn’t working right.
YOU THINK IM CRAZY she shouted,
knowing the same things that i do—
and i don’t know about the house,
but you were tectonic plates
and i was shaking in response,
cowering in my corner of the bed.
leaving that house was a beast unto itself,
standing by the solitary tree in the yard
letting the sky darken overhead til headlights came in.
a nest of baby birds and i laid there crying
until our mothers came home.
self-portrait as entry wounds
Yes, let me believe that I was born to live
Let me watch through the windows of that dull yellow house
As the pictures on the walls fall away
To reveal holes in the plaster
Shaped like the fist I turn on myself
Let me see the bottle crack where the rum drips onto Mama’s split lips
Rustle the dried flowers hanging in the halo of light
Let off by the coils of the oven, turned on with nothing inside of it
My mother was told by three different doctors
To snuff out my life before it could begin– somehow, I am here.
I was told by myself hundreds of different times
To snuff out my life after it began– somehow, I am here.
It is an act of God to leave bed in the morning
When you are medicated beyond your pain, beyond yourself
But every day I
Turn off the alarm, take the pills, drink the water, pray
That something moves.
bone dry
The moonlight is wet where it touches the kitchen tiles,
I wade through the night’s silence
And find the refrigerator light still on.
I reach out a hand to close it but–
As I crawl back into bed, feet still damp,
I think of that moment;
Staring back at something I cannot name
And wondering if this was it.
Everything that ever was,
Compressed into this second,
My eviction from purity.
The spilled milk didn’t matter much
After that.
I Need a Vacation
On Monday morning,
I’ve been resurrected.
Tuesday night,
I kill every human thought,
Try to scrub the blood out of the carpet,
Layers of red over layers of brown.
Wednesday evening,
I make a meal.
I go to work, the gym,
Make myself a good dinner.
And then imagine my cremated self,
What shade of black my urn will be,
If I have one.
Thursday is overcast,
And I’m sick,
Thinking of all the reasons
I won’t be kicking the chair this evening.
The “Happy Friday” email is typical,
The phantom of my mother is too,
Pulling all the pain out of my hiding places.
Saturday and Sunday blur,
They are nothing and everything all in one.
I do nothing important, but those days save me.
Those nights are another issue entirely.
Sunday at midnight,
I’m recording myself speak
So that there will be a record
For anyone who cares to wonder why.
And then it’s Monday,
I’m pulling the body out of the dirt
And taking to the headstone with a hammer.
sunlight
I sit at the edge of the dock
She cries in my arms and i will never know what to say
But she will shake and i will hold and one day she won’t return the favor
There are too many tuesdays in the month of may for me to know which one is this one
Or maybe i was right and time is collapsing, that poor lady, someone call 911
It’s a crisis of faith, every single day, that i am worth waking up for
This paper will never say all the things i don’t dare to wish for, but it will start
With the love of my sister and end with the love of myself
Just breathe, in-2-3-4, out-2-3-4, just like we practiced
You know, your father cheated on me while we were married and i still haven’t forgiven him
You think he’s a saint but he’s just a man
Every day in my teens, i tore apart the island of your love for me looking for something
That would make it real and every night i stood alone, trying to make an oasis out of my empty palms
It never worked.
I’m still 8 and sitting under the counter using mommy’s lipstick to write ‘HELP’ on the wall
The first time i wrote it down and the last time it mattered
The apartment door is ajar when i get home
Is a funny word the way it means nothing at all to someone who’s been trapped by four walls
Today they grabbed me while i was sleeping mommy and put me in the cold shower and held the door closed
It was so cold it burned, but i didn’t scream this time! I promise!
I have never had a child, and i have never had a child who died, but it can’t be dissimilar to the feeling that comes up when my friends talk about the school lunches their mom packed
Or the late night gossip they had with their sisters after a hard day
Because the woman i could have been was killed the same day the child i was learned what it meant to be less than human after a boy has had his way
There will never be enough sunlight.
as it is
The ridges of the roof are insistent on my back
A foil balloon, silver in the moon’s grace
She hasn’t called in six months
Siri, search: how do you say i love you
The sky is bruise blue and i want to get lost in it
I don’t remember how i got that scar
She pushes the pins in the wall and
A funny little lamp shaped like an ‘O’
I cry and cry and cry,
But no one came
And no one will
It’s the end of the world or
Something
Daffodils in Handfuls
Tulips kiss to stain my sweater red
As the blood in the cup of faith
Is a fickle thing, don’t you know?
How the rain feels where it wraps my fingers in cold
As the bones in the flesh of the sinner sits
In a corner to keep the monster in line of sight
With no breath left to muster up
The chain of command the way all good soldiers do
Not keep things from me, my love, we talked about this
Is not enough to keep me here
We are and yet the water reflects back one bruise, not two
Of us would be easier, if we were true
To the way we look, like manifested pain
Is a luxury because it means you’ve seen pleasure
Is a common good you can get if you want it
Takes a hell of a lot of courage to own a mirror
Mirror on the wall, how can I save my own life?