i didn’t mean it but i sort of did
important things to know
once in preschool we all pulled our shorts
down and our dresses up like little whores.
the playground boys ached to touch the lace
hem of my dress, to pull my hair and kiss me
without knowing exactly why they wanted to.
i also hit my sister with a wooden baseball
bat, but that was a mistake, i promise.
once i stepped on a caterpillar and cried because
i thought its family would miss it and also i sneaked
downstairs at night and ate an entire package of
cookies until guilt set in and i threw them back up.
i try not to make mistakes, anymore, which
means these days i watch tv and think about
hurting myself without actually being able to
and eating cookies without actually doing it.
i watch my step and my dress mostly stays down.
i used to cut myself in perfectly straight lines. i
made cookies just to eat the dough. pain still
makes me calm in ways that writing songs and
organized sports never could.
i like to drink until i black out.
i keep these pieces pressed tight in my brain
and mostly try not to think about them. i was
sorry i hit my sister with the bat, really i was.
sometimes i lie.
once i starved myself to see if it would make me pretty.
i used to make bruises look accidental, and i
stopped cutting myself because watching my
mother cry and my boyfriend rage became
very, very tiresome. the doctors feed me pills.
(starving myself didn’t make me any prettier.
but i think scars are pretty and when i hit her
with the bat i cried much harder than she did.
p.s. i’m still sorry about the caterpillar, okay.)
once in a while a boy will think i’m pretty like they
used to in preschool and sometimes we fuck.
i smile like i mean it.
teacups and unicycles
1995
when her dog got hit by a car, her mother bought her a pink tea set to make up for it. she’d brew milk and diet soda in the teapot, pretend that she was a princess waiting for the king and queen to whisk her away.
when she dropped the a teacup her kingdom broke into one thousand porcelain splinters.
the dog had always drooled on her pillow so she never like him much, but for the teacup—she held a funeral.
2001
someone left a note on her desk that simply read “you are glorious.”
she folded it and put it in her shirt pocket, pressed tight against her heart, and vowed never to forget those words. it worked until she put the shirt in the wash and the note was destroyed. all the warmth she felt was waterlogged, torn to shreds.
she never really felt glorious anyway.
2003
once she made a wish on birthday candles, but forgot it. she still thinks about whether or not it came true.
she thinks: “probably maybe.”
she wouldn’t know what she would do with the wish if she got it. maybe keep it tight within her cupped hands, let it fill the cracks in her palms and watch it glow softly. like a firefly.
2004
here is what she remembers: in first grade her friend landed a modeling job and made five hundred dollars.
“could i model too?” she asked, and her friend just looked at her and laughed.
2005
“i like to watch you light up,” he tells her, she presses the ends of cigarettes into her palms, where glowing embers and the remains of her birthday wishes burn little circles. sometimes she unclenches her fists to look at the scars but then remembers why some things are better left hidden.
2006
she only befriends people with pretty eyes, because maybe that means that they look at the world in a pretty way. her eyes are the colour of lumber or rust or the clay in her backyard, so she has trouble seeing the beauty in everyday situations.
she keeps thinking that if she squints in the mirror in a certain way she can see herself, really see herself. but she never cares to look.
2007
she keeps things secret, like stories and lies and pieces of sea glass. she keeps crumbling christmas trees well past march. she keeps trying.
2008
she had a unicycle she tried to ride. she had a book she tried to read. she had a boy she tried to love.
she tries to make her bed some mornings, and she tries to believe her wishes might still come true.
a birdsong and 6.9 daffodils
the winter protection grew as temperatures dropped and i hibernated inside of my head. my body constructed a layer around my bones and muscles, insulating me from brittle reality. i was march-cocooned.
now temperatures creep higher and the sun peeks out in camera-shutter seconds. warm? frigid? the air is indecisive and heavy, like my hands, like my heart.
i am a birdsong and 6.9 daffodils tall. i am bursting out of a harsh winter into an even harsher spring. i feel tuliped; i’m the heaviest iris that could never be picked. cut and dry me, bells of ireland hair, foxglove fingers, spine whittled from hickory.
this spring i will rub my eyes and strip layers off of my ribs, exposing pale, wet, flesh. i will set myself to dry in the sun and i will be fragile. not a rose, not a tulip, no—i will be a dandelion.
when i die, my bones will blow apart like dandelion seeds.
make your wish.
letmebethinletmebebeautifulletmebeloved.
things i do for you
i name trees, flowers, and pebbles after you and scrawl your name in the margins of all my spanish essays. i cut stars into my skin so that you can
make a wish on the smooth curve of my waist if the night gets too cloudy. i wake you up in the middle of the night singing songs you never remember in the
morning and kiss you between your fingers, where no one else has ever kissed you before. i set all the clocks in the house back an hour so that you can lie in bed
with me for three thousand, six hundred extra seconds, and i break my heart into smooth, palm-sized pieces,