pre-tense-ia

I find shells and try braiding them into my hair,
but I've cut it too short.

We climb back into the car and I find sand
caught in the lines of my hands
like stardust, or shards of bone. I keep a mussel shell
because it looks kind of like a galaxy painted
on black.

That's one of the prettiest things I've read all year.

it's the kind of faith
that men bomb abortion clinics for--
not Christian,
but tremble-fingered and red-eyed
and sleeping with fingers between holy pages
or rolling papers,
when each verse (drag) isn't a lullabye
but a warzone,
a cry of vengeance, salvation,
self destruction.

It is this kind of faith that she drinks
in dive bars. This kind of faith that she holds
between two straight backed shoulders
when she walks home alone
and wishes that someone would hurt her
or bother her,
just so she could test her strength
in her drunken holy war,
proud,
and selfloathing.

"tremble-fingered and red-eyed and sleeping with fingers between holy pages"

Good god, this is one of the most powerful and haunting poems I have read.

We can pretend, if you want.

We can pretend that sidewalks don't decay
and that moths look like butterflies when they're unfolding
from their shells;
we can pretend that we are mountains
or valleys, dipped and dimpled and moving,
so gently, like God answering prayers
to close out those who want to hurt us, like the lip of a tulip.

We can pretend that he cares
or we care, maybe even the postman who comes up to the door
cares, because he sees us as we are at home
with no one else to watch us,
and I think he knows. He hands us our mail,
a package,
and he is mournful as a basset hound, as I smoke my cigarette,
like a child who's lost his father to cancer.

We can pretend that I've died too,
of cancer, or maybe in such a way that I fell,
stiff and cold, from my cocoon in the first place.
I don't know.

I never got the book of medical definitions I always wanted
because my mom didn't want me inventing new diseases.
Sometimes, though, I think I can see psychological abnormalities
wriggling their way through the lines of my skin,
like silkworms, maybe a moth, about to be birthed.

Sometimes, they're rivers of smoke that I breathe out
like ghosts.
Sometimes, they're me, swimming through my own veins,
trying to find a way out.

But we can pretend, I suppose,
if you really want.

Each morning
I steep in light;
crawl from dreams
(nightmares, really, the kind where
I grow lungs where my heart should be
and speak when I shouldn’t)
and hang myself from a window like a prism
or a dreamcatcher; something that changes some part of the world,
at least.

by noon, I find I’ve let my window,
instead hung myself from the sun’s tongue;
whether to be spoken or swallowed,
I don’t know,
but I can almost breathe,
with all my lung.
I still say things that I shouldn’t.

every now and then
I fall apart—
it feels like sitting underwater each time,
watching the bubbles escape from your mouth
wondering how many words you can say
or scream before you run out—
I swear, when I open my eyes
my reflection rises to the top like smoke
ears eyes nose mouth, open
like a red moon,
tonguing the sun,
or words, pouring like light through a prism.

I don’t fall apart like
a mirror
or even a skyscraper—

I fall apart in small shreds like
flower petals;
like a child wringing their hands round stems
and yanking

and they- I -snap like a bone.