one cubic centimeter of brain tissue
is home to more neural connections
than there are stars in the milky way;
that war should sometimes erupt between them
is not possible so much as it is inevitable
and it’s important to remember this
the next time your mind decides
to bring the battle home.
some days will be harder than others
and none made easier by the glass barriers
your mind has so meticulously constructed.
still, despite the isolating nature of illness,
your fight is not one to be undertaken alone;
in case of emergency,
we’ll provide you with a hammer
but you need to be the one
to break the glass.
we’ve never kissed but when we do
it’ll be more than the press of your lips to mine
;
it’ll be me showing you all
the nights i’d miss you in my sleep and wake
with drying tracks on my cheeks and my breath
caught in my throat.
i’d let you swallow it all down
along with the breaths you’d
steal from my lips wide open.
Snow Globe
Some people are going to treat you like a snow globe
and keep you on a shelf
and take you down only to shake you up
and watch what falls.
So break your glass
and let yourself pour out
and choose not to be so fragile.
Tip over the aquarium they keep you in
and seep into the ground
and grow flowers.
Evaporate into the clouds—
that high—
you’ll see more than a plastic house
where the snow is just paint
and the white-coated trees don’t grow or breathe—
let yourself fall in drops
and know you’ll be lifted up again.
a love song for mia
I think I am leaking-
Imagine:
A woman pours her heart into a bowl
and feeds it to her cat. The heart
becomes a liquid thing- like heat,
a shocking,
but not so shocking red,
like my mother’s lipstick, like the first drop
of blood, like the tone of a poem
written all wrong.
Sometimes I look at people I don’t know
and think “I could love you”. My ribs tremble
with survivor’s guilt, and the branches of my
wrists spell out my future.
I think I am leaking-
and this is the sound of fragility.
We are capable of kissing
bruises and watching mothers cry
over lost children, who are not actually lost,
but hiding;
under the kitchen sink,
or in the upstairs closet, or in the concave
that is the human heart,
plucking ribcage songs.
Skin
I think there are bed bugs in your mattress.
Last night after you fucked me
My blood felt a little bit thinner,
And I had the strongest urge to rip apart the skin at the nape of my neck.
You used to write me love letters in pencil.
After I read them my fingertips were left stained with gray soot that whispered the ghosts of your words.
She wrote you a love letter
Of her name and seven numbers in blue ink.
It was folded 3 times and pushed into the corner of your blue jeans pocket.
Now, when you tell me im beautiful,
I smile with my lips closed.
There are parasites under my tongue that are eating away at the few words I have left for you.
Now, when you touch me,
I only want to pull away from your leeching fingers.
You take the warmth from her body in filthy motel rooms at deadly hours and transfer it to mine,
Then back to hers every thursday night.
I think there are bed bugs in your mattress.
Every night I want to pull you off of me like a tick.
I hear her six-legged words in my ears
And I feel her seductive fingers in the sheets
And I just want to rip off all of my fucking skin.
I want you to wake up to my rotting bones.
I want to write the kind of book that gives your brain papercuts. The kind you can’t stop scratching at cause how could something so small hurt so bad?
And I want to see who keeps scratching and scratching until they uncover something hidden deep in there that explains exactly how and exactly why. Exactly who they are in bare, raw syllables. I want to see who understands pain is part of the process of becoming.
And I want to see who just slaps a band-aid on it and pretends it isn’t there. See if they even finish it.
(I bet they won’t.)
Perspective
I passed out,
left the world like a balloon with a cut cord
and woke up above the earth,
looking down at the swirling clouds
and the colored land.
I couldn’t see the lights from up there;
the sun was too brilliant.
I couldn’t hear anything
in the vacuum of space,
and I found myself turning away
from the inhabited earth
to see the beauty of the stars,
lost in the marvelous nature of the unknown.
I paused for a second, finally understanding
the true tragedy of my species.
One Size Fits Most
We stood shielded by trumpet vines
with orange blossoms
facing the sunset behind the pine trees
of my childhood home—
and no scenery could be more romantic.
But you pull me in
and I pull away
and think of him
and realize I only know my love
by your love.
And he knows his lack of love
by my love.
So I draw on yours for now
and he draws on mine
and we are a chain of those
loved and
unloved.
A vine of flowers and pulled petals:
he loves me,
he loves me not.
We are not shoes with a perfect match—
we are not made in pairs
We are not looking for our other halves.
We wear each other like bracelets—
one size fits most
and carry each other in the links;
a little tighter doesn’t always cut circulation,
a little looser doesn’t always slip off.
The Way Light Moves
Move the way light moves
when you look up and it moves
between the leaves
like sheets of glitter and green.
But light never touches everything
the way darkness does—
somewhere—
the balls of your feet—
the shadow on the small of your back
—light doesn’t touch.
Be the one
to make the darkness beautiful—
touch the places light doesn’t touch—
move the way it moves,
when you move,
the way those shadows are lit
by the movement of light.
If you keep moving—
what is in shadow now,
will shine in light.
fix you
take these words with you when you leave
and stuff them in some dusty corner of your heart
behind the crack that consumes you
and remember
i will never try to fix you
not like a clock
with its gears and machinery
because though your words and actions
are mechanical
and the look in your eyes is bleak
your heart still beats
driven by a force
too pure
too broken
too human
and i will never try to fix you
