is there a vacancy i can fill with my gallbladder? can you host my
heartbeat in the place beneath your ear? it is my favorite place.
my thighs would love to meet with your hips, if you have the time.
each molar whispers about you to my gums. my tongue runs over
to soothe them into silence, but it doesn’t last. could your kidneys
pencil mine in for coffee? my ankles crack up near you. you send
them rolling. can you see? my eyes are nervous, can’t make contact.
my hair sticks to your sweatshirt. wants to curl with you.
if you’d have me, i’d come over. we could make a good mess.
MOONSTRUCK
jumping spiders can see the moon
& i wonder if they jump to get closer.
when the spiders teach me how to speak,
i want them to start with the word moon.
i want to know if it sounds anything like
my word for yearn, which is spelled like
your name while you sleep in our bed.
jumping spiders have eyes like telescopes,
able to see without turning their heads.
what is the spider word for telescope?
is it just eye? what is the spider word
for what i am? where you are? do the
spiders have a word for home, and is it
spelled like distance? i watched a spider
try to hitch a ride on the van’s antenna
& i thought about the spider word for
fear. must be close to their word for love.
i, too, would fling myself across the country
or the street to get where i needed to go.
needed to go here might be moon or love
or our bed before you wake up without me
again. god knows i am grateful we share
the moon if we cannot share a bed. the
spiders may not have a word for jump. i
may not have a word for how i do not think
to love you; i simply blink & there you are:
my underbelly, my tender place. it is just
how we exist. they jump. i love. and we
all stare up at the moon.
ALMOSTS
I have never felt so at ease
as I did the day you called me precocious.
I have never feared big words,
only those that refused to use them,
and the syllables rolled off your tongue like honey—
I was hooked.
Language became ours.
(And I know that everybody uses language,
but this was different,
as if in between the letters
and the syllables
there was a secret message
only we could decipher.)
My days filled with the sound of your voice,
and your nights became littered with the loops of my handwriting.
We exchanged our favorite words:
mine: illuminated,
yours: catawampus,
and our least favorites:
mine: moist,
and yours:
almost.
When I asked you why,
you said it was because almost held failed potential,
represented our ability to be just not good enough.
We came to the brink of something beautiful
and fell short so many times
we crafted a word for it.
But even we, with our supposed mastery of English,
were not invulnerable to our shortcomings.
Words only help if you speak them.
I never told you I loved you.
You never told me you were dying.
Five words each:
I love you, I think.
I have a brain tumor.
To this day I don’t know all the details;
medical jargon never fit in my mouth
and even now it feels like an invasion of your privacy,
but I have pored over our conversations
searching for the secret message,
and I am sorry,
but I only almost found it.
Saltwater is not good for paper.
My tears warped your words.
After some serious consideration,
I’ve decided to change my least favorite word,
because while moist is gross,
malignant is malicious.
Malignant is uncontrollable,
means a phone call and the phrase
he didn’t wake up.
Malignant is messy, unfair, a thief.
Malignant means I never got to say goodbye.
Malignant is the cause of almost.
You were on the brink of something beautiful,
but you couldn’t quite reach it,
and you fell too far.
I am so sorry I wasn’t there to catch you.
I hope your heaven is a library.
I hope it is void of almosts.
Te amo, Daniel.
Sleep well.
I AM ALL THE ROOTS
i am swathed in the luxury of wanting—
how it maroons me & blues me & crushes me.
underneath: a verdant biodome. i unfurl in the humidity,
flytrap eyelids with radiant curl & radiant teeth,
hibiscus bloom cheeks, clipped bush mouth, all roots
running under skin. it’s all beauty, really, run by fear.
root veins drink at the feet of anxious electricity.
i drip lush negativity. i dress in pretend forgetfulness.
i want to be a greenhouse. i want to be a devourer. i want
& it gives me away. i want to be a terrifying unknown
& i want to be loved. i always pick love. i can’t help it.
i suck at the root of love. i drink at Their feet. i want Them
to pick me & i let Them dress me in green. it brings out
the color of me. the color they like. i pretend to be a girl
They will be proud of. i want to be grateful so i write
myself into a garden & let them prune me & harvest.
but: i did not forget. i am flourish & flesh. i, heartbeat.
i, want & wanted. worthy outside expectations. i suck
at the root of love & am nourished. i am all the roots, remember?
i am the humidity bloom. i, love & loved. i am afraid & still
i live. i live. I live.
