i ask maya if she has to leave and she says that i should know by now: no matter where she goes she’ll be gone

and the whole thing flings me like a car careening off the key bridge.

today i miss her different than when she’s gone-home in ohio, i miss her more because of all the extra hours.

i calculated from my house to wisconsin and it’s a whole new distance than before.

i ask maya what does it feel like to miss me and she says that missing isn’t a feeling she can explain. i ask maya if maybe it just feels like lost but i don’t think she gets what i’m trying to say.

maya’s much smarter than i am though so i guess i should trust her, plus

i think i’m becoming a burden so if nothing i’m shushed now,

and i’m scared that my best friend’s sitting in wisconsin but i’m home thinking there might be something wrong in me

but i’ll never admit that because it might make her feel like leaving. i think more than anything

i want maya to see the world.

if it makes any difference, rather, i think i am getting sadder because i haven’t really left bed since that virgin margarita

and on the car ride home i told blake that was the first time i’d eaten all day and i asked if she’d sing at my burial.

she said if the need’s there she’ll try and show but singing at a birthday seems far more preferable.

blake has a beautiful singing voice, i think i’d love to hear it.

i’m holding out for that.

i ask maya when she’s getting back to ohio not that it matters but i happen to know that

her blue room makes me feel good because it’s lighter than mine and 

i remember when i met her i googled everything about her because she was my first friend i’d ever made

from a different state and something about that made me feel scared that there is this great beyond,

that everything’s so so much bigger than my one tiny county. to ohio i look like a drop of water in the ocean off the key bridge.

to her family i am just one of her camp friends.

to her classmates back home, i do not exist. sometimes i wish i did, but right now it’s comforting to know that no matter what happens

there’s a group in ohio who simply won’t see everything i get wrong.

i ask maya when’s she’s getting back. i want to come see her. i want to take an amtrak and go far away from my home.

she sends me pictures of wisconsin so i think it might be a long time from now.

i ask maya what it feels like to be invisible and she says i’d probably know better than she would but

if she ever finds out she’ll be sure to clue me in.

i think that maya is not the type of girl to be invisible like i am.

and you can’t tell me i’m not because the car horns don’t count and the beach men don’t count

when they yell about my body and even that is an intense thing about me,

how my shape is, it rolls up and down like a seawave in a sandstorm,

like i’m enveloping a car that careened off the key bridge. (there’s someone screaming inside it if you care to hear them)

i am so loud that it makes it hard to look at but maya is the type of girl that is nice and calm and easy to notice.

maya is going to change the world and i can’t wait to see it.

my best friend is going to do so much and that is something i’m holding out to see, if only to prove for a moment i knew her.

i ask maya if she’s still awake in wisconsin and don’t get anything back.

now comes the quiet.

when your best friend goes to bed it feels like the world’s stopped just for you.

maya is the type of girl who goes to bed real early and then she wakes up real early

so she can wake up her friends who are sad.

maya sets alarms and i think about that a lot, how she’s got enough motivation for both of us.

i think about what her alarms might sound like, if they’re nice ones or if they’re that awful blaring iphone default.

i am trying to go to bed, i am trying, but i feel so bad that i might just wait until morning. in this moment

i can’t think of any one person who would be proud of that.

maya’s gone off to wisconsin and suddenly i feel a little like i’m trying to stay afloat after dropping from the key bridge.

but if i hold out till morning maybe i’ll get to see the sun before anyone in ohio or wisconsin,

maybe if i hold out i’ll hear the bells on the key bridge miles and miles from here.

maybe if i hold out just a little longer i can be the one to wake up maya. i wonder if that’d make her smile.

i wonder if she wouldn’t be worried because i’m so good at hiding.

i wonder if it’d help her see that the world is so big but there’s always me and ohio.

and when maya gets back i think i’ll try and drive out to see her,

i think it’s time i see the world too.

i think i’ll go through the night and make it by the time she’d wake me.

in ages when she gets back (cause maya’s gone to wisconsin),

that’s what i’m holding out for.

i’m holding out for that.

i am not scared. / i know my breath like a mother: / child, spoonfeed the right amount of grief / swallow easy until stupor / until amnesia tastes like ambrosia / and the trachea has forgotten its tears. / i am not scared. / my fear molts, phoenix-wing through the fire / complacency colder, sharper, lighter. / i take it with me / even as my feathers bleed.

at night the bottletops mourn for me / stained-glass penance / beautiful because they are hollow. / that is to say, weaving starkissed reveries / from rattles. / that is to say, the antithesis / wrapped around my bones. / my ears only listen to themselves when they dream / of the music that never escaped past my lips. / the sounds that could have been. / sorrow sharper than geodes, regret / mercurial in my veins. / i am not scared / of peeling back my layers to the world. / i am scared / of never coming back.

i.

