day 10

First, you write a list. But not any list.
A list of things you'd do only
if it was your last sun. Because,
it might be. And wouldn't
that be a terrible gift?

Then, you fold the list in half,
and half again, stuff it deep
in your pants pocket or bra,
tell no-one where it is. But then,
tell everyone. Because we want
everyone to miss us. To know
if they would have talked to you
half a second longer, or
something else, just slightly.
To be the center just once more,

the sun. After that, don't do
anything on the list. Not because
you don't have the time or the money--
you do, if you want to--
but because not finishing allows
another to do it in your name.
You're one for the people, after all. 

Finally, you don't die.
Not in a fiery crash that leaves
everyone gaping at the news,
shocked and tearless that you
could go so tragically.
Not by cancer, so slow--or quick--
that you suffer daily or never
have a chance to say goodbye.

No, you're not on anyone's list.
Instead, you write your name
at the top of the one in your bra
or pocket next to the word, lives.
Because isn't that
what we all don't want to do?

day 9

Damning My Vertebrae

It wasn't until I turned six that my mother realized I couldn't shit.
I spent toddler years avoiding it—took too much time,
letting a pancake form kept me in control.
My mother would shake her finger and yell as I drove circles
in a Barbie Jeep, frustrated I wouldn't cave to the body.

We tried suppositories, syringes shoved up with chemicals
bubbling inside, as if I was an older male.
My mother watched my insides on a screen, pointed
and gasped in awe while I attempted to caulk my body
together like tiles on my bathroom floor, cemented an anger
inside my body—built a home for the hatred I couldn't let out.

For years, I’d push, push, push at myself, slam
literal walls until everything fell away except for those
holding my insides together. I ached to slice down the small
intestine, crawl inside and glue parts together, inject
my veins to die—anything to keep my body from itself.

My mother blathered on about details of a will she didn't need yet,
and I studied markings in her ceiling tiles and hardwood,
pissed about how archeologists deciphered skeletons without codes,
about how my body didn't have it’s own codes, even after my doctor
touched my toes together and watched me clench my eyes in pain.

I ache, but to carve out the anger my body builds.
There is no knife for this. If I could climb inside myself,
there would be no chipping away— lovingly, gentle.
There would only be TNT and hatred, damning
my vertebrae to another type of Hell where everyone’s in pain.

day 8

In his head, the face of an ex-lover
who yells discomfort, who eats pizza
with a knife and fork, who drives off
a boardwalk because his sister
called to tell her he was leaving
for another, younger. But now she’s gone.
She must have struggled, the police said
earlier, left nail marks on the door

and seatbelt. He only sees red.
The red of clover mites, layering
sides of railings, stairs, his hair. Clover
mites crawling into his glass
and socks like sand. As he picks
at the flakes, flicks them to the floor,
his sister’s name flashes on the phone,
but he doesn't answer—he knows
what she’ll say. In the morning,
when he looks under his fingernails,
he’ll find remnants, crusted
and scentless, half like blood.

day 7

An Interrogation with Your New Lover

Did he mention that one day we’d braid ourselves
into an oblivion run by people on heroin with curly hair?
After you two watched the same movie, all hopped up
on butter and theater darkness.

Did he mention I enjoyed my yellow sneakers,
didn't give a shit the year everything went to shit
and he suffered from ambivalence? His mother
should call, let him know she missed him while
his head in your lap, resting as he talked.

Honestly, I know he mentioned the laundry,
the starchy pierce to the buds on your tongues.
Yeah, you’ve eaten nothing. It’s funny, right?
The way an action so small, shutting a door,
turning off lights, goes unmentioned.

Did he mention me? Sure, your understanding
of fine wine—bitter but with hints of chocolate
and oak. Sure, the swirling motion of glasses
and minds, wearing down with very little joy
by the hurricane of pink.

I’m sure he mentioned that brother’s suicide,
his laughter at the funeral, sitting in the back pew
with one of their mothers, or love. Did he tell you
about this tomorrow where it never rains?

day 6

It wasn't the gnocchi that made me feel
Italy. It wasn't the stench of human shit,
overstuffed pigeons, or the way language
sticks in the back of my throat like honey.

