or do you think we’d just look
shake in our skin as we pine to
absorb as much as we can of each other
cause by this time we’ve probably got
someone else waiting at home
we were good together weren’t we
and is it wrong that i’m asking you these questions
tell me love
that you have been
looking for these answers too
you call to tell me you miss me
i turn to face the front door of the house
waiting for a knock
days later you call to say you need me
but still aren’t here
the dandelions on the lawn
are rolling their eyes in disappointment
the grass has declared you yesterday’s news
what do i care
if you love me
or miss me
or need me
when you aren’t doing anything about it
if i’m not the love of your life
i’ll be the greatest loss instead
where do we go from here my love
when it’s over and i’m standing between us
whose side do i run to
when every nerve in my body is pulsing for you
when my mouth waters at the thought
when you are pulling me in just by standing there
how do i turn around and choose myself
day by day i realize
everything i miss about you
was never there in the first place
- the person i fell in love with was a mirage
they leave
and act like it never happened
they come back
and act like they never left
- ghosts
i tried to find it
but there was no answer
at the end of the last conversation
- closure
you ask
if we can still be friends
i explain how a honeybee
does not dream of kissing
the mouth of a flower
and then settle for its leaves
- i don’t need more friends
why is it
that when the story ends
we begin to feel all of it
rise
said the moon
and the new day came
the show must go on said the sun
life does not stop for anybody
it drags you by the legs
whether you want to move forward or not
that is the gift
life will force you to forget how you long for them
your skin will shed till there is not
a single part of you left they’ve touched
your eyes finally just your eyes
not the eyes which held them
you will make it to the end
of what is only the beginning
go on
open the door to the rest of it
- time
i notice everything i do not have
and decide it is beautiful
i hardened under the last loss. it took something human out of me. i used to be so deeply emotional i’d crumble on demand. but now the water has made its exit. of course i care about the ones around me. i’m just struggling to show it. a wall is getting in the way. i used to dream of being so strong nothing could shake me. now. i am. so strong. that nothing shakes me.
and all i dream is to soften.
- numbness
yesterday
when i woke up
the sun fell to the ground and rolled away
flowers beheaded themselves
all that’s left alive here is me
and i barely feel like living
- depression is a shadow living inside me
why are you so unkind to me
my body cries
cause you don’t look like them
i tell her
you are waiting for someone
who is not coming back
meaning
you are living your life
hoping that someone will realize
they can’t live theirs without you
- realizations don’t work like that
a lot of times
we are angry at other people
for not doing what
we should have done for ourselves
- responsibility
why
did you leave a door
hanging
open between my legs
were you lazy
did you forget
or did you purposely leave me unfinished
- conversations with god
they did not tell me it would hurt like this
no one warned me
about the heartbreak we experience with friends
where are the albums i thought
there were no songs sung for it
i could not find the ballads
or read the books dedicated to writing the grief
we fall into when friends leave
it is the type of heartache that
does not hit you like a tsunami
it is a slow cancer
the kind that does not show up for months
has no visible signs
is an ache here
a headache there
but manageable
cancer or tsunami
it all ends the same
a friend or a lover
a loss is a loss is a loss
- the underrated heartache
i hear a thousand kind words about me
and it makes no difference
yet i hear one insult
and all confidence shatters
- focusing on the negative
home
it began as a typical thursday from what i recall
sunlight kissed my eyelids good morning
i remember it exactly
climbing out of bed
making coffee to the sound of children playing outside
putting music on
loading the dishwasher
i remember placing flowers in a vase
in the middle of the kitchen table
only when my apartment was spotless
did i step into the bathtub
wash yesterday out of my hair
i decorated myself
like the walls of my home were decorated
with frames bookshelves photos
i hung a necklace around my neck
hooked earrings in
applied lipstick like paint
swept my hair back—just your typical thursday
we ended up at a get-together with friends
at the end you asked if i needed a ride home and
i said yes cause our dads worked at the same company
and you’d been to my place for dinner many times
but i should have known
when you began to confuse
kind conversation with flirtation
when you told me to let my hair down
when instead of driving me home
toward the bright intersection
of lights and life—you took a left
to the road that led nowhere
i asked where we were going
you asked if i was afraid
my voice threw itself over the edge of my throat
landed at the bottom of my bell
y and hid for months
all the different parts in me
turned the lights off
shut the blinds
locked the doors
while i hid at the back of some
upstairs closet of my mind as
someone broke the windows—you
kicked the front door in—you
took everything
and then someone took me
—it was you.
who dove into me with a fork and a knife
eyes glinting with starvation
like you hadn’t eaten in weeks
i was a hundred and ten pounds of fresh meat
you skinned and gutted with your fingers
like you were scraping the inside of a cantaloupe clean
as i screamed for my mother
you nailed my wrists to the ground
turned my breasts into bruised fruit
this home is empty now
no gas
no electricity
no running water
the food is rotten
from head to foot i am layered in dust
fruit flies. webs. bugs.
