Summer

you poke holes in your belly with sharp claws
hoping the sludge in your intestines will seep out
and stay away

the feeling is like this:
tears cannot pull enough gray water out of your eyes
to cleanse you

and you know you have always been this way
black jet planes flying under your radar
biochemical warfare raging in your gut

and your childhood self has been underground all these years
holding her hands over her ears
as the bomb shelter shudders

you tell yourself, I can just paint my nails yellow
I can just roll the car windows down
the yellow sun will chase this bone-deep chill away

but you wake up with your head in a vice again
no matter how many sunburns you give yourself
it is still cold in your apartment

you are so tired of existing inside this skin
folding and rolling and throwing new shadows on the wall
this belly that cannot be tamed

you pump your hands over your chest a little too hard
begging your heart to wake up
to send love letters to your hands and feet

and you wait for the day
when the yellow sun will spark a flame under your scalp
and your hair will catch fire

it may not be today
but you tell yourself
that the summer will warm you up sooner or later

it has to.
just hold out a little longer.

Valentine

the sway of sea water stomached,

this rising-falling this drowning

it is black-spotted in broad daylight

it is five months alone now

it is Valentine’s Day today

the red

wraps my cut wrists, the red

teases with ribbon lips against my throat

the singed edges on this picture I am holding, of your owl’s teeth

last summer and the last summer, sweating honey, hooting

the smallest hairs on your head in my hands

downy fluff, little razors

I don’t want to go back I don’t want to go back

to the loneliness with you

roosting inside my ribcage, whispering secrets

the oil slicks under your tongue,

under your sheets,

all in our bed, our beautiful bed

I don’t want to go back I don’t want to go back

the trip wires you set the trap doors

you shining spotlight teeth across the room,

swords in your dresser drawers, laughing,

“just take your armor off!”

but

it is Valentine’s Day today

the red

snakes under my skirt, reminds me

we planted seeds in each other’s skin and I am

still cutting the stems

the act of loving is beautiful in itself

the heart can’t be blamed, can it

and I did love you, didn’t I

miss you I don’t want to

go back go back go back

roses

I have tasted so many flowers by now. Touched petal after petal to the pink of my tongue and sung the perfume through my throat. And spring is coming back today and the garden is coming back and I am following my feet through the soil, counting on my hands the things I have learned. I have learned that almost every plant has thorns. They twist circles over my ankles and ask questions in my skin as I walk. They ask too much of me, always. My own vines have woven into thickets around my wrists as I have gotten older. After so many cuts. And I have also learned that plants grow from blood. Fruits, flowers, green leaves. All from the blood that falls from my mouth when I taste the petals and their thorns prick my tongue. All from the blood that falls from my ankles as I walk. It feeds the soil. They tell us in school that we have the rain and the sun to thank – and those do help – but I have learned that blood climbs into plant stems like magic spells, that life comes from life. From pain. So I stay barefoot. And I plant roses again this year.

195.

I tried to swallow too many rainbows last night,

woke up coughing stripes into puddles

pushed myself pill-down and closed my sunrise jaw

and I am too slick and humpbacked for this beach already

I have thrashed my tail into too many folding chairs.

someone throw me back into the sea.

194.

plant my hands in hard soil for you
break my elbows to speak
so you don't have to see the teeth in my cuticles
the bones I choked for you

then uproot them again when you ask
where my fingers went

pull up the green shoots that were
just sprouting there, but no
pull them up
roots and all to reassure you
nothing is wrong here

193.

I have been blaming each of you -

mother

father

brother

every new lover in new litanies -

for my empty palms

for years

and I have been standing next to piles of

flower bouquets, buckets of water

carrying nothing.

asking for empty palms

this whole time

192

this is what I will spend my time on:

drawing conclusions about you

writing them into your laugh lines with my thumb and forefinger

cleaning my teeth in the reflection of my dinner spoon

carrying the weight of this whole thing under my shoulder blades,

calling it wings,

then preening my kitchen knife feathers

telling you stories, about the last of the honeybees,

the owls that bite, and keeping one eye on your mouth

leaving my headphones on,

leaving the curtains twisted around my ankles,

leaving yesterday stuck between my teeth and I can see it

when I check my reflection in my dinner spoon

wondering if you can taste it, too

throwing out the coffee

planting jasmine in your backyard without telling you

burning rose petals at night

combing the ashes through your hair

letting them wash us both in gray and blush

drawing conclusions about myself

drawing circles of you in my laugh lines

rubbing sugar into the bed sheets, letting it scrape

letting my my hands shake until they stop

letting the time spend

until it stops