moonlight whispers against your collarbone, all but silent silk sticking to milky-white skin / you feel it, rather than see it / you do not remember how you arrived here. nevertheless, it does not matter: the drumming of waves beyond your ears and between your lips will act as your guide.

your breath catches in your throat, and you almost laugh because / you realize / like breath, what is essential for life is both abundant and precious, until it’s neither. will you risk that to plunge under waves of uncertainty for a glimpse of omniscience?

your eyes flutter under closed lids. / what is hidden hides for a reason / and perhaps this choir of waves crescendoing below deserves privacy. perhaps not. you do not know.

you open your eyes

ii.

well-worn waves dine on the stars with jagged teeth. you think you see something under the scraps of scattered reflection adorning the surface, but perhaps it’s all / abyss /

neptune calls to you with saltwater knives. licking your toes. stinging your knees / red / raw / wrapping frostbitten shadows round your waist. barnacles nip at the soles of your feet like impatient hounds.

you create ripples in the water as you wade further. you think: maybe the ocean is communicating through cryptic metaphors. the water is silent. you receive no answer tonight.

you hold your breath

iii.

there is this unspeakable fear that pulls on your wrists like rusty chains, pulls on your neck like slowly-numbing fingers, / yet / you’ve been taught not to let your knees buckle under the crippling weight of a shivering midnight. and so /

you drop your robe. slithering down your shoulders, fluttering lifeless behind you, carried away by conspiratorial waves. exposing you to a midnight jury, luminescent skin rubbed / red / raw / by icy water. dawn is far from the horizon, so you hope this inky wetness below, this cavern of nothingness, will be your guardian.

you dive

I am too old             to feel             like this            again.

    The age old adages have come back to haunt me.

    Knives are like words from my ex best friend’s throat.

                                         And she lured me in, snakelike

                                         until I couldn’t see

                                         anything.

Not anything

at all

anymore.

Did you see the lights flicker?                Oh, but the stars shine

just for you.

It’s all an illusion,           it’s a game.       They feed me propaganda

and I spit it back for a grade

/in perfect unison/

I’m starting to agree I’m something punk rock

sorta vibe. I’m starting to hurt my ears just so I can’t hear what’s inside.

I’m starting to agree my anger is justified,

my breath of fresh air, electrified; all the wrong reasons, intensified;

glorified;

and they think me petrified           but the level I’m on made the pastors cry.

I can’t see the surface.                                               If I scream will my voice still be amplified?

That’s why:

I spit it into rough syllables, scream it in decibels

            /past a thousand/

write it in legible chalk on the ground and let                             people look and look past it

                                cause it might make someone uncomfortable.

                                     I haven’t been this way in ages

         been angry in enough to spit words and fill pages and

say everything I been holding back for fear of the rage might make someone afraid

                                                                             and not like what I have to say 

but screw it.

I’d rather have no friends and get all my words out then a party of friends

and an ache in my mouth                                         from keeping shut and quitting.

I ask my friends why I’m special to them and they chime back in eulogy,

list my awards in chronology like I am now their trophy wife.

               Rather, the real life 

               Trophy Mistress, Best Friend Resistance Part II (to you)

I’ve lived the way they make me say hello at parties.

It makes me uncomfortable.

Man, I’m singing now too, join me in my debut and we’ll put skulls on the cover and call it

anger. 

“Your writing is beautiful.”

“If it is then I haven’t done my job.”

I don’t recognize the ghostwriter I had last year

who occupied time trying for flowery language people’d call correct and only remember for a day.

I can’t say it that way, I can only make sounds             My voice is garbled and unsure of itself.

(but here’s verse one.)

And now my hair’s all messed up and I’m thinking of shaving it

and my parents say I’m a train wreck just waiting to happen

but at least this image tattoos itself into y’all’s brains and it makes into a double.

(I really need braces--imagine if they were affordable.)

I question everything, the people on the street are in my head again,

the sun is a knife and it cuts through my skin again

and let’s let people see things I’ve tramp stamped to my skeleton,.

I long to make them understand but once you’ve past the age it’s not something you’ll

taste again. I’m glad for their sake, then.

I’d hate to make anyone uncomfortable.

Besides, seventeen tastes too much like bile.

i despise eggs. well, i dislike them when they're not IN anything. that is to say, a cake is perfectly alright, or custard, and i like cookies and tarts and fried rice, that sort of thing. eggs on toast? no thank you. scrambled eggs? absolutely not. but here i am making an omelette, and i might as well tell you about it. did you know the word omelette comes from french amelette/alumette/alumelle/lemele, which comes from the latin lamella, which means knife/blade? it sounds pretty i must admit, but i still hate eggs. anyway, here we go.

i clicked on the first recipe i found, which might not be wise, but it doesn't matter. it says here that first i have to beat the eggs. easy enough. eggs are quite pleasing to look at, especially when you have a lemon-yellow ceramic bowl like i do, and the kitchen is clean and it's sunny outside. moving on.

