the very thing about being destroyed, slaughtered, defeated, bludgeoned to a state of pity and crumpled on the ground

the very thing

is you still have to get up

#1

my mother cried on the telephone today.

told me the importance of ceremony, said that a ritual is needed for finality

when some one is gone.

i sat.

burned buffalo sage

placed over my heart

spoke wishes out loud and

reminisced about who i once wanted to be.

it's unfathomable,

the ease with which you can lose yourself in layered greys

that life builds up.

i can not remember the last time i didn't feel raw,

the last time i was strong

the last time i felt consequential.

i have to rebuild!

there really is a reason for everyday and

if i find that there is nothing in this brilliant damned world

for me

except myself,

ok.

i'm ready to feel at peace with that.

DON'T CARE WORDS

i sometimes say things

mean things

scathing brillo pad words

don't care words.

i have learned to stop accepting the consequences.

if you don't care, you can't be hurt, you can't be embarrassed.

above all else, there is no shame in the morning twilight

that brand new day: quiet, precious, bearing scars from a time it never knew.

there is no disgrace weighing your eyelids down at the moment when you wake up barely breathing. lead lungs pumping.

blood turns lava hot.

so much shame.

aged eighteen

nineteen

twenty

twenty one

twenty two

twenty three.

time to forgive.
forget.

time to be just selfish enough to watch yourself hurt someone else, cross a boundary, fuck things up.

cracked little teeth, bleeding gums, dried up hearts, bruised vitals.

so much pain that you'll never feel.

you learn to be the demon that your mother, in her eleventh hour before your birth felt, terrified, by herself, worried about creating.

you

feel nothing.

TODAY, TOMORROW, AND EVERYDAY AFTER THAT

wide awake but eyes shut tight

sheets smelling like liquorice root,

"rabbit, rabbit".

First words out of her mouth.

Her mother wakes up early, by an hour and a half.

sneaks outside, has a smoke, unfurls her mind.

Ever since she was twenty years old she hated morning encounters.

she breathes heavy, laborious, large intake of air- pushed out of bed

to standing.

each morning stooping, back curving like a sicle.

each day weighing a little more.

her grandmother wakes up, never thinking

about anything but whether the cat shat in the garden.

occupations

and priorities- are everyone's prerogative.

each of them mine,

these morning routines.

For today

tomorrow

and everyday after that.

GHOST PHONE

there was you:

rode past, rode back, mid sentence, i ate my words.

three months of silence unveiled just by you stopping by.

on the porch. five minutes too soon to eat the tart warming in the oven

and infinity minutes

waiting for you to call me back.

and you: 

you had to have seen someone tonight.

all golden headed and fragile, crushing egg shell egos

potentially not even knowing 

your own strength.

but i don't resent you,

it's just that it's quarter to ten, and maybe i didn't know what i was getting into.

you can't win when you're being careful-- 

long thought processes/laborious answers.

you can't win when you're going breakneck neither-- 

eyes shut tight/reckless decisions.

and me:

i'm still here.

i'm still going to be here in may, june, july. august smells like leaving

sort of dusty and brand new at the same time.

going steady side to side;

cracking chicken bones to suck the marrow.

i just sit close to the window

because when i  hear the sounds of small tinny voices

i always hope it's you,

coming over to see me.

and when i pretend i hear footsteps coming up the stairs,

i always look up, breath held short. heart strings tied in bows.

HE SAID

all of my imagining

could never compare

to the bountiful reality

that is your naked body.

UNTITLED

unwound, bristled, braided.

i wish with my seafarers blood i could tie knots.

i would produce entire books, volumes!

of knots meant to tie and untie. help and hinder.

  i find so many knots to untangle

i find so many knots to tighten   

i wish with my seafarers blood i could learn their names.

i would call them out as i wind them into

infinite pieces of string.