seaglasscat

Caught in the in-between

of a friend calling your name

somewhere you did not

expect to see them.

It’s stuck between my

forehead.

How can I feel it

in my cheeks instead?

Backs on the grass, in

raincoats & fingerless gloves.

Making the clouds into

the story of us.

You pull out my hand & point

to one that fixes the timeline.

I cut the fruit, but you

planned the picnic.

When I am ill I think a lot about dying.

How the piercing pain

in my head would

sink out the back of my skull,

a cool citrusy vapor

into my bedsheets.

I see my ribs concave in and watch

the sludge drip off them

& wonder if they would feel any lighter.

And what have you been

doing to manage the pain?

The doctor asks

as

I automatically push

the last of the knife

into my intestines.

Feeling warm as I imagine

the pressure seeping out

through the opening.

I laugh, Not much.

I shift on the parchment paper and feel

the cool tip of a gun on my neck

below my hair.

Pulling the trigger,

murmuring Why bother.

How could he understand

if his level ten pain hasn’t seen

inflation?

I used to buy understanding

everyday; but my ten

is now a six,

and I can’t afford a sick day.

Shuffling through the kitchenette

and into the bathroom of my studio apartment,

I realize I am alone.

My friends have sent me

messages but my vibrating

eyes can’t bare to look,

& the bile rising

in my throat demands

I don’t answer them.

Suddenly remembering for

the third time that week

how it is to forget who you are.

My orange kettle,

a beacon under the stove top light,

pulls my eye with its geometric shapes before

I close the bathroom door.

It reminded me of you.

How you offered to stay

up with me, and cook

in the late hours of the night

so I could eat too.

I knew you understood

but in that moment it was the least

interesting thing about you.

For once instead of conjuring

up a fast endorphin hit

in the form of a lethal blow,

I saw you.

And this time,

the knives were in your hands.

They pierced tomatoes, not flesh.

“I FEEL NO NEED TO FORGIVE BUT I MIGHT AS WELL”

-Lucy Dacus, Night Shift

I laughed when adults told me that distance makes the heart grow fonder— that college would bring us closer. I saw no universe that enough distance could make her list of sins in 1080 pt font too blurry to read.

I came home from college. And the first couple of times I hardly noticed that anything had changed.

But a few days ago I cried and cried in my room because I was still sick. I was home and I still couldn’t sit up— couldn’t eat. And through it all my mother sat at my bed and rubbed my leg. Said we would figure it out, that I would feel better.

I remember what it is like to believe in god.

My body has forgotten it was ever mad at her in the first place, prioritizing trying to throw up instead. I feel loved, I feel uninterested in putting on my reading glasses to read the newly ancient scrolls. In fact, I wonder if the glasses would suffice, noting to opt for a telescope instead if the time comes.

My mother, who used to make me feel as though I was living in a doll house, brought me an apple cut in the smallest slices she could muster so they would go down easier.

I cried for the fourth time that day when they went brown in my windowsill.