I go to Ikea after being forced to confront my childhood sexual trauma over the phone with my mother.
the mug is grey.
it is short and round.
contemporary almost.
I have not used it.
it sits buried on a shelf in the kitchen
and I fear the day someone touches it
like it is going to suddenly explode.
I am here for a wardrobe.
a set of cabinets that will help
me arrange my life
organize myself and belongings
finally, be free of the clutter on my floor
my mother's voice echoing
through the empty showcases
"Why didn't you tell me? I specifically asked you if anything had happened."
you are the kettle to my black pot.
my body is slowly shaking apart
the silence of the word, "what?"
whispered into a cellphone
listening ears all around
a star collapsing into itself
a black hole forming
she has no right.
she has no right.
each step is heavy
act normal.
make a joke.
laugh. make eye contact.
there are marks on my skin that have been uncovered
can you see the flesh? the bones, the puss-filled maggots
can you smell it now?
put your hand in my side, and know the real me.
there is a future I will never get the chance to have
buried in the back of a bathroom shelf organizer
and the concept of a headboard.
and that's the worst part of it now
-the want.
I want
for the first time in over twenty years I want
and I hate the wounded animal living in my skin
it's so needy.
it is not kind.
nobody wants that.
nobody.
I am so far from okay
I am standing on top of it
in a different plane of existence
looking at it
but unable to touch it.
have you ever wanted to die?
I wonder what it's like
to not feel,
but I remind myself
I've been there before,
and if I dont stop bleeding soon
I will have to see a doctor.
and they will open me up
look at my clockwork insides
the schematic instructions
for what a human should be set up
beside me on the table
and they will say,
yes, this ones broken.
they will poke and prod
and listen with a stethoscope.
my clockwork rhythm out of tune
skipping a beat,
"I am fine" I will say
"I have always been like this"
and I don't know if that's the sad part
that I know what unfixable means
or that I got so used to it,
I just assumed that's what music sounded like.
Children of Children
after a line by Aleathia Drehmer
She looked on while one
cracked the eggs and
measured flour, and one tucked
candles into buttercream to light,
and then they sang for me—
daughter, daughter, wife.
I felt full without a bite.
Was 40 like this for you,
all those decades before?
Your wife and your son (my father
who fathered two in turn),
gathered about a glowing cake.
1964. Your chickens would have
given the eggs, your cows the cream.
You a farmer who had
come home from war,
married, raised my father, tilled
land many miles from here.
You are buried, now,
many miles from here.
I think of you anyway, how you always
touched the ground: feet planted or
hands in earth, solid and knowing,
certain of what you grew.
Giving In
The room cools around me. The water I have soaked myself in dyes my clothes in crimson. I didn't think it would turn out this way. Maybe they'll forgive me. My arms are too weak and became too weak after I lost control. I can't believe I lost control. The sadness... The voices in my head that I fight daily finally won. They coaxed me back to the blade and directed me to play the symphony that every edgy teenager who has ever had a touch of sadness writes about.
You never know what you have until its gone is what they say. Maybe I didn't only have sadness. The saddest time in my life and my old friend is nowhere to be found. Maybe he's out celebrating his big victory while I lay on the mat reeling from the fight. I can see my breath now, watching my soul slowly slip out and go to God to explain this. What's my explanation? God, the sadness... The sadness, Lord. My man laid on a cross and died for us and I slit my wrists over losing a job and not having money to get my dreams. The lights are dimming now and I'm losing my vision.
The fight has left me breathless, sweaty, and tired. I hear the sirens in the distance and wonder if my note is good enough. Did I apologize enough? Will my family forgive me? Will my friends ever recover? Slipping like I did in the bathtub when I tried to fight again before the final blow, I lay there watching the lights flicker. I see Emily's fly buzzing, hear Hemingway's hyenas in the distance. How will they donate all my books? What will they think of me after I'm gone. The light flickers and flickers and flickers and flickers and flickers--
Mediocrity
Hold me close while we eat popcorn
And watch Jerry Seinfeld as a bee.
Laugh with me as Samuel L Jackson
Yells about the motherfucking snakes
On this motherfucking plane.
Pinch me playfully as I feel around
For the lost Mike and Ikes after
I jump from the jarring image of the
1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I want to make Kool-aid with you
While telling you how much I loved it
Years ago before taste and grace
Were things I valued as a person.
Let me rant as we peruse the newest
FOX and CBS have to offer.
Know how much I love mediocrity,
Let me wade in it gleefully, like in a car
Driving down the street with Taylor Swift
Blasting despite our disdain for pop music.
Join me in my pursuit of the mundane,
The mediocre, the terrible, and the worst.
In fact, let's make it a date.
i want to kiss every pigment of the tattoos on your skin
i want to worship you
i want to build an altar of sweat and sun and spring flowers
and lay you on it like something precious
i want to hunt down every freckle
on the skin that haunts me every time i close my eyes
and brand it with my fingertips
i want to hold you like something breakable
i want to break you
i want to find god in the dip where your hips meet your waist. where your neck meets your shoulders.
i want to mark up your collarbones with teeth and adoration
i want to love you the way the sun loves the mountain tops at dawn
the way spring loves the cherry trees
i want to kiss you like you're made of holy water
and im going straight to hell
Fairy Tales
Twelve princesses dipping and twirling,
Holding the edges of large hoop skirts,
Unaware of me in the invisible cloak.
I don't dance, yet I wanted to while listening
To my mother's melodic yet tired voice
As she read the book a third time.
A few weeks later, she got me another,
About twelve dancing brothers and their stepmom
Who followed and saw how happy they were
When they were out dancing instead of home.
I didn't know then that they were the same,
Just a different setting and a different time
And Nikes and Converse rather than heels.
I had had books with kids that looked like me
But not everyone did, as I learned one day,
When I snuck the book to school in first grade
And my teacher read it to everyone in class.
I'm too old for Grimm and pictures of princesses
Though I still think of them and Rumpelstiltskin
And wonder how many others I haven't read
And how many fairy tales I have without knowing it.
The Sheep and the Wolf (TW)
His lips pressed against mine, and all the blood in my body radiated towards my cheeks. He pulled me closer, his hands slithering to my pants. “No,” I moaned, pushing at his hand. I wasn’t ready. But, he didn’t stop. Not for two hours, despite me screaming the whole time.