h o m e : a collection

growing up, I knew how to do one thing well, and that was take care of my mother. after she kicked me out, I didn’t know how to do so many things. I didn’t know how to take care of myself, I didn’t know when to walk away, I didn’t know how to heal from heartbreak. I made so many mistakes for so many years, in those days of pain and longing. I used booze and drugs and bodies to salve my loneliness, I was hurt by so many violent men, I tried to die. I fell in love and love emptied me out—before I realized that wasn’t actually love at all, too many years too late. I still have nightmares of past lovers in my childhood home, tinged with wine and ash. I never thought I would graduate college, I never thought I would have a Home to rest my head. I never thought I’d live to see the day I made it. tomorrow, my sister is getting married to a man who loves her in a way she can feel. I spent so long hoping the men I loved would love me that way too, and when they didn’t, I broke. I crumpled under the pressure of Not Enough and Too Late. I ravenously gouged at love like it was overripe fruit, and then, I drank the elixir of suffering until it was all I was, all that was left. last summer, I shaved my waist length hair off and I saw a psychiatrist, sitting in that uncomfortable navy blue couch a bald baby in ripped jeans sobbing uncontrollably into my hands. I tattooed “NO” on my middle finger and the rune for creativity on my ring finger with a needle and ink—made a silent promise to myself to Try, because trying should have been more important than just being better. as if my Better wasn’t their Better. (it never was.) it is summer again and my hair is growing out and my sister is getting married. we are closer to thirty than we are to twenty and I am so proud of her. she made it. I made it. I still don’t know so many things but I do know this: I am capable and I am worthy of being loved, wholly.

how many times have I been here before? how many times has my body been a no man’s land while you stand there, at the foot of my bed looking to plant your flag? you told me you wanted to protect me from other men, that you loved me for the person I was inside of this body—but you just had to plunge your hands in the meat of me, the fever dream of me, and get a taste. I was on another planet, the bed reeling. how many times have you done this before? how many bodies have you wracked with your unbridled Want all because you didn’t like the No, the boundary that stretched the bed like a border. a conquest, years in the making. and, oh, I said I quit smoking, but here I am again in the waning evening light. how many times has it been? how many times does it take?

I would trespass the endless terrain of your pain and I would gather up all of your scars and the fraying tissue that holds your brittle bones together and knit for you a body I could place my body beneath, a feast or a gallon of water into blood red wine. see, my god is an empty home we stopped visiting years ago, in favor of this place. see, you are a tower in the nighttime, with all of that life resting so heavy in your weathered hands: my stoic atlas, my rebellious sysiphus—who gave up just so he could start again. see, I would kiss those weathered hands and absolve them of their weight, and, see, I would trespass the vast terrain of your pain and, there, I will place my body beneath yours, gently, and full of worship, a feast to keep you full.

I feel my heart, she convulses in my chest with the sick—of aching, of tired, of cold-weather evenings spent alone in bed. I crawl out of my skin every night and let the nightmares fill me, skin-sack, mountainous terrain of sighs, waxing and waning with the moon and slipping down down down into the tide (of my own longing, my own need). I come out into morning, unbundled and slick with blood. I live it, again and again, until I am something filed down to the bone, filed down to the very center of me. and when they look, I will be as white as a ghost, slipping through the cracks, bringing with me all of the cold.

a year ago we stood at the table your brother in law says let’s pray palm to palm ok here we spread our palms here we break our palms here we break bread here my body the bread my blood the wine and all of the deep purple secrets you hold at the very center of you like the molten core of earth when she spins on her axis I can’t touch her and she spins and she spins and you accumulate more moons and more moons and your tidepull becomes a hurricane your hurricane becomes a body your body becomes your palms here spread your palms here break your palms here your body the bread your blood the wine I will gorge on your luxury and I will sleep without nightmares

I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life than settle for a relationship that doesn’t set me on fire.

I FEEL LIKE A PILLAR OF SALT MID-ESCAPE FROM A BURNING SODOM AND GOMORRAH

tonight marks the three year anniversary of my assault + hospitalization by a man I once considered a close friend. I’ve been feeling so out of sorts this month, so flung apart at the seams and leaking old blood + skin dust of past hurts. I always forget how difficult, how dark November is—even when it’s uncharacteristically bright + warm. just another reminder that the earth is dying and we are killing her, just another reminder that we are dying and you are killing us too. I am not miserable, but placid atop the glassy lake of this passing. all things come to pass: hurt, and loss, and love too. oh yes. all things eventually come to pass, but we remain, with callouses across our extended palms.