#14res

Do you remember the first time you told me you smoked marijuana, or is the smoke too hard to see through? The memory for me is solid like the frames they placed you in growing up, frames made of redwood and oak and only lacquer in colors you did not want. When you told me, we were bouncing on the trampoline we spent all our summers on, tiring our feet and catching our breath and talking about shit that did not matter to the world but meant the world to me. You matter to me.

Do you remember the day we both swung on the vine in the  ravine right by your house  even though we were almost certain it would snap? Somewhere in the back of my head there still blows the warm wind I swallowed when I ran down the hill and flew away. I miss the thorns and the burrs that I used to hate so much because they hurt  so much less than how you treat me now. It wasn’t until months later when I had to go looking for you through those very trees that I knew you did not want me there. I know it doesn’t matter to you but it matters to me. You matter to me.

Parents are going to hit you, classmates clawing at the chance to embarrass you in middle school bathrooms.   Partners will treat you like you’ve been passed down in a will, teachers   interrupting you like cutting off the ends of your sentences will help them grow longer.   Friends will dispose of you like leftover dinner, but don’t listen to them: you are still important.   You are still a chasm of love and a canyon of worth. You still get to make the choice of stargazing or sleeping, of   saying or screaming, staying or leaving.   You are still important, so explode into the world with anger and fire and words and more fire and   make them know how they hurt you.   You are still important, so don’t take apologies, take trying and changing and remember that   you are meant to be kissed not cut, joked with not about.   You are meant to be your own property not theirs, listened to not lessened, savored not sent.

Take with you the ropes they used to choke you and tie them like a swing you can fly from

words and commas and accent marks that I can

pull from my brain on command.

Thermostats break when you walk into the room,

women break into labor just looking at you.

I break my chain of thought.

[…]

I don’t think it’s very appropriate holding

Stones in your pockets if you are not carrying them home.

Stones are such a beautiful thing— my mother showed me this.

Why are they so often used in a negative way?

Skip stones on the water surface, don’t just

Follow the pattern of history, throwing them at

Bodies you think owe you something.

Let me make this very clear: The

World is not yours to use as a weapon.

Humans are not yours to violate or

Use to your advantage. I am so

Sick of finding blood on countertops,

Duffle bags stuffed with doll hair.

Person I’ve never known,

Spider plant under a stuffed

Deer in the living room.

It was a graphic novel of thoughts,

Spewn across the walls and floors and counters, an

Image most people

Probably see and assume is correct, the 

Same people who saw the

Tulips sprouting by the back patio and thought,

“He must have a wife.”

At home my room wears

Curtains and photographs and chalk,

All things that show small parts of me, but

Not the big ones, not the importants.

I know this because I know myself, and

Although I’m lost, I

Know I’m lost.

No furniture would ever be able to show how

Important of a lost that is.

I’m not sure I would want it to, but it’s

Just an observation.