bought myself flowers and peanut butter whittakers and pottery supplies just in case it’s my last night on earth~

I called my cat anxious when I felt her bare belly,

soft pink skin with a baby’s fur, white hair

still on her tongue, swallowing. eyes wide,

gleaming. shuffling back to high places, cleaning

again, again. these days she seems stronger,

fur thicker, living lower, eating slower. now I wonder:

when my skin will thicken, my hair grow quicker,

where I can shuffle back to, wrists thin, fingers thinner.

nails on my scalp like leaves with a rake,

I’ll wear gloves if it helps, if that’s what this takes,

if that’s all it takes. now I wonder if nobody knew, if nobody felt

this skin. if nobody saw the fur on my tongue,

the shine in my eyes, the act being done, 

if nobody pointed. such wonder and doubt.

finger and thumb. anxious and numb.

breaking off and pulling out.

bad news is a burden and words can feel worse than a kick to the gut or two palms on the sternum that feel the ribs crack but can’t stop or discern when they’re breaking the news, if they’re helping or hurting. the words that you hate might ring on in your head in the morning or swim through the smoke when you’re dead on your feet, when your past keeps on passing you, haunting or hunting you, still it might seem semi-sweet: getting killed getting caught still invites some relief.

so slip out of your shoes, cover mirrors with cloth, hold the stones in your hands and chew down on the moss, brittle bones on the beach can be found or forgot. drowning words out takes time, and sometimes it’s enough to push down and to pray that they simply give up; you press to the bottom, they float to the top. but sometimes it’s not.

forget the sounds, hold them under the water

and wait for the kicking to stop. 

I am now 21

drinking wine and baking blueberry bagels, things are actually pretty sweet

so nervous about going to the doctors for stupid test results tomorrow that I can’t sleep. ughhhh.

a hand that reaches through my body, stuck

halfway between the first and second rib

delights in how I pulsate, how my veins

embrace my blood and take it to my brain

which then attempts to build a barricade.

clench those bones, snap your fingers,

throw bones in the stream to stop the pain.

and any part of me that trickles to the floor

won’t matter to the sea, that hand

or me, at all.

worst day, so glad it’s over

I had a dream that the glass between us slipped but didn’t hit the floor, there was no crash, no crack, just no glass anymore. and the enclosure, being no longer enclosed, closed up forever. no more tickets, no more tapping, no more artificial weather. you took back your skin and your hair for yourself and you just ran. you ran like hell.