It’s just a knot.

It’s not.

Right a knot.

No what I mean is that’s not a knot.

She’s doing that thing again where she tells me things are just things but really some things are more than just things. The knot is not a knot. It’s a bundle of phantoms and she doesn’t ever believe. It’s a cacophony of feedback and death-knells clashing. It’s teeth and screams and broken blood vessels. it’s my intestines wrapping my throat noose-like. It’s darkness and-

What are you thinking about?

If I give you a razor can you help me cut it out?

Stop being stupid and go to sleep. It’s a knot.

No, it’s not a knot. It’s like. It’s a tangle of other things. Can you please just-

No. I said go to sleep.

I sleep uneasy and wake just the same.

I made you an appointment.

What kind of appointment?

She’s good. She’ll get the knot out.

It’s not a knot, but ok.

She said on the phone you have a knot.

Yeah. Something like that.

I take note of her eyes. Brown. Soft. Needle in right hand. Left fingers massaging the bridge of her nose. She’s shaking her head. She’s frowning. She’s looking at me serious. She’s frowning.

Not a knot.

I know. I told her that.

More a shadow, more an echo, not a knot. Needles won’t work. Have to get the snakes. Snakes get rid of ghosts.

Alright. Snakes then.

You don’t listen. You’re haunted. Snakes get rid of ghosts. Need more money for snakes. Need snakes for ghosts.

Whatever. Snakes. Get the snakes.

She’s staring at me again. She’s staring. She’s staring. She puts her needles away. She drifts behind the curtain covering the doorway behind me. The air shivers. The room trembles. I’m cold when she comes back. Snake tank on the cart in front of her. They’re all black. All night sky. All charcoal and shadows. Midnight snakes. I’m waiting. She’s staring.

You flip over. Don’t watch.

I’m thinking I wouldn’t be able to watch behind me anyway. I’m thinking it’s cold. I’m thinking that-

Don’t watch. You understand? Don’t watch.

She’s staring.

Yeah. I won’t watch.

I flip onto my stomach. Face against the dark vinyl. I smell bleach. I’m cold. I’m raised skin. I’m fear. Fuck. I’m the fear. I’m cold. I feel her moving. I can hear the snakes. One, two, three, they fall against my skin. Slithering. Quivering. I’m tremors. I’m vibrations.

Don’t watch.

I’m the fear. I feel the big one on my shoulder blades. It’s slinking into the pits where my neck and back meet. I’m sweating. I’m the fear. And it’s midnight. And it’s teeth. I feel teeth. I feel fangs. I feel blood.

Don’t watch.

They’re swarming. They’re legion. They’re many. They’re rushing and slipping inside me. And she bends over me. Mouth to snake bite. And sucks. My center is pulling away. My insides are crawling to the spot where her mouth is pulling venom. And I’m the venom. I’m the fear. And she’s inhaling ghosts. She’s imbibing shadows. And she’s screaming. And I’m screaming. And I’m the fear. And my body is fire and rage. And I’m writhing. And I’m the snakes. I’m the dark. I’m the fear. And she’s spitting me out in waves. Coughing out knots. Coughing out tangles. Crying out memories. Vomiting echoes. And I’m screaming out ache. And I’m the fear. I’m the fear.

Don’t watch.

I wrote you while the lights were still dim and the air was dense with quiet. I wrote you dizzy, how first sun falls through trees and rests against early-morning wet in the air. Like the weight of finger prints left on anxious skin. I wrote you as the damp of your words stroking my thoughts with the whispers that make me sleep easy. I let you curl over and around. Dripping, slipping, unwound. And as the sun set, I wrote you into the dreams that leave me aching with the want to wake and breathe from the same place your mouth pulls the oxygen it uses to feed your lungs. I let the ink flourish and bleed into the shape of you. And I wonder if you dot my last ‘i’ cross my last ‘t’ lay yourself down, a period, rather than ellipses, if I could feel content. I wonder if I could stain my insides. Burn you across my rib-cage. Leave you as a masterpiece buried in my bones. Tattooed into my skeleton. I would paint your arms and legs and smile and eyes to match the exact weight of lightness that you fill me with, but my palette lacks the tones of down-blossom feathers and dust motes dancing in sunlight. So I settle for eating you whole. And it’s like swallowing thunder. Deep and satiating. All the thrill of lightning yet missing that violent spark. It’s you as the first drop of rain seeping through my cracked landscape in a drought. It’s me barefaced and stripped raw. I wrote you as closed fists. And you poured over me into open palms.

i.

hands

too many hands, touching all the wrong spots. too much pressure, in places that never asked to be stained with dirty fingerprints and filthy mouths.

ii.

nights i woke up blindfolded. nights i woke up deaf. nights i woke up screaming. nights i woke up dead. nights i never slept.

iii.

the way the refrigerator felt pressed up against my back. anorexic-spine refusing to bend and break. chin up, tears checked. the way that the solid object gave false confidence. the way my bones still cracked.

iv.

the wedding ring in the grass.

v.

tubes & wires

small lungs failing. because babies don’t belong here this early. but trauma has a way of bringing out the best of us.

vi.

tubes & wires

“you can’t hold him.”

