My bones said, “Write the poem.”

I check my Facebook page 36 times a day for the sole purpose of making sure I have not accidentally posted a nude photo of myself

I reread an email 13 times before pressing send to ensure I have not written something in the email that could convict me of a crime

Before taking a stage when asked if I allow flash photography I always want to say “No” because I’m terrified flash photography will give me epilepsy I know it doesn’t work like that, still

I never eat nuts on an airplane out of fear of that I will suddenly develop a nut allergy and if I have to asphyxiate I don’t want it to happen at 30,000 feet

Twice in the last two years I’ve been aborted from an airplane for running screaming down the aisles as the plane was taking off

I can’t walk through San Francisco without worrying my indigestion is the beginning of an earthquake

I brace for tsunamis besides lakes in Colorado I’m not joking The last time I saw Niagara Falls I couldn’t take it It was too much much I had to plug my ears to look at it and close my eyes to listen Generally I can’t do all my senses at the same time they are too much much

Like if you touch me without warning, whoever you are, it will take everything I have to not hate you

Imagine your hands are electrical sockets and I am constantly aware that I am 99% water it’s not that I’ve not tried to build a dam

Ask my therapist who pays her mortgage My cost of living went up at five years old when I told my mother I have to stop going to birthday parties because every time I hear a balloon pop I feel like I’m gonna get murdered in the heart

Last year a balloon popped on the stage where I was performing, I started crying in front of the whole crowd plugged my ears and kept repeating the word “LOUD LOUD LOUD” it was super sexy

That’s what I do I do super sexy

Like when I asked the super cute barista 11 times ‘you sure this is decaffeinated? Are you sure this is decaffeinated? Are you sure that- yes I drink decaffeinated and still jitter like a bug running from the bright bright bright

I have spent years of my life wearing a tight rubber band hidden beneath my hair so my brain could have a hug

These days when no one’s looking I wear a fuzzy fitted winter hat that buttons tight beneath the chin

I only ever wear a tie so that when I convince myself I’m choking my senses have something they are certain they can blame

As a kid I was so certain I would die the way of meteor falling on my head I would go whole weeks without looking at the sky ‘cause I didn’t want to witness the coming of my own death

I started tapping the kitchen sink seven times to build a shield

My mother started making lists of everything I thought would kill me in hopes that if I saw my fears they would disappear Bless her heart but the first time I saw that list I started filling a salad bowl with bleach and soaking my shoe laces overnight so in the morning when I ironed them they would be so bright I would be certain I had control over how much dark could break into my light how much jack hammer could break into my heart My spine, it has always been a lasso that could never catch my breath

I honestly can’t imagine how it would feel to walk into a room full of people and not feel the roof collapsing on my ‘NO NO NO I am not fine’ Fine is the suckiest word it never tells the truth And more than anything I have ever been afraid of I am terrified of lies How they war the world How they sound by our tongues How they bone dry the marrow How they never out-llow the inside

How did we get through high school without being taught Dr. King spent two decades having panic attacks? Avoided Windows Jumped at thunder

I think we are all part flight the fight part run for your life Part ‘please please please like me’ Part Can’t breathe Part scared to say you’re scared Part say it anyway

Dear squash 

Aka squashy

Aka squishy 

Aka squasharooni Gibson 

Aka squish squash and you don’t stop

Aka miracle button 

Aka little perfect peanut

Aka my beating heart with fur and legs 

I know you think it’s insane that I still poop in the house 

That I choose to wear underwear and pants giving no one the opportunity to smell my true disposition 

That on the days I need to feel better about myself I don’t just pee on someone’s pee

Don’t worry. I am not fooled by my thumbs 

I know I am not the tadpole’s final project 

I know I am not the last species evolution hopes to become 

I can’t even swallow my own pride long enough to let myself drool when something smells delicious

What must you think of my mirror face 

Or how much of my day I spend practicing my butch voice 

My baby-I’ll-fix-your-carburetor-with-my-tool-kit voice when you know full well there is nothing in my tool kit besides a massive collection of self help books that have helped me do nothing but feng shui the skeletons in my closet 

Don’t you just love how that femur accents the sofa set, squash

I’m sorry I cry every time I take you to the vet 

I’m sorry they take your temperature like that 

I’m sorry I take you there when you’ve only got a bug bite 

Humans hold so tight to the leash of life but you will roll in anything dead and wear it like perfume 

I wish I had your nose for eternity

I wish I could see what you see 

Where the squirrels satan your eyes

Where the postman deserves to die even when he’s not bringing bills 

What’s with hating the shadow the peace lily makes on the floor in the living room? 