IN THE CLOUDS
Nina and her mother sit across from each other at the kitchen table and clip coupons. Nina and her mother tuck their hair behind their ears at the same time but neither notices. Nina looks up a moment too late. Nina studies her mother. Nina’s mother is gray around the edges. Nina’s mother doesn’t dye her hair; Nina’s mother doesn’t fear the mirror. Nina studies the wrinkles between her mother’s brows, charts the terrain of peaks and valleys. Nina is the cartographer of her future. Nina’s mother leans back in her chair and the space between her brows smooths into a lake. Nina’s mother smiles at her daughter’s curiosity. Nina looks to the scissors in her left hand. Nina gathers courage from the coupon in her right. Nina admires the careful boundary the dotted lines create. Nina says to the coupon, the room, the future: I like girls, too. Nina cuts the boundary. Nina’s mother sets her scissors on the table. Nina suffers in the silence. Nina’s mother extends her hand across the table and lifts her former chin. Nina cries. Nina’s life is full of water. Nina’s mother says, Okay. Nina and her mother smile at the same time. That’s okay.
ELENA ALVAREZ IS LIVING MY BEST LIFE
& I mean it / with a sincerity that overwhelms me / I mean when I watch her / I look into a mirror & want / to care for what I see / for the first time / I see what I could have been / had I found the girl earlier / or / had a mom like Penelope / instead / I observe from my couch / ache for a life I never got / but almost had / Penelope praises Elena / for stealing hotel t
oiletries / & I am fourteen again / flushed with pride at my miniature haul / and my mom cooed / I learned to love hungry / learned nothing / in the pantry was the sure way to beautiful / I was only six empty stomachs away / from being her perfect girl / she taught me / men will ruin your life / she didn’t mention girls / neither did I / couldn’t tell her I wanted to kiss / my friends / want / is what keeps us from perfection / shame is our love language / guilt / the mother’s tongue / Penelope confesses to Elena / we all cry / in the car ride home / from planned parenthood / my mom confesses to me / she had a bad mom too / and it was the closest we ever got / to apology
SONNET FOR MY DAUGHTER
from my mother to me
i dreamt of the lives that could have been mine
(dressmaker, horticulturist, doula,
ethical hacker, hotel manager,
perfumist, pilot, a bounty hunter,
locomotive engineer, stunt double,
dentist, sommelier, ocularist)
while cradling the swollen belly that locked
all doors but one. my identity was
relative now. you made me mother and
stole all the rest. gilded cagemate, child:
you lock-picked your way into the world and
left nothing for me to eat. i starved, so
i fled. you’ll understand when you’re older:
we only get one chance to escape love.
LENGUA
we’re all screaming as we play loteria
& jack wins again with la bota. we
laugh & it almost sounds like a family.
mom laughs the loudest. mom always
laughs the loudest & it’s always so
quiet when she’s gone & it’s always quiet.
everybody tells me i look like my mom
except my mom who says i look like
my dad. we both know what it means.
the tias talk shit about me at christmas
in spanish & i smile while they do it.
i don’t defend myself. i probably deserve it.
wouldn’t know. i got the wrong tongue;
i got all the names for what’s wrong
with us but only in ingles, so.
i’m not my grandmother’s favorite grandchild
but we are the most alike. nobody likes me
because i am a reflection.
dad always talked about what grandma conjured.
once in the night they all heard a scream
that drove him & his siblings & his parents
into the hallway. the story goes nobody was there
but the family, exposed in their fear.
we don’t talk about the screams in the night
that drive us out of our rooms. we’re not
supposed to give it the power of a name.
the truth is i look like both my parents but
they don’t look at me. i want to talk about
the screaming. the absence in the hallway
of something else to blame. i want to talk
& i got the wrong tongue & it conjures all
we look away from when the light turns on.
THE SNOW CONVINCED THE PLANE TO STAY HOME
for one more night. The plane agreed,
and we all stayed for one more night, too.
Our entire neighborhood remembered the
joy of snow day. We walked to Seth’s as
children threw soft fistfuls at their siblings
and their parents watched, soothed for now.
The journey back home was treacherous. The
full case of PBR was passed back and forth
as we took turns throwing snow. It was your
burden and you set it down, asked me to wait
with you. Our band of friends moved ahead
and you kissed me. I forgot about our friends,
the children, the people at the airport. I forgot
about the morning that loomed over me, about
Christmas at home. I forgot we had not spent
our entire lives kissing. It was as new then as
it is now. You kissed me as the world froze.
