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.

New Years

New year, new thoughts?

Not really, mostly just posting to get started again- to hopefully find something to say. And to let people know that I'm not dead. ;)

Pensive

I can still feel you
not something to be proud of, I know
but on lazy Mondays, or those
morning-afters
when I can’t remember where I am
before sleep runs from my bed
I indulge.
My sisters have never met you
and for that I am happy
but that means
they’ll never understand
the pull across my skin-
even in my mind,
making everything all right.

I’ve learned to make connections
(the sun shines in my window
caressing me with warmth and light
orangehot touch reminds me of you)
to carry me through.

Supernova Connections

I am a supernova
      -of ideas-
much to my sister's consternation.
Nothing is too sacred, 
     no moment safe.
Rewriting the bible,
   rewriting the church,
Spreading 'Harveyism'
     (for lack of a better name)
         across the land.

"No problem!" I say happily, 
     bold, "I'll rewrite them, Cliff Notes versions."
She sounds so serious
     when she asks, almost fearful of the answer.
"Oh yeah, how's that go?"
Grinning, I reply, "Be a good person.
Don't hurt others. Be happy and shit.
     If they aren't hurting anyone,
leave 'em alone. Everyone
     deserves the right to be fuckin' happy."
"Jesus never sounded quite so... Philly."
     came her droll reply.

"Yeah well, if He'd been more direct
     maybe people wouldn't mess it up
quite so much."
 I turn serious, for once, 
   -blink and you'll miss it-
"It makes me so sad
   that people miss the Truth."

The table I sit at is wooden,
     carpenter's son,
strange connections. Harrison Ford.
Red hair, sisters, strange connections,
     phone lines no longer necessary
digital signal bouncing from relay to relay
searching for connections.

"And what is that?" her voice calls
me back before I forget my proselytizing. 
     "If God is Love, then maybe
     a little less hate, would get us what we want-" I frowned, not
quite sure what I meant.
     "I mean Love, the Truth is Love." I nod to myself, tracing
fingers across wooden table.

Autumn- Digression

The leaves are changing again
             some things never change.

I am walking to the park
           alone, again,
    to see if maybe - this time -
I'll find your ghost
    hiding between
laughter and blades of grass.
Alone, in my head, my voice talks
        'maybe, maybe, maybe'
 but I know better than to hope.

The leaves go from green to red to yellow
  changing, ever year.

The ghost of myself stands in front of our door
       knowing you lied, knowing
I will never walk past
         and see your eyes smiling at me.
You promised me forever
  (forever, forever, forever
   the words echo hollowly
   in the emptiness of our house).
You are a liar.
      I am alone.

III

III.

We decorated our bodies
  with galaxies and stardust
and ate cosmic sunbeams
    for dinner.
Turning to me, face flushed, 
    eye bright and arms spread,
 "I've often wondered,
   what happiness was - is -
            could be."
Beautiful eyes, dancing with super novae, 
         and dark  matter -
I watched ever closer, for that change
   From dawn to dusk
because sunsets are 
          never enough
     and stars don't sparkle
          in space. 

The smile is genuine, cast in moonlight
      atmosphere coats us
   in metallic blues and purples
           as the moon rises, higher and higher.
Your sigh is heartfelt, I watch you-
       watch the stars, and say,
"If this moment could be preserved, 
        kept secret.
   I would return, night after night, 
   to when you held my hand
and let me watch the sky."

Conversations

I.

I walk in on her in the kitchen

 Clutching a knife in one hand

      holding her sad smile in the other.

        I watch as her eyes turn dark

     Before I open my mouth,
and pushed air between tongue and lip,

            silence
.she speaks quietly.

            “I like to watch the moonlight
as it streams in your window
  and decorates the darkest parts of you,
   the play of shadows- silvered and eerie.”

      She frowns, and even knowing
as I do, sighs.
'I revel in your secrets, in
how your touch is 

        so sincere 

and yet so-' the pause was murderous
       'so, irreverent.'

                She showed her scars then,
         wrists and forearms decorated
    with the lines of her life, her longing.
'Sometimes,' she smiled then, a melancholy movement.
     'I don’t expect you to
understand, but, sometimes
            I wish I could move in you
                  to know you from the inside

                          out.'

These Are Not My Truths, XI

XI

You told me
my choice of words
gives meaning to my past,
and clouds my future.

‘Intrusive’
isn’t exactly what you’d call it-

And I argue that it’s very nature
is intrusive,

Giggles wander down the phone lines
and I picture you grinning
holding back laughter
a veritable Yangtze dam
Until the spillways overflowed
and you couldn’t help but giggle

“But, that’s the best part!”

These Are Not My Truths, X

X

You always startle

me
with your naked
exuberance
(boxers, never briefs)

Even wearing
almost nothing
but your stupid smile
you make me feel little

(Not small, as I keep trying

to explain to you)

I told you, I don’t

‘do’

Love poems,

All you did was

Laugh at my air quotes

(Damn straight I use ‘em)

and kiss me ‘til I shut up.

When I told you, in all dread
of the missed.
 period

your eyes were happier
than I’d ever seen.
Even as you let me be
the eternal pessimist
and string theories together
of why it shouldn’t happen,
now, to us, in this world, ever…

(I can’t help but admire the strength you exude
not the outside, the muscles made strong
from years of heavy lifting
with your dad, the construction worker,
and not from the kind
the gym gives you after
too much work for me)

“Is this what it’s like
to live with your heart in your mouth?”
you murmur into my stomach
as though the bean sized…
baby
can hear.
I grin, this I understand,
(I whisper my truth, my fear
into your hair)
and reply, “Welcome
to my world. Population
two.”

These Are Not My Truths, IX

IX

All I have left,
i hold my hands wide, open,
outstretched,
are my train ride poems-
looking out.

Her mouth smiles,
his eyes do not.

“The first thing you need to learn, girl,”
the other women told me,
“Is never trust your heart,
it’ll always lie to you.

Always.”

I’ve forgotten that rule,
the wholeness I felt

Under his hand, between his
smile,
with words running like sand
in a desert storm,

Scouring skin.

“The second thing you gotta remember,”
they have my attention now,
“Is never let them see
how much it hurts.
Never.”

No idea how long it took me

To learn that one
But I’ve known it
my whole life.

Measure your misery, carefully,
and never start something

You can’t walk away from.

These Are Not My Truths, VIII

VIII

“Why did you call me?”

She asks, head tilted,

curious.

With arms around me,
protected,
I reply
“Because I knew you’d come.”

These Are Not My Truths, VII

VII

Her skin is copper

Beneath my fingers.

Tangled hair, brown-
her hazel eyes are beautiful

I watch them

darken

with desire.

Protecting her heart,

protecting her soul-

Muscles tense

under my hand.

I want to pull all her pain

into

my body.

Her lower lip trembles, quivers
I love it most of all,

Giving away her fear (and hope)
When she couldn’t speak.

She wonders
why

I want her.

Fire- reflections in her eyes

The delight there,

when I touch her,
Will always be worth it.

She’ll never

believe

She is enough.