someone call the plumber
my stomach is backed up—i’ve been vomiting since
call the electrician
my eyes won’t light up
call the cleaners to wash me up and hang me to dry
when you broke into my home
it never felt like mine again
i can’t even let a lover in without getting sick
i lose sleep after the first date
lose my appetite
become more bone and less skin
forget to breathe
every night my bedroom becomes a psych ward
where panic attacks turn men
into doctors to keep me calm
every lover who touches me—feels like you
their fingers—you
mouths—you
until they’re not the ones
on top of me anymore—it’s you
and i am so tired
of doing things your way
—it isn’t working
i’ve spent years trying to figure out
how i could have stopped it
but the sun can’t stop the storm from coming
the tree can’t stop the ax
i can’t blame myself for a having a hole
the size of your manhood in my chest anymore
it’s too heavy to carry your guilt—i’m setting it down
i’m tired of decorating this place with your shame
as if it belongs to me
it’s too much to walk around with
what your hands have done
if it’s not my hands that have done it
the truth comes to me suddenly—after years of rain
the truth comes like sunlight
pouring through an open window
it takes a long time to get here
but it all comes full circle
it takes a broken person to come searching
for meaning between my legs
it takes a complete. whole. perfectly designed
person to survive it
it takes monsters to steal souls
and fighters to reclaim them
this home is what i came into this world with
was the first home
will be the last home
you can’t take it
there is no space for you
no welcome mat
no extra bedrooms
i’m opening all the windows
airing it out
putting flowers in a vase
in the middle of the kitchen table
lighting a candle
loading the dishwasher with all of my thoughts
until they’re spotless
scrubbing the countertops
and then
i plan to step into the bathtub
wash yesterday out of my hair
decorate my body in gold
put music on
sit back
put my feet up
and enjoy
this typical thursday afternoon
when snow falls
i long for grass
when grass grows
i walk all over it
when leaves change color
i beg for flowers
when flowers bloom
i pick them
- unappreciative
tell them i was the
warmest place you knew
and you turned me cold
at home that night
i filled the bathtub with scorching water
tossed in spearmint from the garden
two tablespoons almond oil
some milk
and honey
a pinch of salt
rose petals from the neighbor’s lawn
i soaked myself in the mixture
desperate to wash the dirty off
the first hour
i picked pine needles from my hair
counted them one two three
lined them up on their backs
the second hour
i wept
a howling escaped me
who knew girl could become beast
during the third hour
i found bits of him on bits of me
the sweat was not mine
the white between my legs
not mine
the bite marks
not mine
the smell
not mine
the blood
mine
the fourth hour i prayed
it felt like you threw me
so far from myself
i’ve been trying to find my way back ever since
i reduced my body to aesthetics
forgot the work it did to keep me alive
with every beat and breath
declared it a grand failure for not looking like theirs
searched everywhere for a miracle
foolish enough to not realize
i was already living in one
the irony of loneliness
is we all feel it
at the same time
- together
my girlhood was too much hair
thin limbs coated in velvet
it was neighborhood tradition
for the other young girls and i
to frequent basement salons on a weekly basis
run by women in a house
who were my mother’s age
had my mother’s skin
but looked nothing like my simple mother
they had brown skin with
yellow hair meant for white skin
streaks like zebras
slits for eyebrows
i looked at my own caterpillars with shame
and dreamt mine would be that thin
i sit timidly in the makeshift waiting area
hoping a friend from school would not drop by
a bollywood music video is playing on a tiny
television screen in the corner
someone is getting their legs waxed or hair dyed
when the auntie calls me in
i walk into the room
and make small talk
she leaves for a moment
while i undress my lower half
i slide my pants and underwear off
lie down on the spa bed and wait
when she returns she
positions my legs
like an open butterfly
soles of feet together
knees pointing in opposite directions
first the disinfectant wipe
then the cold jelly
how is school and what are you studying she asks
turns the laser on
places the head of the machine on my pubic bone
and just like that it begins
the hair follicles around
my clitoris begin burning
with each zap
i wince
shivering with pain
why do i do this
why do i punish my body
for being exactly as it’s meant to be
i stop myself halfway through the regret
when i think of him and how
i’m too embarrassed to show him
unless it’s clean
i bite down on my lip
and ask if we’re almost finished
- basement aesthetician
we have been dying
since we got here
and forgot to enjoy the view
- live fully
you were mine
and my life was full
you are no longer mine
and my life
is full
my eyes
make mirrors out of
every reflective surface they pass
searching for something beautiful looking back
my ears fish for compliments and praise
but no matter how far they go looking
nothing is enough for me
i go to clinics and department stores
for pretty potions and new techniques
i’ve tried the lasers
i’ve tried the facials
i’ve tried the blades and expensive creams
for a hopeful minute they fill me
make me glow from cheek to cheek
but as soon as i feel beautiful
their magic disappears suddenly
where am i supposed to find it
i am willing to pay any price
for a beauty that makes heads turn
every moment day and night
- a never-ending search
this place makes me
the kind of exhausted that has