Instead, it was the Italian woman’s satellite dish
and her punctured sheets on the clothes line.
It was the motion sickness up the mountain,
the moment before vomit curdles
and dehydration gives way to sleep.

It’s this same exhaustion I find anywhere,
both at home and in this villa’d mountain,
where America’s complacency seeps through,
almost following me.

Italy isn't beautiful anymore. Not even a little
godly. It’s the flies crawling on gravel
in a downward dog. They’re mine, these flies.
These red arachnids, flooding bathrooms,
and bowl pockets. So when the man next
to me at lunch complains his espresso too small,
I hate him.

Why do I feel like this belongs to me? I can’t own
a country, the people. I can't possess mountains.
I want to grab hold of them because no onelet me own myself when it mattered.

When my father called me on the phone
and told me my birth saved their marriage,
for a while. I never understood how to barely
scratch perfection with my fingernails, why
my heels never fully planted
the ground, or what constitutes as godly,
because on the phone, only the perfect have control.

day 5

In the morning, after sky and cackle
of chickens, after the opening
of this window, some clouds, perched
under a clutch of villas hillside,
a castle and its ruins. Part of me,
the green-heart-of-Italy part, wants
a ruin of my own, a quaint flower box
or two, since the breeze could coax a rose
to blossom at breakfast, my heart right
in the yellow. I’m looking for some terror.
Waiting for a swift to mistake my window
for some heaven, stun itself, yet fly off.
So much hunger for infinities.
So many ways to miss them, too,
the way I miss the very instant prior
to abandonment.

day 4

When I smell like Reese's Puffs, everything makes me nauseous.
The blanket I slept under last night, my shoe sprawled across the room,
even the show I watch while my roommate washes her car at 11 o'clock
in the morning. Somewhere, a phone rings, and it might be you,
not calling because she is the me to you, if that makes any sense.

Once, I googled myself and found my sixth grade Dean's list and cried,
because that was the year my mother's car broke down on the highway
and someone--I think it was you--picked us up and drove us off a cliff.
Figuratively, of course. In reality, you brought us to a Target
to call a tow, and I fell in love for the second time. Softer.

Someone told me time passes faster in love. But it doesn't.
It wraps around you like a python, only if you're smart enough
to get in the way. We always knew book smarts were for the weak.
It's night where I am, when I smell like Reese's Puffs,
and I'll take an Advil, swallowing the morning, letting my acids soak in.

day 3

Wooden Hearts


A man with a bat smashed in my jaw because love is swollen and splintered. Stripped down to my panties in the center of town, blindfolded and holding three sharpies, I already had a heart on my left breast, right butt cheek, and forehead, drawn by some passerby I wouldn't see again. He asked what I was doing. I told him, accepting myself in public, and heard him smile before the silky smack and "do you love that?" His voice sandpapered my ears, filled them with his petrified anger. Tapping the wood against concrete, he waited. I guess for my tears. He tapped faster and I appreciated the bat's kiss with the air, pre-contact-- my thigh this time. Soft and soundless. I almost begged him to keep going. To keep loving me with each sting, growing me. All at once, it stopped and the silence burned. All at once, I lay alone on the concrete, not as vulnerable as before--I owned this love now. Each welt a token those sharpied hearts couldn't offer.

day 2

Taking back

On Monday, my mother said
we were taking him back
to New York, where he'll
be buried under a plaque
with dates, not a 401k amount.
I wish, somehow, I could send
cigars, bowties, and a bottle
of Jack so he could drink. 

I found her, cross legged
and yelling, on the floor
of her closet with two cuff
links in her hand.
It should have been you,
she shouted. And I thought
she meant me, for a moment.

I imagine him sitting upright
In the seat next to me, flying
North, cracking a joke
to the attendant, asking
for an Old Fashioned, nudging
my shoulder with a wink.

How do you send a body
back? Is it like a gift?
Wrapped in cellophane
and bubbles, saying this
was wrong, without words?