sleepy skies and morning dew
play pianissimo, slowly
crescendoing as the
sun strains
to peek through
my window.
a quarter rest– just to stretch–
and the percussion of
socks smacking
wood.
a high C,
sung softly in vibrato
to the twin toddlers
sleeping
three doors down.
xylophone keys
falling
into
the toilet bowl.
quiet, frantic
glissando down
the stairs.
the
smash of the cymbals slamming
shut.
the final note,
the delicate
click of the key.
the applause.
When she wilted on the wooden
floor and allowed herself the blows,
I couldn’t see the love
was gone, but I knew
I couldn’t save her.
When I found myself
cornered in the eyes of her
hurricanes, helpless
to the venom she spit,
I didn’t realize I needed to
save myself.
in physics class
i learned
the further you fall,
the harder the landing:
F=ma.
i fell
for you at
90 miles per hour
without a parachute.
if the force of your lips
saying you do not love me
is like a thousand hammers
pounding at my heart,
what is the mass of
the empty shell
that remains?
they dunked me underwater
long before i could swim.
i was not born
with communion wafers dissolving
on my tongue.
they took my mind and
threw a snake in it.
a slithering snake that snarls
at humanity and
what they have become.
but i will laugh and dance while
i am ripe and still have the
recourse to forget.
motion is the only guarantee:
they’ve not stamped a cross
upon me yet.
not like fists and
bruises and whiskey
on your breath. not
darkness in eyes and
screaming.
not poison apples,
but i love you’s–
i love you too much.
i love you because i cannot
love myself.
toxic everything i own
in a pile on your floor,
toxic take all that is mine.
toxic maybe we can share
the burden, too.
toxic take, take, take
all the love
i don’t know how to give
myself.
dark blue– like childhood, like
memories. like
sinking into a dream.
bite marks on the black
plastic instead of
on your lips.
covered in stickers
of where you’ve been.
your heart’s been torn
off your sleeve and
the hole it left in the fabric
keeps unraveling.
You were a new coat of black
polish on my naked nails.
I settled in quickly, not waiting for you
to dry.
And as I touched and sat and wrote and ran
you began
to chip away, and
in little flecks throughout our path
I have left the smallest pieces of you where
only I can find them.
Each day jabs its hands
inside my chest
and steals a piece of me.
I am slowly dissolving into
the air, being reassembled into a collage
of the girl that smiles at me
on the subway and the mailman and
my high school choir director and
that piece of advice my father once told me
that I will never forget.
I am a masterpiece, the universe’s
papier mache. She is spinning me
on her wheel and shaping me,
molding me.
Why were you so scared
to touch me?
Did you think the fire would spread
from your fingertips to your tongue–
that I’d burn you?
Or that I’d splinter
under your skin and bury myself
so deep, I’d be impossible
to pull out?
Did you believe I’d shatter and
draw your precious blood? (you never
had enough blood to give)
Or were you scared
I’d pull you in closer; that you’d have nowhere
to hide?
I’m okay
except for
the fact that when you ask me if I am,
instead of thinking about him,
I cannot stop thinking
of how your eyes are the color of
burnt caramel.
Silenticel 