I know I let you down everyday I choose not to murder the vacuum

Is it bad that I refuse to teach you to not be afraid of men 

Is it bad that I want you to keep your bite and your snarl and your gleaming teeth 

Is it bad that when they call you a risk, I call you a feminist 

You never make fun of your friend Chloe’s underbite 

Or your friend Willow’s limp

Or your friend Harvey’s past trouble with the law

You never criticize me for being too uptight to let my hair down even though you can let yours all the way out

All over my black hoody, my black pants, the couch, the car, the chair, the online merch store that sells my books and tee-shirts wrote me a letter saying “we can’t continue to sell your products if they continue to be covered in so much of your dog’s hair" 

I just assumed anything covered in you would increase in value

Remember when I told that woman I loved her and whispered in your ear “you’re my number one girl" it’s true

If I could I would put your beating heart in my mouth and suck on it like a piece of candy so I could finally understand how you got so sweet

I know my therapist likes you more than she likes me 

And I still let you sleep on her couch

You taught me a good nap is the best therapy 

You taught me to sit when I damn well want to sit 

I don’t care that you never talk about capitalism or patriarchy or the heteronormative hegemonic  paradigm 

I know you’re saving the world every time you get poo stuck in your butt hair and you don’t go looking for someone to blame  

Speaking of looking for someone 

I can’t imagine what you think of sex 

I can’t tell if you think it’s a slobbering badly boundaried belly rub or a poorly aimed fist fight

You just perch on the end of the bed and tilt your head back and forth

Wondering why I still haven’t taken my pants off

I have issues, Squash 

Humans have issues 

We dig holes to bury our own hearts 

We chew on our own bones 

We escape the predators but still can’t shake them off

Some of us wear our own bodies the way your friend Berlin wore that cone around her head, remember?

So embarrassed, but I never had a better teacher at uncaging my own spirit than you 

Never had a reason to stop playing dead until the day I saw your little face at the shelter 

Your little nose pressed against the cold glass, staring up at me like I was a gay Noah’s ark 

My heart

My heart 

My heart

Every time I give you a treat, you run around the house looking for a place to hide it until you finally come to where I am sitting and hide it directly under me

The most important thing I have ever built in my whole life is your trust

May you always feel entitled to more than your fair share of the bed 

May you always tear the stuffing out of every toy I give you 

So I can constantly be reminded to keep spilling my guts 

To keep saying I don’t know how I will ever make peace with the shortness of your life span 

But I promise to make sure you know you are so loved every second you are here 

You know my hands will build the sturdiest ark they possibly can 

To hold your holy howl and your holy bark and your holy beg 

Squasharooni Gibson

My little perfect peanut

My penis was an awkward leprechaun that had not gotten lucky nearly as much as it had gotten bored standing patiently in my pants while the rest of me read self-help books on how to look sexy in green until the day I met your mouth, a St. Patrick’s Day parade, your tongue, a float you kept throwing candy from. You made me so hot the first time you touched me I burned down a Christmas tree, put the star on top of the four-leaf clover I had built from two three-leaf clovers and some crazy glue. I am crazy about you, and not because of your personality. Everybody has a personality.

It was such a rare occasion my father took out a $2 ad space in the local paper and posted the news.  The headline read “Holy Cow!  Shirley Gibson Got New Shoes.” My mother could have killed him.  Said “now everywhere I go people gonna be staring at my feet and y’all  know small town folks will talk”.  But a hummingbird’s wings beat eighty times a second and if you think that’s fast you’ve never seen my mother walk.

Nothing could hold those feet back.  Not even headline news of that first pair of shoes she could afford in eight years.  My mother looked at long dirt roads and avenues the way poets look at microphones. This is where God grows and I was right beside her.  On my banana-seat bicycle, December icicles or August sun, my mom was walking. And walking meant talking and talking meant “Andrea when I was young I thought every star in the sky was a starfish that swam all the way up to the night, took one last breath, set itself on fire and fell, just so I could make a wish.  Life isn’t like that, it’s like this:  Hard as the concrete beneath your feet sometimes, but you keep on walking block by block, mile by mile, cause every aisle in the store is empty but the sky is never out of stock when it comes to things to live for.  Look what the sun just bought the moon,  a brand-new yellow dress, let’s go ask her to dance before she sobers up.”

Her cup was always half full then cause even when it wasn’t my mother walked like it would be and talked like it already was.  “Sure the grass is greener on the other side but what the hell are we gonna do with green grass besides rot in the goddamn pesticides.  Grow deep belly laughs.  Grow your grandmother’s clean conscience.  Grow that dream you had at five years old the first time a pencil callused your kindergarten fingers. You ran all the way home screaming “Look Mom! I’m a writer!  My hand is changing shape to prove that I’m a writer”.  Grow that, in every crack of pavement the soles of your feet can find.

On the day you were born I said daughter like Alaska says sun.  Said ‘I’ve been waiting so long for you to come.  Now go show those starfish how to shine.’  I’m no pacifist.  If I could’ve, I would have killed time.  Stopped it dead in its tracks but it moves too quickly,  it escapes to the corners of your mind and calls itself the past.