now i'll heat up the pan. melt some butter. i love that sound, don't you? it's warm and comforting, the sound of sizzling butter. okay, i'm adding the eggs.

i sort of moved the pan around so the eggs would spread evenly, and it worked out mostly how i'd want it to. it jiggles when i shake the pan. now i'm supposed to use a "heatproof silicone spatula" to lift the edges of the omelette (i love the word edges) but i'll just use this spatula (i don't know what kind it is).

am i supposed to flip this? it doesn't say, but i don't like the runny part.

okay, i'm flipping it, but only for a second.

it got stuck! i saved it in time though i think.

now it's time to stuff this guy. i put feta cheese, because i like it, and some herbs. and of course salt and pepper, i'm not a heathen (debatable).

after all this, i still don't like eggs. i gave the omelette to my brother, even though he THINKS he doesn't like feta, he does because he ate it.

after leila chatti

No birds. No stars. No one remembering how they’re

dead but how brilliant they are. No one saying that

the sun’s just another star, no shaping it in the face of

a lover long lost. No more other realities. No more other lives.

The truth is that we get this one and then we blow it

before we ever had the chance. Again, no birds. No more

metaphors about how they’re flying and how they’re free.

I can’t stand being so full of envy anymore. No more you.

Who in God’s name is the you, ever, anyways? This poem

isn’t for you. I want it to be for me. I want to be selfish in

a piece for once. I’m so tired nowadays. There are no

bird wings or Greek muses that could change that. I’m scared,

and it is not poetic. There is no rebirth that makes this better.

It doesn’t matter that we see the same moon at night, or

the fact that you can pretend I’m the lover stuck in it. I’m just

angry all the time that it saw you first. Would you still love me

if you didn’t have to. If I didn’t say that you’re the one in some

flash fiction piece where you save me. Would you still love me if

you knew how hopeless I was. I said this poem wasn’t for you, but

maybe I’m just angry all the time that you can only appear in stanzas,

anyways. I will make no euphemisms. I am hurt and alone.

girl sees rainbows in motor oil. no one sees rainbows in the girl.

she is a dilation, a negation, of her anatomy. girl kisses the webbing

between her fingers, pretending to meet the lips of the faceless entity

of female. girl wields a two-pronged caduceus, walking the tightrope

of identity. she clips her nails too short and relishes in the striking brine

of it all. the metamorphosing heart of this girl reverberates, molten, in

her chest in the presence of men. the crease of her lips softens, folding

upward, dragging lip tint into her cheeks in the presence of women. girl

fluctuates. girl hydrates, sucking on paper straws like ambrosia, swooning

when she sees the girl working the drive-thru. girl doesn’t know if she is

jealous or smitten. she sketches a charcoal drawing of herself as atlas, holding

up the sky as iris takes her sweet time deciding whether to prism. girl is

weak against a slab of stone, but strong enough to keep going. a titan, yet

flattened nonetheless.

From when we were young, times that are now only remembered through memories and stories, and dusty photographs holding a memory in its hands, never to let go. It represents freedom, and an urge to disappear from what you know, to run away to a place that you can only dream of. The paint faded and peeling off of the old wood. My reflection not visible in the cracked and blurry mirror. Each shard of glass holding onto the faces it has seen and the stories it has witnessed. I have heard your adventure so many times, told in the dusty twilight of a summer day, or beside the fire while the wind and snow beat heavily upon our solitude. Given from hand to hand, and heart to heart; pulled from place to place. Showing up on our doorstep many years ago, to be passed on to our home, to our world; to be remembered when everyone else has forgotten.  Now sitting there, in unbroken silence,  you will wait for a time where we will remember. 

...but I had to make some bad jokes for the occasion.

...

Being first is not always the best. I mean, can you imagine having as many impeachments as you do ex wives? And just like the ex-wives once did, the majority of the country is longing for a divorce.

Hey, at least we figured it out faster than they did! (Hey, we don't get those hefty divorce stimulus checks?)

Ivana commented to People magazine on the presidential loss, saying, "I just want this whole thing to be over." Later, reporters debated whether or not that was the first time she's made that sort of remark about her ex-husband.

On January 16, 2020, U.S. president Donald J. Trump was impeached for the first time, for abuse of power and obstruction of justice. However, Trump continues to prove that one of anything is never enough for him. On January 13th of this year, just three days until the one year anniversary of his first...it happened again. This time it was as consequence to Trump egging on the domestic terrorists at the Capitol the week prior. His remarks, reminiscent of an over enthusiastic soccer parent's, told rioters that he loved them, and they were very special. The definition of "special" in this statement was never clarified, but it smelled like snowflakes, shiny pickup truck exhaust, and that one CVS in your area where nobody wears a mask.

I wonder if Melania's jealous--after all, that's one heck of a vow renewal.

I wonder if the kids are jealous--after all, their dad didn't care nearly as much during their custody battles!