like a grand chandelier in an old money type of home, you know,

the type pretty “it” girls are found dead in with their nose just barely breaking the surface in a porcelain claw-footed tub- “Poor Elizabeth took too much, her dear children are just sick at the news.”

We are lighthearted and this is, a crime scene-

I would love you if I thought it were possible but unfortunately, the police take fingerprints and I’m too squeamish to burn mine

off,

I would prefer the evidence as our bright bodies encased in sunlight and flickers of snow- It is November; things will never be the same.

I am nauseous at the sight of good things, and I fear I can no longer tell if my girlhood is me or just something I wore, it sticks to me like clots of blood,

in my hair;

suddenly, I remember how my great-grandmother held my forehead down against the kitchen counter, fragile hands glued around a thick toothed comb, I am back with the ragged mats, them entwined around me as though we were lovers, and that dusty sunlight touching every inch

but me-

I was inexplicably dirty.

I am made of these rites, passing through church slips and violations,

Do you want to tell them how you broke my wrists, and I, your ankles? Tell me, why did you think we were above this?

I spend my time confessing then repenting, and sometimes I swear I can hold death in-between my sweat-slicked palms like a baby bird with a broken wing,

as if

I can nurse it into something that actually matters. Do you recall the nursery rhymes you were taught as a child? It seems we never outgrow the things that make us human-

The grass called me dead and pummeled its fists against my back until it died too,

nothing grows here,

that is, except for the faint thought of you.