| sunday morning

Sunday, January 17, 2016

paper cuts

When you first met me, you said you liked my
feathery words and pillowy thoughts, the way
I maneuvered through days lightly, gently, careful
not to take too much, and I saw how this softness
fit into your world of loud music late at night and
laughter that lasts until morning and the heaviest
of footsteps, the heaviest of strokes, shading
outlines black until you bore holes through
the page, the way a sharp ray of sunlight pierces
through paper when you hold a magnifying glass
over it long enough. But now you have pointed
that magnifying glass at our story, and the plot
is full of holes. Character inconsistencies. Cuts
that shouldn’t have been allowed but were, or
should have but weren’t. Some days you roll up
your sleeve, show me your bruises, say they came
from me, hinting at the pebbles I keep in my
pocket and the taste of metal brewing under
my skin. And some days you want me to harden
my cotton-spun heart, toughen it up against
knives, claws, teeth, nails, sharp rays of sunlight,
anything that can tear it apart, and you want me
to stop acting like everything is such a big
fucking deal when it isn’t—not to you. But it is
to me. So I build a shell around my softest parts,
seal it with a clear coat of resolve. Drop one more
pebble into my pocket every night before I go
to bed, leave my corners untucked. Hide all the
pages. Make sure you can no longer close in on
my softness and use it as a weapon against me.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

guest/list

1. I’ve gotten used to sleeping

on one side of the bed, making

space for you, always, room

for your body to rest.

2. Sometimes we fall asleep

with our fingers intertwined,

and sometimes when I am alone

I wake up with my hands
clasped together, a reminder,

I guess, to hold on.

3. These walls know the sound

of your voice, your laughter

ringing through the midnight
stillness, as sharp and clear

as day, the stories you tell

no one else but me.

4. I find traces of your lips

on coffee cups, pillow cases,

the back of my head, warm

outlines I never have to wait

too long to fill.

5. For years I tried to learn how
to live by myself,
but you taught me the difference
between that and being able
to live with myself.

1 comment

Sunday, October 4, 2015

divers

One day they will discover the shipwreck

of our love, expert hands sifting through

the debris of silent disappointments and

things that were not supposed to hurt, but

did. They will chip away at sealed doors,

futile attempts at trying to rouse what

once lorded above the waves, majestic

in all the moons it thought it had ahead.
We won’t know what they’re trying to

find. Neither will they. The flotsam

and jetsam will not make much sense
to them, pieces of wreckage that have

long lost any semblance of hope. And
when a lone sea creature hovers curiously
nearby, a question forming on its delicate
fins, they will know it is time to go, leave

all the cargo behind; to rise rise rise
until they break the sparkling surface,

gasping for air and life, buoyed by the
promise and warning that it almost
always takes an ocean to sink.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

royal

There is a flash of gold mane and not much else;
the king of the jungle sleeps out of sight. Show’s
over. Head home. That day at the zoo I asked you
why they keep spectacular beasts in cages,
and you said, “Did you know that almost 700 people
every year are attacked by lions?” I didn’t, but

I wanted you to say that we keep them in cages
so we can admire their honeyed fur, the crystal clear
danger in their eyes. It’s been months since anybody
said what I actually wanted to be said. A stranger
once asked me how it feels to love someone
older and wiser, a steady ship in a sea of paper-thin

lifeboats, and I couldn’t quite tell her that
being born years apart is just background noise,
a footnote in the murky history we’ve built for
ourselves. It’s been months since I said what I
actually wanted to say. You reach for my hand
while crossing a busy street, and I wonder how
a man is shaped to be so sure of himself, so sure
of his strength and ability to protect against

the rush of steel, silent leers, limbs ready to snatch
and run. I’ve heard the rumors about me, hastily
manufactured in line at the cafeteria, or in between
classes; how I wear your good fortune on
my sleeve, and around my neck, shiny and
new, and dangling from my arm in genuine leather
glory. How I never have to work a day in my life.
They wonder what you’re getting in return, exactly,
because it can’t be nothing. “It doesn’t work that way,”
they say. I’ve heard the rumors about me, too many

to keep up with, when all I really want is for them to
be happy for me. We keep spectacular beasts in cages,
blind them with our flashing lights and piercing stares
that proudly announce how we’re better than them,
because we roam free, because we don’t sleep
behind bars. It is a waiting game that someone is
always bound to lose. You keep my photo in your
corner office, wish someone would pause and ask
who I am. There is a flash of gold mane and
not much else. Show’s over. Head home.

2 comments

Sunday, August 9, 2015

There is a buzzing in my head from tonight’s heavy
laughter and wine, our lips stained red and our feet
sore from dancing in heels we only wear when we
need to be seen, need to tower over an entire city
of shaky self-worth. Stamps on my arm, smoke
in my hair—souvenirs of teenage glory, when
everyone who hates you out of envy is a badge
you pin onto your chest, a trophy you show off
on the top shelf. I end up driving you home,
listening to slurred directions I don’t need, leading
myself into battle against incoming headlights and
a thick cloak of sleep. I wait for you to say thanks,
but all I get is a wink and a wave, a finger to
your lips, urging me not to tell as you sneak in
through your back door. We have secrets that have
embedded themselves into my skin, and I don’t
know at which point I’d agreed to share your sins.
I asked for all of this, didn’t I?

Remember when we promised we wouldn’t let
the day end without forgiving each other? But maybe
the promises you make when you’re six no longer
count when you’re sixteen, the years canceling out
our conviction like writing on the sand washed away
by a frothing wave. Remember when we said we’d
always tell the truth—if not to other people, then

at least to each other? These days you don’t even
look me in the eye when you say there’s a party
you can’t invite me to, I wouldn’t like it there anyway,
I wouldn’t like the guests, I wouldn’t like the music,
I wouldn’t like that version of you anyway. We hide
parts of ourselves in desk drawers and underneath
sheets, far too many places to keep track of.
What happens if we need those parts back someday?
Remember the face paint and glitter and
the pom-poms we made with our hands? Remember
road trips with your dad at the wheel, pit stops
for ice cream cones and popcorn—remember how
you said you’d always wanted a sister? Now it’s all
Friday night strobe lights and scorching beach

weekends, the strained smile that stretches
across your face when I emerge from the bathroom
in a swimsuit, tugging at the strings as if this
would help put everything in place. You have no idea
how much I hear when you nod and turn away.
You have no idea how much damage we have done

to the softer girls we used to be.

Today I saw you scrolling through your feed,

awarding hearts to everyone’s posts but mine, your

double-tap aim missing me by a millimeter. I wonder

why we even still follow each other’s grids, maps

guiding us nowhere safe. I wonder what you see

when you see my life in squares.

sunday morning