day 15

In her head, she's in gym class, middle school.
White shirt, name written in a box on the front,
pulling at the bottom and sending telepathic
brain waves to the coach to stop the game, send
her to the office, bench her.

But instead, coach pulls a bag from the gym closet,
dumps out 20 dodgeballs. The rubber smells.
She tugs harder, scooting further to the back,
making herself small. She's afraid and unathletic--
the perfect combination to not be picked for teams.

Then, she's abroad in college. And instead
unathletic and afraid, she's drunk and mad.
Chainsmoking outside a bar named after a bridge
in another European country but with a punny twist.
It irritates her. The girl he picked instead, some yoga chick
who tried to fill in her brows last week and went too dark,
comes out to apologize for any pain, to say she's hurt
too and that he's a horrible person with PTSD who needs help.

Tomorrow, she'll be here and wondering why
everyone stops talking to her and what it is about her
that makes people choose someone else.
Wondering when she'll love herself enough to fix it all.

day 14

In the car the other day, my mother commented
on my nails, said they were long. I keep them short
and bit off at the ends. Sometimes bleeding.
Recently though, long has been the theme. I like
how they sound as I tap on the keyboard or drum
on the counter, waiting.

Waiting for that other shoe to drop, as every romantic
comedy says. Waiting for my best friend--or the girl
I hate the most--to be picked over me.
Waiting for that moment when he says,
you're such a good friend.

Friends, I used to paint my nails to coordinate
my outfits. Black, blue, and most recently, gold.
Picking at the nail polish kept me occupied from the nail
itself. As though, if I don't look up, I don't see the happy
and they don't see my insecure.

Insecure that I forgot to paint them this weekend. And today,
in the shower, I peeled off a nice, one-inch-long pinky nail.
Half of me felt satisfied. I sabotaged my nails
like I sabotaged him--acting like I didn't care or cared too much,
whatever that is exactly.

I sabotage so it doesn't hurt when I get picked last.

day 13

I sliced my thumb open, right under the knuckle, with a pocket knife on Friday.
My mother called as it happened, and when I said, oh that's a lot of blood,
you could tell she thought it was on purpose.

I would probably answer the phone during my own suicide.

In the shower, I picked at the scab after it softened. I had to pull a little. It hurt.
The pain of my thumb silences the echoes through our three bedroom apartment at three thirty
in the morning, as one roommate thinks she's being quiet when her boyfriend flips her over on the bed and she laughs, while the other opens our front door, turning off the alarm, just arriving home.

I continue to pick at the scab, now fresh and bleeding. I'm laughing, bent at the knees and holding my hand slightly above my head for elevation. There's enough pressure in my life.
The subtle once over by thin women outside the store, gathered around their phones
and long named coffee drinks. The blunt grandmother who tells me not to let food decide my mood.
The paranoia from behind my back giggles or too long glances.

That pocket knife went back in my desk, with my binder clips and multicolored highlighters
and five different pens that all write black ink. My blood seems darker than I imagined.
Do we ever really take notice of the exact hue until it drips down arms and onto the carpet
and starts to disturb other people? It's always about the other people.

My mother called again, shortly before she walked into work, shortly after bandage number two
and asked if I had talked to a boy recently--a boy I last heard from two years ago. A boy, who
if I spoke to again, I would pick not a scab, but scarred skin. And if I have to answer another well-meaning question about why I'm still single, or are boys blind, or what about babies, I'll laugh
and shrug, sure. But warn you, there's a lead bubble raging in my throat, full of shame, self-hate,
and scabs picked off in distraction.

In the shower--hot water and soap streaking down my back, mixing with blood droplets on the floor--as I tore open my left thumb, I resolve to go to bed hungry. Waking up empty means my body worked harder over night, that and the inside sting out-screams the outside sting and distracts one more day.

day 12

Two weeks ago, my days revolved around grits.
The recipe, consumption, storage of grits. And bacon.
Which demanded just as much-- the oven
for an extra minute ruined a whole day
 but not enough is the same.

Now, my day revolves around pricing and graphics
and waiting for an email instructing me to go.
Two weeks ago, the music played on a loop,
I knew REM played after Filter and before Mariah Carey.
Two weeks ago, I knew people better than myself.
I knew the restaurant would fill, at least with laughter.

I knew. Now, I know nothing. Not if I would speak,
if I'd be crushed by both complaints and praise,
if anyone would miss me like I miss the grits.

day 11

I don't know how to write anymore.
Instead, I'm limboed like Dante between
two--not quite worlds, because, cliche--
but segments of my brain that register
the everyday.

One knows you, the English language,
and what it means when my eyes crinkle.
It understands that turning pages in a book
entertains me, that my cat, when he squeaks,
desires kibble.