Come on, you said, snow crowding your hair
to get a better look. We’ve got all night.
WHEN THE BOY SAYS HE LOVES MY BODY
but does not say he loves me,
I let him.
I close my eyes
and feel his matchstick fingers
strike against my skin.
I feel how he burns the girl out of flesh,
sucks the blue out of bones,
admires the glass jar
that traps the dying firefly.
How pretty, the frame.
How soft, the entrance.
How beautiful, the archway
that gapes into the burned-out church.
When he leaves, his arsonist hands
flick a final spark into my mouth
so I remember how he feels,
so I think him when I think myself,
so I write his name in whatever is left.
I find my body is a locked door.
I find I locked myself out.
I find I did it on purpose.
If the boy will love the body
and burn the girl,
she will learn to make a home upwind of ash
and pretend she is not cold.
Suddenly everything is the body.
The weight.
The worth.
The shape.
The case.
It is easier to pretend the girl never existed,
that all there ever was
was flesh, and cartilage, and blood—
If I pretend I never learned to kiss the ground and call it lover,
I never buried myself under the carcass of everything I used to trust.
Nothing went wrong.
Never tell anyone how I forgot to go home.
How I couldn’t.
How I don’t know where I left the key.
I became a stranger in the window,
the ghost in the eaves.
The body became haunted,
mausoleum,
burnt sea.
I forgot to forgive what could not ask for forgiveness.
I forgot it was not what needed forgiving.
The body cries for me to come home,
and I only hear his voice
asking with what tender touch
I would like to be evicted.
If I go back,
what will be left?
What does the forest lose before it trusts the sun again?
What does it cost to reach for warmth and mistake it for war?
How does it unlearn the fear of beauty, wildness, becoming a target?
Will I ever cease building myself into a castle of kindling?
Does the firefly hate the hands that trapped it
or the glass jar it died inside?
Does it live long enough to choose?
STAY WITH ME
talking is a matter of convincing my tangled mouth to create
something coherent, but it only works sometimes I don’t know
what to say next time I see you I will be honest to God I’m trying
I promise you won’t walk out before you wake me, I wouldn’t it
be nice if I could keep the same line of thoughts are wreckage,
they scatter, they’re everywhere I go I return to the time I allowed
that boy to confess he loved me though I knew he was lying next to
you is the quietest my mind has ever been. the howls and
hisses smooth into a chorus of tamed, holy beasts. the constriction
thaws, I break free, I breathe. I breathe. I breathe to reveal this
to you, but I worry it will ruin everything happens for a reason
yet I couldn’t tell you the reason behind that choice is difficult
with anxiety, I struggle to identify the lesser of two precipices
and therein lies the danger is the familiar taste of a rainslick
unlit side street, keys crowded in between the knuckles of my
stronger hand him my secrets and give his earthquake fingers a
loaded gun to press against my heart beats: the body’s language
of choice. a thousand silent signals passed from my wrist to
yours. I wonder what my skin has been able to communicate
and if any of it will be the right one day I’ll tame this wild
garden mouth and cultivate something soft does not mean
weak; it means gentle men with sharp teeth know to draw blood
without notice me, please, I’m right here is every ghost I haven’t
learned to let go of everything I’ve lost, all I want back is time
has a gift for warping the memory of warmth, clouding what
you used to remember the first time I cried? my body shook
apart. your hands wove the steady net. I spilt sorry like an
accident. a cut tongue. the safest way to see you out. you didn’t
go. I’ve stopped waiting for you to. trust, I’m learning, is not a
soft gift, but worth the pain. somewhere in this coward mouth
is a brave heart’s confession. please tell me you hear it. I can’t
promise how long this clarity will last time I visited home, my
dad asked why I wouldn’t date anyone, so I lied: no one interested
me enough men have left with scraps of me between their teeth
that I can’t remember the taste of feeling whole armies have
fallen to poor planning; my mouth stumbles to keep me from
falling in secret is the loveliest form of self-destruction is two
people who drown warning signs under the sheets and ignore
the way it screams no person ever asked me for details of what
he did I lose you?
FLYPAPER
in summer
the spiders haunt every underpass:
doorways, stairs beneath the train, streetlamps
i skitter underneath
nervous blood flaps my wings faster
as i fly through the gaps in their webs
i know it’s silly to be afraid of what can only hurt me
if i am foolish enough to get caught
still
i don’t breathe until i am inside