“please give me back my baby?”

“you have nerve damage.”

“give me my baby back!”

“someone put her back to sleep.”

vii.

distance and space and sirens and screams. and how all of those words just feel like the word abandoned. and how everyone always leaves.

viii.

all these fucking metaphors.

ix.

my wrists tied to his knuckles. and how he hangs around my neck. and how he hangs around my thoughts. and how he gets hung up in my throat. and how my eyes feel hung out to dry.

x.

the way the mirror explodes when it sees my face. how two of my fingers fit so perfectly at the back of my mouth. how i reach for the devil and up comes the ache.

You’re my first breath in the morning. Eyes still closed, inhale. Skin-excite. Lung-scorch. Possible poison. Possible free-fall. With you as the air crumbling my skeleton. I am aching between each rib as they crack under the pressure of you as gravity. My days pass as storm clouds. Panic-rush across my hairline fractured sky. And I still weigh more than the room around me as I plummet. And I’d say you’re my last breath at night, but let’s be honest. That would require letting go, and I’ll never breathe you out.

Crash the car,crash the car,crash the car,

Don’t fucking crash the car.

Crash the car,

Don’t fucking crash the car.

But that’s what I want.

You have kids at home.

Ok.

Fuck.

Crash the car,

Don’t fucking crash the goddamn car.

Crash.

Shut the fuck up. We just fucking went over this.

Right.

Scream.

Ok scream but can you just...

Fuck,

Fuck,

Fuckkkkkk.

You need to stop.

The road is wet...

You’re not crashing the car.

What if...

Don’t fucking crash the car.

Pills.

Would you just fucking stop tonight??

No. Pills.

Go to sleep.

After pills.

What is your fucking problem?

You didn’t let me crash the car...

Stop.

Stop,

Stop,

Stop.

Exhale,

Exhale,

Exhale,exhale,exhale,exhale,

What happens at empty?

The first time I ever committed real self-harm, I was 13. Emo was cool, and kids were cutting, and that was acceptable. I was almost jealous. My insides were constantly twisting and writhing, and I wanted it out of me. I wanted to control all of the aching and stinging. Cutting seemed like a grossly under thought plan. I was analytical and overly conscious of my decisions. I was never anything short of thorough. I remember in an out of body moment of maturity and clarity telling myself, if you’re not old enough to decide if you want a tattoo, you definitely aren’t old enough to decide if you can live with the consequences of your scars. What I didn’t know was how eternal mental scars linger. What I didn’t know was the way that choices stick.

For awhile, I had been imparting minor afflictions on myself. I would snap rubber bands against my skin or claw at my thighs. Squeeze my nails into the palms of my hands. Sometimes I would pull at my hair until my scalp ached, never hard enough to rip any from my head, though. I frequently starved myself. Things that hurt in a way that relieved some internal pressure, but were never enough of the control I was craving.

I had changed schools that year after being expelled for fighting, and that coupled with an onslaught of teenage emotions had made me ill-equipped to navigate relationships. Especially at home. Everything kept building up inside of me. The fighting probably should have served as some type of warning to my need to release the internal struggle externally, but somehow I missed that sign.

I don’t remember what set me off, but I remember a quick cataract of thoughts. I remember fierce anger. I remember feeling like if I didn’t hurt something on the outside my insides would explode. I had already decided cutting was not for me. I opened my desk drawer, stuck my arm in, and slammed. My wrist bled. The bruising was immediate. Purple and red swelling like water color spills under my skin. There was a puckered, white crease at the point of impact that had small trickles of blood where the skin had ripped away. I didn’t feel it. What I felt was a rushing sensation in my head and my spine. It was followed by intense heat and then the feeling of cold water dripping from my fingers and toes. I used that method more than once afterwards. Sometimes if I was the only one home I would slam my ankles in doors. I don’t know how I never broke anything. That moment of release began a constant search to expel my anger on myself.

