you certainly have the eyes of a killer.

So, when I was a kid people always asked me what I would want my super power to be. I mean, if I could have one. And I took my time, at first–really thought about it. Because this is a big deal when you’re a second grader and you can’t get it WRONG because what if someone actually gives you that power and then you’re stuck shooting cheez wiz from your nose for the rest of your life? No, I agonized over it: tried to imagine life with the power of flight, or invisibility, or telekinesis– and I finally figured it out. I want to heal people. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. It wasn’t until later that I would realize my own addiction to giving my body like sacrifice. I knew when I was eight that I wanted to make people better, but I was an adult, three years into therapy, before I understood just how many limbs I was willing to cut off to keep the people I loved standing. And suddenly I knew my limits but I didn’t know how to respect them, and every desperate ounce of selfishness in self preservation weighed on my back like an anchor and I realized: I was drowning whether I saved everyone or not. There is no survival in turning the people around you into altars and laying at their feet. There is no room. They will keep pieces of you, but they will not leave the light on. They will not make the bed. They won’t do it to hurt you, it’s just that they will have learned to love without making communion wine out of themselves. I learned the hard way that people do not have to be selfless to be good people. I just never learned how to love them right. My heart stalls at sixty miles per hour– I have only ever known how to floor it. Full speed ahead. With my own two hands wrapped in tissue paper like an offering.

TO THE BOYS AFRAID OF DYING I. They said you had no right to the softer parts inside your chest. They said you were better off without them. They said it made you weak. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.   II. Your papa taught you pain looks better in a clenched fist and she comes at your body like a feast. She picks you clean, then wants to know why you are so empty. She leaves. She leaves.   III. I cannot be the place you go to bury her.   IV You will have to learn to be alone. This is strength, but not in the way your father taught it to you. No— you have to learn and relearn softness without hands smaller than your own carrying it for you. You will have to be brave. Gentle is nothing less than revolutionary.   V. You are more than the heartbreak you didn’t know what to do with. When you reach the cliff’s edge, you will feel like jumping. Remember: it is courage, not fear, that makes you step back.

One of my mother’s coworkers is the kid who molested me in high school and I don’t like that he is still within arm’s reach of the women in my family. His name comes up at Christmas dinner and I grit my teeth. He was not supposed to stay so long in my story. He was supposed to be exit wound. Bad dream. Aftertaste. When they talk about cutting your abusers from your life, they don’t talk about what do to when he and your mom share the same nine-to-five. And I know he talks to her, like he’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Like he shouldn’t have been on hands and knees begging her forgiveness from day one. And I wonder if he ever asks about me, or if men like him even care about the ones they’ve left in their aftermath. But I am not what he did to me. I can’t erase him from my story, but I’m writing him into the margins. He will be a footnote in my history. His mouth will never again dirty my name. He will go faceless into a future that does not know him and does not want him. Getting away with it is not the same as innocence. I will never say his name again.

TO THE BOYS AFRAID OF DYING I. They said you had no right to the softer parts inside your chest. They said you were better off without them. They said it made you weak. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.   II. Your papa taught you pain looks better in a clenched fist and she comes at your body like a feast. She picks you clean, then wants to know why you are so empty. She leaves. She leaves.   III. I cannot be the place you go to bury her.   IV You will have to learn to be alone. This is strength, but not in the way your father taught it to you. No— you have to learn and relearn softness without hands smaller than your own carrying it for you. You will have to be brave. Gentle is nothing less than revolutionary.   V. You are more than the heartbreak you didn’t know what to do with. When you reach the cliff’s edge, you will feel like jumping. Remember: it is courage, not fear, that makes you step back.

I’m alright with you not loving me. I won’t say it’s because I’m a handful or because I can be too crazy sometimes. I won’t say it’s because I won’t always make time for you or I tend to push people away when I need them the most. No, I will not list my faults and reasons why I think I am unlovable. You will find happiness elsewhere, with someone who has as much of a positive outlook on life as I do and can’t stop laughing at your little jokes. You will find it in someone who will make as many sacrifices as I did and go out of their way just to see you for an hour or so. You will find love in someone with the same kind heart and good soul; that just won’t be me. And they will come with troubles too and it’s okay if you decide to stay for theirs instead.

i think i was a beekeeper in another life. i write apiary love poems, i drink coffee until my bloodstream hums my name. in another life, the sky smells like rosemary and the moon knows my middle name and she whispers it to all the mountains i’ll never get to meet. i think that every world i’ve ever thought of has to exist, somewhere, only because i’ve thought of it. i think that somewhere my hair and the ocean are the same color all the time, and that the ocean pulls itself towards a skyscraper instead because i need there to be a universe somewhere where she loves someone she can touch; i want to believe that she isn’t trapped in every single world loving someone who pulls her by the throat and lets her drop.

it has been three years since we wrote this poem together, do you remember? i am older and i can write better and now you taste of a million memories, of toothpaste i’ve used on nights i stayed over, of art discussions, of nachos, of fireball in cider, of hot chocolate, of baked brie, of late night netflix, of early morning kisses, of sunlight, of picnics, of rainstorms, of long road trips. i have loved you every bit of it.

my grandmother said of my grandfather: before him, i was not alive.

what many didn’t understand was that i loved food. i loved it. i loved fish and chips, chicken fried sandwiches, cookies, dessert by the pound, i loved cannoli and doritos and french bread. i loved cheese and cheerios and nachos.

my mind has gone winter on me, so i am without warmth. i am a chaotic blood rising between my teeth. i try to use these soft hands to shove it all back down, to keep in control, to remain in one piece, to remain whole. please let me finish this year without screwing myself over, please let me get out of here will all my fingers, all my heartstrings, without ruining every friendship i have known. i want to go back to when i could remember how to laugh right. i want to sleep well. i want to wake up and not feel like hell.

it won’t be like what you imagined. maybe you get the road trip to the beach with coffee in your hand and the radio playing, maybe you don’t. but happy shows up. it’s in a 2 AM game of jenga with your new college friends. it’s curling up for another marathon of netflix. it’s meeting the person who will be your best man at the wedding. it’s 4:45pm in the library when the girl in the study coral across from you quietly whispers “i’m going to set everything on fire” and then turns to you and asks if you wanna take a break for dinner (say yes, she’s very nice and you both need a moment away from the stress). it’s the mornings they have omelettes and in good books and in a puddle that looks cool. it’s sometimes picturesque, but more often it’s full-belly laughter at stupid things on the floor of your friend’s house while in the background someone is debating the best way to win settlers of catan.