#koipoems

...there within the island garden small and jewel-like in the grove amidst kimono and the obi there's a peace the Shinto know muted colors placid faces the paper lanterns sway and glow the lords and ladies sit for hours where the lotus flowers grow

I have a collection of people who have been broken by other people. They collect their shards in boxes. The artistic ones make jewelry out of their collected pieces. They decoupage the box and display it as a centerpiece on a table set for houseguests. They make music from shaking their boxes like maracas. The smart ones compartmentalize, sorting the pieces in order of value. They figure out what can be saved. They figure out what to hide away in a box under a half-dusty mattress. The smart artistic ones are the most hapless. Or hopeless. They display the most important pieces to themselves in the mirror. Glass looking at glass to see clearer. Shards sharpening image.

but you are blistered.

The vomit is also yours. A reflective puddle, mirror-shaped, cracked and broken. Shattered among the soiled clothing, You try to embrace the empty hunger But you tied your own hands to this bedpost.  You cook food for women haunting your bedroom. This is your mating call, Not your proposal. You serve a silver plate of hope. One day you awoke and you decided to sexy, They notice. You know this. You hate that you know this. You hate that it’s true. You’re not sure what you’re ever referring to. This is your mantra. Some women have seen the broken and run away Most don’t. Most have come back for food For sex For empty conversation For flirting over pancakes and fucking on the washer machine. Hot sex and hot cakes make you feel sticky, not satisfied. Making out in dirty bar bathrooms make you feel dirty, not satisfied. Maybe you are not satisfied Just finally able to eat again. Some women have seen your glamour-lifestyle-damaged-dreaded-poet-looks-good-naked-didn’t-expect-that-nipple-ring And think I can save her. They want to be remedies when they are new recipes for tragic alternate endings. Because you don’t tell them “break-up diet” You don’t tell her the only thing you ate last week was between her legs. 

That you wash her down with whiskey.

"Dear baby sister, Remember that day we blew bubbles together on the front lawn? It was the day I tried explaining the word “gay” to you. It was the day I tried explaining that I was gay to you.  I explained it as sliding down a rainbow into a pool of question marks, I said that gay wasn’t an insult, even though kids at school probably sling it around like salt in wrist wounds. and you laughed. You said that you like rainbows and that being gay made me even cooler. You were nine years old.  You spent the next few weeks making me rainbow crafts and rainbow funfetti cupcakes. You drew me a rainbow map with a rainbow key in case I ever forgot about the doors that sisters leave open and that some beds are meant to be shared.

Dear baby sister, Remember when I stopped coming home? Remember when our secret notes on rainbow paper stopped getting slipped under pillows and put on bed side tables? I miss them.  I miss when you would doodle out all your frustration. You said that someone at school called you gay. You said you looked him right in the mouth and said, maybe. I said I had never been more proud. You were twelve years old. We spent the next few days having the “what to do if this isn’t a phase” conversation. I said I had never been more proud.

Dear baby sister, I heard you’re cutting now. I heard it through the blood line. I never heard it from you.  I never got to see it dribble from your cracked mouth when your eyes were numb shut with middle school. I don’t know what to say. I feel like all your demons live in the back of my throat. Like today couldn’t be long enough.  Like we should have had a talk about how to kill with kindness without hating yourself. We should have had a talk about how to feel like enough when draining everything slowly is the only way to feel like anything. About how our blood can be the bandage when we start bleeding. I should have told you that “gay” is a fake knife, but “bully” leaves scars. 

Dear baby sister,  I’m sorry that my absent letters left you with paper cuts.

Dear baby sister, I wrote you this letter on a rainbow note. I wrapped it in bubbles from back when life was rainbows and funfetti wonderful. I’m leaving this under your pillow. I’ll be home later."