mice, men, and soft skin

try convincing me at home wax strips are more like tattoos than cutting myself
while im standing in front of the bathroom mirror in 3am silence 
gritting my teeth so tight my jaw pops 

ripping wax like shooting up 
i wonder if you still taste blood when i bleed
do you think about my hands on your back when you cry
do you still remember all of the times you said i was soft

after you went home i taught myself ways to forget 
folded my knees 
put two fingers together 
and touched parts of my voice i hadn’t heard in years
watched bile mix with begging

can you count the things i’ve done for you
like dropping pounds
and inches
months of quiet
and dreams of a walking together into sunset

or the ways i long for you 
like scratches i don’t move my hands away from
and empathies in the shape of los angeles
canyons with rivers at the bottom
and all of the times i tried to tell you i felt suffocated

which of us is the grip and which is the rabbit?
well, ask the forty dollar hand cream i just bought
my fingers are chapped from my first new york winter
i remember when you wished me luck
did you know i’d need this much

bikini line
under my arms
ripping wax like shooting up
i can count how many times you called me gentle

they play on loops in my head
do you still taste blood when i bleed
do you still think about my hands
do you remember how soft my skin is

poem 510

scissors on loose stitching
messages in wet pavement 

a telescopic view 
run over by the time you saved me

i will always waste the opportunity 
to do it differently than i’ve done

lucky enough to have lived who i was 
to get to who i’ve become

spaces between seconds 
where i meet you again

i need time to explain
take a seat, come in

morning glory

everyone is watching euphoria and no one is talking about me
not that anyone should or that anyone cares but it would be nice to be noticed on a scale like that
like when the secret service pulled me out of my job a few septembers ago

or how my first boyfriend was born twenty five septembers before that
and how you were born two septembers before that

maybe september is my least favorite month

last september my medication started kicking in and by that i mean things started to get easier and by that i mean i didn’t wake up wanting to die anymore

i just woke up missing you

poem 1695

i shriek the way my father taught me
blacked out, foamed mouth
a mirror spitting shards of shame

i pretend like my mother taught me
vacant stare, emptier prayer
question dressing up as deduction

i give up the way my parents taught me
dropping dreams from the tops of stairs
always coming up with mouthfuls of piano keys

they pass down lessons like anvils 
mallets molding high horses 
with patience too thin to start from scratch

i sleep like my mother taught me
light eyed, fists stiff
ready like there’s something wrong

i shudder the way my father taught me
quick spark, shocked heart
a warfare welded of neglect 

i apologize like my parents taught me
reduce and rewrite
a special rule of reversal

there is a language to this kind of learning
a code for the constrained 
hiding under the enlightenment they couldn’t eject
there is a name for what binds us