The last time my mother fell down, body still sprawled on the floor, like a rag doll  she called my name like “don’t you cry.  You think the rain’s ashamed to fall?  Something grows every time I hit the ground and I’ll climb up those pitying stairs”. In a year, my mother will trade her walking shoes for a wheelchair which she says will keep her looking up but I know she’s scared.  So I’ll wear black to the funeral of my tears and white to the wedding of who I am  and the ways I want to grow to make her proud.

The boy looking one, the one with the whimpy legs and the tough fear The one who never changes clothes The one who never locks the door The one always running from the neighbours for all they heard and all they couldn’t hear The one who begged for change on the empty corner of her pocket heart The one who talked to himself so much, it was like he was trying to build a fan base out of all the dust and his lazy grace The one who got sick and couldn’t pedal his own bike for an entire year  So they bought me, hoping she could take them everywhere

The boy looking one who was always on the backseat, playing with the bell He’s the only one still here Walks past me everyday Pretends I am a church  with a cruel god and a foolish congregation, tells everyone he can’t believe he ever prayed Sometimes he stops, stares at all my spokes and says “I wish she’d done that more, spoke.”

Right now he is too fragile for me to argue the landscape of silence  For me to tell him his streets were so loud  she couldn’t ambulance ‘I love you’ Through all his self looting scream he hardly noticed  how often she held her pulse to her own ear to make sure she was still there

How do lovers hold up all the stars and not know space is the opposite of what they need when they can’t breathe?

But my lord,  you would not believe how their lungs could turn a hard peddled hill to a year they won To a year taken back  from the triggers of their tongues To the bullets they took like pills when they were too tired to bleed

Every time they reached the top of the hill, the boy looking one would press his ear to the girl’s spine  and listen for the moment when the saw of her breathe  would cut down every tree that had ever grown a ring he hadn’t shined  for her hand.

This is where they’d sing. My tassels twirling in their tender, threaded palms. This is where they’d swear wheels could turn around anything. This is where they’d ring the bell  and follow each other’s angels to the salt of their sweet lips. Where they’d blush, new as strangers pressed in the palms of the same prayer.

They’d say “Let this be the day we start seeing what we saw when we first met. let the hands of that reaper clock unbury our fever,  our alleyway walks our top down drive of the California coast with the elephant seals and Big Sir on fire Even just that first time we bought a shower curtain together. ‘That day was plenty’ they’d say ‘Give us back that kind of weather’ they’d say.

Last night I painted a purple tree on my bedroom wall I woke up this morning in a pile of leaves The color of a million different faces Thinking of that hand that planted the seed  Of the family tree that grew us all And how each one of us Will one day fall back to the ground

This morning, I was listening to my heart pound Knowing with every single beat That a thousand other hearts were falling asleep forever On a day they never thought they would And I know there are tribes of aborigines That decide how and when they’ll die After a hundred years or so They walk into the desert alone Offer up their breath And within two minutes soar into a death As beautiful as their life And I was thinking I  Will probably never be enlightened enough to decide how I want to die

So this morning I decided how I want to live What I want to give What kind of song I want to sing Now I’m no longer Looking at my days like they’re a cup Calling them half empty or half full When they’ve always been enough They’ll always be enough To fill me up If I stop thinking so much And start drinking them up Until I get so drunk and high on my days I’ll be walking up to strangers and saying things like “Hey, I know Jesus was born in a manger But I woke at dawn today To watch the earth’s horizon Give birth to true rising sun of God And I can’t stop singing hallelujah”

Can you believe we’re here? Can you believe there are gods somewhere praying to us? I want to be that nut on a bus Who’s really a prophet Telling everybody  “Smoking is bad Stop it You might be an opera singer some day And how are you gonna hit the high notes?” I wanna live like those high notes That rise from the throats of old ladies When they see little babies  Riding in shopping carts I wanna start somebody’s heart like that Taking ninety years back So you’ll have sworn You weren’t born Until you saw me Planting roses In all the sidewalk cracks So when you trip You’ll fall in love With someone you thought you hated And now look at what that love has created

Look There’s a sky  On her faded blue jeans With a flock of birds  About to fly to my words And my next line’s Gonna rhyme with her eyes And she’ll wink And I’ll think I’m as beautiful as him

I wanna live my life Like it’s a little league game I don’t care if I win Just wanna watch some little girl Get her very first hit Watch her father cheer so hard  He spills his beer And decides to quit I wanna split some woman’s  Tired eyes open Wake her with her own sunrise  So she knows There’s reason to be hoping She’ll say “There are stingers in my heart But I’m sure that I’m a queen” And that night She’ll vow to swarm Until every angry car horn Is reborn a song Of let there be light Every angry war cry reborn A song of let there be life

I wanna build the timid teenage boy A microphone that will Echo his rhymes The same way  They echo in his shower When he’s home alone