My eating disorders became more relentless. I had extreme body dysmorphia, so it wasn’t hard to drop my guard and unleash that particular form of punishment. My mother was a nurse, and I was always careful to check in with myself physically to limit the chances of hospital visits. Feeling faint or a bit dizzy was ok. Hunger pangs were ok. Racing or irregular heartbeats were not. Dehydration was to be avoided. I was good at hiding things.

I started going to shows around this time, as well. I learned quickly that a bit of unchecked passion in the mosh pit would get me hit hard. I was a wild thing. Not only was this a place I could let out my anger, but this was a place I could get hit back. I had complete control over this fighting. If I wanted calm, I stepped back. If I needed power, I became untamed.

When I started dating, I picked sexually and emotionally abusive partners. Not purposefully, but their quick-to-anger attitudes often drew me to them. I knew I would be able to incite fights without much persuasion.

I started self-harm before I knew what I was doing. You can’t take it back. At some point it becomes the only way you know how to manage anything. I still put myself through daily abuse without ever consciously deciding to. I seek out dangerous situations. Street racing, rough sex, being pushed around at shows, parties where I don’t know anyone, and neighborhoods I probably don’t belong in. I throw myself into hard to complete projects or emotionally draining relationships. I still tend to use eating disorders to feel dominance over my physical appearance. And I somehow never feel like the one in charge. The abuse rules my life, and I’m not sure if I know the way out of it.

There’s a leak. Plasma-splatter. The woman in my attic slit her wrists, and the ceiling has been dripping crimson ever since. I should have known when she drew a bath that she was planning on a blood letting. Waxing and waning, apparition-draining. She was built from ghosts. So now, when it’s dark, her tiny hauntings drip out of my mouth. Diaphanous-glow of hexed remains, clogging my tear ducts. I am siphoning her in plagues. Gulp down at deja vu. Baptism by memory. Premonition-swallow. I’m leeching away at the specter-drenched detritus, and the phantoms leave me vacant. Catatonia, filling me void. Broken-bone, devouring. Make me the vessel. Wordless exorcism. Forsake me, hollow. Let me be the empty spell that holds her shadows.

I planted a FOR SALE sign at the back of my throat. But what it really advertises is how the corner of my mouth and my arteries like to give away my secrets for free. It’s like trying to have an estate sale at a free clinic. It’s like I’m selling an unwanted teen-pregnancy disguised as a love letter with no postage. Like the word rape disguised as the condom failing. Hunger pangs dressed up in “I just ate”. An addict addicted to addicts claiming they just enjoy the coffee at the meetings. My tongue is a trick and a rat. Snitches get stitches. But fuck sewing her shut. Waste of thread. I’ll let her bleed out. Bite down to silence the screams. Maybe next time I won’t have to gag her.

“Do you know how many artists died with a white lighter on them?”

There’s weight buried here. And now every time my thumb drags across a metal wheel, begging to ignite a flame, I dig it back up. I think of your mouth. Toxic-drip of alcohol fumes. Of the way your fingers kept tugging at my waist. The white plastic, an SOS in the thicket of the night. How you thought you’d save me. The way you were just slightly too disoriented to grab the bad omen from my hand. I feel the way your thumb sat at the crook of my thigh. And how when I hid my hand behind my back your other arm slipped around me to grasp on air. Too short to steal the lighter from my clenched fist. How the second your finger tips closed on the palm of your own hand the empty air between us felt more like water clinging to my throat. Something denser than the smoky way you had been laying heavy in my chest all night. Your hand stealing at empty space. And your eyes stealing at my face. Catching at the mouth. Becoming lost as they crawled their way up to my eyes. My closed fist, a missed opportunity, sending yours to burrow into the small of my back. Kneading its way up my spine. Pressing me into something close to the shape that I was meant to be. And I remember thinking that this was it. Pressure-shift, inevitable. But then you pulled me too close. And in my surprise you tore the lighter from me. Tossed it out the window. One fluid moment. Your albatross, my beacon of hope. My mouth was disappointment-dripping. And you misread that ache. Your face pinched. The back of your hand brushing away any traces of me-disheveled. You slipped me off your lap and stumbled out of the car into the street-lamp glow. And that lighter didn’t steal my life like you thought it might. But it stole your mouth on mine. So when you held it out to me, I threw it back out into the night, thanklessly. I held my tongue between my teeth to keep from screaming. But the cheap plastic didn’t care. Your skin kept drifting farther from mine. But the cheap plastic didn’t care. Maybe when they find me wasted, rotting, that lighter will be there after all. Cheap, white plastic. Plastic-you and flameless-me. Without a care.