"In a place I’ve been, but never like this:
I dance for the first time since my heart
broke off my limbs, a wound of entirety.
Our fingers are well-taught rope tricks
into the hope of one another, we hold
tightly to those hands at one week sober.
We stay awake, and stay awake, and you sing.
Is it too dark of a place to wish I could
crawl into your throat and warm in that
kindling of breath. When we speak of fire,
it is never the kind that takes to the trees,
or their mothers. The sky is not touched.
He likes to use his teeth, and I say nothing
is too hard. I imagine them sunken like
morning eyes into my shoulder, I imagine
the tear of meat, and still, nothing is too hard.
And still, I imagine asking what more he
has to show me: do you want to know
how hard a woman can be? I dance for the
first time since I started growing back,
and it is everything before the unassuming
skin on my lower back, the only place I have never
doubted any hand, takes this to mean: we are no
longer awaiting a war we have conceived.
I am no longer waiting at the door for you
to find me, now, deserving of a lock so un-picked
you might think to call me fixed."
"Maybe if I drink till the sunrise
The pain will eventually subside.
Maybe if the cocaine doesn’t kill me
I’ll live to be set free.
What a dark destined fate,
To be surrounded in such darkness.
This is a cornucopia of hate
Look at how you’ve let me down,
I’m hopeless.
My father doesn’t speak to me
And they say everything will be alright.
You don’t know what it means to me
I might as well just end my life.
Our love comes back in the middle of the night
But everyone is slowly dying.
Don’t give up before you try and fight
I see you and I know you’re barely trying.
The sadness I carry
Can’t seem to fit in a shot glass.
Although my body is so weary
I can’t help but remember my past.
What a fight it is to stay alive
When you’re seventeen feet underground.
Sadly no one can ever hear me die
As I’m under concrete trying to shout."