This one speaks in fluctuations and in hands,
recognizes I like people and pasta. But when
I quit paying attention for more than five minutes,
like a light switch, I'm gone and the other
comes to.

The other thinks everyone's happy is too loud,
that pasta tastes of cardboard so why eat
and that wanting to talk to you is crazy.
It paints pills, carpet cutters, deep sleep through
it all.

The other speaks monotony and in stares, never
lets me leave the bed. It lives in glaze. A sludgey
blur that clears only when angry or my cat chirps
in hunger.

I see my happy in the sleep where subconscious squats
birdlike on the crack between light and slow-wave.
I see my happy just before a melody crushes the silence
of the other and crashes they crash into each other
once again.

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?

day 1

To My Grandmother

In the morning, when my throat
feels like papercuts, I'll drive home,
thinking about the vodka gummy bears
someone soaked for three days
and the Camels another girl and I split
while discussing sex and inadequacy.

And somewhere, in the dark
of my glove box, I shoved my phone
before the party. On it, an email from you
and I think about it between cigarettes
three and four, while watching the flame --
as everyone watched you drink-- out
the peripherals. Side-eyed when you
bee-lined the cabinets under the sink, hunting
not cleaning supplies, but vodka.

And we blamed ourselves for a while.
Until one day, when someone--I can't
remember if it was my mother or uncle--
woke up angry. Knowing you didn't give
a shit anymore. So we welcomed three years
of nothing, because that meant we wouldn't see
the decay. We would only wonder what's wrong
with you, as I do now--however brief-- while
picking at splinters in my leggings.

But then, when my cigarette extinguishes and
the pack is empty, I open the door and go back inside.

11

When the hunger disapates, what's really left?

You can smile for a minute, sure, 

Let your eyes crinkle at the sides, somehow

Speaking for you, reassuring with teeth.

In the end, it's about the fingernails, 

Not the teeth, clawing back from underground,

From under the water and soil, the mole hill

Stamped down by sheep and primitivity, the fear. 

You're a chameleon, they say. Changing from anger

To laughter quicker than clothes, they say. 

But don't forget to bear the pearly whites, to cope,

They say. Don't forget to clip the nails to the stub,

To watch the blood drip down the sides. 

Does anyone understand language grows on the side

Of a hill? That it grows under the skin, behind 

Gums and the white spots? When we speak,

We open the cords of the back throat, unleashing 

The sheep to the field, left to the mercy of hooves. 

10

This piece is playing with what German word order looks like in English. 

Although he sometimes an asshole be can, 

Sometimes thinks he of me or you

And we feel ourselves lucky and hurt

Yet nothing can worse be, than understanding 

The rays of the sun and how they into

The deep pores of our skin burn. 

Because he us knows and whatever

In the morning slowly in front of the rooster

Passes. You smoke. When smoke I, feel I 

Myself not pride but a so deep ache, coursing

Though my blood and my marrow. The valley 

Calls to me. It screams sweet nothings

And waves me in pity over. 

9

Someone told me of Icarus,
Flying with wings of wax
And feathers, curious.

Did you burn yours
With cigarettes or bridges?

Icarus landed in an ocean,
Lapped up by women, sold
To the sex trade, probably.

Now, he goes by Jerome,
Sits on a park bench playing
Chess with himself.

If no one sees you fall,
Where do you land?

8

You tell me with your hands,

And I agree for a moment, 

That slow is smooth, but nothing

Satisfies like an entire chicken

Or cooking the rooster outside

The door. You know, the alarm

Every morning. 

That plucky thing talks a lot,

Proving that he's worth something

Somewhere, proving that behind 

The feathers, we're the same--

Aching for someone to know 

We're awake and tossing around.

But does anyone care, really?

One day, we'll find the feathers,

The remnants of a reality that flew 

Past the branches like a bike

In the rain and understand, for 

A moment, what he called out 

Each morning--what it means

To really smell the sun up close. 

7

To the woman lying on her back, right hand turning purple

When you turn to smile for a minute
at your husband, who's just barely
made it back for the tinfoil blanket
to wrap around your body and tucked
his bike, and yours, around the corner
of the park, I ache to jump the curb,
to grab your twisted fingers and drive off.

It's not my fault, really, not wanting
to be here. I wasn't there when my mom
slid off her sled the wrong way, bashed
her kidney into a rock, peed blood
for five days. Nor was I there
when my grandmother slashed her calf
open while fishing knee deep in
a Montana river. But when I stand there,
listening to the story, I understand fluidity.

I choose language over relation, finding
the jumping tongue sharper than the snap
of my mother's fingers after I gaze sideways
for a half second too long. Sometimes,
I want to strangle Babel. To wrap my jacket,
like the tinfoil around you, and unleash
a flurry of Pitbulls and spit, listening
for a scream. But what would that sound like?