echo

I.
'what does she give you
that I can’t?’
he asks with an ugly leer
a thrust of his hips
and the tightening of

his fingers on my neck.
I reply,
'bruises i'm hiding
because i’m embarrassed
not ashamed.’

II.
they etched words into
my skin.
words that started with ‘stupid’
'bitch' and ended with
'fuck you' and 'goodbye'.
turning me blackandblueandgreen.
and i traced them
carefully
with indelible, permanent
marker.

because I didn’t know better
then to repeat
[echo]
their words back to them.
but mostly because
I knew they were right.
they always were.
and for once
I wanted to be
right.

III.
time is measured in breaths
I breath in[
if i could have chosen someone
i should have chosen someone
someone with less knees and
elbows and hard edges.
i should have chosen someone
softer.
less likely to hurt me
with their exits and entrances.
should have chosen someone
who would let me hide in their skin,
burrow into their warmth,
not someone
who would try to repair
my own and teach me to admire their hands.
] I breath out.

She slips into bed like a comma,
when I know she’s all exclamation point
fingering my scars carefully,
calling them war wounds.

She keeps trying to unwrap
unravel me.
undo years of
duct tape and hot glue gun.
the scotch tape work I’ve done
trying to stick myself
to something. to keep
my     self
to get her.

[echo]

[echo]

I.
knowing you're not a mind reader
i still believed
you would taste the words
i couldnot say
when you kissed me.

II.
i wonder how she's made it through
life without
being bruised. without
needing bandages around her
wrists or her heart.

when it's all i can do to
ricochet
[echo]
off every hard person
i encounter.

III.
i tried to tell you
how i pushed myself
into little
sbqouxaerse
for you.

and how i learned to hide
between teeth and tongue and cheek,
how
i learned to hide
stories in my skin.

but
you kept rewriting them
with phrases like
i love you and
silence.

Magnetic

there is nothing wrong here, she says
Silence
there is nothing wrong here, she insists

she eats a rainbow for breakfast
watches it color her skin
and bleed from her veins
until she vomits redblueyellowgreenorange.
the smell of colors
painted in drips and drops
and stomach aches. 

sharpness defines her
into corners and angles
pin pricks reminding, re minding
of promises, of work, of learning
[to hide, to shiver, to blue.
scared]
there is nothing wrong here.

there is an almost magnetic
pull. from the tip of her tongue
to the left thumb, Wrist,
belly, stomach. 
closing her eyes, except for words
there is only one color, not
one that washes out. 

there is nothing wrong here. 
Silence.
There is nothing wrong here
and yet
tongue to thumb, Wrist. 
belly, stomach
rainbows and skin and words and colors bleeding.

don't give over so easily
looking for lighthouses and acceptance
from words spilled too easily
out of mouths that form circles of
disgust and stomach aches.
don't give over too easily.
don't. give over. easily. 

imagine the colors bleeding
spreading out across skin
finger tips, beating a tattoo of 
here  here  here and nothere
colors, into art, into beating tattoos
into art on skin, instead of
rainbows promising nothing

there is nothing wrong here, she says
Silence
there is nothing wrong here, she insists

Automaton

The secrets
 of what you
  remember
   (or don't)
     weigh heavily upon your skin.
They're written
 on the lines and pores
  of your outline.
     Shaped into
an automaton
  blindly reaching
   because it's optical sockets
     don't see what
  real boys do.
But it was never wooden,
 never alive, never planted
  in a garden, nourished
   by rain and dirt and air.
Never alive.
An automaton is empty,
lives because
                       it's moving.
Transmission fluid and grease,
         never realizing
(except for what audio input,
     message received)
            it is
nothing.

empty


           A blank slate, an unfilled box,
a mindless, numb, piece of machinery.
Existing,
            just.
                  to.
                       exist.

This Exclusive Club

My brother doesn't want to be 'exclusionary'
     he seems earnest, if a bit of an asshole
  I am shocked to discover
     we grew up in the same house.
how did he escape
        unscathed?

he stands up for his
       disenfranchised parents
                 and older brother.
I want to ask him,
    what about his sisters?

I don't have the words
     to explain to him,
            to teach him the feeling
 of abject failure
           of being marooned in a sea of people
who should love you, should moor you,
        who should have told you, at some point,
'you aren't what your mother says
    you are. You aren't worthless,
                aren't stupid, you don't
need
           something to cry
           about.
you can just,
              cry.'


I want to ask him
'Are you going to leave
    Your Daughter alone
     with him?'
I remain mute,
    stubbornly silent,
because all those things
   i know.
I'll break in half,
    and vomit everything
all those things i know
(or don't know)
i know
(or don't know)
onto him.

Something to Cry About

i am seven, crying in the bathtub
because my brother turned out the light
my little brother and sister sit behind me, unafraid

they don’t know the darkness is scary

their laughter echoes[echoes] on the porcelain

but I am still scared, crying

Like

when i’m down stairs, crying in the kitchen
because my brother turned out the light 
i should be in bed, my parents are out
the sun has been down for hours, the
light makes an audible ‘click’ as it shuts off
i pull up my feet, and close my eyes

[but not too loudly because
crying is just a sign of weakness
and ‘I’LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT’]

Like

when i’m fourteen and refusing to sleep
because i won’t turn out the light
he lived four blocks away
and i had to go help him with something
whatever happened after that

i don’t remember.

but i do remember, being seven
crying in the bathtub
and sitting on a chair alone in the kitchen
with all the lights off in the house
afraid to move, too afraid to cry
until my parents came home

Like

how my sister remembers him raping her.
i don’t think I’ve even written that before
everyday she remembers that. every day.
what would it be like, if memory worked that way

the things i do remember,
make me glad there’s so much more I don’t

Dear James,

I haven't forgotten, I just stopped talking.